The Land Nobody Knows

In Adirondack Cabin Country, by Paul Schaefer, edited by Noel Riedinger-Johnson. (Syracuse University Press, 1989; © Paul Schaefer). Reproduced with permission from the publisher.

A group of us were in the Adirondack Room one night in 1972. The Adirondack documentary film Of Rivers and Men was completed. It had done its job: after Governor Nelson Rockefeller and his successor Governor Hugh Carey had seen it at the capitol, historic legislation creating a Wild, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers System had been signed, which protected 1,200 miles of rivers in the Adirondack Park. We were trying to decide what we should do next.

The people at the meeting offered all kinds of suggestions. We read the first paragraph in the two volume History of the Adirondacks, which was published in 1921 when the park was somewhat smaller than at present. A portion of the paragraph read: "The Adirondacks are a group of mountains in northeastern New York... There are about one hundred peaks ranging 1,200 feet to 5,000 feet in height." On the wall was the 12-foot-high scaled relief map of the Adirondacks made from the U.S. Geological Survey maps. On that map there were over two thousand mountains! We all admitted that we—like the author of the earlier book—knew very little about these mountains.

We decided that night to make a 16-mm film entitled The Adirondack-The Land Nobody Knows. We formed the Couch-sa-chra-ga Association to produce the film.

We invited two excellent cinematographers, Walter Haas and Edwin Niedhammer, to our first meeting. They agreed to photograph and to do anything else they could to produce the film. Others offered to pack equipment and be of help in anyway possible. All volunteered their services.

We decided to include footage of Cabin Country and our wilderness hunting camp. Ed and Walt filmed our teamster hauling in our tents and equipment to our favored part of the Siamese Ponds Wilderness. Around the table that night our hunters admitted that they had seen not more than four of the sixty-seven lakes in this one wilderness, although they had hunted the region for decades. There are fifteen such wilderness areas, some much larger than this one. Walt and Ed got a good idea that night of how little is really known about much of the park.

For more than six years, Walt, Ed, and I crisscrossed the park with cameras and tripods. We spent every weekend year round and most of our vacations there. Frequently, we would travel four hundred miles on a two-day trip to find that most people we talked to knew very little about the park except for the particular section they lived in or favored. We climbed mountains, slept in the wilderness, and photographed rampaging rivers, great forests, and wildlife. Walt's and Ed's skills, dedication, and determination showed in the excellent images they captured on film. Some of our hunters served as packers and guides. Many times, other skilled cinematographers and naturalists living in the park assisted us in getting specific footage needed to produce a well-balanced film.

The script for the film was written by Noel Riedinger-Johnson. She spent a year working full time to edit the five miles of film that the men in the field shot. She was helped extensively by Anne Wait, Carolyn Hatch, and Libby Smith.

She also designed the graphics and arranged for Betsy Blades-Zeller to compose the film's original music score. All postproduction and technical aspects of the film were carried out under her direction. Jack O'Field served as technical consultant.

Members of our new association, led by Winifred LaRose of Lake George, sent out thousands of letters to raise the addi-New York State Council on the Arts, the Association for the New York State Council on the Arts, the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, the American Conservation As-sociation, and the New York State Conservation Council. American Motors lent us a Jeep, and Dick Weber contributed thousands of dollars worth of helicopter time to enable Ed to get dynamic aerial shots.

As the film gradually took shape under the skillful direction of Noel, the question of a first showing came up in late 1979. We were asked to premiere the film at the Egg in the Empire State Mall in Albany. Mayor Erastus Corning, Environmental Conservation Commissioner Robert Flacke, and Transportation Commissioner William Hennessy were to be the hosts. More than five hundred individuals from across the nation attended the opening on February 9, 1980.

We were not prepared for the fine reception the film re-ceived. The Washington-based Council on International Nontheatrical Events awarded the film its Cine Eagle and offered to enter it in film festivals here and abroad. The film received high awards throughout the world in such places as Los Angeles, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Malta, and New Zealand.

It was also selected as one of the top six amateur films produced in the United States in 1980. In New York State fifty-two educational services in all upstate counties, ten regional library systems, and eleven universities purchased copies of it for their libraries. Many state agencies and innumerable organizations did likewise. Recently, the film was converted to video tape, and more than a hundred videos have been sold.

One of the most significant reviews came from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. M. John Loeffer of Colorado had this to say in a statement that went to five thousand film centers:

The Adirondack Mountains, the southernmost tip of the Canadian Shield, are depicted in this film as a constitutionally protected area of upper New York State. The narration and filmingq meaningfully reveal the gradual evolution of landscape as the endogenic and exogenic energies wind, water, ice and gravity mold the land of hard crystalline bedrock. The central unit of the mountains is the watershed for New York State. The water harvest is excellently depicted as it is influenced by the entire blend of the biosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere. The human incursion of the lumberjack and the ravages of fire affected the fragile ecological balance and led to management procedures. These management efforts assure a well balanced pragmatic use of the land for lumber and water power, as well as the myriad of recreational activities in proximity to intense population concentrations. Set aside by law, Adirondack State Park is an escape from the mechanistic civilization and provides a superb glimpse of the past for future genera-tions. The film has excellent chronology and design with a well and timely phased narration. It has good information and excellent photography. Viewing this film is a good learning experience for the very young to the old.