Union College - Adirondacks

Photo above: The Flowed Lands looking toward Avalanche Pass in the Adirondack High Peak Wilderness. Photo was taken in 1996 during the 50th anniversary commemoration of a trip to the area by environmentalists Paul Schaefer and Howard Zahniser, a trip which inspired the latter's promotion of what would become the 1964 National Wilderness Preservation Act. (Photo copyright 2000 by Ken Rimany)

Union College presents “The Adirondacks,” the winter 2000 seminar series sponsored by the College’s Environmental Studies program and the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks.

Free and open to the public, the five-part weekly series spans a range of topics from wilderness policy issues to nature photography to folk music of the Adirondacks. A reception will follow each of the presentations.

Talks will be Feb. 10 through March 9, all Thursdays at 7 p.m. in Union College's Nott Memorial, the centerpiece building of the Union campus. Parking is available on campus and on nearby side streets.

For more information, or in case of weather, call 388-6770 (Union) or 377-1452 (AFPA - Ken Rimany).

Feb. 10 -- Dave Gibson, executive director of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, on “Where Wilderness Preservation Began.” Gibson will present a slide program introducing key historical figures in the New York State and National wilderness movement, and relate them to historical origins and events in the Adirondack Park from 1872 to the present. Howard Zahniser, father of the 1964 National Wilderness Preservation Act, is highlighted.

Feb. 17 -- Dan Plumley, cultural ecologist and director of Totem Peoples Preservation Project, on "From Siberia to the Adirondacks: Sharing the Wisdom of Mountain Protected Areas, " a slide and video program comparing the Adirondack Park and Russia's Lake Baikal regions. Both regions have earned global recognition and share lessons learned in sustainable development, ecological preservation and the protection of forest wild land values.

Feb. 24 -- Dick Lefebvre, chairman of the Adirondack Park Agency, on "People, Partnerships and Politics: A View from the Chair." A retired educator, Dick Lefebvre lives in Caroga Lake and has chaired Governor George Pataki's Adirondack Park Agency since February 1998. He has been a conciliatory force within the Adirondack Park and is an effective voice for the agency as it carries out its many legislative mandates.

March 2 -- Carl Heilman, nature photographer, will give a presentation titled "Wild Visions," a three-projector audio visual program about our relationship with the wilderness and our spiritual connection with the earth. Take a tour through some of the most special places in the Adirondack Park. Spectacular images are synchronized to poetic narrative and exceptional Adirondack folk music by Dan Berggren, Peggy Eyres and Dan Duggan.

March 9 -- Musicians Dave Kiphuth, John Kirk and Trish Miller present "Adirondack Folk, Bluegrass and Clog Dancing." Kiphuth, musician and featured illustrator of the Gazette Newspapers, collaborates with touring performer friends John Kirk and Trish Miller, husband and wife, whose "arts in education" programs have taken them to Russia, Ireland, and throughout the U.S.

Adirondacks topic of Environmental

Studies lecture series