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Chair
Jan 1, 2025
Tom Wheeler
adk3356@gmail.com
Shhh – the Chapter Chair wants to say something….
I want to acknowledge and thank a number of volunteers who are leaving the Executive Committee at the end of the year:
- Holly Woodworth has been our Outings Chair. She has done an excellent job, especially considering the new requirements mandated by ADK for qualifying to be a trip leader.
- Ellie Menz has completed four years as our Treasurer and has been invaluable in ensuring that we meet the various new financial and budgetary requirements that ADK has instituted.
- Thanks also to Membership Chair Kathleen Fitzgerald, whose duties have been made more difficult by reason of the lack of timely membership information from the club.
Winter in the North Country is sometimes difficult to love. There are those who simply hibernate, hopefully with at the very least a nice fire and an easy chair. But the winter provides recreational activities unavailable at any other time of year. My favorite winters (and those that seemed to go the fastest) were those when I was outside virtually every weekend skiing and snowshoeing. I discovered a number of things:
- Your body has a thermostat; when you are outside at 10 degrees F you will be warm as toast after about fifteen minutes of snowshoeing or skiing.
- The woods are beautiful in winter. You can see through the trees, now bereft of leaves; snow on the branches glistens in the sunlight; cliffs are outlined by surrounding layers of snow; the sky on a clear winter day is deep blue; at night, moonlight reflecting off the snow provides surreal illumination.
- I can do this! The recreational opportunities in this area are everywhere; you needn’t go far from home. Our Canadian members living near Ottawa have the many trails in the Green Belt, the Gatineau Hills, and the Rideau Canal after (if!) it freezes. In St. Lawrence County there are trails at state parks such as Higley Flow (with groomed ski trails) and at Robert Moses State Park’s Nicandri Nature Center. In the Canton-Potsdam area there are the Remington Recreation Trail, Indian Creek Nature Center trails (most suitable for snowshoeing), trails in the Clarkson and St. Lawrence University woods, and trails along the Raquette River such as Stone Valley and the Red Sandstone Trail.
When in the outdoors we see evidence of the others that spend the winter up north here with us. The snow reveals the tracks of fox, coyote, and rabbit. There is also a different cast of birds. Some of the far northern birds migrate to our region for our winter. These often include rough-legged hawks, snow buntings, red polls, and sometimes even snowy owls. You may notice that the barred and great horned owls are more actively hooting as they look for a mate. (They usually lay their eggs in the winter, sometimes as early as January.)
Finally, may I remind everyone that our annual New Year’s Day event will be at Higley FlowState Park with skiing and snowshoeing followed by a potluck and announcement of the photo contest winners. Be sure to participate in our outings and attend our Indoors-Outdoors programs, both detailed later in this North Wind, throughout the winter as well.