The Adirondack Issue 2019
Hiker Adam Valastro Aims to Break 46er Speed Record; Unplugged and Blissed Out at Rustic Timberlock; Seagle Music Colony Is Opera Boot Camp; Stargazing at the Adirondack Sky Center & Observatory
Obituary: Lewis Wetzel
Lewis Kings Wetzel, 88, passed away on Friday, July 26, 2019. Lew was born in Detroit, Mich., the only child of Eleanor Nixon Wetzel and Lewis Malcolm Wetzel. Lew was a proud graduate of Antioch College in Ohio, where he received his mechanical engineering degree. Lew fell in love with Vermont and Lake Champlain when…
Wedding Announcement: Nicholas Pierce and Julia Luckett Cox
Dan Cox and Casey Blanchard of Shelburne are pleased to announce the recent marriage of their daughter, Julia Luckett Cox, to Nicholas Pierce, son of Bridget Pierce and the late Donald Pierce of Hoosick Falls, N.Y., on June 22, 2019. The ceremony and subsequent celebration were held in South Hero, Vt. Sara Kassel of Shelburne…
Obituary: Dr. Kimberly Thabault, 1973-2019
A new bright star shines above; Dr. Kim Thabault left us on June 21, 2019, in her home in Costa Rica after her 19-month courageous battle with brain cancer. Fierce as Kim was, this foe was not to be beaten. But she did not surrender easily; she remained her normal feisty, passionate, argumentative self. Just…
Vermonter Josh Melrod Wins Best Director at Italian Film Fest
Here’s a life tip: If you ever successfully submit your cool indie flick to an Italian film festival, especially if said film fest occurs on a spectacular island in an ancient castle, go to the damn festival. That’s a lesson Barnard filmmaker Josh Melrod recently learned the hard way. Melrod is the director of Major…
Musical Oasis the Waterhole Rocks Saranac Lake
Tucked in the heart of the Adirondacks, idyllic Saranac Lake, N.Y., has all of the necessities and amenities a small town could need. But, given its small population of approximately 5,000, there’s pretty much only one of everything. In 2015, the town briefly lost its only live music venue, the Waterhole. The bar and nightclub…
Peak Parking: Crowded Lots and Trails Prompt Restrictions Along Route 73
Outdoors enthusiasts preparing to hike through old hemlock forest at Giant Mountain or dip their toes in the crystal waters of Chapel Pond have a new sight to contemplate along this stretch of Route 73 in the Adirondack High Peaks region: “No Parking” signs. They are posted every 200 feet along a four-mile stretch from…
Hackie: Pumpkin’s Pouting
Rosemary Ducharme was a fireplug of a woman: short, stocky and muscular. She was sitting next to me in my taxi as we drove to her home in Richford after the completion of some arthritis-related medical tests in Burlington. Richford sits in the northeast corner of Franklin County, just a stone’s throw from the Canadian…
Quick Lit Book Review: ‘The Bobcat,’ by Katherine Forbes Riley
In today’s crowded literary marketplace, writers are often exhorted to make sure their novel has a “hook” — an attention-grabbing premise that translates easily to a screenplay logline. So it’s oddly refreshing to encounter a hookless book that develops at its own stubborn pace and sucks you in anyway. The cover copy of The Bobcat,…
Holcombe Short on Evidence for Voucher Attack
Former education secretary Rebecca Holcombe is having a hard time backing up her biggest attack line against Republican Gov. Phil Scott. In her July 16 announcement that she’s running for governor, she repeatedly accused Scott of advocating for a statewide school voucher program. “Voucher” is a hot-button word, evoking Republican efforts nationwide to shift public…
Sean Hutton, ‘The Legend of April Country’
(Self-released, CD, digital download) Not to get too “Twilight Zone” on you, but I think about the apocalypse and music collections all the time. My mind conjures all these images of little bunker bands keeping rock and roll or jazz or hip-hop alive while all the Mad Max shit goes down outside. (My “Weird Al”…
Mildred Beltré Considers Intersection of Art and Politics
During a talk for her 2014 show “Dream Works” at the BCA Center in Burlington, artist and University of Vermont associate professor Mildred Beltré told the audience that a small cross-stitch displayed on the gallery wall was a last-minute addition to the show. It was also the first time she’d ever done cross-stitch. Since then,…
Cycling the Warren County Bikeway Is a Journey Through Adirondack History
Here was my challenge: to scout out a safe and enjoyable family cycling trip in the Adirondacks that my daughter, 9, and son, 7, could handle. That wasn’t as simple as it sounds. The Adirondack Park and its environs offer hundreds of miles of designated, on-road cycling routes and off-road mountain bike trails. But while…
Eat This Week, July 24 to 30, 2019: Blueberries for All
The Craftsbury Farmers Market will go blue on Saturday, July 27, when vendors showcase specialty items timed for blueberry season. The fourth annual Vermont Blueberry Festival on Craftsbury Common features berry eats including blueberry bagels, blueberry tamales, blueberry herbal vinegar and blueberry ice cream — plus music, games and a blueberry pie contest.
Timber? Court Bars Tree Cutting for Snowmobile Trail in ‘Forever Wild’ Adirondack Park
How much must a tree grow before it counts as timber? According to a New York State appellate court, not much at all. That answer could have a profound effect on the future of the Adirondack Park. In a decision handed down July 3, the court ruled that construction of a 27-mile snowmobile trail —…
I Want Our Two Roommates to Get Their Own Place
Hey Rev, This one’s a doozy. My fiancé and I helped a friend who has no family move up here from the South. We had planned on moving into a bigger apartment together. However, my fiancé’s sister had to move in, so now it’s four people in a one-bedroom apartment. My male roommate recently found…
Raw Deff x Yung Breeze, ‘Cognac Cousins’
(Street Religion, digital download) Raw Deff and Yung Breeze are members of the Street Religion crew, a diverse band of hip-hop artists from southern Vermont and New Hampshire who have been expanding their reach and fan base in recent years. The duo’s debut, Cognac Cousins, is rock-solid work, showcasing two standout talents at the absolute…
Hiker Adam Valastro Aims to Break 46er Speed Record
The most determined hiker might take years — even decades — to climb the highest 46 peaks in the Adirondacks, the lowest of which measures 3,820 feet. Adam Valastro aims to do it in less than four days. The Lake George, N.Y., resident wants to set a new speed record when he sets out September 1…
A Coroner Leaves No Corpse Behind — and That’s Stirring Up Problems
With the right equipment, it is not especially difficult to load a corpse into a Chevy Tahoe, as Frank Whitelaw gladly demonstrated in a busy mall parking lot in Plattsburgh, N.Y., this month. He has outfitted his SUV with a wheeled metal gurney that slides behind the driver’s seat. “We get a running start and…
Letters to the Editor (7/24/19)
How Winooski Suffers [Re Feedback: “The Good Fighter Plane,” July 17; “Sound and Fury,” June 12]: Susan Manley’s response to Anya Hunter states that Hunter’s letter opposing the F-35s is a “classic example of NIMBY privilege.” She goes on to own that we (white people) have a history of “siting things we don’t like in…
Jesse Eisenberg Learns ‘The Art of Self-Defense’ in a Brilliant Dark Comedy
The funniest that my job reviewing Stuber got last week was watching the interviews its stars gave days before its dismal opening. Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista had been doing national press for months, but the early chat fests were different — full of praise for the project’s creators and talk about how crazy hilarious…
A ‘Wild Rose’ Has Thorns in a Musical Drama With a Star-Making Performance
What happens when a parent puts their dream first and their family second? Until recently, most of the films exploring that question were about fathers, perhaps because the idea of a mother not prioritizing her kids was too disturbing. Movie moms tend to be more like Marion (Julie Walters) in the UK drama Wild Rose,…
The Adirondack Issue — 2019
With over 6 million acres in which to play, New York’s Adirondack Park offers many ways to spend your free time. That is, unless you’re hiker Adam Valastro, whose sole goal is to scale the park’s 46 highest mountains in record time. Parking is scarce in the high peaks, so ditch the car and take…
Unplugged and Blissed Out at Timberlock, One of the Oldest Summer Resorts in the Adirondacks
I have a love/hate relationship with my smartphone. Oh, sure, my trusty iPhone XR is a grand and useful tool — basically a pocket-size computer with a badass camera that I use for everything from checking social media, news and weather to tracking my health, balancing my budget and, every once in a while, making…
Stargazing at the Adirondack Sky Center & Observatory
From the slab of rock atop Coney Mountain, just outside Tupper Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, there is a 360-degree view of the dark. Not a single prick of human-made light is visible on the horizon, beyond occasional headlights on the highway 500 feet below. The only light comes from stars. Tupper Lake is called…
Soundbites: Ben Fuller Wins Grand Point North Band Contest
Haters Gonna Hate, Unfortunately Don’t you love starting the week sipping an emotional cocktail of rage and righteous indignation? I sure do. On Monday morning, I woke up to a particularly upsetting email from Kevin Titterton, the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts’ director of marketing and communications. He passed along a story from Triad…
Owner Finds There’s No Green in Waterbury Sustainability Park
A Vermont endeavor billed as the nation’s first sustainability park is proving difficult to maintain. The GreenSpark Sustainability Park, which opened in a field along Route 100 in Waterbury Center in late 2017, is struggling to convince people to pay $12 to visit its quirky collection of green technologies. The park had fewer than 100…
Seagle Music Colony Is Opera Boot Camp
Driving up to the main rehearsal space of the Seagle Music Colony in Schroon Lake, N.Y., one of the most elite voice academies in the country, is a concert unto itself. When the building’s windows are splayed open, the deep, rumbling baritones and high soprano warbles of 32 of the country’s best up-and-coming opera singers…
How to Recognize the Historical Importance of Your Stuff
The current trend for downsizing and decluttering is missing a vital element, according to Vermont authors Elizabeth Dow and Lucinda Cockrell. “Yes, we all have too much stuff, and yes, we need to get rid of it, but not at the expense of our heritage and personal history,” Cockrell said in an interview. She and…
The Hub on the Hill Supports a Farming Community in Essex, N.Y.
Summertime is nonstop for farmers. Whether they’re planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, feeding animals, fixing fences or making hay, it’s prime time, and the days are long and full. Eking out every productive moment is essential in a season that only lasts a few months. But the reality of farming is that it takes more than…
Westport’s Dogwood Bread Keeps Locals and Visitors Fed
Keri Fair was working as a data analyst in Loudoun County, Va., a dozen years ago when she called the owner of a bakery in Wadhams, N.Y., to ask if he liked his bread oven. “Yes, I do like it,” Phil Merrick answered. “Would you like to buy it?” Fair was a seasonal customer at…
Freak Folk Bier Experiments With Mixed-Culture Fermentation
Two local brewers are teaming up to make beer that’s brewed with wild yeasts and bacteria not found in more standard brews. The project, called Freak Folk Bier, will launch on August 9 with a bottle-release party at 703 Pine Street in Burlington, site of Queen City Brewery. Lillian MacNamara, Queen City’s head brewer, and…
Old North End Farmers Market Sets Up Intergenerational Program
The Old North End Farmers Market has a new booth, and it’s staffed by some of the market’s youngest — and oldest — vendors. The Ethan Allen Residence’s Intergenerational Farmers Market program is a collaboration of residents and local children from the Boys & Girls Club of Burlington, with help from the Vermont Community Garden…
