Oct 12, 2012 — A group of students from Little River Community School, near Canton, is putting the final touches on a haunted house. Actually, it's an old sugar shack in a grove of trees that will be filled with typical Halloween creepy characters and decor. It's part of this weekend's North Country Harvest Festival at Honey Dew Acres, near Crary Mills. The event will feature music, storytelling, pumpkins...and some spooky fun.

Todd Moe stopped by for a haunted house dress rehearsal.  Go to full article

Oct 10, 2012 — The St. Lawrence University cross-country ski team trains on the Post Rd. in Crary Mills, near Canton, with fall colors in the background. This is part of our new "Look Up North" video snapshot series.  Go to full article

Mar 16, 2011 — With warm, sunny days and cold nights, this week is the first serious sap run of the maple syrup season.

Yesterday, Todd Moe spoke with St. Lawrence County Maple Association president Hugh Newton. He said people who visit his sugar shanty still want to see the icon of sweetness - those metal gray buckets hanging on maple tree trunks.

"So I strategically place 'em," Newton says, "so if you're standing in the right spot, you get a picture of the buckets and it looks like the whole woods is done in buckets."

Look deeper into the woods, though, and you'll see the equipment the modern maple syrup producer relies on - plastic piping that gravity feeds sap into collection tanks, and a vacuum pump that help suck more sap out of a tree.

David Sommerstein recently went out into the spring woods in Pierrepont as maple syrup producer Dillon Huntley was hooking up a vacuum pump for the first time. He sent this Heard Up North.  Go to full article

Jul 20, 2009 — Roger Huntley of Crary Mills has been an auctioneer since the day in the late 1950s when he was a stand-in for a popular cattle dealer, selling donated items for the local church benefit. Roger Huntley's last auction was last Tuesday in Hannawa Falls. Remembering Roger Huntley was produced by youth interns at North Country Public Radio, Chelsea Ross, Brenna Rice and Jennifer Sibert, working with our summer Common Wealth, Common Wisdom project.  Go to full article

Dec 02, 2008 — Root cellars were an essential part of nearly every home a hundred years ago. And along with an increase in the number of people growing their own food is the return to the root cellar. More than a basement, it's the cousin to canning and freezing and another way of preserving the harvest into the winter months. Todd Moe visited Winnie and Rob Sachno's root cellar on their St. Lawrence County farm for a closer look at a simpler way of storing food.  Go to full article

Nov 14, 2008 — Contra dance, a type of folk dance, was a main form of recreation during the Colonial period. There was a contra dance revival during the folk music era in the 60's and 70's, and today contras are having another resurgence all around the region. The dances offer an all-too-rare intergenerational experience, where folks 8 to 80 dance and socialize together. Contra fans will tell you the dances create genuine joy, community, and connections. Todd Moe visited a contra dance recently at the historic Crary Mills Grange and has more.  Go to full article

May 22, 2007 — For the last few weeks, we've been bringing you excerpts from StoryCorps, a national project that collects the stories of everyday people in order to create an oral history of America. Inside soundproof booths across the country, friends and loved ones are interviewing each other about their lives. One of these mobile recording studios was in Canton last summer and among its visitors were Ann and her husband Roger Huntley. Ann interviewed Roger about growing up in Crary Mills, near Canton, and his life as an auctioneer.  Go to full article

May 15, 2000 — Roger Huntley of Crary Mills has been an auctioneer since the late 1950s. The sixth generation of his family to operate their 300-acre dairy farm in the town of Pierrepont, Roger knows country things and country people. He still conducts the premier old-time sales in the northern Adirondack foothills and St. Lawrence Valley.  Go to full article