His Name is Marshall Church

His name, Marshall Church, loosely translated means American Wilderness. Read on for a little history lesson on why there was a continuity to my naming scheme.

Bob and George Marshall built the American wilderness movement in part based on the adventures of their youth in New York's Adirondack Forest Preserve; Senator Frank Church turned that movement into federal law protecting millions of acres with the Wilderness Act of 1964, which was heavily based on Article 14 of the New York State constitution -the Forever Wild clause.

If we peel away one more layer: It was Verplanck Colvin's surveys and lobbying for creation of the Adirondack Forest Preserve and Forever Wild that allowed the Marshall's to adventure in the Adirondacks in their formative years. The Adirondacks were in essence the birthplace of the federally conserved American wilderness and the modern conservation movement.

In total the Marshall and Church names have 3.4M federally protected wilderness acres including my favorite place that isn't the Adirondacks, the 2.3M acre Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. However, the scope of land preserved thanks to my trail dogs namesakes (Colvin Harrison and Marshall Church) is in the millions of acres and a good part of why the US has 12% of the world's IUCN protected wild lands but only covers 6% of the earths surface.

Introducing Colvin Harrison Serpico, our newest fur kid…

I’d like to welcome Colvin to our family, and introduce him to everyone.

He is a 5 month old Border Collie mix. As you may notice, in spite of being a fashion disaster with the white polka dot socks paired with his tuxedo styled coat, he is a handsome young man with a fierce look of determination. Sporting a well groomed brown beard and eyebrows, he is just a bow tie away from any formal occasion that he should be invited to.

I’ve been hit with some negative feedback on his name, so I thought I would also give a little info on his namesake and why it was chosen.

Some people choose typical pet names, others random people names, some objects or places. Other people have a continuous revolving door of oft castaway companions, therefore never spending any time coming up with a name worthy of a long term member of the family. We have a history of naming our animals after wild places, or gateways to those places. Caney after the Caney Creek Wilderness in Arkansas; Ande after the Andes Mountains in South America; and Jasper after Jasper, Arkansas, located in the Ozark National Forest, home of the Buffalo National River –America’s first national river!

Colvin is a mountain in the Adirondacks, but that mountain is named after a man.

(Mt Colvin is the peak left of the prominent V cleft in the above image)

Verplanck Colvin, native of Albany, New York, was an explorer, scholar, lawyer, woodsman, engineer, surveyor, topographer, inventor, writer, artist, wilderness conservationist, patriot, and skilled leader of men. In 1870 he made a sketch map of the mountains surrounding Gray’s Peak, Colorado in his spare time; it was the first such map of the area ever published, and by 1911 it still remained the most accurate map of the region. As a result of his surveying skills he was appointed the superintendent of both the Adirondack Land Survey and New York State Land Survey, and is in many ways responsible for the conservation movement in the United States.

"Unless the region be preserved essentially in its present wilderness condition, the ruthless burning and destruction of the forest will slowly, year after year, creep onward… and vast areas of naked rock, arid sand, and gravel will alone remain to receive the bounty of the clouds and be unable to retain it." –Verplanck Colvin

Colvin was president of the department of physical science at the Albany Institute, and held various presidencies including that of the New York State Mine and Engineers Association, and he was the first president of the Adirondack Guides' Association.

In spite of being a highly educated man, Colvin chose not to talk down to the woodsmen, rather he chose to elevate them to their rightful stature in his address to them:

“…Then you, who have learned to love, to venerate the gift of the mountains and forest and lakes, will retain the benefits of your labors and those of your ancestors. You will preserve the forest of New York state to a race loftier than that of the Scotish Highlands, more fortunate in your advantages in life and knowledge, with all the possibilities of the intellectual development of our race and the freedom which only belongs to Americans; that great heritage will be secured by constant battle.” –Verplanck Colvin

Verplanck Colvin’s greatest accomplishment is largely unknown to the visitors of the Adirondacks. Even to the thousands of hikers each year who summit the grand mountain that bears his name he remains an obscurity. You probably won’t find his name in a textbook, and he isn’t famous like other notable conservationist, because when he was a conservationist there was no such movement. In a sense, he was a pioneer of a movement that would not exist for many years. Fortunately for those hikers who are lucky enough to stand on that summit and look out into the wilderness, Colvin was the person who was largely responsible for the creation of New York State Forest Preserve, of which close to 4 million acres are publicly held wild lands to be kept “Forever Wild”; thus creating the largest intact wilderness east of the Rockies.

“The Lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by a corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.” -Article 14, New York State Constitution

The more widely known congressional Wilderness Act -of 1964- is very closely modeled after the “Forever Wild” clause of Article 14 of the New York State Constitution. Article 14, ratified in 1894, made the Adirondacks America’s first and most heavily protected wilderness. In fact, the best I can discern, the New York State Forest Preserve is the only constitutionally protected wilderness in the US. Since 1894 over 2,000 attempts have been made to alter Article 14, 28 of them have made it to voters and only 20 have been approved by the People. In comparison, adjustments to the Wilderness Act of 1964 are at the whims of congress and/or the president.

By ratifying Article 14 in 1894 and again in 1938, the people of the state of New York have shown they believe soundly enough in the movement Verplanck Colvin started in the 1860s.

Verplanck Colvin was chiefly responsible for the creation of the Forest Preserve, Article 14’s “Forever Wild”, and later “Adirondack Park” because of his 20 years of visionary dedication to the permanent protection of the Adirondacks. There is no doubt that without Colvin’s determination to complete the Adirondack Land Survey, his impassioned knowledge of the natural world, combined with his ability to eloquently explain it in his writing and art; the Adirondacks, New York, and America would be a vastly different place than we know today.

“..the Adirondack Preserve has been a good thing. It has been a model for the federal government and other states. It has given a tone to recreation, and esthetic and spiritual satisfaction to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. Whatever lies ahead, I shall be grateful to the Adirondack mountains, lakes and streams.” -Jim Marshall (brother of the famed mountaineer and conservationist Bob Marshall; son of Louis Marshall whom was instrumental in helping create the SUNY-ESF college for forestry)

And so will Colvin Harrison as we spend many years tramping together through those very same mountains and flowing down those very same streams, knowing the Adirondacks will be the one constant we have; ”Forever Wild”!

(two images above are taken 130 years apart on Hurricane Mountain from virtually the same location, not a lot has changed)

For more on Verplanck Colvin:

Nationally published articles and illustrations in Harpers Magazine (fee to view via Harpers)

Colvin’s renowned 7^th report to the Legislature of the state of New York (free from Google)

So Long 2009...Starting the New Year Right, In the Adirondacks!

Well, 2009 is history and I am on my way to starting 2010 in similar fashion to 2008, which while not an amazing year, was a pretty darn good one in comparison.

While I didn't start off the New Year exactly like 2008, complete with a 1.5 hour drive in the snow, followed by a 4 mile sunrise hike with no sleep, I'm hoping to make up for it with quantity over quality. Yes, I am an American...more is more, and less is less, quantity over quality always reigns supreme. So, instead of last years one and done till the next weekend, I'm shooting for a consecutive days of Y2X record. And since records are established purely with the idea they will be broken, I'm off to start the year with 3.5 days in the Adirondacks, snowshoeing, hiking, and getting intimate with my Pentax 645N and some good old fashioned film.

I'm gonna go all Ansel Adam's on the Adirondacks with a bag full of Fuji Neopan Acros 100, a roll or two of Neopan 400, and perhaps a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 for star trails or moonlight shots under the very full moon. I'm even going to bring the magic 645N interchangeable film back, so I can shoot all 3 films as the need arises. To be honest, I don't know a damn thing about shooting landscapes in black and white, and that is appealing. Sure I mess around with it, I even occasionally create a nice looking color channel conversion from a film or digital color image, but I rarely bothered with shooting straight black and white. My philosophy has always been shoot color and do a high quality conversion. But truth be told, I'm tired of digital workflow, sick of Lightroom, and having a blast doing my own black and white developing for pennies on the roll.

By night I'll be chilling (or rather warming) by a wood stove, and drying out my gear as I read a book, while nursing a Lake Placid Brewery Ubu Ale. Then maybe on Sunday night shoot some star trails if the weather looks good enough to leave my trusty medium format workhorse outside. With a little luck, I'll finish reading Verplanck Colvin's biography, Footsteps Through the Adirondacks; which leads me to resolutions!

As far as New Years resolutions, they are completely pointless. As pointless as saying I'm sorry when someone dies, or God bless you when someone sneezes. Of course you are sorry, and around the 1800s AD it was learned our souls don't fly out of our bodies when we sneeze. Jan 1st is a day like any other. You don't need a change of calendar to start something different, only the desire to make it happen, whether it is Jan 1st, Jan 20th, February 7, March 18th, April 1st, July 31st or November 6th...you get the point.

So instead of laying out a list of mangy laundry like the rest of the detritus of the blogosphere, I'm just gonna finish off Colvin's biography which I started months ago. I tore through the first few hundred pages when I got the book, and then put it down reluctantly at about the 75% point, only to have it sit on my nightstand for the last 2.5 months. Right now I use mostly as a way to level out my pile of books so that my phone (aka. alarm clock) doesn't fall between the stacks. The cover jacket has gotten quite ragged from me hitting the snooze button, or throwing the phone off the nightstand while searching in vain for a virtual snooze button on a virtual alarm clock.

So how bad is this book that I have relinquished it to a pulpy level? Actually, Nina Webb did an

excellent job on the book, which sadly is the only really comprehensive look at Verplanck Colvin's life. Without her work, it's entirely possible that Colvin would just be another High Peak on a tick list like so many other famous Adirondack names.

For those not in the know, Colvin was the father of the Adirondacks. To put this into proper light, the Adirondacks were America's first wilderness, and an experiment that has never been repeated in the world, and probably never will. If you take that last statement to heart, Verplanck Colvin was the father of the American wilderness as well. The Wilderness Act of 1964, almost 80 years after the establishment of "Forever Wild" in the New York constitution, was based on what Colvin fought for in the Adirondack Forest Preserve for over 20 years of his life.

It goes without saying, if not for Verplanck Colvin, I would have far less to blog about, far less to

photograph, and far less to entertain my imagination during the work week. The Adirondacks are the ultimate four season "weekend wilderness", and they just happen to be in my backyard.

Resolute to resolve my resolution, and confident in the outcome, I'll be packing away Adirondack Explorations: Nature Writings Of Verplanck Colvin.

Have a Happy New Year (and 2009, suck it!!)!!