Adirondacks for All:

During this final roundtable discussion in the “Adirondacks for All” week-long symposium, Aaron Mair will engage Assemblymembers Michelle C. Solages and Stefani Zimmerman, as well as ADKX Trustee Benita Law-Diao, in a conversation that touches on the past, present, and future of the Adirondacks. Mair is currently leading the Adirondack Council’s “Forever Adirondacks” campaign and formerly served as the first African-American president of the Sierra Club. Mair’s passion for stewardship, preservation, and environmental justice has put him at the center of efforts to memorialize the region’s African-American history and establish the Timbuctoo Summer Climate and Careers Institute which will connect New York City youth with educational programs and green job training based in the Adirondacks. Mair will address these and other projects designed to protect Adirondacks land and water while encouraging diversity, equity, and economic opportunity.

Today, in order to remain relevant, we must adapt and address the challenges and obstacles that stand in the way of promoting a more diverse and inclusive environment. This is especially true of a place like the Adirondack Park. There is an increasing recognition that a host of cultural, geographic, and economic barriers continue to undercut the Park’s democratic commitment to “the free use of all the people for their health and pleasure.” If the Adirondack community wishes to provide a wide range of opportunities to all visitors– including those marginalized by physical disabilities, economic burdens, or legacies of exclusion–Park managers, stakeholders, and private sector partners could learn from individuals and organizations working at the grass-roots to open Adirondack wilderness to traditionally underrepresented groups. The panelists featured in this roundtable discussion have spent considerable time and energy bridging the access and equity gap, connecting Black and Indigenous youth, among others, with an environmental and cultural heritage that should transcend cultural, racial, and economic boundaries. Benita Law-Diao, Annie Cree, and Stephanie Morningstar will share their personal journey with the Adirondacks and discuss opportunities to move forward in a more positive direction.

Stephanie Morningstar is Mohawk, Oneida, and mixed European descent. She is an herbalist, soil and seed steward, scholar, student, and Earth Worker dedicated to decolonizing and liberating minds, hearts, and land- one plant, person, ecosystem, and non-human being at a time. Stephanie is the Executive Director of the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, an organization dedicated to advancing land access for BIPOC land stewards of color. Stephanie tends medicines at Sky World Apothecary & Farm; and teaches about the wonders of plant medicine at Seed, Soil, + Spirit School. Stephanie’s theory of change is rooted in community-driven, self-determined solutions created by BIPOC communities for BIPOC communities. She carries with her over a decade of Indigenous community-driven systems change work in healthcare, legal, herbal, agricultural, land access, and academic research spaces where she cut her teeth on speaking Truth to Power. Her work advancing sovereignty in institutional spaces with and for Indigenous communities has resulted in mandating Indigenous Cultural Safety training to service providers; Indigenous Dispute Transformation frameworks; and meaningful and ethical Indigenous-driven research in climate change.

The history of the Adirondacks region has long privileged accounts of Euro-American settlement: taming a wild landscape and establishing a multi-generational presence across the North Country. Within the last few decades, individuals and organizations across the Adirondacks have increasingly challenged the cultural, social, and political assumptions at the foundation of these kinds of Euro-Centric narratives. With their scholarship, filmmaking, and cultural education initiatives, these three panelists have worked to re-center the experiences of underrepresented people who have acted as forces for social, political, and cultural change in the North Country and beyond. A “reframing” wide enough to reflect this diverse population must account for the First People of this region, African Americans, immigrants, but also Adirondackers without political visibility or power. “I am large, I contain multitudes,” Whitman wrote. So does the Adirondack Park. In this roundtable discussion, Darren Bonaparte, Amy Godine, and Paul Miller will discuss opportunities to highlight the plurality of experiences that comprise the tapestry of American and Adirondack history.

Paul A. Miller is an independent writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in upstate New York. As an experienced television professional, he worked for national shows and networks including The History Channel, National Geographic Channel, PBS, and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” For years, filmmaker Paul Miller has driven past the John Brown Farm State Historic on route to family vacations. Like many, as a young student, he had learned of abolitionist John Brown and his raid on Harpers Ferry, but he never thought about why Brown’s home is located in New York, nestled between the beautiful peaks of the Adirondack Mountains. When Miller learned that it is connected to the establishment of a little-known and long lost antebellum African-American settlement in the mountains, he knew the story had to be told. In his feature-length documentary, “Searching For Timbuctoo,” he seeks to add some much-needed dimension to the well-known story of John Brown and his Harpers Ferry raid by revealing how a little-known Black settlement in the Adirondacks helped lay a path towards the Civil War and, as a result, changed the course of American history.

Throughout history, scholars, writers, artists, and activists have looked beyond the dominant cultural attitudes of their era to re-evaluate the way we organize our relationship with the natural world. The “Romantic Revolt” of Emerson and Thoreau, the conservation ethic of Gifford Pinchot, John Muir’s passion for wilderness preservation, and Rachel Carson’s ecocentric critique of scientific progress have pushed the boundaries of environmental stewardship and continue to inform more contemporary commitments to sustainability and environmental and social justice. These environmental values, among others, have equally influenced the trajectory of conservation, preservation, and stewardship in the Adirondacks. As one of the nation’s first “Forever Wild” nature preserves, Adirondack Park stands as a foundational achievement of environmental preservation, but the work is far from finished. The challenge of climate change has only brought greater urgency to the critical work of protecting biodiversity and promoting ecological stability. This panel of artists, storytellers, students, and teachers will explore the ways we might reimagine Adirondack stewardship–incorporating ecocentric and rights of nature perspectives–and discuss the socio-economic barriers that have historically prevented underrepresented communities from engaging in these conversations. It is critical that Adirondack stewardship transcend the racial and class boundaries and anthropocentric positions that have traditionally defined environmental circles and instead, empower people from all walks of life to participate in decisions and policies that will determine the future of the region.

Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo (they, elle) is an environmental artist and movement weaver, who is currently working to spotlight stories of regenerative solutions to the climate crises in the North Country, Haudenosaunee Territory. As part of Talking Wings, they have collaborated with Blake Lavia on several art and community-centered environmental projects, such as the “North Country Art, Land and Environment Summit” and “Confluence: A Tapestry of Rivers and their Guardians.” Talking Wings is currently embarking on a new endeavor in which they are weaving together a regional collaboration to co-create an ecocentric governance system for waterways and draft a Bill of Rights for North Country rivers.

Caroline Dodd is a lifelong Adirondacker, climate activist, and cross-country ski coach. She was a founding member of The Wild Center’s Youth Climate Program, where she continues to serve on the Youth Advisory Board. She studied environmental science and policy at Cornell University, where she researched climate change mitigation for the Kingdom of Tonga, traveling to the United Nations Climate Negotiations in Poland. Caroline has since served as a legislative advocate for the Adirondacks, a ski instructor, and a winter sports events coordinator. She will attend graduate school in Environmental Policy this fall. She can also be found playing her flute and singing at Chapel Island on Upper Saranac Lake. Caroline plans to carry her passions for climate justice and local climate solutions into the climate policy space.

In 1892 the Adirondack Park was established for “the free use of all the people for their health and pleasure.” Unfortunately, this expansive democratic ideal, commonly associated with public lands, tends to obscure the economic, cultural, and geographic barriers that have undercut efforts to make the Adirondacks a more inclusive and welcoming space. The demographic composition of the Adirondacks region, including permanent residents and seasonal visitors, equally complicates this founding vision. While this history has deep roots in the North Country, the events of the past two years, including the pandemic and national reckonings with social and racial justice, has spurred a re-examining of inequity in the Adirondacks and its connection to land and water access, conservation, and environmental justice. Much work remains to realize this founding vision, but thanks to a number of individuals and organizations, sustained commitments to diversity, representation, and equity are opening space for a more inclusive, welcoming, and accessible Adirondack wilderness. In this program, Robbi Mecus, Klarisse Torriente, and Nicky Hylton-Patterson will explore why having a broad spectrum of representation in the Adirondacks matters, opportunities to find solutions in community, and the intersection of identity and belonging in the Adirondacks.

Nicole “Nicky” Hylton-Patterson joined the Adirondack North Country Association family as the Director for the Adirondack Diversity Initiative (ADI) in December 2019. Her journey from St. Catherine, Jamaica to Saranac Lake is one marked by lengthy sojourns in Trondheim, Norway, Elmira, NY, and Tempe, AZ.  A relentless advocate for justice and equity, Nicky brings 20+ years of experience as a community organizer, educator, activist scholar and diversity & inclusion subject matter expert and practitioner to the role. When she isn’t working with the ADI family of advocates, allies, and affiliates on ensuring that the Adirondacks is a place where biodiversity reflects human diversity, she enjoys spending time outdoors hiking and horseback riding. During fierce Adirondack winters, Nicky is equally happy ensconced with a good book and working on her latest piece of haute couture inspired creation.

Robbi Mecus is a resident of Keene Valley and has been a NYS Forest Ranger for 23 years, nine of those in the Adirondacks. She is an avid rock and ice climber, as well as a single parent of a nine-year-old child. She is also the first woman to work as a NYS Forest Ranger in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks, and the first openly Trans Forest Ranger in New York State. Robbi belevies it is important to explore the intersection of policing and the “law enforcement role” of a Ranger and how it affects different communities who may come to recreate in these spaces, namely the Black and Brown communities and the LGBTQIA community.

As social protest movements swept across the nation in the late 1960s, Indigenous activists embraced direct action as a strategy to address historical injustices that continued to negatively impact their communities. Frustrated by centuries of broken treaties and the steady erosion of their sovereignty, they sought to bring greater visibility and awareness to their cause and reform the relationship between their communities and the federal and state governments. While the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz, led by Mohawk Richard Oakes, and the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee stand as some of the most dramatic examples of Indigenous protest during the “Red Power Movement,” this history also overlaps with that of the Adirondacks. On May 13, 1974, a group of Traditionalist Mohawk families from Kahnawake and Akwesasne sought to reclaim some portion of their original homeland in the Adirondacks region. Rejecting an illegal treaty that ceded nine million acres of Haudenosaunee land to New York State in 1797, the Indigenous activists occupied a former girls camp at Moss Lake, near Old Forge. After three years of negotiations with New York state officials, the Mohawk community accepted six hundred acres of land to establish the community of Ganienkeh (land of the flint). In this program, Jessica Jeanne Shenandoah, a member of the Onondaga Nation, will share her experience of the Moss Lake occupation and join Neil Patterson Jr., a member of the Tuscarora Nation, in a conversation that explores Haudenosaunee efforts to protect their sovereignty, land, and culture.

Jeanne Shenandoah, Eel Clan, Onondaga Nation, was a traditional home birth midwife and herbalist for twenty-eight years. A mother and grandmother, she works at the Onondaga Nation Communications Office, and is “involved with spiritual and political activities of my people and following the traditional ways.” A member of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, she served as a representative of the Onondaga Nation in the Onondaga Lake Environmental Cleanup issue. Jeanne attended The Global Peace Initiative of Women Religious and Spiritual Leaders at the United Nations in Geneva Switzerland as a Haudenosaunee woman representing the spiritual tradition of Indigenous women. Jeanne received The Harriet Tubman Humanitarian Achievement Award in March 2005.

The Adirondack mountains are part of the traditional homeland of the Mohawk (Kaniekehaka). Lost through theft, illegitimate treaty agreements, and fraudulent land sales after the American Revolution, the Mohawk people have made efforts to reclaim some land, mostly adjacent to the current reservation, and affirm that the mountains are still legally part of the original territory. Nevertheless, Indigenous peoples have worked to maintain their cultural footprint in the region and create space to practice their traditions and lifeways in the mountains, forests, and waters of the Adirondacks. Through communal initiatives and strategic partnerships with museums and historical preservation organizations, conservation nonprofits and land trusts, and educational institutions, Haudenosaunee communities continue to make valuable contributions to the park’s environmental and cultural heritage. In this program, Lorna Mae Thomas, Dave Fadden, and Neil Patterson will discuss their relationship to the Adirondacks and their efforts to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into the preservation of the Adirondack Park, now and for future generations.

Neil Patterson Jr. is Assistant Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, at SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry. His work has been to celebrate, restore, and build relationships between indigenous communities and their aboriginal territory. He believes that the pragmatic way in which indigenous people have co-evolved within their landscapes provides the most sublime template for re-imagining and creating sustainable food, material, and energy systems.

David Fadden is an artist, storyteller, and writer with strong ties to both Akwesasne and Onchiota. His subjects range from traditional Haudenosaunee teachings to intimate and inspired portrayals of community members. Fadden was recently invited to reimagine a living wetland exhibit at The Wild Center (Tupper Lake, NY) from a Haudenosaunee perspective. His work can be seen at the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center in Onchiota, a family-run facility founded in 1954 by his grandparents. Today, he continues the work to break down stereotypes and advance accurate understandings of Mohawk and Haudenosaunee culture.

The voices of women are often silent in the vast history of the Adirondacks, but women have always lived here and considered it their home. Beginning with Indigenous women that inhabited the Adirondacks for countless generations prior to colonization to enslaved and free women that settled the region and ran households, farms, and social movements, women were involved in shaping the Adirondack environment and communities. This session will examine the lives of several women from the 1700s to the 2000s, the natural and social obstacles they faced, and the meanings and inspirations they found in the Adirondack wilderness. Recovering their experiences and hearing their voices enriches the collective landscape.

Sandra Weber is an independent researcher and writer specializing in Adirondack History and Women’s History. For more than 30 years, she has been researching, portraying, and writing about women and their relationships with the Adirondack landscape. Breaking Trail: Remarkable Women of the Adirondacks, which she co-authored with Peggy Lynn in 2004, profiled the lives of 25 women. Several of Sandra’s other books, such as Mount Marcy, convey a “sense of place” by exploring the human and natural history of a specific site in microscopic detail. More recently, Sandra has studied the woman suffrage movement and the importance of commemoration. She wrote The Woman Suffrage Statue (McFarland, 2016) and edited The Champlain Valley Suffrage Centennial Auto Tour (2021).

For nearly two centuries, the remote forestlands and high mountain peaks of the Adirondacks have provided opportunities for middle-class recreation, wilderness adventure, and scientific research. At the same time, those natural characteristics led state and federal authorities to look toward the North Country as a convenient location for a network of prisons. Towns and villages across the Adirondacks have since come to rely on prisons as a source of economic development, employment, and state funding. The Park’s recreational infrastructure is equally tied into the region’s prison system, as the poorly paid labor of incarcerated workers supports otherwise unaffordable conservation projects. In this sense, Adirondack wilderness has been shaped by the unfortunate trend towards mass incarceration.

Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr. is assistant professor in the Department of History at Queensborough Community College, City University of New York, and visiting instructor of Sustainability Studies in the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. His research investigates the intersectional histories of environment, race, and incarceration in the U.S. Hall’s first book, A Prison in the Woods: Environment and Incarceration in New York’s North Country, was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2020.

Anna Givens is a senior at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY, majoring in Anthropology and Russian. During her time as a student, she has conducted extensive research on incarceration, including the criminalization of mental health patients at a local hospital and the ways in which federal prison contractors lobby the government. Recently, she completed an honors thesis in anthropology exploring prison siting in the Lake Placid area.

In 1846, communities and organizers from the Hudson River Valley mounted the first voting rights protection efforts for African Americans by purchasing land in the Adirondack Mountains and founding a number of free Black hamlets or Black suffrage communities. The movement was the backbone of what would become the voting rights efforts and Underground Railroad. The Black Suffrage Settlement movement and leaders would directly influence radical resistance efforts like John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Because suffrage was tied to land ownership, preserving this history has become an important part of conservation efforts in the Hudson Valley. Aaron Mair will bring these stories and connections to life in this presentation and in calling for a permanent exhibit in the North Country to recover and mark this chapter in New York and American history.

Aaron Mair is a 30-year wilderness expert and environmental justice pioneer, and advisor to White House’s Commission for Environmental Quality for the Clinton and Obama administrations. Mair was the first African American president of the Sierra Club, and is well-known for his work in environmental justice. In this talk, he will discuss the first voting rights protection efforts for African Americans.