by Bud Kenny
“I don’t know–”
“Patricia, just look at this weather. This is the prettiest day we’ve had since we’ve been in the Adirondacks. Let’s go and kick back in the woods by that lake. You get in the cart and ride. Let Della and me take you back in.”
The only motor vehicles allowed on the road to Santanoni were for maintenance and to haul in the handicapped. Otherwise you had to walk, bicycle, ride a horse or take a horse-drawn wagon back in. That Wednesday the trail was busy with all of those modes of transportation. It was wonderful to be on such a road. The farther we got back into the forest, the more relaxed I felt. It was as if a weight was gradually melting off me. Like an apple tree being picked, I could feel my branches begin to lift.
A mile in we came to the farm complex for the Great Camp. At one time Camp Santanoni had more than forty-five buildings, most built from stone and wood harvested on site. Twenty of the buildings were part of the farm, which included two massive stone and wood barns–one with a milking parlor, three large farmhouses, several cottages for workers, a stone creamery, smoke house, huge chicken house and various other out-buildings.
Camp Santanoni was built for Robert and Anna Pruyn. He was a banker and business man in Albany. The farm supplied meat, produce and dairy for the family year round. The farm buildings were scattered up the side of a mountain, with the houses being the highest on the slope. They all had a panoramic view of the Adirondack High Peaks. As far as I could see it was mountain after mountain with dark pinnacles soaring up into a baby blue sky. Gazing at all of that, I thought, I could handle being Mr. Pruyn’s farm hand.
After we got past the farm, and deeper into the woods, I could tell Patricia was starting to unwind. She perked up and started noticing things along the trail. “Did you see that bunch of flowers? Stop this thing. Let me out. I want to get a better look.”
Patricia was walking beside me when, through a gap in the trees, we got our first glimpse of Newcomb Lake. Reflected on the shimmering surface was the rocky peak of Mount Santanoni. The blue water was surrounded by the various greens of firs, ferns and fauna. My wife gasped, “Oh my God! Is that beautiful, or what?”
The poet in me could only muster, “Wow!”
Patricia grabbed my left arm and pulled my biceps into her cleavage. “Thank you for bringing me back here.” She reached up and kissed me on the cheek. “You were right. We need to spend a few days in a place like this.”
Our camp at Santanoni was about a third of a mile from the main lodge. On the lake side of the road was a long wide grassy area. We pulled the cart into one end of it, then staked out Della on the other end. When I did, she was calmer than she had been in more than a week. It seemed like every night since we entered the Adirondacks, she got increasingly restless. The night before, when we were camped at the trailhead, Della threw a fit at the end of the rope. She bucked, reared up and pawed the ground so much, I had to tie her short to a post. But that afternoon at Camp Santanoni when I let her loose, she rolled and rolled, then just laid there and basked in the sun.
Below the grassy area was a flat spot in the woods beside the lake. We pitched our tent there and I made a fire pit down by the water. A little after the sun set, the moon came up fat and golden. As it climbed up into the sky, it sent white and silver trails across the water. And somewhere in that cove were a pair of loons who kept calling to each other. Behind us, in the woods, two owls hooted back and forth. And a couple of times we heard coyotes yipping in the distance.
“This is just perfect.” My wife sighed as she took my hand and held it in her lap. “A perfect place. A perfect night. A perfect moon.”
I kissed the back of her hand. “I think this moon is just right for making honey.”
The camp was named after the mountain across the lake. Mount Santanoni was 4,361 feet high. When French explorers came through the Adirondacks they named the mountain “Saint Antoine.” But when the local Indians said the name, it came out “Santa-known-ee”. So the name stuck. Santanoni.
Robert Pruyn, who was head of Chase Manhattan Bank, found the property while on a hunting trip. It took 1,500 red spruce trees to build the main lodge, which was actually six separate log buildings under one roof. It had a main living and dining lodge, seven bedrooms, a kitchen, a service area and seven staff bedrooms situated in the separate buildings. All of it was under one roof connected by a system of porches. Many of the architectural features had a Japanese flair about them. Pruyn’s father served as minister to Japan under President Lincoln.
Among the guests who stayed at the getaway was Teddy Roosevelt. He spent a lot of time in the Adirondacks hiking, hunting and fishing. When President McKinley died, Vice President Roosevelt was vacationing in the mountains. He took the presidential oath in a stagecoach as it passed through Newcomb.
Back in those days–as with the other Great Camps–when people came to Santanoni they dressed up for the visit. Ties and suit coats for men, and women wore long dresses. In the letters that I read from people who visited the camp, it was often mentioned how relaxed the atmosphere was at Santanoni compared to the other Great Camps. Practical jokes were encouraged and celebrated at Santanoni. While she was looking at photos from those days, Patricia said, “Do you notice anything different about these pictures?”
“What?”
“The people all have smiles–some are even laughing. Whenever you see photographs from this era, everyone looks so serious. But these folks were having fun.”
In 1953, Pruyn’s heirs sold the camp to the Melvins of Syracuse. While at Santanoni on holiday in 1971, Melvin’s eight-year-old grandson disappeared in the forest. Despite a massive search, he was never found. The family left and never returned.
The place sat empty for two decades. Then, in the 1990s, a consortium of organizations got together with the state and worked out a plan to save the Great Camp. Friends of Camp Santanoni organized as a non-profit to help the state restore and maintain the camp. It was certainly a place worth saving.
Tentatively I pushed the store door open and asked, “Are you closed?”
It was Thursday August 14th and I had just bicycled six miles out from Santanoni into Newcomb to get ice and a few other supplies. All the lights were off at the North Woods Store, but I could see people moving around in the building. A man’s voice from the back of the store called out, “We’re open. Come on in.”
“With the lights off, I thought maybe you were closed.”
A flashlight was bobbing toward me as the man said, “Nope. The electric is off.”
“Someone hit a light pole or something?”
“Haven’t you heard? The whole eastern half of the country is dark from Ottawa down through Baltimore. And as far west as Detroit, nobody’s got power.”
“Terrorists?”
“Nope. Some sort of fire at a switching station in New York City. It’s been off all day. They don’t know when it will be back on.”
Before I biked back to camp, I stopped at the Bar and Grill for a beer. Of course, all the talk was about the black out. If the electricity wasn’t on by sundown, the place was going to close. When the barmaid handed me the beer she said, “I guess it doesn’t bother you.”
“Nope. We’ve got plenty of power.”
The guy next to me laughed. “What, a Coleman lantern?”
“No. We have electric lights. They’re powered by a solar panel and a generator that runs off the tire.” I handed him one of our flyers. “Here. I printed this about an hour ago.”
After finishing my beer, I climbed on my bike and headed back to camp. Then I turned on the computer and printed a dozen poetry books just so I could say I did. I figured I was probably the only publisher in New York printing anything that day..
Sunday afternoon when we walked out of Camp Santanoni, all three of us were different than when we trekked in five days earlier. The weather was beautiful every one of those days we were there. We took the camp tour twice. Swam in the lake countless times. Paddled Chri
s’ canoe on it and did some fishing. (As usual, my wife caught the most.) We both rode Della all over the place, and I wrote. We ate well. And the moonlight loving was wonderful. We were all much more relaxed. Everyone had a better attitude.
That morning as we were breaking camp, Doug brought a wagon full of folks back into Santanoni. He reined the horses to a stop and said, “You’re going to let us treat you to a night at Aunt Polly’s B&B, aren’t you?”
Patricia said, “Quit twisting my arm. We’ll do it.”
It’s a superb inn. The main house was a long two story structure built in 1845 as a stagecoach stop. Aunt Polly Bissell ran the place back then, and in those days you got a night’s lodging, dinner and breakfast for forty cents. When we were there, lodging for two, and a gourmet breakfast, was sixty bucks. The accommodations were beautiful and Maggie made us an exquisite meal in the morning.
That night at Aunt Polly’s was the first time it rained since we walked back into Santanoni. It was a fierce thunderstorm. But Della was safe in a stall in the barn, and we were in a beautiful dry bedroom. Let it rain!
From there on, our trek through the mountains was completely different. It didn’t rain much and campsites were easier to find. One was at the headwaters of the Hudson River. The rest of our Adirondack experience was delightful!
He yelled at me from the cab of a log truck, “You stupid bastard, get the hell off the road! Someone needs to beat some sense into you!”
We were on Highway 74 between Paradox and Chilson at Eagle Lake on the east side of the Adirondacks. When I heard the diesel engine babble up behind, we were in a blind curve, with two cars behind us. But instead of taking his place behind them, the driver blew his air horn, pulled into the oncoming lane, roared up beside us, stopped and started cursing at me.
Calmly, I said, “You’re on the wrong side of the road.”
“What did you say?” He pulled the nose of the truck over to the right so it was directly in front of us. We had nowhere to go. The brakes hissed a blast of air as the driver’s door flew open. He sprang out of it and up onto the hood. On his hands and knees on the hood, with his long flaxen hair and beard, he looked like a lion about to leap onto prey. He shook his left index finger at me and roared, “What the fuck did you say?”
Right then, a car in the oncoming lane skidded to a stop less than fifty feet from the truck. I said, “You need to move your truck. You’re going to cause a wreck.”
A car behind the truck blew its horn and so did the one stopped in the other lane. The trucker quickly looked both ways, shook his finger again and yelled, “You ain’t seen the last of me!”
He clambered back into the cab, ground a few gears, then with black smoke spewing up out both exhaust pipes, the truck roared away. I never saw him again.
That night, after we crawled into the tent, Patricia said “That trucker scared me. I really thought he was going to try to hurt you. Were you scared?”
“Not really. I just figured he was having a bad day. What he needs to do is slow down and take a few days off at Santanoni. He’d feel a lot better.”
Down for the night.
CHAPTER 20
INTO NEW ENGLAND
WE CROSSED LAKE CHAMPLAIN INTO New England on the Ticonderoga Ferry. It’s been in operation since 1759 – making it one of America’s oldest businesses. Captain Larry told us, “Della’s the first mule we’ve ever toted across.”
Like the ferry we crossed the Mississippi on, this one also was a barge powered by a tugboat attached to the side of it. Larry and his family had been running the “Ti-ferry” for fifteen years, so maybe it was the first time they took a mule across. But in the past 244 years, other operators must have hauled a bunch of them. And like the captain of the Hickman Ferry on the Mississippi, Captain Larry refused to take our fare.
But unlike our ride across the Mississippi, we were not the only ones on this boat. The Ti-ferry had fifteen parking spaces and they were all full. And unlike the previous ferry, Della didn’t slip on the ramp or the deck of this one. She just strolled on board like she did it every day.
At first, I’m not sure Della knew we were on a boat. She probably thought we were just stuck in traffic–like back in Buffalo or Cincinnati. But when the tug revved up, and the barge began to move, that got her attention. Her ears went rigid, and she almost knocked me over with her head when it turned toward the tow boat. She didn’t seem scared, just concerned.
I don’t think Della realized what was going on, until we got out into the lake. As she watched a pleasure boat go by, it was like she got it. “I’m on a boat.” She relaxed and seemed to enjoy the rest of the ride. Especially when two passengers brought her apples.
The moment our feet touched Vermont, everything seemed different. It felt softer. Things were not so abrupt as back in New York. Instead of rising up into peaks, like the Adirondacks, the Green Mountains were round in the sky. Vermont felt soft and supple.
“Excuse me. Could I pet your mule?”
She was the first person to walk up and say something to us in New England. We had just disembarked the ferry at Larabees Point. A dairy farm was nearby, and she walked out of one of the barns dressed in tight blue jeans and knee-high rubber work-boots. In her mid-teens, she had delicate features and light red hair pulled back in a bun. She exuded the kind of wholesomeness you would expect from a milkmaid in Vermont.
However, the best part was her accent. I had heard the Vermont accent before–but to have it come from her, there on the shore of Lake Champlain, was truly sweet. Vowels were rounder in Vermont. They involved more of the mouth, not spit from the tip of the tongue. Words rolled about the palate before they were spoken. Yes, we really were in New England.
Highway 74 took us up out of the Champlain Valley, past dairy farms with fields of alfalfa and corn. Some hillsides were covered with apple trees in well-kept orchards with neat stacks of bins ready for the harvest. It was on that road that I first saw a farm with the barns attached to the house. Enclosed walkways connected them, so in the winter farmers didn’t have to wade through the snow. We saw this all across New England.
That route took us through the hamlets of Shoreham and West Cornwall. Quiet little places with tall church steeples and tidy white Victorian homes, most of which had either black wrought-iron or white picket fences around them.
Then we came to Middlebury, which was chartered in 1761. It was a beautiful bustling little city with steep streets and quaint old stone and brick buildings that housed charming shops, eateries and inns. In the center of Middlebury, Otter Creek flowed over a waterfall. And as we walked across the stone bridge above it, a man wearing waders was down in the rapids fly fishing. Downtown also had a park with a wooden bandstand where people lounged under ancient oaks and maples in the middle of Monday afternoon. While we walked through Middlebury, I felt like we had arrived at the heart of New England.
“Yeah, but it ain’t got no soul.” His voice had a smoker’s rattle to it. He wore farmer’s overalls, a dingy red cap and sat on a stool halfway down the bar. “Middlebury used to be a real town. But not no more.”
We had stopped at Two Brother’s Tavern for an afternoon beer. They had fifteen different brands on tap, most of which I’d never heard of. We got one of the local brews.
I asked, “What do you mean, it’s not a real town?”
He motioned toward the front windows. “Look out there. See all those people?”
Right then the windows framed a constant flow of humanity. They were people of all ages. Some with camera’s slung around their neck and dipper-bags on their shoulders. Others wore day packs on their backs and hiking boots on their feet.
He blurted, “None of them live here! I’ve been here all my life, and I don’t know a one of them. They’re all tourists. Strangers. They come here to see ‘Quaint New England.’ Well, guess what, they’re ruining it!”
Patricia said, “A pretty place just naturally attracts tourists.”
Slamming his mug d
own, beer erupted from its top and splashed down onto the bar as he declared, “Well, they’ve ruined this town!”
He grabbed a fist full of bar napkins and began to sop up the mess, as he grumbled, “Used to be, you could walk up this street and buy a pair of work jeans. But not no more. Now, if you want a three dollar postcard, by God, they’ve all got ‘em.” He grunted as he lifted his mug. “That’s not a real town. That’s a tourist trap!”
Patricia gasped for air before she yelled, “I don’t think she can do it.”
We were on the side of Sand Hill in the Green Mountains below Ripton, and all of us were breathing hard. Della’s sides heaved and her legs quaked as she leaned uphill. Patricia had just put the wood blocks behind the back wheels so Della didn’t have to hold the weight of the cart as she rested.
During the past two days we’d heard how steep Sand Hill was. But it was the only way to get up the mountain to Robert Frost’s cabin. The hill was less than a mile from our camp in East Middlebury. So I biked to the base to see how steep it was. It didn’t look like anything the Big Sis couldn’t handle. And she did get up that part just fine. It was the next turn that stopped her. The pitch of the turn, the sudden grade change, it was too much. I could feel it in my legs too.
This was our second attempt. The first time we backed down to a wide level spot beside the road. After a few minutes rest, Della leaped into the pull. She charged up the hill but stopped in the same place. So rather than back down, Patricia put the blocks behind the wheels so we all could rest.
Between breaths, I said, “This is what we’ll do. Leave the blocks where they are. You take off the brake and we’ll start from here.”
“What if she still can’t do it, then what?”
The night before, we had camped behind the East Middlebury Library. Most of the neighbors paid us a visit, and all of them said if we needed help, to let them know. So we had those alternatives available.