History of the Region

(05/08/12) This week, North Country Public Radio is continuing our look at people in the North Country who do traditional work, reviving industries that have been part of this region's economy for a century or more.

Today, we revisit Brian Mann's conversation with Matt Foley. He began his career as a glass blower, but he wound up refurbishing old hydro dams in the Adirondacks.

Using antique equipment, Foley is generating power that lights homes and businesses from St. Regis Falls to Westport. more

(05/07/12) This week, we're continuing our conversations with artisans in the North Country who do traditional work. These are industries, and skills, that have been a way of life in our region for a century and more. This morning, we visit a forge operated by blacksmith John Scarlett in Rossie for thirty years.

Scarlett uses fire and metal to create everything from tools to works of art. On the day we visited, he was working on a sculpture of Asian poppies, forged out of steel and copper.

(05/03/12) This week and next, North Country Public Radio is exploring the lives of people who do traditional work. These are arts and types of industry that people would have been using to make a living in our region a century ago, or even longer. Bud Piserchia is a master taxidermist working in Keene. Over the last four decades, his North Country Taxidermy shop has also emerged one of the most important marketplaces in the Northeast for animal skins and antlers. Bud spoke about his work recently with Brian Mann. more

(05/02/12) Frederick Douglass' great-great-great grandson will be the keynote speaker at the annual John Brown Day celebration this Saturday at the historic John Brown Farm in Lake Placid. Ken Morris will talk about the friendship and legacy of Douglass and fellow abolitionist John Brown. The two first met in Massachusetts in 1848, a decade after Douglass escaped from slavery on a Maryland plantation.

Ken Morris is founder and president of the Frederick Douglas Family Foundation, a service learning organization that works to create a modern abolitionist movement in schools across the country. Morris is also the great-great grandson of Booker T. Washington. Before dedicating his career to social issues, Morris managed a successful marketing and entertainment firm. But he told Todd Moe that he spent his teen years, "decisively disengaged from his family lineage."

(05/01/12) This week we've begun a series looking at artisans in the North Country who still do traditional work, everything from taxidermy to calligraphy. Often that kind of work is passed from hand to hand, with one craftsman teaching and shaping the technique of the next over hundreds of years.

This morning, Brian Mann profiles Christopher Buerkett, a master clock repairer who lives in Rainbow Lake in the northern Adirondacks.

He learned his trade from another master clock repairer who worked in Saranac Lake. Now he's keeping alive a tradition of time-keeping that dates back to the 13th century. It's a mysterious art of intricate cogs and engineering that reshaped the way we think about the world.

(05/01/12) We continue our series, the Adirondack Attic, with Andy Flynn. You may know Andy from his series of Adirondack Attic books on local history. He uses the objects people make, use and leave behind to tell stories about the life and times of the region. NCPR is collaborating with Andy and his sources at the Adirondack Museum and other historical associations and museums in the region to bring these stories to air.

Today, Andy travels to the Adirondack Museum for a closer look at a wire basket used by miners in the mid-1900's.

(04/30/12) This week, North Country Public Radio spends time exploring traditional work in the contemporary culture and economy. Things like blacksmithing, lumbering, taxidermy, and clock repair. This is work that may date back centuries, but which persists in niches of our region's communities.

Jill Breit is executive director of Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, also known as TAUNY. She sets the stage this morning. She told Martha Foley when she thinks of traditional occupations in the region, she's thinking in two ways.

Tomorrow we continue our series with Brian Mann's profile of a traditional clock repairer in the Adirondacks.

(04/27/12) A series of lectures on the War of 1812 will be held in Ogdensburg this weekend. The Fort La Presentation Association's fourth annual War of 1812 Lectures will be held at the Freight House Restaurant on Friday and Saturday. Eight experts from the U.S. and Canada will present the latest research on battles, allies, historic preservation, medical practices, and the work of local museums. It's a chance to share common ideas about different aspects of the war.

Ontario re-enactor Michael Whittaker, one of the organizers, says the event will appeal to students, history buffs and the curious. Todd Moe got his take on this year's War of 1812 bicentennial commemorations and the weekend gathering. Whittaker says the St. Lawrence River was one of the focal points of the war.

(04/24/12) Todd Moe talks with Syracuse University historian Milton Sernett, an expert on African American history. He'll give two talks in Canton on Thursday on Harriet Tubman, and the Underground Railroad in northern New York. Todd talks with him about how Tubman became the dominant symbol of the Underground Railroad and is still an inspiration today for many Americans.

(04/17/12) The Present as History or Where Have We Come From and Where Are We Going?