Description

New York States famous Adirondack landscape is immense, spanning over six million acres of public forests, lakes, rivers, mountains, and private lands. In full color featuring hundreds of detailed maps and photos, Mapping the Adirondacks celebrates it all with the first clear account of the original surveyor who explored and fully comprehended itVerplanck Colvin. Everywhere below, Colvin wrote, were lakes and mountains so different from all maps, yet so immovably monumental accomplishment helped motivate the citizens of New York in 1894 to legally protect it for generations to come.

As an eighteen-year-old budding travel writer, explorer and surveyor, Colvin began personally mapping a half-million acres of true Adirondack wilderness in 1865. Then, shortly after the state began partially funding his audacious project, Colvin reinvented himself as the Superintendent of a Survey of the Adirondack Wilderness and hired another equally intrepid surveyor to helphis ever-dependable friend Mills Blake. They extended the scope and granularity of their survey several times, hired hundreds of Adirondack guides and other talented people to assist, and devoted twenty-eight years to the challenge of professionally surveying the Adirondacks.

Author Thatcher Hogan has carefully gleaned narratives and illustrations from Colvins notoriously dense annual reports and reassembled them with additional historic photographs to chronicle a compelling, true story of rugged exploration. After a novices explanation of Colvin and Blakes surveying terms, the book follows their progress with one hundred of Hogans new maps and summit views. The Adirondack landscape remains formidable and fascinatingmany of the views are those that Colvin first discovered. Along the way, Hogan uncovers a story of intense ambition, physical hardships, and a weatherproof friendship.

The states meager investment in their work paid off many times over. Colvin and Blakes surveys provided New York with the incontrovertible evidence needed to prevail in hundreds of complex Adirondack land disputes. Most significantly, it enabled the state to consolidate and expand its extraordinary Adirondack Forest Preservesthe prized mountains, forests, and waters of todays beloved Park.

Author: Thatcher Hogan
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: North Country Books
Published: 09/15/2024
Pages: 264
Weight: 2.64lbs
Size: 11.18h x 8.64w x 0.83d
ISBN: 9781493081585
Language: English