The Adirondacks: Wild Island of Hope (Creating the North American Landscape) - Softcover

Randorf

9780801869532: The Adirondacks: Wild Island of Hope (Creating the North American Landscape)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801869536 ISBN 13: 9780801869532

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002

"Here is the first lesson about the Adirondacks, captured in Gary Randorf's magnificent photos. It is not only alpine granite―in fact, of the park's six million acres, only about eighty-five, scattered on top of the tallest mountains, are that gorgeous pseudo-Arctic. Aside from the touristed High Peaks, the Adirondacks comprise millions upon millions of acres of Low Peaks, of beavery draws and bearish woods, of hills and hills and hills, countless drainages and muddy ponds... The second point about the Adirondacks, a glory carefully revealed in the words and pictures of this book, is that it represents a second-chance wilderness and, as such, a hope that the damage caused by human beings is not irreversible. It is metaphor as much as place."―from the foreword by Bill McKibben

In The Adirondacks: Wild Island of Hope, Gary A. Randorf offers 100 photographs to illustrate this unique, comprehensive history and natural history of the Adirondack Park, the first private-public partnership in the United States dedicated to the protection of a wilderness area. Situated in northeast New York, this regional park of six million acres represents a unique blend of public wildlands intermixed with commercial forests, farms, mines, private parks, prisons, scattered homes, dozens of villages, and a year-round population of 130,000. The ongoing attempts over the last century to make the Adirondacks a park have made this region a "striving ground" for living with the land, rather than outside or above it. Much of the strife is over finding a right relationship to the land, treating it not as a commodity to be exploited but as a community to which all living things belong and upon which all depend.

Today, the Adirondacks regional park with its six million acres "represents a second-chance wilderness"―as Bill McKibben writes in his foreword to this book. The concerns of this park are the same concerns that apply to all of America's parks, recreational areas, and wildernesses with the addition of how to maintain the fragile peace between human and natural communities. How that "second-chance" can be realized is the focus of Gary Randorf's text and stunning color photographs.

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Review:

"Gary A. Randorf captures not only the look of the Adirondacks, but also the feel."

(Neal Burdick Explorer)

"Randorf has a great understanding of this special place... Randorf's exceptional photography provides a stunning glimpse at the Adirondack peaks... The reader is then led gently into the notion of retreat and wilderness, and presented with the age-old Adirondack question: Can development and wilderness coexist?"

(Mike Brennan New York State Conservationist)

"I have gotten such pleasure out of reading The Adirondacks: Wild Island of Hope. Through the photos and the text, you have captured this special place."

(Frances Beinecke, National Resources Defense Council)

"The Adirondacks captures the Adirondacks and their history, the challenges facing the park, and the wonderful experiences it offers. Your own voice comes through so clearly that sometimes I felt you were reading a loud to me."

(Patricia D. Winterer, Adirondack Council)

"Beautifully illustrated... this book recounts the history of the Adirondack Park... Serves as a travel guide for those wishing to visit."

(Northeastern Naturalist)

Book Description:

One hundred full-color photographs illustrate this history and current health of upstate New York's Adirondack Park, the first private-public partnership dedicated to the protection of a U.S. wilderness area.

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