I recently returned home from an extended stay in Idaho’s Sun Valley to find a basket full of mail. Included among the mix of Cabela’s, LL Bean and yes, even Victoria’s Secret catalogs, was a packet containing a video tape. It was from my former neighbor (now living in Syracuse) and close friend, Dave LaVoie. In addition to being one of the best woodsmen I have known, Dave was also an ardent photographer. He was always hauling his vintage Bell & Howell movie camera on our hiking trips. Dave had spliced several different subject matters into a loop of four minutes and transferred the result to a video tape. The first minute of so of that video was of a snowshoe trip that Dave and I, along with the late Louis Simmons, had taken into Cold River country to visit the Hermitage of Noah John Rondeau, mayor of Cold River City, population one.

Noah was the famous hermit who, from 1912 to 1950, lived alone on a small knoll above the Cold River. He was no longer occupying his former “digs” the day of our visit. On Nov. 24, 1950, he became uneasy over the advance winds of the Big Blowdown, and the next day he headed out for the 19 and one-half mile trip to Coreys. Noah took his usual short cut that day through Ouluska Pass (the Indian meaning of Ouluska is a “place of shadows,” a good description for this deep defile that goes between Seymour and Seward Mountains.)

He only got as far as Martin’s caretaker cottage at Avery Rockerfeller’s Ampersand Park (about nine miles) before the fury of the “Big Blow” reached its peak and prevented further travel. The next day Lucien, with two assistants and group of hunters who had been camped on state land near Ward Brook (with mules), started cutting their way out to Coreys, a task that took them two days before they ran into Tupper Lake forest ranger Delbert McNeil and his Conservation Department crew cutting their way from the opposite direction.

Following this storm, the woods would be closed for three years. Ouluska Pass became impenetrable for easy travel, and Noah, at 67 years of age, would end that phase of his life. He would never return to his hermitage.

Salvage operations to remove the jack straw of downed timber were started almost at once and were ongoing the day we made our trip. Giant white pine logs lay stacked at the landings we passed (the local US Bobbin and Shuttle Co. that year brought in many 40-inch diameter logs, some of which were estimated to be 300 hundred years old).

There is a fine shot in Dave’s camera footage that shows Louis emerging from the tiny door of Noah’s cabin. Louis has a big grin on his face, and it is hard to decide whether his is laughing at the absurdity of this hovel of a camp which Noah had banged together from scraps of lumber scavenged from Alphonse Beaudett’s abandoned Santa Clara Lumber Camp or, because the tiny size (8’x10’), if nothing else, was efficient in terms of heating, not to mention the ease in which it allowed Noah to reach the pot of stew, which he kept simmering almost year-round on the stove.

Louis is pictured wearing his favorite outdoor outfit, which I used to call his woodman’s woolens. This was the de rigueur outfit of the day before miracle fibers like Gore Tex and Capaliene, and is still favored knowledgeable out-of-doors people. It consisted of woolen trousers laced at the knee, a heavy jacket of the same material and matching hat with ear flaps, all of which were the same green-black or red-black plaid. Mittens were leather with the same plaid back (good nose wipers) and were usually called “wood choppers” or “Saranac Bucks.” And, of course, leather-top rubber boots known as “Malones” or “Ballards” made by the Ballard Mill in Malone, N.Y. Of local interest, the Ballard design and patterns were purchased by the well-known Woolrich Woolen Co. of Pennsylvania, and Leslie Noelk of Conifer, a principal officer of that company, was involved in the acquisition.

Shortly after our visit and just before the mud season, Noah’s cabin was transferred by skidder and truck to the Adirondack Museum. It seems to me that this was accomplished by a lumberman named Crawfoot, who was from the Old Forge area.

I knew Noah only slightly. My first encounter occurred when I was a youngster. Walking along Main Street, I ran into this wiry little man emerging from the restaurant owned by a Greek family named Tagaras (located in the now vacant lot next to the movie theater). Noah was somewhat unsteady on his feet, wearing deerskin clothing, a huge fur hat and a long beard. That image is burned into my memory bank as with a hot ember, and it probably occurred during Noah’s annual Christmas visit to his friend, Frank Hathaway, caretaker of Bartlett’s Carry Camp near Upper Saranac Lake.

Years later, when Noah was no longer a hermit, he stayed for a time in Long Lake with a customer of mine, a colorful character named Roy Lash. Roy, whose ample girth belied his stamina, owned the Village Inn and was a trapper and fur buyer who had become a good friend of Noah’s in the early Cold River days. Desmond Lance and Ed Wallace, themselves Long Lake trappers, were also good friends. I often sat during those days and talked with Noah. I found him a gentle man, always neatly dressed, his beard well-trimmed.

He was, at times, slightly reserved, even suspicious, but always polite and, if he liked you, he could be very charming. In his early recluse days, Noah had a lengthy feud with the fledgling Conservation Department (1910-1920s), especially over game laws and license permits. Those problems are curiously reminiscent of the problems the APA is having with other Adirondackers today.

The state couldn’t bother him about the location of his hermitage, however, since it was located in what is known as a Gore. This was a triangular piece of disputed land (about 2,700 acres in size) formed by the failure of the north/south boundaries of Township 27 to be satisfactorily established. This Gore was pre-empted by the Santa Clara Company, which allowed Noah to live there. The state later laid claim to this “unappropriated” land and sued the company for half a million dollars, but Ferris Meigs was able to prove that its original purchase of Townships 26 and 27 gave it title to these lands (that purchase consisted of 35,000 acres at $4.50 per acre, and for over 30 years, many Tupper Lake residents were involved in its timber removal).

Today, only remnants remain to remind us of Noah’s location. The Northville to Lake Placid Trail goes right across the knoll with its wonderful mountain and river views. If you look carefully among the raspberry bushes, you can find the various cultivated flowers that have survived from the days Noah planted them from (according to his log) seed packets purchased in this village.