Curiously Adirondack (Season 2)
Produced with my friend, neighbor, Adirondack guide and author Ed Kanze.
The Adirondack Park is a wondrous and unique place -- three times the size of Yellowstone and the largest park in the Lower 48. On the private lands in the park live about 100,000 year-round residents, all of them hardy and a great many quirky and ferociously independent. To live in the midst of the most extensive temperate deciduous forest on the planet, they endure long cold winters, swarms of biting insects, and a rugged, rocky, frost-haunted landscape that defies inhabitants of all species to eke out their livings.
Curiously Adirondack showcases life, both human and wild, inside the Adirondack Park. The aim of this series is to do this place and its singular people justice, bringing Adirondack Mountain life alive for all the poor souls who don't share the pleasure and pain of living here.
Be sure to subscribe to the official Curiously Adirondack YouTube channel.
Golly, Wally: Giant Beavers Still Surviving In The Adirondacks?
For years, skeptics have laughed and groaned while sightings and signs of an enormous aquatic rodent in the Adirondacks have multiplied. Those who believe in it have come to agree that the mysterious animal is the giant beaver, Castoroides ohioensis, believed extinct for 11,000 years or more. If the evidence of its presence stands up to scrutiny, the black-bear-sized giant beaver is making a comeback.
For Whom The "Bel" Tolls: Saranac Lake's Belvedere Restaurant Keeps Patrons Coming Back
Satisfying Adirondack appetites and quenching thirsts since 1933, the Belvedere Restaurant throbs with activity in the heart of Saranac Lake. The Cavallo family founded the business, and they still run it proudly. With offerings ranging from Italian dishes made from old family recipes to the latest high-hopped microbrews, the "Bel," as loyal patrons call it, offers a delicious escape from the mad, mad world outside. Here the raging river of time slows to a sane pace, and the chicken parmigiana is always as warm as the welcome.
The Fabric Of Friendship: Old Forge's Pointed Pine Quilters Join Hearts, Hands, And Fabric
In Old Forge, NY on the Adirondack Mountains' wild and beautiful western side, the Pointed Pine Quilters have been getting together to make magic from fabric---and thread---since the midpoint of the twentieth century. Today's group meets weekly at the Old Forge Public Library. Upstairs in a room devoted to their art and craft, the quilters enjoy the pleasures of friendship while piecing and stitching to raise funds for charity.
Woods, Rocks, And A View To Live For: Saint Regis Mountain In The Adirondacks
Tucked here and there among the celebrated Adirondack forty-six high peaks, lesser mountains offer hikers bigger bangs for the energy required to climb them. The best of the least may well be St. Regis Mountain. Located near Paul Smith's, this 2,874-foot knob of ancient bedrock rewards hikers with magnificent views and a walk through woods rich in beauty and interest. It's also the 4th highest in the Saranac Lake 6er program. Go get 'em!
All Roads Lead To Bloomingdale: 19th Century Crossroads Village Blooms Anew In The 21st Century
If Thornton Wilder had looked a little farther west, he might have set his Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Our Town" not in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire but in the Adirondack Mountain village of Bloomingdale. In the 1840s, the banks of a humble stretch of brook, a tributary of the Saranac River, gave rise to a settlement that flourishes---quietly and soulfully, in the vein of "Our Town"---to this day. Bloomingdale has had its ups and downs. Yet from its children's playground and ballfield behind the fire house to its once-grand Main Street to its two placid cemeteries, this is a place where people live, love, raise families, grow old, and return to the Earth with dignity, sustained through it all by a genuine and touching love of home and neighbors.
A Whole Lotta Flutterin' Goin' On: Butterflies Fly At The Paul Smith's VIC Butterfly House
Out in the Adirondack wilds, we see plenty of butterflies: one here, one there, one on sunny days just about everywhere. To learn about their lives and lore and to see a variety up close, there's no better idea than to visit the Butterfly House. It's in Paul Smith's, at the Visitor Interpretive Center run by Paul Smith's College, right next door. Prepare to be amazed!
A Taste Of Oak: Adirondack Coopers Bring Flavor To Regional Whiskey
Along a country road and down a long gravel driveway, Adirondack coopers Bob Hockert and Justin Bidelspach make world-class barrels fit for aging fine whiskies. They begin with select white oak boards cut by sawyers to their specifications. In the end, after much shaving, joining, charring, assembling, and the pressing on of hoops, a barrel is born---handsome, shapely, supremely practical, and prized by a rapidly expanding array of regional distillers. Learn more at www.usbarrel.com.
Kids As Pets: Why Your Next 'Dog' Might Be A Goat
In the Adirondacks, people love their pets. Some of them---the pets, that is---weigh two hundred pounds or more and thrive on pine needles, poison-ivy, and other delicacies you can't buy at the mall. Ask these animals to sit up like trained dogs, and they'll say Naaaaaaaaaaaa. Yes, goats! For many of us, they're the pet of choice. Learn more at www.asgaardfarm.com.