Niki Kourofsky, Author at Adirondack Life Magazine

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Jan 18, 2018 | At Home in the Adirondacks 2017

In a rehabbed Agway building tucked on a hill above Route 3—the main artery carrying travelers southwest to Saranac Lake or northeast to Plattsburgh—Hal Moore takes a phone call from a customer on the hunt for a 10-foot sheet of plywood with birch veneer. It’s an unusual size, but Moore has it. That’s the bread and butter of Adirondack Hardwoods, those not-your-run-of-the-mill pieces that aren’t stocked at big-box stores. “If you can buy it at Lowe’s, I can’t compete with that price range,” Moore says.

Remains of the Days

Dec 7, 2017 | October 2017

A hand-scrawled sign for “Shapiro’s Junk Shoppe,” curated by “Marcel Le Junkologist.” A certificate from the 1954 All-American Soap Box Derby with a card of congratulations, addressed simply to “Glenn White, Town.” A space heater from the New Brunswick Hotel. The sash of a long-gone “Miss Tupper High,” its lettering carefully cut from red electrical tape.

You can find those treasures and more at the Tupper Lake Heritage Museum, a storage depot for the town’s collective memory. This place is the brainchild of the late Art Richer, who prodded the community into creating a common space for all the unsung snippets of their everyday lives.

Still Crazy After All These Years

May 18, 2017 | October 2009

When my great-uncle Wally heard that I wanted to restore his dad’s homemade still, he said, “Why? You want to go blind?”

That was my ﬁrst clue that making potable liquor wouldn’t be so easy. The second indication came when I saw the actual contraption. “Contraption” is probably not the right word, since it implies a larger piece of equipment. I had envisioned something along the lines of the setup Trapper and Hawkeye had on M*A*S*H; what I found was a 10-gallon copper kettle speckled with green patina. Its joints—and a bullet hole near the bottom—had been brazed with lead. Maybe Uncle Wally was right.

Will Freeze for Fish

Feb 16, 2017 | February 2010

There were a surprising number of vehicles on the road one bitter Saturday morning last January—if an hour that hasn’t cracked ﬁve a.m. can really be called morning. “Fishermen,” my husband said as we passed another set of headlights. Idiots, I thought.

In Good Spirits

Oct 3, 2016 | At Home in the Adirondacks 2016

A smooth liquor can stimulate the senses. It can stimulate a smile or a conversation. And, yes, it can even stimulate the local economy.

Sand by Me

Aug 11, 2016 | Guide to the Great Outdoors 2010, Recreation

Thanks to those master sculptors—the glaciers that reshaped this region tens of thousands of years ago—Adirondack beaches put dull-as-seawater, flat-horizoned shoresides to shame. Here’s just a handful of the picture-perfect swimming spots hidden throughout the park, all with toe-tickling sand, pure pools and vivid views, along with the more mundane necessities: bathrooms (or, in one case, an outhouse) and picnic sites. Since hours and regulations vary, phone numbers have been provided.

Valentino and Me

Dec 14, 2015 | February 2016, From the Archives

Foxlair photograph courtesy of the Johnsburg Historical Society. Rambova and Valentino photographs from the Library of Congress I’ll admit it—I’m prone to irrational crushes. No, not on people. I fall hard for the places I pass on road trip after road trip, year after...

Poutine

Dec 12, 2013 | December 2013

Illustration by Hawk Krall During the 2000 presidential election, Canadian comedian Rick Mercer, posing as a reporter, asked Governor Bush what he thought about “Prime Minister Jean Poutine” endorsing his run. Since the fake name didn’t raise any red ﬂags...

Stone Cold

Dec 13, 2012 | February 2012, Recreation

MY INTRODUCTION TO curling came one January afternoon some years ago when I walked into the living room to find my husband and brother giggling like middle-schoolers. The television was tuned to a local Canadian station (in the northernmost reaches of the Adirondack...

Dartbrook Lodge

Nov 29, 2012 | At Home in the Adirondacks 2010, Travel

MOST OF US, at one time or another, have adopted a quirky old building—one that we pass every day, twice a day, keeping tabs on its condition, wondering about its past, fantasizing about its possibilities. Just a coat of paint and ﬂowers, maybe, or structural repair...

The Ghost of Hassle-Free Castle

Oct 23, 2012 | October 2005

SWEPT UP IN the fervor of a back-to-nature movement, my wife and I decided to sell our house by the shore for a country place in upstate New York. We studied the Sunday Times real estate section for months, finally coming across a place that sounded ideal: “Old brick...

Greek Tragedy

Oct 23, 2012 | History, October 2012

Photograph by Aaron Hobson Not far from the sunny side of Route 374, in the northern Adirondack hamlet of Merrill, rests the skeleton of a Greek amphitheater. Its mossy tiers are broken by weeds and sprinkled with blowdown and beer bottles. Ancient...

More Articles From Niki Kourofsky

Top Shelf

Remains of the Days

Still Crazy After All These Years

Will Freeze for Fish

In Good Spirits

Sand by Me

Valentino and Me

Poutine

Stone Cold

Dartbrook Lodge

The Ghost of Hassle-Free Castle

Greek Tragedy

On Sale Now

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