The North Country Chamber of Commerce and ROOST (Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism) have announced the endorsement of one another’s plans to assist with recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
ROOST recently released its “Adirondack Tourism Strategy: Pathway Forward,” outlining strategies and approaches to transform the way it markets the northern Adirondack region as the state begins to move toward eventual economic reopening, including resumed travel activity.
Anyone paying attention to the rapid rise of tick-borne diseases has heard the advice on avoiding tick bites. The advice we are hearing is not wrong, just very incomplete.
Most information to the public suggests wearing light colored clothing, tucking your pants into your socks, and checking your body carefully after possible exposure. The intent is to keep ticks away from your skin, and to remove them promptly if they succeed in attaching. This was sufficient when Lyme disease was the only real worry, since research has shown the Lyme disease organism is not transmitted until the tick has been attached for hours.
Author’s note: The first weekend in May is my usual time for a backpacking trip. It is usually the best time of the year for it. No bugs, few others around and reasonably good weather. However, this year it pains me to know it is best to stay home no matter how much the mountains and lakes call me. Instead, I wrote about past snapshots of experiences on this weekend. — Wade Bittle
In a recently conducted survey help better understand the impact the CARES act is having on North Country businesses, ANCA learned the following:
ANCA staff will be following up with respondents of the survey during the coming weeks to continue to gather information about their experience with the stimulus programs. If you would like to contact ANCA and contribute your CARES act experience but did not take the survey, you can contact them at updates@adirondack.org.
Celebrate New York State Compost Awareness Week (running through May 9) by supporting this year’s theme: “Soil Loves Compost.” Learn to recognize the importance of compost in supplying nutrients to soil, improving soil structure and supporting plant health.
Add greens, browns, water and air, as well as yard trimmings and food scraps into a rich compost to spread amoungst the plants in your back yard. Turn waste into something viable to the health of your garden, and develop your own blend of compost style. To learn more about composting and Compost Awarness Week, and to learn how you can try your hand at it, follow this link: https://www.nysar3.org/page/international-compost-awareness-week-2019-165.html
Also, as previously covered, take part in the virtual 2020 NYS Organics Summit! Learn about composting in your community and connect with local experts to learn how to better manage organic waste in New York State.
Recent Forest Ranger Actions
Town of Bolton
Warren County
Wilderness Rescue: On April 29 at 4:30 p.m., Warren County 911 transferred a call to DEC’s Ray Brook Dispatch reporting a 75-year-old man from Gansevoort who became disoriented while hiking on Thomas and Cat mountains and was unsure about which path to take to get back. After obtaining the disoriented hiker’s cell phone number, Forest Ranger Evan Donegan contacted him and gave instructions on how to return to the trailhead on the north side of the mountain. Meanwhile, Ranger Donegan made his way into the woods to intercept the man and assist him the rest of the way out. At 6:28 p.m., Ranger Donegan reached the mountain’s summit, but had not found the hiker. Forest Ranger Joe Hess also responded to start in from the southern trailhead at Edgecomb Pond. At 7:09 p.m., the hiker’s daughter called Dispatch reporting her father was back on the trail with her husband. Ranger Donegan was notified and reached the two men by 7:19 p.m. He escorted the pair back to the trailhead and all Rangers were cleared from the scene.
Grow-it-yourself food. During this time of pandemic it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Especially if you’re, like me, extremely apprehensive about the possibility of becoming exposed to Covid-19 while grocery shopping. In fact, I can’t think of a better way to avoid going out in public, while securing nutritious food, than growing your own.
The majority of Americans have become accustomed to having abundant supplies of relatively inexpensive food readily available at neighborhood grocery stores and supermarkets. And we’ve become so, even as a greater and greater number of our neighbors have grown increasingly more reliant on food banks and pantries for some, if not all, of their food. That number now includes many of the nearly 17-million Americans who applied for unemployment insurance in April, and numerous others who have (or had) jobs without unemployment insurance (e.g. freelancers, contractors, gig workers). Poverty, which has already been a reality for many in our communities, could become so for many more.
And, concerns about food supply chains are growing as well, as the pandemic impacts food storage, processing, and transportation. Are farm workers going to be able to work? And if so, how will those crops get to retail markets? Food security has never been more of an issue.
Due to their delayed 2020 summer opening, Fort Ticonderoga is launching a virtual campus.
The “2020 Digital Campaign” features a series of lectures, interactive programming, and a preview of what will be onsite come the Fort’s re-opening to the public later this year.
A schedule of the digital offerings is as follows:
We take roads for granted. I sure did as a kid riding from Syracuse up to my Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Blue Mountain Lake. We drove on Friday nights with my parents and eight brothers and sisters, all stuffed into a station wagon (they were like minivans in 1960s and 70s). My grandfather told us stories about when he was a kid and Route 28 did not exist!
If you’re an Adirondack Explorer subscriber, I hope you already have your copy of our May/June issue, or will receive it in the next few days. I believe this particular issue — produced, as it was, in the difficult and remote world we all find ourselves in these days — speaks better than I can about the direction we’re heading as a magazine and a newsgathering organization.
As always, it’s pretty, for which we thank not only the mountains but also the best photographers and designers in them. And there’s plenty of outdoorsy recreation, including a favorite and remote hike, the allure of bushwhacking, and breathtaking rock climbing.
But this issue is also full of the type of reporting that we’ve worked to enhance over the last couple of years. Water reporter Ry Rivard’s investigation of the difficulties that Adirondackers and upstate New Yorkers face in holding the state accountable for road salt pollution adds an important untold layer to one of the North Country’s most pressing environmental stories. Elsewhere this month, he checks in on how we’re doing vs. the older menace of acid rain — and why it’s not yet time to declare victory.
Over the past few weeks and months, our Adirondack region, the nation and the entire world have been coming together to stand up, help out, give back, and heal.
In recent weeks, the Adirondack Explorer and its companion site, the Adirondack Almanack, have kept you up to date with stories of some of this good happening in our community, like these COVID-19 response grants and emergency food baskets of locally made meals, as well as the effects on daily life. We also started a list of Adirondack attractions, camps and events that sadly won’t be happening this summer.
Humanities New York has released new grant guidelines for distribution of “CARES act” funding for New York cultural non-profits affected by COVID-19.
Almost $1,000,000 will be awarded in $5000 to $20,000 grants in order to be distributed to every region of New York. The HNY CARES emergency relief grants complement the NEH CARES act, which offers relief grants of up to $300,000 available to larger organizations across New York, as well as the rest of the country. HNY CARES will be primarily awarded to organizations with a humanities focus.
To view the application guidelines for the grants, please visit https://humanitiesny.org/our-work/emergency-grants/. The deadline for application is May 15, and applicants will be notified of the results by June 15.
In accordance with the state health department, Adirondack Medical Center has expanded testing the public for COVID-19, as stated in a press release from Adirondack Health Communications Director Matt Scollin. The testing clinic has expanded to include those with orders from their provider, as well as any of the 40 categories of essential workers. In order to be tested for COVID-19, speak with your primary care provider to have them order a test. If this is not an option for you, you may directly contact the COVID-19 clinic to make an appointment between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. To do so, call 518-897-2462.
In place of their annual live event, the North Country Chamber of Commerce will be hosting a virtual job fair this month. Throughout a three week campaign, potential employees will be directed to the Chamber’s Now Hiring/Virtual Job Fair Page, where job seekers will be able to find offerings and links to applications.
If you are a business that wants to take part in this virtual job fair, email Becky Drollette at beckym@northcountrychamber.com with your company’s name, position available, and website and contact information.
Adirondack storytellers have recorded 160 first-person accounts about life in the Town of Keene, yesterday and today, and there are opportunities for all to participate in this Keene Valley Library project, even while staying home.
Adirondack Community: Capturing, Retaining, and Communicating the Stories of Who We Are, is a multi-year local history project that collects and organizes three to five minute audio stories and related photographs from Town of Keene community members through an online platform to share the rich social and cultural history of this community located in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains.
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