Several weeks ago, this writer joined a local group of hikers on one of their scheduled weekly trips. The goal this day was a climb up Cat Mountain, located in the Five Ponds Wilderness area near Wanakena and south of Cranberry Lake.
Lumber was king in this area in the early 1900s, and the railroad spurs ran like the spokes of a wheel, reaching out to prime timber areas, formerly too far for the primitive transportation then available to be cost effective. Many of those railroad beds have become a part of today’s trail system in the Five Ponds area, and the route chosen by trip leader John Sayles was of special historical interest.
Natural history abounds here, also in the form of the 1995 windstorm called a Derecho (a straight line storm). This storm is considered the largest natural disturbance to affect the Adirondacks. In the Five Ponds, over 60 percent of the trees were blown over. Here is an opportunity to gain your own perspective on whether the downed timber should have been salvaged. Was it a valuable resource that should have been harvested and not left to rot? Or was it just a disturbance that should be left alone since “forest communities evolve with such disturbances, and not only survives, but thrives in the wake of such occurrences?”
The route the Tupper Lake group followed this day started on the South Shore Road in the hamlet of Wanakena. It follows what had been the road bed of one of the former logging railroads of the Rich and Andrews Lumber Company. As you might expect, the grades were easy, and a firm treadway provided good walking. The railroad grade ends at a bay of Cranberry Lake called Dead Creek Flow. A red-marked trail with a moderate climb through mature hardwoods and a slight scramble takes you to the summit of Cat Mountain.
It may be of interest that Wanakena, located where the Oswegatchie River flows into Cranberry Lake, didn’t exist until 1903. It was a region of “primitive forests of spruce and hardwoods, with many great pines towering above the spruce.” That changed almost overnight when the Rich and Andrews Lumber Co., which had exhausted its lumber supply in Pennsylvania, acquired 16,000 acres south of Wanakena.
Within a year, that company had built 15 miles of railroad tracks and a large sawmill. They also laid out a planned village with electricity and water hookups. In no time, over 700 people moved in and Wanakena was born. The railroad that the company built made it possible to cut one of the last stands of giant pine trees in the park. They cut mostly softwood, and if those trees were impressive, so was the dimension lumber that was sawn from them. Most of the logs were cut to a standard of 20 feet to protect the butt ends. The railroad, with its many spurs, permitted the clearing of 2,300 acres a year, and in seven years, the tract was stripped of its virgin timber, causing the sawmill to close.
At about that same time, the Emporium Forestry Co. opened a mill in Conifer (1911) and built the Grasse River Railroad to Cranberry Lake. This brought about a shift in lumber operations and camps from Wanakena to the Cranberry and Conifer areas. Many Wanakena residents moved to the new locations or to camps run by Tupper Lake operators such as John D’Avignon, George Bushey and Oliver Proulx. Mr. Proulx had a large camp near Dog Pond, where the late Leon LaFave once told me he spent may happy hours as a youngster when his mother was a cook at that camp.
A beautiful meadow, now called Proulx’s Clearing, obscures the many remnants of that large camp, but the view down the valley that carries Dog Pond’s outlet waters to Cranberry Lake remains impressive. Mr. Proulx certainly picked a beautiful location for his camp site.
The blush was off the rose for Wanakena as a bustling community, but the dew remained, and Wanakena today is a lovely hamlet with large shade trees bordering well-kept homes along quiet streets on both sides of the Oswegatchie River, which still runs vibrant and clear under the connecting bridge. Gone is the large company store where, as a pre-teenage helper on my father’s beverage truck, I delivered many cases of Orange Crush in its distinctive “Crinkly Brown” sun-protected bottles. Gone too is the large hotel at the “top of the hill,” but not before it became a rip-roaring dance hall and bar when the Benson Mines operation and the Newton Falls Paper Mill provided hundreds of thirsty, fun-loving patrons. What has remained is the Ranger School, the oldest institution of its kind in the United States.
When the Rich Lumber Co. closed in 1912 after its short seven-year interval, some of its land was given to build this remarkable school.
Since that time, associated with the State University College of Forestry at Syracuse University, it has trained thousands of students to become professional foresters, fitted for such positions as forest rangers, estate managers, timber cruisers, scalers and surveyors.
The school is noted for its intensive, no-nonsense curriculum with a heavy emphasis on algebra and geometry, day-long field work and classroom instruction.
You will experience a certain time warp if you visit Wanakena today, but it’s a visit you will find rewarding, nostalgic and, yes, historical.
Note:
In 1909, one of the first fire towers in the state was built
on Cat Mountain. The original wooden tower was later replaced by one
made of steel. Of seven such towers erected in St. Lawrence County,
only the tower on Mt. Arab remains.