Adirondack Museum

Durants Adirondack Railroad Company Lecture

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The rails of the Adirondack Company were the first to penetrate the central Adirondack Mountains. Construction began in 1865. The goals of the endeavor were to serve the iron mines at Sanford Lake, and more ambitiously, to connect with Great Lakes shipping at Ogdensburg.

Tomorrow, Monday, August 9th railroad historian and author Dr. Michael Kudish will offer a program entitled &#8220Where Did the Tracks Go? Dr. Durant’s Adirondack Railroad Company&#8221 at the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York.

Part of the museum’s Monday Evening Lecture series, the presentation will be held in the Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. There is no charge for museum members. Admission is $5.00 for non-members.

The illustrated program will cover the history of Dr. Durant’s railway line to North Creek, N.Y. and its effect on the region.

Dr. Michael Kudish received his PhD at the New York State college of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse, N.Y. As a professor in he Division of Forestry at Paul Smith’s College, he has written four books on the vegetation of the Adirondacks. His railroad books include: Where Did the Tracks Go (1985)- Railroads of the Adirondacks: A History (1996)- as well as four volumes devoted to the mountain railroads of New York State. Dr. Kudish is now retired.

Photo: Dr. Michael Kudish

Adirondack Museum Hosts Dog Days Saturday

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Dogs will be welcome at the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York on Saturday, August 7, 2010. The now legendary celebration of all things canine &#8211 &#8220Dog Days of Summer&#8221 &#8212- will return for a fourth year. In 2009, 159 dogs of all shapes, sizes, and breeds participated in this event.

Visitors and their pets can explore all that the Adirondack Museum has to offer and enjoy a variety of dog demonstrations, programs, and activities. All dogs are
welcome when accompanied by well-behaved owners.

The event will include a few simple rules and regulations for pups and their people: dogs must be leashed at all times- owners must clean up after their pets &#8211 special bags will be available- dogs will only be allowed on the grounds &#8211 not in the exhibit buildings- Doggie Day Care will be available throughout the day at no charge, with the understanding that dogs cannot be left for more than an hour- poorly behaved or aggressive dogs will be asked to leave the museum grounds with their owners.

Sheep herding demonstrations will return this year. Sarah Todd of Dog Days Farms will herd with a variety of breeds including a Belgian sheep dog, Bearded Collie, German Shepherd, an Old English sheep dog, and an Appenzeller. Visitors can watch these amazingly skilled animals work at 2:30 and 4:00 p.m.

&#8220Dog Days&#8221 demonstrations will include &#8220Dancing With Dogs&#8221 at 12:00 noon. An informal workshop for visitors and their own dogs will follow. Join members of the Adirondack High Peaks Training Club for fast-paced routines. The talented dancing dogs include German Shepherds, Corgis, Labs, Rotweiller, Border Collie, and Australian Shepherd.

Watch a variety of skilled dogs and their handlers, the &#8220JAZZ Agility Group,&#8221 go through their paces on an agility and obstacle course featuring hurdles, weave poles, and tunnels, at 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m.

The annual &#8220pooch&#8221 parade will include a costume contest this year. The parade will begin at 1:00 p.m. Gift certificates from Benson’s Pet Centers will be awarded
category winners, and there will be participation prizes for all. Benson’s
Pet Centers are located in Queensbury, Clifton Park, and Albany, N.Y.

The Lake Placid Pub and Brewery will sponsor an &#8220Ubu Look-Alike&#8221 contest as part of the festivities. Not that long ago, Lake Placid, N.Y. was home to Ubu, a legendary chocolate lab with a nose for great beer. Ubu’s story is still going strong, thanks to Ubu Ale, the brewery’s signature beer named in honor of the dog. Is your &#8220best friend&#8221 an Ubu double? Chocolate labs can vie for the honor and a gift certificate for the Lake Placid Pub and Brewery.

Lake Placid Pub and Brewery will also offer samples of Ubu Ale and other craft beers at &#8220Dog Days.&#8221 Participants must be twenty-one years of age.

Adirondack storyteller Bill Smith will tell &#8220Tall Tails,&#8221 humorous stories about people and their dogs at 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 3:30 p.m. Chris Shaw will provide music at 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.

Special presentations will be held in the Mark W. Potter Education Center. At 11:00 a.m. Lois, Alea, and Andy Rockcastle will offer &#8220From Sprint Mushing to the Iditarod: Tales of the Trails.&#8221 At 11:30 a.m. Lisa Godfrey and Elizabeth Folwell, contributors to the Shaggy Dog Press publication Dog Hikes in the Adirondacks, will talk about their favorite trails and experiences hiking with dogs.

In addition, Ralph Holzhauer will offer &#8220Fur Under the Desk,&#8221 based on his book of the same title. The book tells the real-life story a teacher and dog lover who introduced dog therapy and dog-assisted special education at his school. Finally, Museum Curator Hallie Bond will discuss &#8220Canine Tourists in the Adirondacks&#8221 at 3:00 p.m. Historic photographs from the collection of the Adirondack Museum of dogs on vacation over time will illustrate Bond’s presentation.

From 11:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. &#8220Doggy Booths&#8221 featuring great regional working dogs and organizations will be open. Participants include: Champlain Valley K-9 Search and Rescue Dogs- the Schenectady Chapter, Therapy Dogs- Tri-Lakes Humane Society- North Country SPCA- and Canines Can Do. Dog owners and representatives will answer questions about the training, care, and work of special dogs.

&#8220Dog Days of Summer&#8221 will also include an expanded agility course for visiting dogs, &#8220Say Woof,&#8221 a photo opportunity for dogs and owners, and special story hours for puppies and kids at 11:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.

Visitors are asked to bring a donation of food, toys, or cleaning supplies to the museum on &#8220Dog Days.&#8221 A drop-off spot will be located in the Visitor Center. The museum will deliver donations to regional animal shelters.

This year’s &#8220Dog Days of Summer&#8221 event was made possible by generous support from Nancy and Lawrence Master.

Photo: &#8220Everybody Smiles Here,&#8221 The Antlers Hotel on Lake George ca. 1930. Photo by Alfred Santway- collection of the Adirondack Museum.

Cookin Out With the Adirondack Museum

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The Adirondack Museum will hold a special event, &#8220The Adirondacks are Cooking’ Out,&#8221 this Thursday, July 29, 2010. Activities are planned from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. All are included in the price of general museum admission.

A highlight of the day will be a &#8220top chef&#8221 competition &#8211 Adirondack style. Outstanding regional chefs will compete in a trial by campfire. Visitors are invited to watch and cheer them on as guest judges choose the winner of this outdoor cooking challenge.

The Campfire Cook-Off will begin at 11:00 a.m. Each chef will select his own menu- all will cook over an open fire. The grills will be hot! The food hotter! Judging will take place at 1:00 p.m.

Competitors include: Chef Kevin McCarthy, former Executive Chef at The Point in Saranac Lake, N.Y. and the Lake Placid Lodge, Lake Placid, N.Y., now a faculty member at Paul Smith’s College- Chef Stephen Topper, former Executive Sous Chef at The Sagamore on Lake George, Executive Chef at Friends Lake Inn, Chestertown, N.Y., and currently at Lorenzo’s al Forno in the Copperfield Inn, North Creek, N.Y.

Also, Chef Richard Brosseau, Executive Chef at the Interlaken Inn and Restaurant, Lake Placid, N.Y., and Chef Luke Bowers, Executive Chef, barVino, North Creek, N.Y. Tony Zazula, co-owner of &#8220Commerce,&#8221 a contemporary American restaurant in Greenwich Village, Suvir Saran, a respected food authority, television personality, and consultant worldwide, and Sally Longo, a chef and owner of Aunt Sally’s Catering, Glens Falls, N.Y. will be judges for the Campfire Cook-Off.

Lake Placid Brewery will offer a tasting of their award winning products &#8211 including Ubu Ale, the brewery’s flagship beer &#8212- from 12 noon until 4:00 p.m. Visitors must be twenty-one years of age to enjoy the sampling- ID will be required.

Visitors can expand their own cooking skills by participating in demonstrations and food-related talks throughout the day. At 1:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. smoking and grilling will be the hot topics. Join Susan Rohrey (grilling) and John Roe (smoking) to learn more about both techniques.

The presentations &#8220Edible Adirondack Mushrooms&#8221 and &#8220Wild Vegetables of the Adirondacks&#8221 with Jane Desotelle and &#8220Pairing Beer & Food&#8221 with Christopher Ericson, founder, owner, and brewmaster of Lake Placid Brewery will be offered in the museum’s Auditorium. Times will be posted.

Intermountain Trio will offer three sets of classic folk and rock in the Marion River Carry Pavilion at 12:00 noon, 2:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

Visitors can purchase lunch hot off the grill at the Patio Cafe. The menu includes Kilcoyne burgers available with Oscar’s Smokehouse bacon or cheese, Oscar’s hot dogs, Saratoga Potato Chips, and Saranac Soft Drinks.

Dessert can be a yummy do-it-yourself project. &#8220Make Your Own Gourmet S’mores,&#8221 will be available from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m., while supplies last.

&#8220The Adirondacks are Cookin’ Out&#8221 will also feature hands-on fun for all ages, exhibit tours, a vendor’s market, and local food products including barbeque sauces and rubs in the Museum Store.

Collection Storage Tours at Adirondack Museum

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Visitors can now get a glimpse of more than 7,000 historic artifacts not currently on exhibit at the Adirondack Museum in a state-of-the-art facility in the hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake by touring the Collections Storage and Study Center each Monday in July and August from 2:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m.

The tours are free for museum members- $10 for non-members. Visitors can sign up for a tour on Mondays at the Membership Desk in the Visitor Center. Each tour is limited to thirty people.

The Collections Storage and Study Center holds an amazing array of objects from the Adirondack past. Collections consist of: boats, including power boats, canoes, kayaks, guideboats, and unusual boats- traditional and rustic furniture- hand tools and machinery- large vehicles, including horse-drawn carriages and sleighs, snowmobiles, fire trucks, and a Jitterbug- maple sugaring equipment- ice harvesting tools- as well as agricultural artifacts.

Adirondack Museum Conservator and Collections Manager Doreen Alessi will lead the tours. Alessi cares for more than 100,000 two and three-dimensional artifacts in the collection of the Adirondack Museum. She is a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC).

Photo: Collections Storage and Study Center, Adirondack Museum.

A Call for Quilts from the Adirondack Museum

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Do you have an exceptional bed quilt or pieced wall hanging that was made in, inspired by, or depicts the Adirondack region?

The Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake is seeking quilts for &#8220The Second Annual Great Adirondack Quilt Show&#8221 to be held from September 14 to October 17, 2010. The show will be part of the museum’s Fabric and Fiber Arts Festival and will complement the exhibit &#8220Common Threads: 150 Years of Adirondack Quilts and Comforters.&#8221

There will be two divisions in the show. Historic quilts (those made before 1970) can be of any theme or technique, but must have been made in the Adirondacks. Modern quilts (those made after 1970) should have a visible connection to the Adirondack region.

An eligible quilt might depict an Adirondack scene in applique or be composed of pieced blocks chosen because the pattern is reminiscent of the region &#8211 &#8220Pine Tree,&#8221 Wild Goose Chase,&#8221 or &#8220North Star,&#8221 for example.

A &#8220People’s Choice&#8221 award will be presented to one quilt in each division.

Although the show will not be juried, applicants must complete a registration form prior to September 11, 2010. A statement by the maker is required to complete the application process. For additional information or to receive an application, please contact Hallie Bond via email at [email protected] , by telephone at (518) 352-7311, ext. 105, or through the postal service at P.O. Box 99, Blue Mountain Lake, NY, 12812.

Photo: Winner of the &#8220Best in Show&#8221 award at the quilt show held as part of the Adirondack Museum’s Fabric and Fiber Arts Festival on September 19, 2009. The quilt is &#8220Poppies&#8221 and was made by Betty deHaas Walp of Johnsburg, New York, in 2006.

@adkmuseum.org>

Picnic in the Park at the Adirondack Museum

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The Adirondack Museum will celebrate National Picnic Month on July 10, 2010. Activities are planned from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. All are included in the price of general museum admission. Children twelve years of age and younger will be admitted FREE of charge as part of the festivities.

&#8220Picnic in the Park&#8221 will include displays, tableaux, special presentations, music, a Teddy Bear’s Picnic just for kids, cookbook signings, demonstrations, menus, recipes, hands-on opportunities, and good food, as well as the museum’s new exhibit, &#8220Let’s Eat! Adirondack Food Traditions.&#8221

Visitors are invited to bring their own picnic to enjoy on the grounds or purchase sandwiches, salads, beverages, and desserts in the Cafe. Picnic tables are scattered throughout the campus.

The event will showcase &#8220Great Adirondack Picnics&#8221. Ann S. O’Leary and Susan Rohrey will illustrate how the use of design and menu planning can create two Adirondack picnics. A Winter’s Repast, En Plein Air &#8211 an elegant New Year’s Eve celebration will be set in a lean-to. The Angler’s Compleat Picnic will feature local products in a scene reproduced from a vintage postcard. Both women will be available from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. to speak with visitors, and provide menus and recipes to take home.

To round out the elegant picnic theme, Chef Kevin McCarthy will provide an introduction to wines and offer tips on how to best pair wines with picnic foods. The presentations will be held at 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.

Special presentations will be held in the museum’s Auditorium. Curator Hallie E. Bond will offer &#8220Picnics Past in the Park&#8221 at 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Varrick Chittenden, founder of Traditional Arts of Upstate New York (TAUNY) will present &#8220Good Food Served Right: North Country Food and Foodways&#8221 at 1:30 p.m.

In addition, Sally Longo, chef and owner of Aunt Sally’s Catering in Glens Falls, N.Y. will offer &#8220Fun Foods for Picnicking with Kids&#8221 in the Mark W. Potter Education Center. &#8220Savory Foods and Snacks&#8221 will begin at 11:30 p.m. &#8220Sweet Treats and Desserts&#8221 will be presented at 3:00 p.m.

Museum visitors can create their own Adirondack picnic fare at home. From 11:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m., regional cookbook authors will sign and sell their work in the Visitor Center. Participants include the Upper Saranac Lake Cookbook with Marsha Stanley- Good Food, Served Right, with Lynn Ekfelt- Northern Comfort with Annette Neilson- Stories, Food, Life with Ellen Rocco and Nancy Battaglia- and Recipes From Camp Trillium with author Louise Gaylord.

Tom Phillips, a Tupper Lake rustic furniture maker, will construct a traditional woven picnic basket in the Education Center from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Visitors will discover displays about &#8220Picnics and Food Safety&#8221 as well as the many uses of maple syrup (recipes provided) with the Uihlein Sugar Maple Research and Extension Field Station staff.

Guided tours of the exhibit &#8220Let’s Eat! Adirondack Food Traditions&#8221 are scheduled for 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., and 3:30 p.m.

Singer, songwriter, and arts educator Peggy Lynn will give a performance of traditional Adirondack folk music under the center-campus tent at 2:00 p.m.

The Museum Store will be open from 9:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., featuring a wide array of North Country-made food products as well as a special &#8220farmer’s market.&#8221

Venison and Potato Chips:Native Foodways in the Adirondacks

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During the nineteenth century, a number of Adirondack Indians marketed their skill as hunters, guides, basket makers, doctors, and cooks.

On Monday, July 5, 2010 Dr. Marge Bruchac will offer a program entitled &#8220Venison and Potato Chips: Native Foodways in the Adirondacks&#8221 at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake. Bruchac will focus attention on what might be a lesser-known Native skill &#8211 cooking.

The first offering of the season for the museum’s Monday Evening Lecture series, the presentation will be held in the Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. There is no charge for museum members. Admission is $5.00 for non-members.

Nineteenth century white tourists paid good money to purchase wild game from Native people, to hunt in their territories, to buy medicines and remedies, and to eat in restaurants or lodgings where Indians held sway in the kitchen.

Dr. Bruchac will highlight stories of individuals such as Pete Francis, notorious for hunting wild game and creating French cuisine- George Speck and Katie Wicks, both cooks at Moon’s Lake House and co-inventors of the potato chip- and Emma Camp Mead, proprietress of the Adirondack House, Indian Lake, N.Y., known for setting an exceptionally fine table.

Bruchac contends that these people, and others like them, actively purveyed and shaped the appetite for uniquely American foods steeped in Indigenous foodways.

The Adirondack Museum celebrates food, drink, and the pleasures of eating in the Adirondack Park this year with a new exhibition, &#8220Let’s Eat! Adirondack Food Traditions.&#8221 The exhibit includes a 1915 photograph of Emma Mead as well as her hand-written recipes for &#8220Green Tomato Pickles&#8221 and &#8220Cranberry Puffs.&#8221

Marge Bruchac, PhD, is a preeminent Abenaki historian. A scholar, performer, and historical consultant on the Abenaki and other Northeastern native peoples, Bruchac lectures and performs widely for schools, museums, and historical societies. Her 2006 book for children about the French and Indian War, Malian’s Song, was selected as an Editor’s Choice by The New York Times and was the winner of the American Folklore Society’s Aesop Award.

Photo: Dr. Marge Bruchac

Peter Paine to Receive Adirondack Museum Award

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The Board of Trustees of the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake has announced the selection of Peter S. Paine, Jr. as the recipient of the 2010 Harold K. Hochschild Award.

The Harold K. Hochschild Award is dedicated to the memory of the museum’s founder, whose passion for the Adirondacks, its people, and environment inspired the creation of the Adirondack Museum. Since 1990 the museum has presented the award to a wide range of intellectual and community leaders throughout the Adirondack Park, highlighting their contributions to the region’s culture and quality of life.

The Adirondack Museum will formally present Peter Paine, Jr. with the Harold K. Hochschild Award on August 19, 2010.

Peter S. Paine, Jr., a retired partner of the international law firm, Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, has long served as Chairman of Champlain National Bank in Willsboro, N.Y. He has devoted much of his life to exemplary public service in the Adirondack region. He is Trustee and former Chair of the Adirondack Nature Conservancy, and also served on the New York State Nature Conservancy Board of Trustees.

In addition, he was a founding member and long-time General Counsel of the Lake Champlain Committee and also one of the founding Trustees of what is now Environmental Advocates.

Paine currently serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the Fort Ticonderoga Association and is also a Trustee of the Adirondack Community Trust.

Peter Paine has played a key role in numerous land conservation projects in the Champlain Valley. These include the preservation as a bird sanctuary of the Four Brother Islands in Lake Champlain, and the addition of the Split Rock Mountain Range to the NYS Forest Preserve.

He was also a major donor to and co-organized the Noblewood Park and Nature Preserve project in the Town of Willsboro with Assemblywoman Teresa R. Sayward, and helped create the Coon Mountain Preserve in Westport. At his instigation, the Paine family donated conservation easements to the Adirondack Nature Conservancy starting in 1978, protecting five miles of shoreline on Lake Champlain and the Boquet River and some 1,000 acres of farmland and forest.

Peter Paine, Jr. served as a member of the Temporary Study Commission on the Future of the Adirondacks (chaired by Harold K. Hochschild) from 1968 to 1970, and as a Commissioner of the Adirondack Park Agency from 1971 to 1995. In that capacity he was the principal draftsman of the Adirondack State Land Master Plan and New York State Wild Scenic and Recreational Rivers Legislation.

Paine received a North Country Citation from St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y. in 1974, the Ordre National du Merite from the Republic of France in 1984, and the Howard M. Zahniser Award for the Preservation of Wilderness in New York (shared with Peter A.A.Berle) in 2004.

A resident of Willsboro, N.Y., Paine is a hunter, fisherman, horseman and wilderness expedition leader.

Rocking Another Boat at the Adirondack Museum

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There is a new boat on the small pond at the Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, New York. It is a Bisby Scow and will be used to provide a genuine &#8220on the water&#8221 experience for thousands of museum visitors this summer.

The new boat is a reproduction of one in the museum’s extensive collection. Although &#8220Adirondack&#8221 in design and history, this Bisby scow started life far from the North Country. The hand-made boat is the work of young boat builders from the Bronx, participants in Rocking the Boat, a non-profit youth development organization.

On Saturday, May 22, 2010, the boat building crew, accompanied by adult builders and faculty, delivered, christened, and launched the Bisby Scow on the museum pond. This is the second boat created by Rocking the Boat expressly for the Adirondack Museum. The first, a replica of an Adirondack logging bateau, was launched in 2007.

Rocking the Boat is a traditional wooden boat building and environmental education program based in the southwest Bronx, New York City. Through an alternative multi-faceted hands-on approach to education and youth development, Rocking the Boat addresses the need for inner city youth to achieve practical and tangible goals, relevant to both everyday life and future aspirations. The program was founded in 1995.

Young people enrolled in the program have built well more than twenty boats over the time, and Rocking the Boat is recognized as one of the most dynamic after school and summer programs in New York City. For more information, visit www.rockingtheboat.org.

Museum Curator Hallie Bond, who coordinated the project, says that a member of the Bisby Club designed the original Bisby Scow in 1888. The craft was intended for all-purpose every day use and few exist today. The Bisby Scow in the collection of the Adirondack Museum &#8211 a rare survivor &#8212- dates from the 1920s: the name of the builder is unknown.

The Adirondack Museum has the second largest collection of inland wooden watercraft in the United States. Many extraordinary examples are on display in the popular exhibit &#8220Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks, 1850 &#8211 1950.&#8221

Photo: Young boat builders from the Rocking the Boat project with their new boat, christened Naomi II.

Adk Museum Gets Support for Kid Zone Exhibit

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The Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake is the recipient of a grant in the amount of $10,000 from NBT Bank, Lake Placid, N.Y. The funding will be paid in two installments and will support a new exhibit, &#8220Woods and Waters Kid Zone,&#8221 scheduled to open in May 2011.

&#8220Woods & Waters Kid Zone&#8221 will celebrate the outdoors through creative play. The exhibition will be designed to engage the museum’s youngest visitors and connect children with the history of outdoor recreation in the Adirondacks.

Immersive exhibit environments will evoke familiar North Country scenes in all seasons &#8211 a campsite, trout stream, wooded trail, snowy path, and a cozy backwoods cabin &#8211 all brought to life with the scents, sounds, and textures of the natural world.

&#8220Woods & Waters Kid Zone&#8221 will be a permanent exhibit, reflecting the museum’s dedication to presenting history in new and exciting ways. The exhibition will meet the needs of families, create imaginative play areas for children, and lay the foundation for a lifelong love of the Adirondacks.

The Adirondack Museum tells stories of the people &#8211 past and present &#8212- who have lived, worked, and played in the unique place that is the Adirondacks Park. History is in our nature. The museum is supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. For information about all that the museum has to offer, please call (518) 352-7311, or visit www.adirondackmuseum.org.

Photo: Left to right: Camilla Palumbo, Vice President and Branch Manager, NBT Bank, Lake Placid, N.Y.- Laura Rice, the Adirondack Museum’s Chief Curator- and Micaela Hall, the museum’s Public Program Manager and Educator.