Adirondacks to Finger Lakes, New York

Hi All,

History of boats included native American birch bark canoes

We arrived at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake late in the day.  We visited what we could before closing and returned the following morning.  The museum is excellent, with exhibits about the history of the area - logging and tourism, primarily.

Rayne, these paddles (not oars) are for you!

Unique to Adirondacks - the Guide Boat

Portage sculpture

The early logging denuded much of the forest, but it provided much needed jobs.  The jobs were dangerous, especially those that cleared the logjams from the rivers in the spring when they moved the logs downstream to mills.  The Robber baron era saw tourism climb as the super-rich built country get-aways for themselves and friends for hunting, fishing and "roughing-it" in the backwoods.

Tractor to bring logs out of forest on ice

The Adirondacks are known for their own furniture styles made from mostly from yellow birch, but we saw pretty much every kind of tree that grows here into a piece of furniture - some are gorgeous.  The boat building industry to support both working boats and tourist "guide" boats resulted in some fantastic wooden boats and unique designs like the "guide boat" that looks a bit like a broad canoe that is oared (not paddled).

We made our way southwest from the Adirondacks to the northern Finger Lakes, staying one night near Oneida Lake, then continuing southwest through Syracuse, and stopping to visit the Harriet Tubman National Park in Auburn, New York.  She has always been one of my heroes since reading a book about her in elementary school, but I learned that she did so much more than help slaves escape through the Underground Railroad.  She made 13 documented (and probably more) trips over 12 years, helping folks to escape north.  There was a $2,500 bounty on her during this time and it is a miracle that she avoided the bounty hunters.  If that wasn't enough, she also served as a nurse and guide during the Civil War and is the only female who ever led troops into battle (with no casualties)!  She also served as a spy, but it took years for her to get a military pension.  She settled her family here in New York state, buying herself a home and farm, and then purchased additional acreage to build a home for the elderly.  What an inspiration.  She never had any children, but did enjoy a large family of nieces and nephews and many of her relatives still live in the area.

Home for the Elderly

Harriet Tubman's Home

Considering what Harriet Tubman achieved in the 1800's and seeing the horrendous events in Charlottesville, I sometimes get disheartened.  I feel like we occasionally make great forward strides only to repeatedly go backwards....I know that things are certainly better now than in Harriet Tubman's time, but why do they still have so far to go?