SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE. VOL. IV. DECEMBER, 1888. No. 6. WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS. By Hamilton Wright Mabie. HE easy self-confidence and unaffected air of superiority which the woodsman always wears in his intercourse with persons less fortunate in early surroundings and training is not without substantial basis in fact; knowledge of nature acquired at first hand, and mastery of the arts and resources of out-of-door life confer a distinction which, although not academic, is much more readily recognized and much more immediately available. The education which familiarity with the woods confers is distinctly fundamental; and he who possesses it may justly challenge every comer to disclose a kindred training or acknowledge his inferiority. The wise man who finds himself in this dilemma will frankly confess his lack of early advantages, and promptly begin to supply his defective education by the use of such powers of observation and imitation as nature has given him. In this endeavor he will feel the spur of a certain sense of humiliation: no sensitive man ever walks through the woods without feeling that every tree ought to be familiar to him, and that every sound ought instantly to suggest to his mind the form and habit of life from which it issues. There is always in the consciousness of such a man an instinctive recognition that this knowledge from which he is debarred is not a department of science, which one educated along other lines can well afford to leave Copyright, 1888, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved. "The snow, lodged in every crevice, caught by every branch." up the most remote hunting-grounds, and whose exceptional felicity ought to be tempered by a little self-denial. It is also true that the functions of nature as a healer of the wounds which the sensitive spirit suffers at the hands of society are seriously disarranged by the throngs of people who traverse the region during the summer months, carrying from hotel to hotel, and from lake to lake, arsenals of ornate and costly Every implements of death in the form of guns and fishing-rods. For the most part, however, these are well-mannered and inoffensive persons, whose murderous intentions toward fish, fowl, and quadruped are rarely put into effect. cup of wholesome pleasure contains at least a drop of sacrifice, and the lover of nature ought to find some consolation for the loss of solitude in the thought that the beneficence of that noble country is bestowed with royal generosity. That which gives the Adirondacks their peculiar charm is inviolable; tourists cannot stain a sky visible always from horizon to horizon; nor despoil those countless lakes in which another sky floats responsive to every wind and wave; nor blur the vision of the great hills, in which the silence and solitude of the woods seem to be sublimely visible. This noble country, whose value as a means of sane and wholesome living we have hardly begun as yet to understand, is in imminent danger; not from the throngs who visit it, but from rapacious land speculators, from selfish lumbermen, and from the aggressions of the railroads. If the woods can be secured and kept for public uses; if the destructive axe of the lumberman is restrained, and the extension of the railroads resisted, the Adirondacks may be safely committed to the custody of the people, whom they will educate to the proper care of so noble a possession. There is one season, however, when the most jealous lover of nature will find himself in undisturbed possession of the landscape and all its resources. In summer the crack of the rifle may break the stillness of the most remote woods, or the plash of the oar disturb the tranquillity of the most secluded lake; at every carry one may meet adventurers pressing on to the heart of the wilderness, or returning from their novel voyaging; but in winter the crowds have vanished, and no trace of their coming and going remains save the deserted hotels, given over to utter silence, or to those deliberate and long-continued repairs which are sometimes made in the Adirondacks. Nowhere is there a broader or more effective contrast between winter and summer than in the North Woods; nowhere are the divergent sentiments and aspects of the two seasons more sharply accented. Not only is the population vastly reduced in winter, but its character is entirely changed; not only are the activities of life immensely restricted in volume and variety, but they suffer a notable change of direction; not only is one aspect of nature substituted for another, but the whole appearance of things is completely transformed. So radical is the change that takes place that one cannot lay claim to real knowledge of the woods until he has seen them when the hand of winter, like a more spiritual artist, has struck into sudden prominence the structure of the landscape by disrobing it, and, discarding all the tricks of color, has substituted for end less variety of hue and tint the stainless purity of the most delicate monochrome, and the exquisite beauty of pure form. If the figure were permissible, one might say that in summer one sees the woods under the spell of the romantic mood; while in winter one looks upon them with the clear vision of the classical spirit; in summer affluence of color, splendor and variety of verdure compose the charm of every landscape; in winter flawless perfection of form, delicate precision of outline, exquisite tracery of bough and twig, imposing disclosure of mass create a different and more complex impression. In summer the senses are fed by a series of charming aspects; in winter the mind receives more directly an image of the harmony and completeness of a world whose bare structure stands out in naked majesty. The summer life of the Adirondacks is diffused over a vast tract of country, heavily wooded for the most part, and thickly strewn with lakes and ponds. In winter this volume of life contracts, the wilderness is practically deserted, and only a few outposts are held as bases of supplies and activity. Chief among these winter retreats, and, indeed, the only community in the heart of the woods, is the village of Saranac. The Saranac region is the most beautiful and healthful section of the wilderness. Commanding at numerous points the noblest views of the mountain groups dominated by Marcy and Whiteface, including, within a comparatively small territory, lakes of such diverse beauty as St. Regis, Loon, Placid, the Upper and Lower Saranac, it offers the sportsman and nature-lover an inexhaustible variety of resources and attractions. Its elevation, its sandy soil, its vast environment of forest, full of spruce and pine, and the dryness of its atmosphere make this region a natural sanatorium, to which the victims of lung and throat diseases are drawn in increasing numbers. The village of Saranac is the only resort which the wilderness offers to invalids and semi-invalids in winter, although one or two of the larger hotels keep cottages open for guests during the same season. Before the extension of the Chateaugay Railroad, a year ago, the long stage |