History of the Region
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History, until very recently perhaps, has been recorded by those in power. You know, the victor not only gets the spoils of war but gets to tell how it happened.
Last week, our Canadian friend Hank Hofmann sent me a link to a Globe and Mail...
Photography by Mark Kurtz except where noted.
Construction of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace has begun, with one aspect of the building process being no different than it was 75 years ago, the ice harvest. Garrett Foster, Michael...
For most of human history travel was a luxury largely reserved for the rich. Not so many generations past, crossing the ocean was a one-time gamble of last resort. Yes, millions of tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breath free made their way...
“Primogeniture” is a seldom-used word. It crops up now because royal succession is making headlines – as with the widely-reported news that Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge is expecting her first child.
Although I’ve met the...
With November 11 looming over the first third of this month, it’s been poppy time where I live once more.
Having spent the majority of my life in the U.S. I can contemplate this quaint Canadian custom with an anthropologist’s detachment....
Related Links
Museums and Galleries
Historical Sites and Associations
Specials Reports
Audio Series:The Adirondack Attic
Andy Flynn uses the objects people make, use, and leave behind to tell stories about the life and times of the region.
Audio SeriesStoryCorps in the North Country: North Country residents have shared their stories with this national oral history project during visits to the region in 2006 and in 2008.
Audio Slideshow:Upper Canada Village welcomes addition
Lucy Martin reports on the newest addition to Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg, Ontario--the Ancient Brethren Lodge.
Slideshow:Old mill requires old skills
Lucy Martin returns to Watson's Mill in Manotick, Ontario to see how old millstones can be made new again, and learn about other vanishings arts of the miller's trade.
Audio Slideshow:Anique North Country Postcards
Jon Kopp, a former state forester who owns an antique store in Tupper Lake, has set out to collect thousands of vintage North Country postcards. He shares his collection with Brian Mann.
No Bigger Than a Piano Box: a North Country Schoolhouse in 1893
By historian Betsy Kepes. Based on the 1893 diary of a North Country schoolteacher. A Women's History Month special. Teacher's guide and CD available.
Audio Slideshow:Canada's Rideau Canal hits 175th anniversary
The Rideau Canal is a manmade waterway connecting Kingston to Ottawa. Lucy Martin was in scenic Merrickville for one of the year’s many 175th anniversary celebrations.
Audio Slideshow:Volunteers keep Watson's Mill alive
Watson's Mill opened for business in 1860 on the Rideau River in Manotick. It comes alive in the summer — full of the noise of water, turbines, grindstones, and people. Lucy Martin followed two modern enthusiasts who help keep it all turning.
Audio Slideshow:Mining in Lyon Mountain
Brian Mann talks with author Lawrence Gooley about the hard and dangerous history of mining at Lyon Mountain.
Audio Slideshow:Flower Library Gets Facelift
Todd Moe tours an Art Nouveau gem, Flower Memorial Library in Watertown, as it undergoes renovation in its centennial year.
Audio Slideshow:Aboad La Duchesse in Clayton
La Duchesse is a 110-foot Gilded Age treasure that's become the crown jewel of the Antique Boat Museum's collection in Clayton. Todd Moe tours the historic houseboat.
Audio SlideshowKing's Garden at Ft. Ticonderoga
1920s landscape architect Marion Coffin designed a pleasure garden for the Pell family's summer home, the Pavillion, at Fort Ticonderoga. It was neglected and almost forgotten until, about ten years ago, workers began to restore the garden to Coffin's plan. Todd Moe takes a tour.
SlideshowA Look Inside Temple Beth Joseph, Tupper Lake
Beth Joseph Synagogue in Tupper Lake is the oldest synagogue in the Adirondacks. Built in 1905, its origins stem from the late 1800s, when Jewish immigrants from Russia and eastern Europe arrived in America. It had been closed up for decades when a summer resident asked to take a look inside. What she found was a national treasure.
Audio SlideshowSt. William's on Long Point
In the late 1800s, St. William's was the parish church for Raquette Lake and served many of the Irish and French-Canadian Catholics who were the early pioneers on the Lake. Today, it's a seasonal camp and cultural center, accessible only by boat. Todd Moe visited during restoration work.
SlideshowCape Vincent French Festival 2005
In the early 1600s, French settlers came to the eastern end of Lake Ontario. Much of northern Jefferson County traces descent from them and Cape Vincent holds an annual French Festival to celebrate the heritage. David Sommerstein was on hand and sends this audio postcard.
Audio SlideshowSaving Sackets Harbor's Historic House of Healing
A group of history buffs wants to restore the old Stone Hospital at Madison Barracks as a military heritage center and cornerstone for restoration work. Todd Moe has more.
Audio SlideshowFollowing Photographer Seneca Ray Stoddard
In the late 1800s, photographer Seneca Ray Stoddard captured some of the most iconic scenes in north country Now another Glens Falls native, Mark Bowie, has spent two years photographing the exact same scenes.
SlideshowThe School of Agriculture, Canton NY
SUNY Canton started life as The School of Agriculture in 1906. This slideshow is part of a display from the school archives presented at the Third Annual Symposium on Education, Environment and Economic Vitality in April 2005.
Audio SlideshowA Walking Tour of Sackets Harbor: Battlefield, Bay and Barracks
Todd Moe tours historic Sackets Harbor, one of five villages hosting Seaway Trail Walks this summer.
Photo Audio EssayChildren's Camps in the Adirondacks
The Adirondack Museum opens today for the summer season. A major new exhibition looks at the history of the region's summer camps.
Audio SlideshowMusic Hall Restoration in Heuvelton
A group of residents and historians in Heuvelton is trying to preserve Pickens Hall, one of the oldest buildings in the village. And the building's restoration has sparked a renewed interest in the career of Bessie Abott, a granddaughter of the original owner of Pickens Hall. Bessie took the opera world by storm in the early 1900s. Todd Moe reports.
Audio SlideshowNapoleon's Brother in the North Country
David Sommerstein visits the historic Benton House in the town of Oxbow in Jefferson County, the former home of Joseph Bonaparte's extramarital daughter.
Photo/Audio
EssayInside Dark Island's Castle
On the St. Lawrence River near Chippewa Bay, a representative for the buyers of Dark Island and its historic castle gave David Sommerstein a peek of what visitors could see as early as next summer.
Audio SeriesLeonora Barry: First Voice for Working Women
North Country Public Radio presents an extraordinary profile of one of the unsung heroes in the history of the struggle for the rights of working women in America.
Audio SeriesIce Storm '98: A Retrospective
This retrospective looks back on Ice Storm '98 through the sounds and stories we all shared during those three weeks of disaster—and community.
Cover detail: An Adirondack Passage, the Cruise of the Canoe Sairy Gamp
How a canoe sparked a trek and a book
May 22, 2013 — Almost twenty years ago, Christine Jerome and her husband paddled a weeks-long canoe route through the Adirondacks. They followed the path of a nineteenth-century writer and outdoorsman, George Washington Sears, known as Nessmuk to his readers. Our book reviewer, Betsy Kepes, spoke to Chris about the new edition of her book An Adirondack Passage, the Cruise of the Canoe Sairy Gamp. Go to full article
NCPR jazz host and producer Louis Cook dies
Hogansburg, NY, May 15, 2013 — A prominent voice from the early days of North Country Public Radio has died. Louis T.K. Cook, of Akwesasne, was the late night host of "Jazz Waves" in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Cook also educated listeners - and producers at this radio station - about native political and cultural issues with his series, "You Are On Indian Land". Cook is remembered here at the station as full of life and was known as a wild guy.
His cousin, Ray Cook, who is now Op/Ed editor at Indian Country Today Media Network, says he owes his career in media to Louie Cook. He describes Cook as a natural teacher. "He was an artist in the traditional form," says Ray Cook. "He believed in the power of music and how it can soothe the soul and he always treasured the stories that he recorded and the people he talked to when he was in the production mode."
Louis T.K. Cook died Monday from injuries he suffered in a car crash last week on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. He had been working with a not-for-profit there that helps families on the reservation build and maintain gardens. Go to full article
Cook also educated listeners - and producers at this radio station - about native political and cultural issues with his series, "You Are On Indian Land". Cook is remembered here at the station as full of life and was known as a wild guy.
His cousin, Ray Cook, who is now Op/Ed editor at Indian Country Today Media Network, says he owes his career in media to Louie Cook. He describes Cook as a natural teacher. "He was an artist in the traditional form," says Ray Cook. "He believed in the power of music and how it can soothe the soul and he always treasured the stories that he recorded and the people he talked to when he was in the production mode."
Louis T.K. Cook died Monday from injuries he suffered in a car crash last week on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. He had been working with a not-for-profit there that helps families on the reservation build and maintain gardens. Go to full article
At John Brown Day, what does freedom mean?
May 13, 2013 — This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In a few months, it will be exactly fifty years since the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.
And this past weekend, one organization in the North Country held its annual birthday party for John Brown, on the Adirondack farm he lived in for two years, and the place where his body is buried. Go to full article
And this past weekend, one organization in the North Country held its annual birthday party for John Brown, on the Adirondack farm he lived in for two years, and the place where his body is buried. Go to full article
150 years after Emancipation, a new song of freedom
May 10, 2013 — Today and tomorrow in the Adirondacks, activists and artists will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
That document, signed by... Go to full article
That document, signed by... Go to full article
Hearing historic voices of freedom, again, through song
May 10, 2013 — New music will be performed tonight and tomorrow in Saranac Lake and North Elba as part of the John Brown Day events. Voices of Timbuctoo is a new work based on the... Go to full article
Heard Up North: Gentleman's runabout in the Thousand Islands
May 10, 2013 — Spring means life on St. Lawrence River in the Thousand Islands is coming back to life. One of the region's anchor destinations, the Antique... Go to full article
Adirondack Attic: iron ore tailings as a building material
May 07, 2013 — We continue our Adirondack Attic series: curator Laura Rice tells Andy Flynn why an old concrete block from Mineville is one of her favorite artifacts at the... Go to full article
Kim and Reggie Harris bring "Dream Alive" to Saranac Lake
May 06, 2013 — Kim and Reggie Harris will bring their music and stories of the Underground Railroad and the modern civil rights movement to Saranac Lake tonight and tomorrow. The duo... Go to full article
A century later, African-American baseball hero gets his due
Cooperstown, NY, Apr 26, 2013 — Jackie Robinson is getting the big time Hollywood treatment with the new blockbuster "42". Meanwhile, a much lesser known African American baseball hero is getting his due in... Go to full article
New building will expand Shelburne Museum's cultural reach
Shelburne, VT, Apr 16, 2013 — The Shelburne Museum opens its new Center for Art and Education this summer, and for the first time in the museum's 66-year history, it will be open year-round. Todd Moe... Go to full article
