February 2021

Articles from this Issue

Cool Family Fun

Ice-fishing on Adirondack lakes My dad’s been the captain of every ice-fishing outing I’ve ever been on. And there have been plenty. Most people envision ice fishing as a quiet, solitary activity—sitting alone on a bucket, bobbing a line up and down until there’s a...

The Long View

Saranac Lake, with a population of just over 5,000 people, is the largest village in the Adirondack Park. This still surprises me even though I’ve known it for at least half my life. The park, a mix of public and private land, is big, famously so. It’s bigger than Yosemite, the Everglades, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone combined. If the park were a state it would be about the size of Vermont, where the largest city is home to more than 40,000 people. So a town of 5,000 in the middle of millions of acres of wild forest, even if it is the biggest, is still, well, small.

Adirondack Blackface

Caution: This article quotes historical sources that used offensive language, and includes photographs of local blackface, at the bottom of the page, that some may find disturbing. Maybe you recall the news about a racist blackface cartoon on the cover of a...

Camera Shy

Ninety minutes after sunrise on a spring morning, I arrived at a High Peaks lodge with hopes of photographing one of the Adirondacks’ most delightful denizens. On the ground lay a light cover of snow over hard-pack, and red squirrels chattered in the trees. Camera at the ready, I waited.

Cold-Shocked

For many years, cross-country skiing has been one of my favorite winter activities. When snow’s not abundant where I live in Peru, on the northeastern edge of the Adirondack Park, I ski Avalanche Lake or the frozen ponds in the St. Regis Canoe Area.

Ice Breaker

On an evening of gray skies, gray sleet and horrendous gray chop, I stand abreast the shoreline, my hood cinched, shivering. Lake Champlain conjures in many hearts a sweet, gentle environment, all neon swim trunks and cocktails sipped at sunset, but my heart is different.

Polar Opposites

It’s the best kind of countdown, heading southwest on Route 28: Eighth Lake … Seventh Lake … Sixth Lake … Fifth Lake, then BAM! Inlet’s tiny downtown explodes in a funfetti of color and movement.

On Sale Now

August 2026

Spotlighting regional characters—a movie star, an angler, a 46er 25 times over—and the Adirondack landscape at the time of America’s birth. Plus stunning photographs, where to find exceptional BBQ, and more.