I wasn’t born here, but this place is baked into my DNA.

Like a drop of rain into a cool Adirondack lake, I belong here.

In 1819, my fourth great-grandfather Alexander Kerr traveled from Scotland with his wife, Elizabeth and their six children through Canada to Edwards, NY. They took a look around them and said “this must be the place.”

I feel a similar sense of home in Peru. Where by pure coincidence, my husband and I purchased a home built by Harts. After building our house in 1903, the family lived here for almost 90 years. Some of them are buried in the Catholic cemetery a few doors down the street.

My children are lucky to experience growing up in a small, Adirondack town. Where we know our neighbors and kids still ride bikes for fun, without adults hovering around them. Where we see a sky full of stars at night. Summers spent under the pines, listening to owls. Swimming in cold lakes.

Like my ancestors before me, wanderlust in my 20s took me across the country, north to Alaska. What I realized is I didn’t need to move thousands of miles away to find home. It’s right here.

–Melissa Hart

Melissa Hart

Melissa is a journalist with experience as a reporter and editor with the Burlington Free Press, Ithaca Journal and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. She worked as a communications specialist for the Adirondack North Country Association and is currently digital editor for Adirondack Explorer, overseeing both the Explorer's website and its community forum the Adirondack Almanack. She enjoys hiking, camping and other outdoors activities, and spending time with her husband, their twin daughters, and rescue animals -- two dogs and two cats.

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