It may be hard to believe, considering today’s restrictive rules and regulations that are part of any recreational use of the Adirondack Park, that prior to the mid-1970s it was possible to have a permanent state permit camp. They were known as tent camps or platform camps and many local people had permits that allowed them to build such a camp on state land. The idea got its start during the administration of Conservation Commissioner George Pratt, 1915-1921.
Commissioner Pratt wanted to open the woods for recreational use of all people. He introduced the first recreational circulars (trail description maps, etc.), built the first lean-tos with state funds and labor, erected the first fireplaces on lake shores that developed into the public campgrounds of today, and started a system of trail marking.
Anxious to get people to camp and enjoy the woods, he started the system of allowing a standardized platform with a standardized roof of canvas over a support frame that also had to follow dimension standards, and which allowed three feet of boarded sides.
It was an idea that was probably too good. Soon hundreds of these tent camps were springing up on almost every lake, especially on Lower Saranac Lake and the Regis Chain of lakes. The shores of Long Pond in the St. Regis Chain, for example in 1970, had 16 tent camps that virtually monopolized all the best camping sites, almost to the exclusion of anyone else wishing to camp. Follensby Clear Pond, in one bay alone, had over 18 raised tent platforms, all furnished and padlocked. Many of the nice, flat clearings you can spot as you travel the Raquette River between the “Crusher” (Rte. 30 boat launch) and Raquette Falls were once occupied for the exclusive use of tent platform permit holders. One of the best maintained and most pleasant of these sites on the river was the Chet Johnson camp, just below Raquette Falls, where Palmer Brook enters. Chet and his two sons, Bill and Stan, hauled scores of dead heads from the river to help navigation, and they maintained buoys on the many obstructions. That lovely location, so full of fond memories, is today a prime D.E.C. designated camping spot.
The privilege of owning a permanent tent camp was, as one old timer told me, “too good to last.” The winds of change were blowing. Those winds carried an expression of the belief that the Adirondacks were in danger from pressures of increased recreational use and large developments by well-heeled corporate developers.
What became known as the Park Agency Bill then went before the legislature with the governor’s support, and on June 2, 1970, the Assembly voted 123-24 in favor. The next day the Senate approved it 22-14.
This highly controversial agency then designed a state master plan. Among the many recommendations in the plan was one that involved all non-conforming uses in the classification categories they labeled as Wilderness. Primitive and Wild Forest would be phased out by 1975. Those non-conforming uses included roads, power lines, snowmobile trails and tent platforms. It was the beginning of a major change.
I didn’t own a tent platform, but I know many folks who did. It was like having a tank pull into your front yard, lower its cannon and having the tank commander holler, “Out! Get out! Take what’s yours but get out!” After the initial shock wave came disbelief, dismay and finally anger. Strong protests were made but to no avail. The legislature had just restructured the Conservation Dept., creating a super agency called the Department of Environmental Conservation that absorbed the old department and several other state agencies. This new D.E.C., as it became known, gave its approval to the master plan. The plan, with some modifications that were arrived at during three public hearings, became state policy in July 1972.
The battle to save the tent platform is practically forgotten today and even unknown to many younger residents. Nevertheless, it is an important historic milestone in what the late Wm. Verner termed the “park making progress” in the 1970s.
It would be one of the signature changes that would determine how the Adirondacks would be managed. Many of the permit holders simply walked away from their sites as the phase-out of the tent platforms commenced, and it became a formidable task to clean up the former sites. It would take until 1978 before D.E.C. work crews razed all of the structures and cleaned the clearings of stoves, sinks, beds, propane tanks, etc.
To take a dispassionate look back, we could probably agree today that permanent tent platforms were, in fact, inequitable. As the outdoor boom with camping and hiking increased at unheard levels by a nature-hungry public, complaints began to inundate the Governor’s Office. As I remember it, the local residents had little objection. After all, they had grown up with tent camps as a fact of life and were, for the most part, on the friendly side of neutral in the ensuing debate.
Prior to the 1970s, backpacking was still an alien concept to most Americans, but the new wave of tourists and campers found prime camping sites pre-empted by the tent camps. The biggest complaint, however, was that the permit was a special and exclusive privilege that constituted a “holding” on state land and was a violation of the park’s “wilderness character.”
Admittedly, there were also many abuses of the permit system. Some permit holders actually rented out their camps, to name just one abuse among many – a perfect example of a few individuals ruining it for the majority who did follow the rules and regulations of their permit. That having been said, there remains little doubt that Commissioner Pratt’s idea had outgrown its original intent and was in need of being rescinded.
Today it is still possible to obtain a “temporary” permit that allows the camps on state land (usually for a specified limit of time). As the private land continues to shrink under state acquisition with the subsequent loss of lease arrangements for hunting camps, such permits will become increasingly popular, even necessary, if the wonderful tradition of the hunting camp experience is to survive for many people.
We can only hope that this temporary permit system, which reflects the original philosophy of former Commissioner Pratt to encourage primitive camping and the wise use of great woods and waters for all people to enjoy, is allowed to remain and is recognized as an essential part of the Adirondack way of life.