A five-million acre, mountainous region in northeastern New York, bounded on the north by the Canadian border, on the east by Lake Champlain, on the south by the Mohawk River Valley, and on the west by the Saint Lawrence and Black River Valleys. The Adirondack Mountains constitute part of the Canadian Shield and are not, as popularly perceived, a part of the Appalachian Mountains. About half of the 5,177 square miles is a state forest preserve; much of the area has been designated a state park since 1892, thus limiting development. To many New Yorkers, the region is simply referred to as the “North Country.”
The term “Adirondack” is a lexicographer’s nightmare. Authorities offer a variety of translations. It is said to be (1) Iroquois for “They of the Great Rock,” referring to a tribe of Indians who once lived along the Saint Lawrence River; (2) a Mohawk generic name for the French and the English; or (3) Mohawk for “tree-eaters,” the derisive term that Mohawks, or Iroquois as the French called them, used to describe their enemy, the Algonquins. Before European contact, both tribes vied for control of the region because its forests and numerous lakes and streams provided a good source for meat and furs. Trails crisscrossed the region linking its numerous lakes and also to the Saint Lawrence, but there is litde evidence of any Native American permanent settlements beyond seasonal camps.
European contact is generally dated from 1609, when the French explorer Samuel de Champlain accompanied an Algonquin war party on its way to attack an Iroquois village on what eventually became known as Lake George. Later in the same century, French and Dutch trappers from Montreal and Albany forayed into the region, but they did not establish permanent communities.
After the American Revolution, however, Vermonters, in particular, and other New Englanders, many of whom received land as payment for their military service, settled around the edges of the Adirondacks. Shortly thereafter, toward the end of the 18th century, logging in the eastern Adirondack region, along the headwaters of the Hudson River, stimulated settlement and development.
The southern Adirondack region would experience growth from a different source. By the late 1810s, tourists from New York City and Boston discovered the recreational value of the Adirondacks. The mineral waters found near Saratoga Springs drew crowds desiring to bathe in and drink the radioactive mineral waters, believing that the natural springs offered cures for numerous ailments. Equally alluring were fishing and hunting within the Adirondack Mountains. The pursuit of health and outdoor recreation provided the bases for a tourist industry that shaped much of the development and settlement patterns in the southern Adirondacks. By the 1840s and 1850s, hotels and rustic “camps” had sprung up throughout the southern Adirondack region. The growth mushroomed so quickly that shortly after the Civil War conservationists banded together in efforts to protect the tourist industry from logging interests that were encroaching from the northern Adirondacks. The heyday of tourism spanned more than three decades, from 1875 to 1910. In 1900, for example, a quarter of a million people visited the Adirondacks in the summer months alone. Many of these either rented camps, stayed in luxurious hotels, or vacationed in their own camp.
In the late 1870s, the area around Saranac Lake began to be touted for its healthy air. Medical doctors recommended extended stays in the region for the treatment of tuberculosis and other lung diseases. Numerous sanatoriums were constructed around the village, drawing thousands of famous and obscure patients, all seeking to breathe the curing Adirondack air.
Out of the tourist industry developed a folk tradition centering on the exploits and heroism of the Adirondack guide. The earliest guides, such as Sabael (ca. 1749–1855) or Mitchell Sabattis (1801–1906) were Abenakis. Local lore and some ethnographic research attributes Native Americans living in the region with producing both the Adirondack guide canoe and the Adirondack packbasket, two important items of Adirondack material culture that are rooted in Abenaki tradition. Eventually, Native American guides were replaced by White guides, some of whom were originally loggers or trappers. Other guides claimed to lead the life of outdoor hermits who spent their entire lives exploring the peaks and rivers of the region. Familiarity with the backwoods country allowed the guides to lead city tourists deep into the Adirondack forests on camping, hunting, mountain climbing, and fishing trips. The 19th-century Romantic impulse of educated city folk to touch the primordial world was adequately served by these guides. In some cases, these stalwart outdoorsman took on the additional responsibility of camping throughout the winter in a tent or an isolated camp helping a tubercular-ridden invalid strengthen his or her lungs and physical stamina, hoping to overcome the dreaded disease.
Popular narratives of the day described how these mountainmen-guides entertained their guests with oudandish tales about their marksmanship and hunting skills. Folk tradition continues to keep alive the memory of Native American and White guides, including among the latter the famous guide Mart Moody (1833–1910). Tales about his outdoor skills and eccentricities are shared among visitors and natives, and they have found their way into local literature, becoming part of the regional lore. The oral traditions about the older guides have become part of the narrative repertory of contemporary guides, and, in some instances, the older tales are even retold in the first person by the present generation of guides.
Despite the surge in tourism and health industries in the second half of 19th century, the interior of the Adirondacks remained largely unexplored. Accurate maps of the whole region were not available until the 1890s. It remained for the Gilded Age a wilderness, a place of mystery that offered potential adventures in uncharted regions. While popular urban icons of the age such as Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell spent their time at the racetrack and spas in Saratoga, only a few miles away an area lay untouched that offered the more adventurous the thrill of visiting an uncharted wilderness. The northern and western borderlands of the Adirondacks are marked with a very different history of settlement and development. Logging stimulated movement into the region. Vast tracts of pine and hardwood had attracted Canadian lumber interests as eady as the mid-18th century when French Canadian loggers harvested the forests along the northwestern fringes of the Adirondacks and floated logs north to the Saint Lawrence River and Montreal. The work was handlabor intensive, but the promise of a job lured many French Canadian lumbermen and lumberjacks to settle along with their families in the northern and western edges of the Adirondack region. As the industry moved deeper into the mountains in search of more timber, the workers and their families followed, gradually establishing small communities along the rivers and edges of the many lakes. There they cut white pine and either sawed it into timber to be transported south on railroad spurs or floated the logs north to the Saint Lawrence, where they became part of the Canadian market. Despite the efforts of conservationists to block logging throughout the Adirondacks, intensive commercial logging swept across the region. By the early 20th century, logging and several major forest fires had depleted the virgin forests, but many of the workers stayed behind, working in much smaller logging operations that harvested a second growth.
Small communities scattered throughout the region developed chiefly in response to logging, although a few sprung up where there were small-scale iron- or lead-mining interests. The Lake Placid-Lake George-Lake Saranac region developed a skiing industry and has hosted the Winter Olympics on two occasions. Along the western foothills of the Adirondacks, dairy farming emerged as the major industry. In some parts of the region, potato farming, fruit growing and other small cash crop farming developed. The central region, dotted by very small communities, continues for the most part to cater to tourists. Folklore for the entire Adirondack region has never been comprehensively and systematically collected, although independent researchers have published a moderate range of material about specific counties or occupations in the Adirondacks. These studies suggest that a rich lode of folk traditions might be found in the region. Native American material is sparsely represented in any collections and appears most frequently in older, uncritical publications. Hoping to appeal to the interests of tourists, some published accounts of local history contain examples of folk speech, proverbs, or tales about eccentric characters and bizarre occurrences. Personal narratives about roughing it in the woods appear alongside traditional tall tales describing the struggles to survive the onslaught of hordes of black flies and voracious mosquitoes or accounts of the superhuman skills of hunters. Along the eastern Adirondacks that border Lake Champlain, 19th-century eyewitness reports, publicized by local tourist interests, provide a historical setting for Lake Champlain monster sightings, a tradition that continues to intrigue tourists and local citizens. Other popularizers have sought to create belief in a Bigfoot-like creature living in the remote recesses of the Adirondacks.
Ethnic humor about the perceived idiosyncracies of French Canadians are commonly told by Adirondack folk. “Canucks” worked in the woods, and their difficulties with the language and the local customs of the dominant Anglo American culture provided situations for local humor and dialect tales. Even in the late 20th century, humor about the French Canadian shoppers and their efforts to avoid paying duty on items purchased in the States constitutes a viable theme in Adirondack and border humor. The richest body of lore yet tapped in the Adirondacks is from the region’s robust logging traditions. The oral recollections of the modern loggers and of the older native population in general are rich in both grass-roots history and folklore of logging. Personal-experience tales mix with traditional tall-tale motifs; the old lifestyles in the logging camps are recalled with nostalgia. Idioms of folk speech still spice the conversations of the men who spent much of their early life working in the bush and living in the camps. With ease, they can recall how, in the evenings, as the exhausted loggers gathered in the “doghouse” (the center of the bunkhouse), the loaders, road hogs, teamsters, and jacks pushed aside their “turkeys” (tightly rolled bundles of clothes) and sat down on “deacon’s benches” to swap lies.
Especially prized are tales about the prodigious strength and extraordinary skills of lumberjacks, about marvelous rescues from the dangers of logging, and about accidental injury and death. In cycles of stories, eccentric crew foremen and backwoods strongmen mature into local villains and heroes. Yarns are woven about the dictatorial policies of cooks who demanded total obedience to the unwritten codes of bunkhouse decorum. Many narratives recount practical jokes that initiated unwitting greenhorns into the world of the lumberman or that undermined the authority of a tyrannical foreman. Barroom brawls, which are often the result of grudges that fester in the logging camps or on the job, become sagas peppered with violence and brutality. In addition to swapping stories, the loggers maintained a rich singing tradition. Ballads such as “The Saranac River” or “Blue Mountain Lake” chronicle the work experiences of local lumbermen. “Tebo” tells howTebo died while breaking a log jam.
But these songs appear to be no more or less popular than such migratory lumber songs as the sentimental “Jam on Gerry’s Rock” or “Lumberman’s Alphabet.” Many of the logging songs collected in the Adirondacks are localized versions of songs that can be found throughout the United States and Canada, wherever the axes of the lumbermen rang through the forests. Collectors in this century also have found a rich tradition of Anglo, Anglo Irish, and French Canadian ballads existing alongside these American logging ballads. Efforts at revitalizing or maintaining some of the Adirondack folklife traditions seek to tap tourist dollars and to educate local people and visitors about Adirondack life. Woodcrafts, ranging from whittling pine chains, to weaving baskets that recapture traditional Native American patterns, to producing Adirondack chairs and canoes, provide glimpses of traditions that a few years ago could be found only in museums. Oral traditions, especially folksongs, are performed at folk festivals held during the summer and fall months throughout the Adirondacks. Several museums featuring examples of Adirondack folklife, including both arts and crafts, are open to the public. These public events and displays provide new audiences for the traditions of the Adirondacks.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar