New York State’s famous Adirondack landscape is immense, spanning over six million acres of public forests, lakes, rivers, mountains, and private lands. Mapping the Adirondacks: Colvin, Blake, and the First True Survey of the Great Adirondack Wilderness (North Country Books, 2024) celebrates it all with the first clear account of the original surveyor who explored and fully comprehended it — Verplanck Colvin.
“Everywhere below,” Colvin wrote, “were lakes and mountains so different from all maps, yet so immovably true.” His monumental accomplishment helped motivate the citizens of New York in 1894 to legally protect it for generations to come.
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