by By Philip G. Terrie
Syracuse University Press, 2008
Whether you know the Adirondacks as home, second home, vacation destination, spot on the map, or not at all, you’ll certainly have a deeper understanding of the place after reading Philip G. Terrie’s: Contested Terrain: A New History of Nature and People in the Adirondacks. This is the second edition of this book, updated 11 years after it was originally published. Judging by the myriad bitter disputes that mark this beautiful region, it’s painfully clear that this latest version will most assuredly not be the last.
And while the subjects of such disputes may have shifted from logging practices to private land regulation, motorized vehicle access, and big box retailers, the core question remains: who decides what’s best for the Adirondacks and its people? Those who depend on, and in some instances profit from, its natural resources? Those who visit to hike its peaks and bask on its lakes and rivers? Politicians and lobbyists? Or the people who live and work here?
It’s a question with which the Adirondack Park may never come to terms. But in order to try to do so, an understanding of how this place came to be in its current state is a must. And for that reason, Terrie’s book is, and will continue to be, an invaluable resource.
Terrie is able to frame Adirondack history with an eye toward the present, while not losing sight of its gritty past. Terrie’s use of diary entries from some of the Adirondacks’ first homesteaders, as well as newspaper articles, editorials, and even New York state legislative correspondence and committee reports, flesh out the Adirondacks more revealingly than other historical treatments have.
The Adirondacks have been many things to many different people over the years: a dark, mysterious and seemingly impenetrable wild land, a romanticized ideal of a wilderness getaway, an artists’ retreat, a playground for the Northeast’s wealthy industrialists, a land of seemingly limitless lumber, and a middle-class vacationland, to name a few. Today, the Adirondacks are a place where communities are shrinking. Local economies, many of which are increasingly dependent on tourism dollars, are drying up. The very notion that this can be a place where people both work and play is in question.
Terrie is adept at examining this question, often through the lens of native versus outsider, a motif that has served as the backdrop to most conflicts in the region. Terrie also demonstrates remarkable skill at first explaining, and then examining, the New York state constitutional framework of the Adirondack Park, subsequent revisions of that framework, and the roles (whether perceived as necessary or not) of state agencies in determining how the more than six million acres of the Park should be used, protected, or developed.
If there’s a fault to be found in Terrie’s work, it would have to be in the second edition’s final chapter, which is an add-on to the first edition and feels like it. In a broad stroke, Terrie attempts to cover a wide range of controversies that have yet to fully play out: all terrain vehicle (ATV) and snowmobile access; the impacts of acid rain and invasive species on the health and vitality of Adirondack lakes, rivers, and wildlife; the massive tracts of land being purchased for protection by the state and land conservation organizations; affordable housing; the divisive economic effects of big-box retailers, like Wal-Mart, wanting to set up shop in Saranac Lake; and the huge proposed development in Tupper Lake.
In his defense, none of those issues are even close to being resolved in any legitimate manner, but in addressing them, his final chapter lays the groundwork for what is sure to be a 21st century of contested terrain. It seems as though Terrie will have a job, and a willing audience, to continue to examine the story of the Adirondacks for the foreseeable future.