Nov. 26, 1898.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
431 
The Changed Adirondacks. 
Our Northern Lakes and Mountains. 
The Adirondack Mountains of northeastern New York 
afford a striking evidence of the. changes which ad- 
vancing civilization has wrought along our Eastern sea- 
board. There can be seen the development, almost with- 
in a decade, of a wilderness into a great summer and 
autumn resort, dotted with luxurious modern hotels, and 
traversed by stage routes and railways. 
The sportsman, whether he be hunter or fisherman, 
familiar with even a portion of the Adirondack Moun- 
tains, more poetically termed the North Woods, fifteen 
or twenty years ago. and who now revisits the scenes 
of his youth, will find such visit a dream dispelled, for 
his is the memory of their former wildness and beauty, 
of trout rising on lakes and streams, of deer roaming 
the dense woods and drinking from quiet waters, and of 
a strange, wild life. With this memory he now finds a 
large part of the woods region peopled for three months 
of the year with the votaries of fashion, with steamboats 
puffing on the lakes and engines shrieking through the 
forests, with prosperous villages here and there, and the 
old wild life gone never to return. 
I open as I write an old and well-worn book dear to 
all older American sportsmen, written by William C. 
Prime, and published in 1873, entitled "I Go a-Fishing," 
and I turn to two chapters respectively entitled "The 
Saint Regis Waters in Olden Times, i860," and the 
"Saint Regis Waters Now, 1872." Would that the ven- 
erable author, now I believe a very old man, and long 
since unable to handle the rod and gun, could revisit 
the Saint Regis waters and paint us their scenes of to- 
day. The twelve years which elapsed between his first 
and second visits seemed to him to have brought many 
changes, the most marked of which was the expansion of 
Paul Smith's first little house, built in 1858, and holding 
not more than eight people, to a large hotel, capable of 
accommodating 150 guests. On both occasions Mr. 
Prime had to drive into Paul Smith's from Port Kent, 
on Lake Champlain, a distance of fifty-five miles. The 
rare old fisherman and lover of nature, floating in his 
canoe on the lower Saint Regis in i860, wrote as fol- 
lows: "The day had died most gloriously. The 'sword 
of the sun' that had lain across the forest was withdrawn 
and sheathed. There was a stillness on land and water 
and in the sky that seemed like the presence of an 
invisible majesty. Eastward the lofty pine trees rested 
their green tops in an atmosphere whose massive blue 
seemed to sustain and support them. Westward the rosy 
tints along- the horizon deepened into crimson around 
the base of the Saint Regis hills and faded into black 
toward the north. No sign of life, human or inhuman, 
was anywhere visible or audible, except within the little 
boat where we two floated; and peace, that peace that 
reigns where no man is — that peace that never dwells 
in the abodes of men — here held silent and omnipotent 
sway. Then came the wind among the pine trees. The 
gloom increased and a ripple stole over the water. There 
was a flapping of One of the Hlypads as the first wave 
struck them; and then as a breeze passed over us I threw 
two flies on the black ripple. There was a swift rush — a 
sharp dash and plunge in the water. Both were struck 
at the instant, and then I had work before me that for- 
bade my listening to the voices of the pines. Tt took five 
minutes to kill my fish — two splendid specimens. Mean- 
time the rip had increased and the breeze came fresh and 
steady. It was too dark now to see the opposite shore, 
and the fish rose at every cast. When I had half a 
dozen of the same sort, and one that lacked only an 
ounce of being full 4lbs.. we pulled up the killeck and 
paddled homeward around the wooded point. The moon 
rose, and the scene on the lake now became magically 
beautiful. The mocking laugh of the loon was the only 
cause of complaint in that evening of splendor. Did 
you ever hear that laugh?" Again Mr. Prime well says: 
"One who has in former years lived in the woods forms 
a stronger attachment for that life than a man ever forms 
for any other. The affection which we have for the com- 
panions of our solitude is very strong. Hence, when 
I find myself in the woods the old sights and sounds 
come back with such force that I cannot tear myself 
away." 
I have given Mr. Prime's charming picture of the 
Saint Regis waters forty and twenty-five years ago so 
that I might the better in my feebler way sketch them 
to-day, and by this contrast emphasize the difference 
between our Northern lakes and mountains of the middle 
and the end of the century. For the change that has 
transformed the Saint Regis country from a wilderness 
and the delight of sportsmen to a fashionable summer 
resort has also taken place throughout the North 
Woods, except in a few portions, and will not be long 
in taking place there. I reached Paul Smith's on a re- 
cent September evening by a walk of four and a half 
miles through a settled country and over a macadamized 
road from a brick station on the main line of the 
Adirondack division of the New York Central, which 
runs from Utica to Montreal. Darkness had fallen be- 
fore I entered a strip of woods through which the road 
runs for a mile before it reaches Paul Smith's, and 
cherishing the memory of Mr. Prime's picture, as I 
neared the Saint Regis waters I listened for the laugh of 
the loon and the wind among the pines. So listening I 
suddenly stepped from the darkness of the woods into a 
blaze of light which flashed out from the countless win- 
dows of an enormous wooden hotel, and which were 
reflected far out on the waters of the lake. There was no 
laugh of the loon, but the sound of oars in the rowlocks 
of numerous boats, and of men and women's voices "with 
fashion, not with feeling, softly freighted." Gone in 
an instant was Mr. Prime's picture— vanished the dreams 
of the sportsman — and I turned with a sigh to the com- 
forts of civilization and the atmosphere of New York or 
Newport in the season. 
I had heard of the "camps" on the Saint Regis waters, 
and rising soon after daybreak the next morning. I en- 
gaged a guide and was rowed by him in an Adirondack 
boat across the lower Saint Regis through Spitfire Pond 
and around the beautiful wooded shores of the. upper 
Saint Regis. The morning was very beautiful,' Far to 
the west the Saint Regis mountains lifted their pine- 
crowned peaks' into the hazy blue, while the sun, just 
risen, made the dancing ripples of the lake seem like 
ridges of burning gold. The wind blew soft and cool, 
and there was that vigor and life in the air which one 
only finds in the mountains at sunrise. A procession of 
boats laden with supplies for the "camps" plied between 
them and the hotel, and two naphtha launches puffed 
hither and thither. I saw the "camps" of Henry L. 
Hotchkiss, Whitelaw Reid, Charles A. Barney, H. Mc- 
Kay Twombly, Anson Phelps Stokes, P. H. McAlpin, 
a son-in-law of William Rockefeller, and others. They 
are, for the most part, really villas, with sea walls, sum- 
mer houses and every appliance of comfort and luxury. 
The guide told me that in some of these "camps" there 
was hot and cold water, and in one electric lights, and it 
all seemed to me like playing at roughing it, and as if 
the title "camp" was the only link that connected these 
modern summer villas with the old free life of the woods. 
Why does not some modern essavist write of and on 
"the millionaire of the wilderness"? One finds strange 
things in the woods, but the sportsman and true lover 
of nature can find no stranger bird in the North Woods 
than the modern millionaire. I believe that the first of 
these "campers" on the upper Saint Regis went in about 
fifteen years ago, to the astonishment of the guides and 
natives, armed with a hair m?.ttress. an air pillow and a 
nameless article of domestic utility. Now he brings 
electric lights and naphtha launches. It is unnecessary 
to say that there is little fishing in the Saint Regis waters 
to-day, and a report that a deer was seen near there this 
year is not generally accepted. So was my dream dis- 
pelled. 
But if Paul Smith, with the Saint Regis region, is now 
solely a fashionable resort, what shall be said of Saranac 
Lake, and especially Lake Placid? I had heard much 
of both places, and I visited both. At the former I 
found a large village and a hotel — the Ampersand — the 
most modern, most luxurious and most pretentious house 
in the Adirondack Mountains, under whose electric lights 
and in whose dark wooden halls and rooms one feels 
as if in town in mid-winter, and at the latter I saw a 
continuous village surrounding its lower end. four or 
five barnlike wooden hotels, and golf, croquet and tennis 
in full force. They have golf links, bv the way, at or near 
all the Adirondack hotels now. There is, however, a 
portion of the North Woods where the man or woman 
who, whether or not in search of fish and game, loves 
the sense of remoteness and the feeling of the wide 
woods around can still find sport and an idea at least 
of primeval wildness. I refer to the southwestern and 
far western sections, and to that central district which 
lies west of Port Kent and Port Henry. In the former 
lie the Fulton Chain of lakes, Long Lake and Lake Mas- 
sawepie, on whose wooded shores, after a six-mile drive 
through the virgin forest, I found the best kept and 
most comfortable hotel in the woods, that of Childwold. 
In the latter region are "Blue Mountain Lake and a 
series of lakes and mountains which are still .sportsmen's 
resorts, and from which the railroad is still far distant. 
There are two standpoints from which to view our 
Northern lakes and mountains to-day. I have treated 
them thus far from that of the sportsman and lover of 
the woods. The other standpoint from which to re- 
gard them is that of the student of the development of 
our summer resorts, and of the believer in the march 
of modern improvements. There are five men whom I 
hold chiefly responsible for the transformation of the 
Adirondacks from a sportsman's paradise to a fashion- 
able summer resort, and these are in order of prece- 
dence Paul Smith, who entered the woods from Vermont 
as a guide in the early fifties; the late Thomas C. Durant, 
who projected the Adirondack railroad, built from Sara- 
toga to North Creek in the -early seventies; Le Grand 
Cannon, who projected the narrow gauge Chateauguay 
Railroad, which was first built from Plattsburg to Dan- 
nemora in 1879, and completed by successive stages to 
Saranac Lake and Lake Placid in 1889 and 1890; "Adi- 
rondack" Murray, whose ephemeral but flashing pen 
pictures of the "North Woods" first drew public atten- 
tion to them and gave him his nom-de-plume twenty- 
five years ago, and lastly. Dr. Seward Webb, who finally 
carried out his long cherished plan of building a trunk 
line through the heart of the wilderness from Utica to 
Montreal in 189 1. I should perhaps add to this list the 
names of Drs. Loomis, Trudeau, and others who first 
directed attention to the Adirondacks as a resort for con- 
sumptives and a natural sanitarium, but I find that the 
hotel proprietors and many others interested are not 
anxious to have this feature of the mountains em- 
phasized. With the building of the railroads and the 
consequent bringing of the mountains within easy access 
of the cities, and especially New York, the old boarding 
houses and small hotels scattered here and there, and 
which are comparatively few in number, have been en- 
larged or have given place to fine and expensive struc- 
tures. Paul Smith's has grown upon and around itself 
from a little frame house accommodating eight people 
to an immense building, with spacious piazzas and hall- 
ways, which can hold nearly a thousand guests, and is 
a city in itself. Then comes the Ampersand, a handsome 
house on Saranac Lake; and then in succession the 
fine and well situated Wawbeek Lodge, at the foot of the 
Upper Saranac; Saranac Inn, at the head of the same 
lake, and the cluster of large hotels at Lake Placid, be- 
ginning with the White Face Inn and including the 
Ruisseaumont, Lake Placid, Grand View and Stevens 
houses. Scattered here and there throughout the moun- 
tains there are also fine or comfortable houses, such as 
those in the Keene Valley, St. Hubert's Inn and the 
Chateauguay, Chazy Lake and Loon Lake houses on 
the lakes of those names. 
I was most impressed, in my trip through the 
Adirondacks, with the beauty of the forest in and 
around Childwold, the solitude of Long Lake and 
the Fulton Chain, the view from Lake Placid and over 
Mirror Lake, with the peaks of Mount Marcy and its 
fellows in the south, with the vistas of woods, lakes and 
streams along the line of the Webb railroad, and particu- 
larly with the superb prospects from the Chateauguay road 
as it climbs Lyon Mountain, which recalls the scenery 
of the Blue Ridge. I found much of interest and in- 
fornfation in the talk of the' guides of the region, The 
older guides are as a rule pessimistic as to the future 
of the woods, and groan over the change from the 
old sporting days. They do not care for the tourist 
business and the hanging round the hotel's, even if they 
make $3 and $4 a day. or double the wages of a decade 
ago. The younger guides who knew not the early days, 
and did not fish and hunt with W. C. Prime, Kit Claik 
and their fellows, find the present conditions advantage- 
ous, and welcome the increasing bands of tourists. But 
they spend less and less time in hunting a^ij fishing 
with their patrons and more in rowing the latter tarridy 
around the lakes, perhaps accompanying them < n a day 
or two's journey through the lakes and ovi r the "car- 
ries." In the more remote districts there is still tilling 
to be had, and the deer are still fairlv abundant f was 
told, however, of many instances of flagrant violations 
of the game laws, and it is evident that the woods are 
not adequately supplied with or patrolled by guardians. 
Hounding and "jacking" for deer, while forbidden, are 
still practiced, and the remark of a guide on Long 
Lake, when questioned as to some infraction of the 
game laws, that "there never was any law on Long 
Lake," emphasizes the situation. 
But while the Adirondacks are changed and are chang- 
ing they will remain for many years to come the great 
natural mountain and lake resort for the larger cities 
of the Eastern seaboard. They are to our generation 
what the Catskills were to our grandfathers and even to 
our fathers in youth, and if your true soortsman must 
now seek the far Canadian woods for big fish and big 
game, he cannot take with him or away the life-giving 
air and the exquisite scenery of the Adirondack hills 
and lakes. He loses, but his loss is the gain of thou- 
sands and thousands of less fortunate beings, to whom 
the woods and hills bring relief from the heat of summer, 
renewed life and strength, and a keen realization of the 
old saying that "man made cities, but God made the 
country." 
Lakes George and Chamnlain, which alwavs asso- 
ciated with the Adirondacks in the public mind, have 
undergone comparatively few changes during the past 
twenty years, and so do not require more than a passing 
allusion in thjs sketch. Lake George Is stdl the same 
beautiful sheet of water, set in a frame of forest-clothed 
mountains, as when the first French exnlorer gave to it 
from its azure depths the name of Saint Sacrament. 
There are more villas on ifs shores, more boa f s upon its 
waters, a new hotel here and there, or an old one re- 
stored, but summer after summer the lake calls to its 
lovers to return to its beauties in such a way that 
they must resoond. Lake Champlain iiow has the fine 
Bluff Point Hotel just below Plattsburg on its western 
bank to add to its attractions, and the tourist, even if he 
or she is familiar with both lakes, should not fail to again 
traverse them. Their beauties never fade; and whether 
one sees Lake Champlain from the slower and com- 
fortable steamboat, or the fine, rushing trains of the 
Delaware & Hudson, which traverse its entire western 
shore, or steams through Lake George, one cannot tire 
of the infinite variety of water and landscape which 
both lakes afford. September is the month of all months 
to riatitly see and aooreciate the and scenerv of "«jr 
Northern lakes and mountains. Now come days filled 
with sunlight which does not oppress, cooled as it is 
by the home wind of the northwest, and now succeed 
nights whose frosty airs give to the woods and lakes a 
clearness of outline and to the skies a splendor that 
summer never brings. — Town Topics. 
PRIZES FOR AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHS. 
The Forest and Stream offers prizes for meritorious 
work with the camera, under conditions which follow: 
The prizes will be divided into three series: (r) for 
live wild game; (2) for game in parks; (3) for other sub- 
jects relating to shooting and fishing. 
(1) For live game photographs three prizes are of- 
fered, the first of $50, the second of $25, and the third of 
$10. 
(2) For live game in parks, for the best picture, a 
prize of $10, 
(3) For the best pictures relating to Forest and 
"Stream's field — shooting and fishing, the camp, camp- 
ers and camp life, sportsman travel by land and water, 
incidents of field and stream — a first prize of $20, a sec- 
ond of $15, a third of $10, and for fourth place two prizes 
of $5 each. 
There is no restriction as to the time nor as to where 
the pictures have been made or may be made. 
Pictures will be received up to Dec. 3i this year. 
All work must be original; that is to say, it must not 
have been submitted to any other competition or have 
been published. 
There are no restrictions as to the make or style of 
camera, nor as to size of plate. 
A competitor need not be a subscriber to the Forest 
and Stream. 
All work must be that of amateurs. 
The photographs will be submitted to a committee, 
who, in making their award, will be instructed to take 
into consideration the technical merits of the work as 
a photograph, its artistic qualities and other things be- 
ing equal, the unique and difficult nature of the subject. 
Photographs should be marked for identification with 
initials or a pseudonym only, and with each photograph 
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and plate or film. 
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latest by Monday and -as much earlier as -practicable,- 1 
