Several weeks ago, while skiing at Big Tupper, I found myself sharing one of the double chairs on lift #1 with an attractive young lady, who I guessed to be in her early forties. I clanged shut the restraining bar and, as the cable hummed its way across the pulleys and lifted us up the mountain, a conversation ensued that ran something like this:

Me: “The ski area management has done an incredible job in improving the trails, don’t you think?”
Her (with a slight accent): “Oh yes! They have most certainly!”
Me (thinking she was a Canadian visitor with French her first language): “Ou demeurez vouz au Canada?” (“Where do you live in Canada?”)
Her: “Je parle Francais, un peu, mais mal, Je crois. Je demeure a Poland.” (I speak French a little, but poorly, I believe. I live in Poland.)
Me (embarrassed): “Oh, I’m sorry! I thought you might be from Canada.”

As the lift continued up the mountain, I learned that my fellow passenger was now living in Philadelphia. In addition to skiing, she loved to sail and play tennis.

Two summers ago, she had discovered the Pine Terrace Resort with its tennis courts and lakeside location and had returned often in all seasons. She added that she had become good friends with Donna and Jerzy Maliszewski, the owners, and agreed that the skiing at Big Tupper had never been any better. The mountains here, she remarked, reminded her of the mountains near her native village in Poland. She had studied world history in school and was fascinated by the American Indian, who she knew had greeted Columbus when he landed on our New England shores.

She asked, “Did Indians inhabit this region?” My reply to this question (as most readers will readily know) was that the two hostile tribes who claimed the area only visited it from time to time for hunting and trapping. They had their trodden trails such as Indian Pass in the High Peaks, for example, and their favorite camping places such as Indian Point (I.P. Sorting Gap lean-to on Tupper Lake) or Indian Carry (located near Upper Saranac Lake at Coreys), but no permanent settlement has ever been found. The chief claimants to the region were the Mohawks, called Iroquois by the French, and the Algonquins, a Canadian tribe.

I continued that the Iroquois had established good farms in the more suitable terrain of Central New York, where they raised corn and other food. For meat and furs the Adirondacks was their hunting ground. They were fierce and warlike and greatly feared. Occasionally the Iroquois would meet the Algonquins on the lakes and in the forest and a great battle would result in which the Algonquins were usually the losers.

I was also able to tell her that when we reached the top of the mountain I would point out the MacIntyre Mountain Range only a few air miles away and rising loftily in the view from the ski lift’s terminal station. This range is made up of five different peaks and extends for about eight miles running NE and SW. It is considered by many the noblest group of mountains in the Adirondacks.

Three of the peaks have names based on the supposition that the ancient boundary line between the Algonquin nation on the north and the Iroquois on the south ran across what is now known as Boundary Peak. Thus, this peak lies between the two peaks now called Algonquin and Iroquois and is at the present on the boundary between the towns of Newcomb and North Elba (Marshall Mountain and Wright Mountain are the two other peaks in this range).

Digression: On a clear day, 135 lakes may be seen from Algonquin’s summit, which at 5,114 feet is the second-highest mountain in the High Peaks.

Indian Pass was called He-no-do-as-da, “The path of the thunderer,” by the Indians who used it to bisect the High Peaks. It remains today as wild and dramatic as it was in those ancient times. One passes through a stupendous gorge whose NW wall rises 1,000 feet on Wallface Mountain. For those wishing to visit this place, it is 10.5 miles from Tahawus through the pass to Adk. Loj outside of Lake Placid.

The visiting skier also asked about the vicious habit of the Indians scalping their victims. Indian folklore contains a little-known story that I told her would best explain that practice. It went something like this: In ancient times a great Algonquin warrior and hunter was surrounded by the dreaded Iroquois while hunting in his favorite place, known by all as Leap of the Foaming Panther (Piercefield Falls). This warrior had killed much game there for the skins and had always left the remains for the birds of prey, who had become his friends.

As he tried to flee, the body of a great tree lay across the path. He came to it just as a heavy blow felled him. Upon recovering he found, strangely enough, that he could as easily pass through as over the obstruction. When he reached home, his friends would not talk to him; indeed, they seemed quite unaware of his presence.

It now occurred to him that he had been killed and was present in spirit only, human eyes not seeing him. He returned to where he had been surrounded and there, sure enough, lay his mortal body quite dead and his scalp was gone.

A sparrow hawk flying by recognized the disembodied hunter and gratefully offered to restore his scalp. Stretching away in flight, the bird caught up with the Iroquois and plucked the scalp from a bloody pole. The other birds had, in the meantime, prepared a medicine that soon united the scalp to the head. The hunter got well and lived for many years on the shores of a lake (Tupper Lake) the Indians called Paskungameh, which translated means, “going out from the river.” Here he could look out in contentment across to Faraway See Hill (Mt. Morris). Evidently there was a belief that when a person lost his scalp he was dead, and that by taking his scalp along as a trophy, one prevented, as we might say, “a new lease on life.”