As winter sets in, our staff is digging into some reading. If you are looking for a book, here are a few recommendations:
Becca Halter, stewardship & GIS specialist: I just finished Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at SUNY-ESF. It’s a wonderful mix of Indigenous knowledge, scientific inquiry, memoir, and nature writing. This book prompts the question: What if we rethink and redefine our relationship with nature to become one of reciprocity and healing?
Mary Thill, communications manager: The truth is I’m listening more than reading these days. This year Elizabeth Folwell’s Short Carries: Essays from Adirondack Life (2009) was released as an audiobook. Nobody knows the Adirondack Park better than Betsy, and she writes about Adirondackers and our wild surroundings with dry humor and sublime syntax. To call her a nature writer would be to call the Adirondacks just spruce and hemlock; she understands the entirety of park life, above all human nature.
Kathy Woughter, philanthropy assistant: I’m reading A Sugarbush Like None Other: Adirondack Maple Syrup and the Horse Shoe Forestry Company, by Matthew Thomas, about A. A. Low’s giant maple syrup operation in the wilds south of Tupper Lake at the turn of the last century. The primary researcher, Mary Kunzler-Larmann, accompanied us on a paddling trip to Lows Lake this year and shared some stories, which was quite a treat. I’ve loaned the book to three people who tore through it in a matter of days—in one case, hours. I highly recommend losing yourself in the history, maps, stories and photographs of a place so many Adirondackers love.
What’s on your winter reading list? Let us know at and we’ll share some recommendations on our social media channels.