Jay, NY –AdirondackLife and AdirondackLandTrust announce My Adirondacks, a project that invites kids, ages 5 to 17, to photograph an aspect of the natural world within the Adirondack Park and share why it matters to them. Submissions can be sent to aledit@adirondacklife.com and will be accepted now through August 19, 2023.
The following information is required:
· Name and age.
· Where in the Adirondack Park the photo was taken.
· Up to a few sentences about why the image matters to the person who took it.
The Ausable River Association (AsRA), in partnership with One Tree Planted and NRS, is hosting a cleanup along the roadside of the West Branch, East Branch, and Main Stem Ausable River in the communities of Wilmington, Lake Placid, Keene, Upper Jay, and Jay. This cleanup event is slated for Earth Day, Saturday, April 22. All are encouraged to participate in this opportunity to give back to local communities by picking up and removing trash that’s built up throughout the winter.
Jay, NY – Every year, Ward Lumber matches donations made at its stores up to $2,000 in support of local charities. This year, customers at the Jay location donated $1,383.96 from rounded up transactions. After the match, Ward Lumber in Jay was able to donate $2,383.96, split between the town of Jay Food Shelf and the Jay Wilmington Ecumenical Food Shelf. Both organizations provide critical support to community members who need it most.
At Ward Lumber in Malone, a total of $1,262.92 was donated to Homeward Bound, a charity focused on helping veterans in our communities by supporting them and their families. They provide a range of services, including PTSD support, crisis outreach, rides to medical appointments, and housing assistance.
In addition to monetary donations, coats were accepted by Ward Lumber for its Benjamin Moore Coat Drive to support the non-profit organization, Families First of Essex County. The local charity collected the coats throughout the holiday season as it strives to provide support and services to families where a child might be struggling at home or school.
Photo at top: Don Morrison from the Jay Wilmington Ecumenical Food Shelf receives a check for $1,191.98 from Liz Johnson, a Customer Service Associate at Ward Lumber in Jay, NY. Photo provided by CJ Young, Ward Lumber Operations Manager.
KEENE — The merger of two nationally accredited land trusts streamlines operations and ensures continued open space protection in New York’s Adirondack Park.
Effective January 1, 2023, the Lake Placid Land Conservancy (LPLC) will merge into the Adirondack Land Trust as approved by the New York State Attorney General’s office and the Secretary of State. The assets, programs and land stewardship responsibilities of LPLC will be transferred to the Adirondack Land Trust.
Through the merger, 472 acres in the towns of North Elba, Jay, Keene and Wilmington will be added to the Adirondack Land Trust’s portfolio of land protection sites. This includes the Three Sisters Preserve in Wilmington, which is a popular destination for mountain biking, trail running, hiking and snowshoeing, and serves as a community connector between the town’s bike skills park and Forest Preserve trails adjacent to Hardy Road. Public access will remain the same and preserve signage will be updated.
The Ausable River Association (AsRA) has been awarded a $100,000 Best Management Practices for Pollution Reduction grant from the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP).
The funding supports replacement of an undersized and failing culvert on Otis Brook in Jay, NY. This will be AsRA’s sixth installation of a Climate-Ready-Culvert and is part of their wider effort to restore stream health by reducing sedimentation of waterways, to improve wildlife habitat, and to create flood resilience for communities in the Ausable watershed. » Continue Reading.
Adirondack Life magazine is celebrating 50 years in print with a 50th Anniversary Issue, which is now available at local newsstands and bookstores.
When the first copies of Adirondack Life rolled off the presses as a supplement to a Warrensburg newspaper in December 1969, the lead type had been set by hand, the photographs were taken with film cameras, and there was no such thing as the Internet.
Fifty years and countless technological advances later, Adirondack Life still connects readers to the people and places that make up the six-million-acre Adirondack Park. » Continue Reading.
An effort is underway to spur economic growth in the town of Jay by growing its tourism sector and increasing the housing inventory. Members of a newly formed Jay Task Force have been meeting since March to investigate and identify initiatives. » Continue Reading.
At 3,600 ft of elevation, Jay mountain, part of the Jay Mountain Wilderness, provides stunning views from an open ridge of the surrounding Adirondack Mountains. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Land Trust has announced the purchase of Four Peaks, a 600-acre tract in the towns of Jay and Wilmington adjacent to Wilmington Wild Forest’s Beaver Brook Tract (the Hardy Road trails), which is popular for mountain biking.
In Wilmington, mountain biking is powering a revival of small businesses catering to cyclists. In 2017, Wilmington was named one of “America’s 20 Best Mountain Bike Towns” by National Geographic. The community hosts a variety of trail systems built primarily by Barkeater Trails Alliance (BETA) in partnership with the Adirondack Mountain Club and Student Conservation Association. BETA is a volunteer-driven organization that maintains over 100 miles of ski and bike trails across six Adirondack towns. » Continue Reading.
The preachers have never had much luck getting their tenterhooks into me because I’m not all that enamored with the idea of everlasting life. Everlasting life is like Moose Tracks ice cream: After the first bite you never want it to end, but by the time you pack away a quart and a half you start to see a down side.
And everlasting life is about the only arrow the preachers have in their quiver. They never say, “If you lead a wholesome, righteous existence you will have everlasting life — plus you get to date Emma Stone.”
Still, it has to be acknowledged that Ponce de Leon wasn’t the only fan of perpetual youth, and when I was younger I confess to feeling the same way, largely due to a curiosity of what will happen next—tomorrow, and 2,000 years from tomorrow. I have, however, discovered that it is a simple task to live well beyond the average, 78.2-year lifespan. It is no great effort to live for a hundred, five hundred or even a thousand years. » Continue Reading.
Heading south to Utica on Route 28 there’s a highway sign advising travelers that they are “Leaving Adirondack Park.” No three words have caused anyone as much pain and suffering as those three words have cause me over the past five decades.
Everyone has a home, but it’s not always where one lives. My family’s roots to the Adirondacks or “The Woods,” as we called it, predated the Great Depression. It’s where my grandparents honeymooned, and where with my great-grandpa purchased a sprawling lakeside camp, fully furnished, for $3,000. So this is my existential excuse for feeling more at home in the Adirondacks than in whatever community I was more permanently hanging my hat. » Continue Reading.
Lake Placid Land Conservancy (LPLC) is hosting a panel discussion about conservation and stewardship opportunities on private lands in the Lake Placid region on Wednesday, July 27th at 6:30 pm at Heaven Hill Farm, located at 302 Bear Cub Lane in Lake Placid.
Through a recent mapping initiative, LPLC identified important land use characteristics and attributes (including important ecological and economic characteristics) on almost 100,000 acres of private lands in the region. LPLC staff will provide an overview of its mapping initiative and experts from the Adirondack Chapter of the Nature Conservancy (TNC), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and Adirondack Council will serve as panelists and discuss wildlife habitat, approaches to conservation and stewardship, and biological monitoring on private lands within the Adirondack Park. » Continue Reading.
A new kind of culvert is being installed on an Ausable River tributary in Wilmington. The project is part of a initiative led by the Ausable River Association (AsRA) and the Adirondack Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (the Conservancy) to improve stream connectivity, fish habitat, and community flood resilience in the Ausable watershed by replacing road-stream crossings with designs engineered to allow for natural stream pattern and flow. » Continue Reading.
Nearly a century ago, a North Country man played a role in one the most remarkable murder cases in New York State history. Attorney James J. Barry was a Keeseville native, born there in late 1876 and a graduated of Keeseville’s McAuley Academy in 1898. In 1901 he moved to Schenectady where he worked for General Electric. He later attended Albany Law School, graduating in 1908 and setting up shop in Schenectady, his adopted home.
The Adirondacks were his real home however, and he maintained strong ties here. To share with others the joys of spending time in the mountains, he helped form the Northmen’s Club, of which he was president in 1907. Many times in the ensuing decades, he took club members, friends, and public officials on visits up north. Jim Barry was never away for very long. » Continue Reading.
In the year 2000, five years after Plattsburgh Air Force Base closed, Pratt & Whitney signed a lease, moved in, and set up shop on the former base property. Many jobs and residents had been lost in the shutdown, making Pratt & Whitney a valued anchor business in the recovery effort.
Their arrival might have been a homecoming of sorts with historical significance, but persistent misinformation carried forward for more than a century appears to have robbed the region of an important link to the past. » Continue Reading.
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