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By Zach Lawrence
I came to the Adirondacks when I was 12. It was much different for me back then, back before I had put down roots. I didn’t even really want anything to do with this place when I was that young. I had it in my mind that the park was cursed. It seemed to me that those who spent too much time inside the blue line were never truly able to leave. My grandparents were from the AuSable Valley. They had all left for long periods of their lives, traveling around the states at the military’s command. But they all ended up right back where they started. My cousins followed the same path, as did both of my parents.
I grew up gallivanting around the Rocky Mountain states due to my father’s career in the Air Force. Montana to Wyoming to Colorado. All I had known growing up was wind and dust. Wind that would find its way under my skin and crack my hands. My knuckles split and bled and stung under the unceasing wind of the plains. Dust had a permanent place in my teeth and in my eyes. In the winter, the snow was no better. Dry as can be, I don’t think I ever was able to make a snowman. Champagne powder they called it farther west in the mountains, but where we were on the plains, it was nothing more than white dust.
So after only living the dry life at 7,500 ft, the Adirondacks were the exact opposite of what I was accustomed to. I remember my first thought when I stepped out of the car at my grandpa’s place in Upper Jay. It felt like the air was sitting on me. It was August of 2012- the sun was high, and the humidity was higher. I was experiencing for the first time a weather phenomenon known by the locals as “muggy,” and I hated it.
Editor’s note: This “It’s Debatable” column is running in the July/August 2021 issue of Adirondack Explorer magazine. 
By Ann Morgan, The Heart Network
By David Crews
The historic collaboration between the city and town of Plattsburgh — both anchors of the upstate New York economy — is a commitment by local and regional leaders to strive for transformational and generational change that creates harmony, prosperity and lasting impacts for the people and businesses of the greater Plattsburgh region and the North Country.
Editor’s note: This commentary is in the March/April 2021 issue of Adirondack Explorer magazine, as part of our “It’s Debatable” feature. In this regular column, we invite organizations and/or individuals to address a particular issue. Click here to subscribe to the magazine, available in both print and digital formats: 
By Harsh Vaish, Skidmore College
Court of Appeals Rules in Favor of Protect the Adirondacks, Finds Cuomo Administration Violated Forever Wild Clause of State Constitution
General inquiries about the Adirondack Almanack should be directed to editor 
My Loon Friend: A Story of Trust and Healing
We have a camp on the south shore of 4th Lake, in the Fulton Chain, and early one morning in August, I was on our dock practicing my yoga. I was about to release my Down Dog position, when movement on the water caught my eye. It was a loon, less than ten feet off the dock, swimming slowly by. I froze, fearing that any movement would scare it and cause it to dive, which meant I could not see very clearly because, in my head-down position, my hair hung over my face. The loon appeared to have a fish in its mouth—but then I thought I could see little legs on the side, so I said, “No—it’s a crawfish.” We had seen a couple of loon families in the previous days, so I thought the loon was delivering breakfast to someone. Once it had swum away, my husband came down to the dock. He had been up at the house, watching from a distance. “Wow,” he said, “that was so close.” We went on about our day—he went for a bike ride, I went for a walk.
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