WINTER 2017
MAPS OF THE ADIRONDACKS FROM 1556 The average modern traveler may never need to consult a map. The disembodied voice coming out of her dashboard and the ever-changing scene on the little screen, obligingly seen from her exact perspective, will take her where she’s going. But maps are not artifacts from the past. As the upcoming exhibit at the Kelly Adirondack Center shows, maps are much more than directions from point A to point B; they are documents of how we see our world and what is important to us. The earliest maps in the exhibit, from a private collection, date from 1556 to 1794. They are vague on the Adirondacks, denoting it as “parts but little known” or “this country by reason of mountains, swamps, and drowned lands is impassable and uninhabited.” They reveal that the area was unmapped for many years, even as the surrounding areas and much of the eastern United States—easier to access and more promising for agriculture—were thoroughly explored and settled. Most of the maps in the exhibit come from the rich collections of the Adirondack Research Library, housed in the Kelly Adirondack Center. Displayed in chronological order, they tell of growing interest in the Adirondacks, first for settlement and resource extraction then for recreation. Included are maps showing the evolution of the “Blue Line,” the boundary of the Adirondack Park, and early surveyor Verplanck Colvin’s triangulation process for mapping in the days before satellites. Others detail the growth of railroads, and Seneca Ray Stoddard’s exquisite maps speak of the “rush to the Adirondacks” for rest and recreation. Viewers will remember the ever popular and well used topographic maps, as well as DEC and locally-produced maps showing canoe routes, hiking, ski, and snowmobile trails. The exhibit brings mapping up to the present with current Adirondack Park Agency techniques. The highlight of the exhibit is on permanent display at the Kelly Adirondack Center: the 10’ x 12’ relief wall map of the Adirondacks. Started in 1945, it was constructed by the original builder and owner of the house, conservationist Paul Schaefer, and his friends.
“PARTS BUT LITTLE KNOWN” WILL OPEN AT THE KELLY ADIRONDACK CENTER DURING ADIRONDACK WEEK 2017 AND WILL BE CURATED BY CAL WELCH ’62.
T H E K E L L Y A D I R O N D A C K C E N T E R at U N I O N C O L L E G E
UNION.EDU/ADIRONDACKS
PARTS BUT LITTLE KNOWN:
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THE MODEL INVITES PEOPLE OF ALL ENVIRONMENTS TO SHARE IN THE DRIVE FOR NATURALIST THEORY AND DIRECT ACTION THAT PAUL SCHAEFER AND HIS FRIENDS UTILIZED TO FIGHT FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE ADIRONDACKS.
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WINTER 2017
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ADIRONDACK WALL AS A 3D MODEL OF CONSERVATION B Y S O N IA S A N D OVA L ’ 1 6 , S C HA F F E R L I B R A RY ’ S M I E L K E F E L L OW
The magnificent topographic map that commands the aptly named Adirondack Room at the Kelly Adirondack Center is irreplaceable. Union College is employing the newest 3D laser scanning
Additionally, digital artifacts have the potential for a much
technology to duplicate the map’s grandeur, precisely for that
wider use. For example, the model of the Adirondack map
reason. Though smaller in scale and scope, replicas will be
can be used as a storytelling tool to connect our past, present,
able to express the same hills, valleys, and wonder that make
and future. Schaefer and his Friends of the Forest Preserve
the Adirondacks so compelling. The College has stepped into
constructed the map by hand and out of necessity in their
the enthralling world of virtual artifact curation with Schaffer
endeavor to protect the Adirondacks. With “forever wild” their
Library’s Mielke Fellowship. Sonia Sandoval ’16 is working
goal, they strove to conserve the region by actively blocking
alongside Director of Public Services Bruce Connolly,
proposed dams and other ecological disturbances. The 3D
Digital Scholarship and Services Librarian Gail Golderman,
models and scans of the map remind us of the extensive
and Makerspace Coordinator Amanda Ervin to create and
conservation work put into the park over the 20th century,
implement Union’s first online digital collection. The first
the varied and ever-changing issues for those who currently
item to be digitally preserved is the Adirondack map in
live there, and the legislative uncertainties that lie ahead. 3D technology can also be used as a tool to promote social
At the base level, 3D models and scans serve to create a
engagement. At 10 feet tall, the ADK map is an object that
tangible representation of an object of interest. These are
would remain in a single location for its entire existence
useful, especially in educational environments, as teaching aids
without the agency of 3D printed copies. The ability to
or in situations when tactile properties of an object could not
transport, manipulate, and share New York’s rich conservation
otherwise be observed. In essence, virtual curation can serve
history is imperative to ensuring its continued success.
to solve the issue of public access. Over the course of its 222
The model invites people of all environments to share in
years, Union College has acquired an impressive collection of
the drive for naturalist theory and direct action that Paul
historical items. Some of these pieces cannot be easily viewed
Schaefer and his friends utilized to fight for the protection
due to age, fragility, or cost and are ultimately detached from
of the Adirondacks. In this way, the Kelly Adirondack
the greater campus community. With digital representation,
Center lives at the intersection of technology, art, and
3D models are seamlessly shared online, printed at will, and
environmental awareness.
can be stored for years.
INTERESTED IN NOMINATING AN ITEM TO ADD TO UNION’S DIGITAL COLLECTION? EMAIL SANDOVAS@UNION.EDU.
UNION.EDU/ADIRONDACKS
Paul Schaefer’s former home.
LIVING WITH THE LAND A KAC LECTURE SERIES The Adirondack Park is a very strange “park.” While advertised as “the East’s last great wilderness,” it is also the year-round home to 140,000 people. In the summer, more than twice that number move to their second homes in the region. Within the “Blue Line,” Americans have spent the last century grappling with a question that gains urgency as human populations grow: How can human communities and natural communities coexist and thrive together? In the Kelly Adirondack Center’s 2016-2017 lecture series, we are exploring that question by presenting speakers who can provide different perspectives. Our first speaker told us about an industry that has sustained Adirondack communities for over a century and a half – logging. Tim Burpoe, property manager at Molpus Woodlands Group, the largest private landowner in the park at 242,000 acres, came to campus Sept. 29. Tim’s job is considerably different than that of the 19th century lumberman. He oversees timber harvesting operations, conservation easements, carbon credits, supervises 10 full-time logging crews and three forestry
Photo by Steve Liptay
consulting companies, and manages hunting club leases on company land. In the course of learning about all this as well as modern timber harvesting methods, the audience got a good picture of human industry in the park. Robin Wall Kimmerer, our second speaker in the series, addressed over 150 people in the Nott Memorial Jan. 16 about “Lessons from Sweetgrass: Indigenous Stewardship of Adirondack Plants.” In her presentation, she applied her knowledge of indigenous peoples and scientific expertise to point the way towards our shared goals of sustainability. Before the lecture she also joined students from two first-year preceptorials, “Literature, Ethics, and the Environment” and “The Good Life,” taught by Katherine Lynes and Ellen Foster, respectively. The discussion teased out ways in which language expresses our respect—or lack thereof—of the natural world. Students learned how Native communities tend to think of plants, animals, and even physical features as other beings, and how this determines their treatment of these other inhabitants
Photo by Caleb Northrop
of nature. Dr. Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is also a mother, scientist, writer and distinguished teaching professor of environmental biology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry,
Until now, the chief threats to Adirondack communities, both human and wild, have come from sources inside the region. In the current era of climate change, major impacts are being caused by forces from without. On April 17 in the Nott Memorial, author and environmentalist Bill McKibben will address the Adirondacks of today. He will discuss the region’s potential as a place of symbiosis between humans and nature in “The Adirondacks: Refuge in a Warming World?”
Adirondack Week 2017 May 14 - 20
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E V E N TS W IL L B E A N N OU N CE D IN E A R LY M A RCH
Director of the Kelly Adirondack Center Hallie Bond bondh2@union.edu
Special Assistant to the President's Office and Kelly Adirondack Center Caleb Northrop northroc@union.edu
Kelly Adirondack Center Assistant Margie Amodeo amodeom@union.edu
Go paperless! If you’d prefer to receive this newsletter electronically, send an email to Caleb Northrop at northroc@union.edu.
T H E K E L LY A D I R O N D A C K C E N T E R 897 Saint David’s Lane, Niskayuna, NY 12309
C O N TA C T U S : Email: northroc@union.edu Phone: 518.388.6305 union.edu/adirondacks
UNION.EDU/ADIRONDACKS
and founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.