(Maine, New York, etc)…I recently took two trips north of New York City, so as to see parts of my “backyard” I’d never seen before. It has always fascinated me that Americans at the drop of a hat can decide to move from Los Angeles to new York City, or vice-versa, while in England—at least when I was a kid—eyebrows were raised if you decided to move from South London to North. “You’re moving where…? Well, good luck, it was nice having know you.” It was considered far less odd if you moved from Bexleyheath to the United States, than if you moved from Bexleyheath to Belsize Park, which my friends Shaun and Scott did.
It is President Dwight Eisenhower who Americans have to thank for their healthier attitude, as it was he who signed the Interstate Bill that upgraded and built the country’s web of fast roads. England, meanwhile, has a few major motorways that support thousands of kilometres of Roman lane. One of my recent trips was to Lake Placid in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, a state that measures 141,299 square kilometres, as opposed to England’s 130,423—which might explain why New Yorkers and all Americans need to drive farther and cannot be constrained by internal notions of what is and is not “home.”
The Adirondacks is the last true wilderness in the Northeast and in effect stretches all the way from the northeast of Pennsylvania, along the Appalachian Trail, across New York (where its bulk lies), across the Green and White mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire, respectively, and out into the deep woods and endless lakes of Maine. Lake Placid itself is famous for hosting several Winter Olympics, the last being in 1980. It is wonderful to see how small and unimposing its Olympics facilities are in this age of hype, explosions, floating architecture and corps of 1,000 drummers. The town—one street really—is trendy in an escape-from-New-York-City way, while the lake surprisingly is off the beaten path. A smaller lake, Mirror, in the town often is mistaken for Placid, and vacationers paddle around it with smiles on their faces, maybe ignorant of the mistake.
We took a kayak and paddled around Placid, watching the Great Northern divers (known here as Common loons) surface, beads of water dripping off their striped necks. There are three islands in the lake, two large ones—Buck and Moose—and one small one—Hawk. We tied up at a tip of Moose and swam in the cool water. One female Mallard took a liking to us and followed our kayaks.
 Next to where we stayed was a Howard Johnson hotel, which maintains one of the very few HoJo restaurants still in existence. The ski jump is formidable, and why anyone would want to go down one is beyond me. Being English, I have embarrassed and fond memories of our own ski-jumping star, Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards, who angered and delighted spectators with his antics at the Calgary Olympics, at which one Italian commentator termed him not a ski-jumper but a “ski-dropper.” But the fact is he could go down the ski jump, where I certainly could not. I believe a film on his life is coming out next year, starring Steve Coogan. The thing that impressed me about the ski jump is the very small space that exists as you get off the steps and onto the launching pad.
We took a beautiful hike along Indian Pass from the original Adirondacks hiking base, the Adirondack Loj, the last word spelt not as “lodge” but in a phonetic manner pleasing to its creator, Melvil Dewey, one of the original wilderness supporters and the inventor of the Dewey Decimal Library Classification System. (Was his name spelt Melvil, rather than Melville, because of his parents’ shared belief that trickled down to the son?) It is by Heart Lake, which also is cold and has more than a hint of vegetal matter when its bed is stepped on.
My second trip was to visit as many of the Shaker communities of the Northeast United States as I could—this was in a week of $4.50-per-gallon gasoline prices. I have always been interested in the Shakers (full name: The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing) since reading an article on them in the September 1989 issue of National Geographic. Our first stop was Sabbathday Lake in Maine, which is the only remaining community. The only male Shaker left—there are five left today, although there are strong hopes of one more joining up soon—is Brother Arnold, and when we arrived, he was sweeping leaves in preparation for the upcoming tourism season, which runs there from May to October (www.shaker.lib.me.us). He chatted with us. A team of volunteers helps them maintain some 730 hectares.
This is a small amount compared to the Shakers’ heyday, in which there were more than 30 communities in more than 15 states, including a short-lived, all-black community. Sabbathday Lake has a calm that I will not even try to describe here. It is a place to sit and think and feel. Farther down the road is Alfred, Maine (www.ficbrothers.org), which until 1931 was a Shaker community but is today owned by the Canadian-based Brothers of Christian Instruction. We were accompanied by one of the brothers as we walked to the small Shaker graveyard there, and he asked if we wanted to hear him sing the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts, which was written there. It was a touching and beautiful moment and again screamed out simplicity.
From there, we headed to Canterbury, New Hampshire (www.shakers.org), and luckily we approached it along New Road from the east, which gives a wonderful view of this large community—the last one to give up operating—from the bottom of a hill. It, too, is a joy to walk around, but a nearby motorbike-scrambling course with accompanying engine sound rather destroyed the ambiance. More peaceful and far less known were the former Shaker communities of New Lebanon in New York and the nearby Inn at the Shaker Mill Farm (www.shakermillfarminn.com), which was a Shaker mill and now is an inn (that should be obvious from its name, no?) and sits by an idyllic waterfall. We stayed in a B&B, Hitchcock House (www.hitchcockhousebb.com) that was built by the Shakers as a private home. It was very pleasant (minus the statue of the comic Bald eagle in the front yard), and one of the owners, Ted Delano, told us that he remembered the Shakers when he was a very young lad.
Our last stop was in Hancock, just across the border in Massachusetts, which is a tourist attraction but adequately shows the live of the Shakers and explains how they cared for their every need, a concept that the director said amazed certain elements of today’s youth.
Two hikes lead from this living museum, one to the top of a hill called Mount Sinai, where the Shakers went during a brief stint when it was their fashion to receive visions, the other to a wood where they collected wood for their famous boxes and furniture. As we walked along this second path, a bear was spotted. When I finally saw it, I was convinced in my urban manner that it was a statue placed there to inform other urbanites what the country looked like. When it growled, we realised that it was indeed a Black bear and made a hasty retreat, ignoring most of the rules that are supposed to be adhered to when a bear is seen.