Documents the decline in Adirondack fishing in the '30s. The author offers a nostalgic view of the Adirondack wilderness 50 years ago, capturing the moods of forest, stream and lake. Classic characters - Big Smith, the hermit of Boiling Pond, Noah Rondeau and others - are brought to life.

Ramblings of a Charmed Circle Flyfisher retraces over forty years of fly fishing the Catskill mountains first inspired by a two-part magazine article published in the spring of 1969. Cecil E. Heacoxs articles entitled Charmed Circle of the Catskills appeared in the March and April issues of Outdoor Life. Heacox wrote about several legendary Catskill Mountain trout streams informing the reader why they were charmed. Ostapczuk has been retracing Heacoxs journey ever since, taking his readers along on the journey.

The East's greatest wilderness, the Adirondack region of New York State, shares its history and lore with Native Americans, early settlers, artists, writers, sportsmen, professors, and others. The Adirondacks are known to outdoor lovers, skiers, and year-round visitors for their forty-six high peaks, one-hundred-mile canoe route, one-hundred-thirty-three-mile Northville-to-Lake Placid Trail, thirty thousand miles of mountain streams, and three thousand lakes. The Adirondacks: 1830-1930, tells how the region was first "discovered," explored, and preserved as the six-million-acre Adirondack Park, the largest park in the contiguous United States, a patchwork of public and private lands governed by one of the largest regional zoning plans in the country. With more than two hundred stunning photographs and fascinating tales of the region, it traces the development of the hamlets, the great camps, the guides, and the furniture and tanning businesses.

Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks is the lively and well documented story of the growth of the lake side community made famous by the incident that inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. The rich history of the lake unfolds with stories of its early residents, hunters, and guides—Jim Higby, Billy Dutton, Henry Covey, and Bill Dartin—the late 1870s, of the lake's ownership by William Seward Webb, of the construction of the first private camp—Club Camp—in 1878, and the coming of hotels and resorts beginning in 1880 with the construction of Camp Crag. From a time when a telephone number was a simple "8F6" and the "pickle boat" brought supplies to camp, to more recent stories of exuberant waterskiing and motorboat regattas, the book includes a detailed history and descriptions of the camps and resorts on the lake, persons and celebrities who made the lake their year-round or seasonal home—including actress Minnie Maddern Fiske and artist David Milne—natural disasters and political events, recreation, and the work of the Big Moose Property Owners Association. This is the story of Big Moose Lake brought to life by more than 275 family photographs, antique postcards, and previously unpublished memoirs, oral histories, diary entries, and the personal correspondence of the men and women who settled the area and of those who call it home.

From National Book Award–winner Michael J. Arlen and screenwriter Alice Arlen, here is the fascinating, adventurous life of Alicia Patterson, who became, at age thirty-four, one of the youngest and most successful newspaper publishers in America when she founded Newsday. With The Huntress, the Arlens give us a revealing picture of the lifestyle and traditions of the Patterson-Medill publishingdynasty—one of the country’s most powerful and influential newspaper families—but also Alicia’s rebellious early years and her dominating father, Joseph Patterson. Founder and editor of the New York Daily News, Patterson was a complicated and glamorous figure who in his youth had reported on Pancho Villa in Mexico and had outraged his conservative Chicago family by briefly espousing socialism. Not once but twice, first at age twenty, Alicia agreed to marry men her father chose, despite having her own more interesting suitors. He encouraged her to do the difficult training required for an aviation transport license; in 1934 she became only the tenth woman in America to receive one. Patterson brought her along to London to meet with Lord Beaverbrook, to Rome to meet Mussolini, and to Moscow in 1937, at the time of Stalin’s “show trials,” where a young George Kennan took her under his wing. Alicia caught the journalism bug writing for Liberty magazine, an offshoot of the Daily News. A trip to French Indochina highlighted her hunting skills and made the sultan of Johor an ardent admirer; another trip would involve India,the dangerous sport of pigsticking, several maharajas, and a tiger hunt. A third marriage, to Harry Guggenheim, blew hot and cold but it did last; it was with him that she started Newsday in a former car dealership on Long Island. Governor Adlai E. Stevenson, two-time Democratic candidate for president, would be one of her last admirers. With access to family archives of journals and letters, Michael and Alice Arlen have written an astonishing portrait of a maverick newspaperwoman and an intrepid adventurer, told with humor, compassion, and a profound understanding of a time and place. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout)

Author and naturalist Christopher Angus profiles for the first time the adventurous life of Clarence Petty, one of the great pioneer conservationists of the Adirondack Mountain region of New York State. Raised in the heart of the Adirondack wilderness between Tupper and Saranac Lakes, Petty overcame his humble beginnings and pursued a variety of careers as wilderness guide, forester, Civilian Conservation Corps camp director, World War II pilot, district ranger, and aerial forest-fire fighter—ultimately leaving his indelible mark as a lifelong advocate for the protection of the wilderness. The story of Petty's life reads like a Horatio Alger novel. His father moved to the mountains in the 1880s to work as a guide. His mother was a cook for one of the popular sportsmen's hotels in the area. Young Clarence and his brothers enjoyed the kind of childhood freedom and independence that today's youngsters can only dream about. Their father's sense of self-reliance and their mother's drive to educate her sons led all three to attend college. Clarence followed a path of service to the American landscape. His influence on state policy regarding the Adirondack Park and especially its millions of acres of wilderness has been profound. His life story provides a window into the politics of conservation in the Adirondack region from the early days of the twentieth century to the present.

Traces the spread of acid rain around the world and examines the causes and effects of acid precipitation.