Late October and the summer season has ended. Last week Donald and I were in the Adirondacks to close our camp for the winter. The loons had not yet flown south but most seasonal human residents had. Deer hunting with rifles started in northern New York on October 25, so roadside campsites were occupied by hunters, many of whom, like the loons, return to the same location year after year. The deer wisely cluster for protection around the few areas with houses and cottages. One of the top items on my bucket list is to spend an entire year at Raquette Lake, to watch ice form in the early winter and break up in the spring, to enjoy the snow that I haven’t seen in Sundown for the past couple of years. I am a northerner with no desire to move south as so many of my retired friends have done.

I was introduced to the Adirondacks at a young age. When my parents moved to Wappingers Falls from New Mexico in the early 1960s, they were looking for mountains like those where they had hiked and camped in New Mexico. Their search led them north of the Catskills to the Adirondacks.

We camped on Forked Lake for a few years when my brother and I were young. The campsites were only accessible by water so we canoed with our camping equipment, two adults, two kids, and a dog. (I wonder if my parents made more than one trip? I can’t imagine fitting all of our bodies and gear into one canoe.) Initially I was terrified of being on the water – we did not camp near lakes in New Mexico. But children are adaptable. I managed to overcome my fear and paddled a canoe for the first time when I was six or seven. Thus began my Adirondack life.

Years later, my first job was as a server at a girls’ camp on the lake; I paddled a canoe to and from work each day. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In the mid-sixties my parents bought property on Raquette Lake, not far from the Forked Lake campground. I remember our first visit to the land with Jim Bird, the man who sold it to my parents. He drove us down the lake in an old, wooden Chris-Craft motorboat. I dangled my fingers in the water and watched rainbows created by the wake.

The land, like the sparkling lake, was magical to my young imagination, with water lilies, hemlock and balsam fir trees, and tiny brown toads. My brother and I collected toads while my parents talked business.

For the first couple of years, we camped on the lot. I recall one summer when it rained seemingly endlessly; my mother complained of water dripping from the tarp down her neck as she cooked our meals. My brother and I were swollen and bloody from scabby black fly bites. That summer inspired the decision to build our cabin.

My parents bought the land back when very few people vacationed in the Adirondacks and lakefront property was affordable. Plus, my father was handy; he had the shell built and constructed the rest himself. My husband, a carpenter, has continued my father’s tradition, a skill that enables us to support a second home.

Our property is located in an area once owned by Andrew Carnegie; there was one main lodge with a cluster of smaller guest cabins that have been renovated into summer homes. Unfortunately, when smaller camps go on the market they are torn down and replaced by large homes that are quite different from those built in my parents’ time. In fact, a monstrous five-million dollar house is going up quite near

our humble cabin. I’m sure if we sold our place the buyers would tear it down in a flash.

When I was in elementary school my parents invited two other young families, also recently located to New York state, to join us for our vacations. This decision expanded the group of kids from my brother and me to nine of us – all packed into a small cabin with six parents and two dogs. Our summers at the lake were idyllic. We hiked and swam, waterskied and canoed. When it rained, we read books together. One especially rainy year my mother made patterns for Winnie-the-Pooh characters and we sewed stuffed animals of our favorites. I still have my Eeyore and my brother’s Heffalump. Evenings were spent playing cards, placing bets with M&Ms. We did not get a telephone until the 1970s or ‘80s, and then it was a party line. We still have no television.

My moods are greatly affected by my environment, and my attitude toward environment is affected by many factors, including personal history. I have fond memories of living in Saugerties partly because the twenty years we lived there were good for us. Donald and I were young and our parents were alive and healthy. When we left I grieved, not only for the loss of a beloved home but also the loss of our history, of time and place.

My parents believed in moving forward, in new beginnings. They lived in eleven different houses during my lifetime. My youth was split between “home,” where I attended school, and vacations in the Adirondacks. Our Adirondack cabin was the only constant, so it’s no wonder my brother and I spend so much time there. Familiarity can be, as my parents felt, confining, but to me, it is comforting, grounding.

hudsonvalleywomenswritinggroup.com