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The
Adirondack Park
The Adirondack Park was created in 1892 by the State of
New York amid concerns for the water and timber resources
of the region. Today the Park is the largest publicly
protected area in the contiguous United States,  greater
in size than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, and Grand
Canyon National Park combined. The boundary of the Park
encompasses approximately 6 million acres, nearly half of
which belongs to all the people of New York State and is
constitutionally protected to remain “forever wild”
forest preserve. The remaining half of the Park is private
land which includes settlements, farms, timber lands,
businesses, homes, and camps.
more about the Adirondack Park...
The Adirondack region boasts over 3,000 lakes, 30,000
miles of rivers and streams, and a wide variety of
habitats, including globally unique wetland types and old
growth forests. The heart of the Adirondack Park is the
Forest Preserve, which was created by an act of the
Legislature in 1885 which stated, “The lands now or
hereafter constituting the Forest Preserve shall be
forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be sold,
nor shall they be leased or taken by any person or
corporation, public or private.” The state of New York
owns approximately 43 percent, or roughly 2.6 million
acres of land within the Park’s boundaries. The
remaining private lands are devoted principally to
forestry, agriculture, and open space recreation. The
Adirondack Park is unique in its intricate mixture of
public and private lands. About 130,000 people live here
year round in its 105 towns and villages. The harmonious
blend of private and public lands give the Adirondacks a
diversity found nowhere else – a diversity of open space
and recreational lands, of wildlife and flora, of
mountains and meadows, and people of all walks of life.
In order to identify and protect the natural resources
of the Park, all parcels and lots of land, in both the
private and public sectors, are classified in the
Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan Map and
State Land Map, (below). The largest single category of
land (totaling 1.3 million acres) is Wild Forest, where a
variety of outdoor recreation activities are allowed.
Other categories of State Lands are: Primitive and Canoe
areas; Intensive Use areas (such as public camp grounds),
and State Historic Sites. The Adirondack Park State Land
Master Plan sets policy for the management of the state
owned lands. Developed by the Adirondack Park Agency in
cooperation with the Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC) and approved by the Governor of New
York State, the Master Plan was first adopted in 1972. The
actual management of the State Lands is carried out by DEC
forest rangers, foresters, environmental conservation
officers, and other state personnel.
The Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan also
applies to the remaining 3.4 million acres of private land
in the Park. The Plan is designed to conserve the Park’s
natural resources and open-space character by directing
and clustering development so as to minimize its impact on
the Park. Under the Plan, all private lands are mapped
into six land use classifications: hamlet, moderate
intensity use, low intensity use, rural use, resource
management, and industrial use. Guidelines are specified
for the intensity of development within each category,
based on number of buildings per square mile. Projects of
regional significance usually require a permit from the
Adirondack Park Agency.
History of the Adirondack Park
Exploiting the Wilderness
The first harvesting of the Adirondack forests began
shortly after the English replaced the Dutch as the
landlords of New Netherlands and changed its name to New
York. Logging operations generated wealth, opened up land
for farming, and removed the cover that provided a haven
for Indians.
After the Revolutionary War, the Crown lands passed to the
people of New York State. Needing money to discharge war
debts, the new government sold nearly all the original
public acreage - some 7 million acres - for pennies an
acre. Lumbermen were welcomed to the interior, with few
restraints: "You have no conception of the quantity
of lumber that is taken every winter... A great deal of
land is bought of government solely for the pine on it,
and after that is cut down, it is allowed to revert back
to the State to pay its taxes." -- Joel T. Headley,
The Adirondack: or Life in the Woods, 1849
This destruction of Adirondack forests became a growing
concern after 1850, as the continued depletion of
watershed woodlands reduced the soil's ability to hold
water, hastening topsoil erosion and exaggerating periods
of flooding. Lumbering was not alone in impoverishing the
forest: the tanning industry depleted the hemlock; the
paper industry consumed spruce and fir; and the charcoal
industry devoured wood of all sizes and shapes. 1885: The
Forest Preserve "Had I my way, I would mark out a
circle of a hundred miles in diameter, and throw around it
the protecting aegis of the constitution. I would make it
a forest forever. It would be a misdemeanor to chop down a
tree and a felony to clear an acre within its
boundaries."
-- S.H. Hammond Wild Northern Scenes; or Sporting
Adventures With the Rifle and the Rod, 1857
Hammond sowed seeds that germinated in the efforts of
others, perhaps most importantly in the writings of
Verplanck Colvin. For almost thirty years, beginning in
1872, Colvin crisscrossed the Adirondack wilderness,
supervising a state survey of the region. He used his
annual reports to the legislature to call for the creation
of an Adirondack Forest Preserve: "Unless the region
be preserved essentially in its present wilderness
condition, the ruthless burning and destruction of the
forest will slowly, year after year, creep onward ... and
vast areas of naked rock, arid sand and gravel will alone
remain to receive the bounty of the clouds, unable to
retain it."
-- Verplanck Colvin 1874 Annual Report to the Legislature
Persuaded by such testimony, the legislature
established a Forest Preserve in 1885, stating that the
Preserve "shall be forever kept as wild forest
lands."
1892: The Adirondack Park
Colvin dreamed of even greater protection for his
beloved Adirondacks than by that provided by the Forest
Preserve legislation: the creation of an Adirondack Park.
By 1892, a bill establishing the Park passed the
legislature, indicating with a blue line the parts of the
region where state acquisition of private in-holdings was
to be concentrated. The law was a mixed blessing: while it
created the Park "to be forever reserved for the free
use of all the people," it weakened earlier
protections, allowing the Forest Commission to sell state
lands anywhere in the Adirondacks and to lease state lands
within the Park to private individuals for camps and
cottages.
"At the time one did not have to be an arm-waving
tree hugger to understand that the Adirondack forest could
ill afford any loss of protection. The forest was a mess
... Forest commissioners came under suspicion. There was
talk of official skullduggery. How could a place be
forever reserved for the people as wild forest land if the
people allowed the forest commissioners to sell off the
timber?"
-- John Mitchell, Audubon Magazine
1895 Constitutional Protection: "Forever
Wild"
At the 1894 Constitutional Convention, a new covenant
to achieve meaningful protection of the Forest Preserve
was included in the new Constitution. Henceforth, the
Adirondack Forest Preserve would be "forever
wild."
"For years the State had been acquiring and
holding lands, often denuded, to be sure, which lumber
interests did not pay the taxes on. It was this nucleus of
property that gave the idea for the Park. Curiously
enough, in this way, avarice was its own undoing ... In
1885 the Forest Preserve was created, and the popular vote
in 1894 set it aside for the use of all the people
forever."
-- T. Morris Longstreth, The Adirondacks, 1917
Any relaxation of the total protection offered to
today's 2.5-million-acre Forest Preserve requires the
approval of a majority of the state's voters and two
successive legislatures. It is rarely given. Voters and
their representatives have continually resisted major
changes, approving only narrowly drafted altercations: the
cutting of ski trails on Whiteface Mountain (1940) and
construction of the Northway, I-87 (1958) are among the
most prominent.
20th-Century Development
Early in this century, recreational use of the Forest
Preserve increased dramatically. As more people came,
demanding conveniences, the State Conservation Department
(now the Department of Environmental Conservation)
responded by building more facilities in the state woods:
boat docks, tent platforms, lean-tos, fire towers, and
telephone and electrical lines, among others. With the
opening of the Northway in the mid-1960s, private lands
came under great pressure as well, for there was hardly a
land-use control on the books in all of the Adirondacks. A
proposal to save the region by establishing an Adirondack
Mountain National Park spurred heated debate, forcing all
sides to acknowledge the reality of development pressures.
A study commission was appointed by Governor Rockefeller
in 1968 to assess the future of both state and private
lands within the Park.
The Commission's report recommended the creation of the
Adirondack Park Agency and the preparation by the Agency
of a master plan for state holdings and a land use and
development plan for private land. The Adirondack Park
Agency The Adirondack Park Agency was created in 1971 to
develop long-range land-use plans for both the public and
private lands within the Blue Line.
The State Land Master Plan was adopted by the Agency and
first signed by the Governor in 1972. State Land Master
Plan In consultation with the Department of Environmental
Conservation, the Park Agency formulated the State Land
Master Plan to accommodate outdoor recreation without
diluting the intent of the "forever wild"
protection of the Preserve. The State Land Master Plan
classifies public lands in the Park in five major
categories: Wilderness, Primitive, Canoe, Wild Forest, and
Intensive Use.
Land Use and Development Plan
In 1973 the legislature adopted into law the Adirondack
Park Land Use and Development Plan, covering the Park's
private lands. In its simplest terms, the Plan is designed
to channel much of the future growth in the Park around
existing communities, where roads, utilities, services,
and supplies already exist. Under the Act, all private
lands in the Park are classified into one of six
categories: Hamlet, Moderate Intensity, Low Intensity,
Rural Use, Industrial Use, and Resource Management.
Depleting the Resources "No area in America has had a
more miserable story of ruthless squandering of natural
resources ... based on the supposition that the stock of
fish and game, as well as trees, was infinite."
-- William Chapman White, Adirondack Country, 1954
A Geological
History of the Adirondacks
Adirondack-Park.net
Contrary to popular belief, the Adirondacks are not
geologically related to the Appalachians. In fact, they
are the only mountains in the eastern U.S. that aren't
geologically Appalachian. They actually belong to a much
older formation known to some as the Canadian Shield, as
the Laurentian Shield to others, and as the Precambrian
Shield to the rest. This is a huge formation, underlying
about half of Canada (it was noted that Canadians more
often refer to it as the Canadian Shield, while Americans
prefer Precambrian Shield). The formation extends down
through the Thousand Islands region of
the St. Lawrence River Valley and into the Adirondacks.
Adirondack rocks are most closely related to rocks found
in what is known as the Grenville Province, an ancient
formation north of Lake Ontario and east of Lake Huron. As
a whole, the rocks making up the Adirondack region are
amongst the oldest on the planet, around one billion years
old. For the Adirondack bedrock to consist of the minerals
that it does, it must have formed underneath 15 miles
of overlying rock. Sediment building up on the bottom of
an ancient sea, covering the present-day eastern seaboard,
was forced lower and lower by more and more sediment,
until it finally metamorphosed under the intense heat and
pressure into the rocks we see today, a billion years
later. After repeated uplifts spanning hundreds of
millions of years, including one that is continuing today
at a rate of 2 to 3 millimeters per year, and constant
erosion of the sedimentary layer above, the ancient
bedrock finally reached the surface. The rock that makes
up most of the High Peaks region is Anorthosite. This
rock, more often found well underground than at the
Earth's surface, apparently is very common on the moon.
The photo to the right shows the Trap Dike on Mt.
Colden. This giant cleft, which runs nearly to the
summit of the mountain (and, incidentally, is a possible
climbing route from Avalanche
Lake), was formed by the erosion of the softer gabbro
that had intruded into the anorthosite bedrock. It is
conceivable that the dike will only get deeper, judging by
the large volume of water that, although hard to see here,
was flowing through it at the time this photo was taken.
The rest of the Adirondacks are made up of various
different rocks, mostly some form of gneisse.
Another common misconception is that the Adirondacks are
just old, worn-down peaks like the Appalachian chain. Yes,
it is true that at one point Upstate New York was at an
elevation rivaling, if not exceeding, that of the
Himalayas today. However, most of the major features of
the landscape that you see today are a result of the last
Ice Age, 10,000 years or so ago, and the most recent
uplift of the region, which probably began about 5 to 10
million years ago. The huge boulders often seen lying
around the Adirondacks, sometimes in places you wouldn't
expect to see them (such as the summit of Mt.
Marcy or in an otherwise rock-free meadow), are
by-products of the glaciers. Known as erratics, they are
picked up by the moving ice sheet and dropped when the
glacier receded. Since the mile-high summit of Marcy was
itself covered by ice a mile thick, it was no more immune
to receiving an erratic than a valley 4,000 feet lower. [As
a side note, before there was widespread acceptance of
glaciers and the Ice Ages, a popular explanation for these
erratics was that a vast ocean covered these lands, and
the boulders just floated to where they are now.
Personally, I am more inclined to believe in two-mile
thick sheets of ice than I am in a 15-ton boulder floating
to the 5,344-foot summit of Mt. Marcy.] Erosion
continues, exposing more and more bedrock. Major new
slides form on the flanks of the taller peaks rather
frequently, sweeping away large patches of soil and
vegetation. Another major geological/geographical feature
caused by the uplift of the region is the many fault lines
throughout the Adirondacks. A simple glance at a
topographical map will show that these faults, for the
most part, all lie in a northeast-southwest orientation. Long
Lake and Indian
Lake, about 15 miles apart as the crow flies, run
nearly parallel to each other. Nearly all the passes and
valleys in the High Peaks run in the same general
direction: Indian Pass, Avalanche Pass, Lake Arnold Pass,
the Johns Brook Valley, the Ausable Valley, Hunters Pass.
These valleys, lakes, and passes exist where faults
weakened the bedrock, allowing it to be more easily eroded
by glaciers.
Go
back to main History page.
A Brief History of
the Adirondacks
Adirondack.net
The Adirondacks were originally claimed by two Indian
nations, the Iroquois and the Algonquins. Neither group
ever settled in the region, but the two nations fought
over the Lake George - Lake Champlain water route through
the Adirondacks. This route was the easiest route through
the Adirondacks and was therefore a valuable resource.
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The Lake George - Lake Champlain water route was
the source of many battles. In 1609, Samual de
Champlain, a frenchman, was traveling through the
Lake Champlain area with some Algonquin Indians,
when they encountered a band of Iroquois. The
French fired on the Iroquois. This was the
beginning of a feud that lasted until the French
were driven out of the area in 1763.
The English and the French battled over the Lake
George - Lake Champlain water route for many
years. The opposing sides saw that they could
control this water route if they controlled the
land inbetween. As early as 1690 the British had
established a trading center at Crown Point, but
soon abandoned it. In 1730 the French seized the
site. In 1731 the French built Fort St. Frederic
on Crown Point, this site grew as a small town and
trading post. St. Frederic was the first
settlement in the Adirondack area.
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In 1755, the British built Fort William Henry on the south
end of Lake George. The French countered this move by
building a fort on the north end of Lake George, in
Ticonderoga. This fort was originally known as Fort
Carillon, later renamed Fort Ticonderoga by the British.
In 1757, as part of the French and Indian War, the French
General, Montcalm, captured Fort William Henry. In the
summer of 1757 the French were defeated. The English took
control of all the forts and forced the French from the
lakes. When the war ended in 1763, the English ruled all
of Eastern North America.
In May of 1775, in the wake of the American Revolution,
Ethan Allen and the "Green Mountain Boys" came
across Lake Champlain from Vermont, and demanded the
surrender of Fort Ticonderoga. The first American navy
fought on Lake Champlain against an English army invading
from Canada. On October 11, 1776 Benedict Arnold led a
fleet of ships on Lake Champlain against the English. His
ship went down after 7 hours of battle, but they delayed
the English long enough to stop the invasion. In the next
year the Americans lost control of the lakes to the
English. The English were then able to advance south to
Saratoga where they were defeated and driven out of the
Adirondacks. The Adirondacks became quiet again.
This area was first named "the Adirondacks" when
Professor Ebenezer Emmons did his first geological survey
of the region in 1837.
"The cluster of mountains in the neighborhood of
the upper Hudson and Ausable
rivers I proposed to call the Adirondack group, a name
by which a well-known
tribe of Indians who once hunted here may be commerated.
It appears from
historical records that the Adirondacks or Algonquins in
early times held all
the country north of the Mohawk, west of Champlain,
south of Lower Canada,
and east of the St. Lawrence, as their beaver hunting
grounds but were finally
expelled by superior force of the Agoneseah, of Five
Nations. Whether this is
literally true or not, it is well known that the
Adirondacks resided in and occupied
a northern section of the State and undoubtedly used a
portion at least of the
territory thus counted as their beaver hunting grounds.
The name is not as
smooth as the Aganushioni, which has also been proposed
as a name for this
group, but the above historical fact has induced me to
propose the one given above."
(White 51)
Soon the whole area was referred to as the Adirondacks,
but the name "Adirondack" was not the name of
one individual tribe, although it is an authentic Indian
word. It was originally a term the Iroquois used to refer
to the Algonquins who were forced to live on tree buds and
bark during the severe winters. However the meaning of the
term "adirondack" is often disputed. J.B. Hewitt
of the Smithsonian Institution believed that it was
derived from the language of a tribe of Indians that lived
on the lower Saint Lawrence in the early 1500's and that
it meant "They of the Great Rocks". When it was
passed on to the Iroquois the meaning got jumbled to mean
"They Who Eat Trees".
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