STUDY
in a stunning natural environment that is ecologically,
culturally, and politically unique
A unique ecology: The Nature
Conservancy calls it “one of the last great places” on
earth. The 6-million-acre Adirondack Park, a diverse
eco-region as large as the state of Vermont, contains the
largest remaining temperate-deciduous forest in
the world, as well as the largest intact wilderness
east of Denver. The Park includes 43 mountain peaks above
4,000 feet, 2,000 lakes and ponds, numerous boreal bogs,
and some 30,000 miles of streams. Wildlife is
abundant—including bald eagles, loons, black bear, lynx,
and a healthy and growing population of moose. The
largest old-growth forest east of the Mississippi includes
100-foot pine and northern hardwoods, which yield to
sub-alpine spruce/fir forests about 2500 feet and alpine
tundra crowning the highest summits.
Learn more
about current research
 A
unique culture: Adirondack culture has grown out of
the human encounter with wilderness, producing a rich
history replete with Great Camps, Adirondack guide boats
and Rushton canoes, logging camps and iron mines,
landscape painting by greats such as Winslow Homer and
Frederick Remington, and a two-time winter Olympics venue
at Lake Placid. The culture includes a unique
architecture and rustic furniture and a substantial
literature. Today, 130,000 people continue to make their
homes within the Park’s boundaries, some of whom trace
their ancestry back to the original settlers and loggers
of the 1800’s. Combining wilderness preservation with
local settlement, the Adirondack Park is a living
laboratory of the human encounter with nature.
A unique model of governance:
The Adirondack Park has no single organization in charge.
It is governed instead by a complex environmental regime
that includes state constitutional protection, regional
land-use controls, and strong oversight by multiple
environmental organizations. The conservation legacy
begun in the Adirondacks by Theodore Roosevelt, Robert
Marshall (founder of the Wilderness Society), and Howard
Zahniser (author of the 1964 Wilderness Act), is carried
on today by the Adirondack Park Agency and Department of
Environmental Conservation and civic associations such as
the Association to Protect the Adirondacks (founded in
1901), the Residents Committee to Protect the Adirondacks,
and the Adirondack Mountain Club.
Students witness the continuing
debate over wilderness and sustainable development. An
introduction to environmental studies that uses the
Adirondack Park as its living laboratory, it features an
interdisciplinary faculty, each teaching in an area of
individual expertise, together with field lectures from
environmental professionals working in the Adirondacks
(see accompanying list of resources). Reading and writing
are connected to experience, enabling students to
formulate a vision of Christian environmental stewardship. |
A unique opportunity to earn
college credit during the summer and fall at Houghton
College's Star Lake Campus
Apply Online Now
Contact: Houghton Off-campus Program Office at ocp@houghton.edu
or (585) 567-9634.
ORGANIZATIONAL
RESOURCES
(partial listing)
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