Tweet
Adirondack Author Barbra McMartin died Tuesday. Barbara was one of the most prolific and knowledgeable authors the Adirondack have ever produced. Fortunately for all of us her legacy will live on in her writings.
Below is the article from today's Times Union.
Tom McG
An Adirondacks expert left no stone unturned Author and preservationist Barbara McMartin, who loved park's hikes, history, dies at 73
By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer First published: Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Barbara McMartin, a prolific Adirondack guidebook author who introduced two generations of hikers to the pleasures of North Country rambles and fought fiercely as an advocate for forest preservation, died Tuesday at her home on Canada Lake after a long battle with cancer. She was 73. McMartin published her first Adirondack guidebook in 1972, the same year she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the City University of New York. Two dozen more books followed, including the popular "Discover" series of guidebooks and deeply researched histories, in addition to hundreds of articles in magazines and newspapers. Her writing was marked by an emotional warmth for the history of the Adirondacks, anchored by a bedrock of rigorous intellectual analysis. "We've seen the passing of one of the giants of the Adirondacks today," said Richard Lefebvre, interim director of the Adirondack Park Agency and the agency's former chairman. McMartin lived directly across Canada Lake from Lefebvre. The two remained cordial neighbors, despite finding themselves on opposite sides of contentious Adirondack issues at times. "She could be a critic of mine, but she was also a very special counsel and a confidant who had a deep intellectual well," Lefebvre said. "Nobody else possessed her combination of knowledge about the Adirondacks," said Peter Bauer, executive director of the Residents' Committee to Protect the Adirondacks. "She had an on-the-ground understanding of the park after walking every trail, hiking every mountain and canoeing its lakes and rivers. She combined that with an incredible grasp of the park's history, its policy and law." Her understanding of the Adirondacks, not to mention her knowledge of her hometown of Johnstown, Fulton County, was so extensive that a New York Daily News travel writer once called McMartin "the Rand McNally of upstate New York." McMartin was most productive as an author in the past 20 years. She wrote as if she was working on borrowed time after being diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in the mid-1980s. Doctors did not expect her to survive, said her son, James Long, the oldest of her three children, who lives next door on Canada Lake. After treatment, McMartin, a grandmother of four, was in remission until cancer returned two years ago and spread to her brain. She continued to write and completed two books, "The Privately Owned Adirondacks" and "Adirondack Timeline," in the past year. "She was an amazing force of nature," her son said. "She was driven and refused to give up." Long praised Alec Reid, McMartin's husband and his stepfather, a retired IBM executive, as a "tireless collaborator" who handled bookkeeping and production issues and contributed photography and maps to McMartin's books. The books were originally published by Backcountry Press of Vermont, which was acquired by W.W. Norton. The couple later revised and reissued the guidebooks under their own publishing imprint, Lake View Press of Canada Lake. More than 225,000 copies are in print. "She's a true history maker in the Adirondacks who has left a major legacy," said David Pamperin, director of the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, which honored McMartin with its Founder's Day Award. Her history "The Great Forest of the Adirondacks" displayed McMartin's academic rigor, according to Jerold Pepper, director of the Adirondack Museum's research library and archives. "A century from now, people will still be using her books as reference because they were so exhaustively researched," Pepper said. "She spent hour after hour after hour digging into the archives." As an advocate, McMartin headed the Forest Preserve Advisory Committee for many years and contributed policy initiatives to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. She served on the boards of several other Adirondack preservation groups. "There's nobody else like her in the Adirondacks," said Tim Barnett, vice president of the Nature Conservancy in Keene Valley. "She wrote great books of social history and natural history that are unparalleled." The family is not planning a memorial service but asked that contributions be sent to the Residents' Committee to Protect the Adirondacks, P.O. Box 27, Ordway Lane, North Creek, NY 12853.
Below is the article from today's Times Union.
Tom McG
An Adirondacks expert left no stone unturned Author and preservationist Barbara McMartin, who loved park's hikes, history, dies at 73
By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer First published: Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Barbara McMartin, a prolific Adirondack guidebook author who introduced two generations of hikers to the pleasures of North Country rambles and fought fiercely as an advocate for forest preservation, died Tuesday at her home on Canada Lake after a long battle with cancer. She was 73. McMartin published her first Adirondack guidebook in 1972, the same year she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the City University of New York. Two dozen more books followed, including the popular "Discover" series of guidebooks and deeply researched histories, in addition to hundreds of articles in magazines and newspapers. Her writing was marked by an emotional warmth for the history of the Adirondacks, anchored by a bedrock of rigorous intellectual analysis. "We've seen the passing of one of the giants of the Adirondacks today," said Richard Lefebvre, interim director of the Adirondack Park Agency and the agency's former chairman. McMartin lived directly across Canada Lake from Lefebvre. The two remained cordial neighbors, despite finding themselves on opposite sides of contentious Adirondack issues at times. "She could be a critic of mine, but she was also a very special counsel and a confidant who had a deep intellectual well," Lefebvre said. "Nobody else possessed her combination of knowledge about the Adirondacks," said Peter Bauer, executive director of the Residents' Committee to Protect the Adirondacks. "She had an on-the-ground understanding of the park after walking every trail, hiking every mountain and canoeing its lakes and rivers. She combined that with an incredible grasp of the park's history, its policy and law." Her understanding of the Adirondacks, not to mention her knowledge of her hometown of Johnstown, Fulton County, was so extensive that a New York Daily News travel writer once called McMartin "the Rand McNally of upstate New York." McMartin was most productive as an author in the past 20 years. She wrote as if she was working on borrowed time after being diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in the mid-1980s. Doctors did not expect her to survive, said her son, James Long, the oldest of her three children, who lives next door on Canada Lake. After treatment, McMartin, a grandmother of four, was in remission until cancer returned two years ago and spread to her brain. She continued to write and completed two books, "The Privately Owned Adirondacks" and "Adirondack Timeline," in the past year. "She was an amazing force of nature," her son said. "She was driven and refused to give up." Long praised Alec Reid, McMartin's husband and his stepfather, a retired IBM executive, as a "tireless collaborator" who handled bookkeeping and production issues and contributed photography and maps to McMartin's books. The books were originally published by Backcountry Press of Vermont, which was acquired by W.W. Norton. The couple later revised and reissued the guidebooks under their own publishing imprint, Lake View Press of Canada Lake. More than 225,000 copies are in print. "She's a true history maker in the Adirondacks who has left a major legacy," said David Pamperin, director of the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, which honored McMartin with its Founder's Day Award. Her history "The Great Forest of the Adirondacks" displayed McMartin's academic rigor, according to Jerold Pepper, director of the Adirondack Museum's research library and archives. "A century from now, people will still be using her books as reference because they were so exhaustively researched," Pepper said. "She spent hour after hour after hour digging into the archives." As an advocate, McMartin headed the Forest Preserve Advisory Committee for many years and contributed policy initiatives to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. She served on the boards of several other Adirondack preservation groups. "There's nobody else like her in the Adirondacks," said Tim Barnett, vice president of the Nature Conservancy in Keene Valley. "She wrote great books of social history and natural history that are unparalleled." The family is not planning a memorial service but asked that contributions be sent to the Residents' Committee to Protect the Adirondacks, P.O. Box 27, Ordway Lane, North Creek, NY 12853.
Comment