FYI ~ the death of a friend of the Adirondacks (and the earth)
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 10:55AM 
Anne LaBastille ~ AP PHOTO/Rob Fountain • click to embiggenEven though I never had the privilege (and, I'm sure, the pleasure) of meeting Anne LaBastille, it was with great sadness that I learned of her recent death. From a somewhat egocentric POV, I would loved to have shared my life without the APA book with her.
LaBastille's accomplishments were many, most, but not all, in the field of conservation and things ecological. Most, but again not all, of those accomplishments were (and continue to be) of great benefit to the Adirondack PARK. Her many books - like the so-called "Woodswoman" series, several of which are on our bookshelves - chronicling her life in a little hand-built cabin (no electricity, no phone, heated with a wood stove) in a wildness setting on 22 acres of old-growth forest, have sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
As a result of her many national/international articles (published in National Geographic and a host of other publications) on the topic of conservation / ecology, her voice was heard round the world. So, it is refreshing to know that her death has been well noted with articles on her life in newspapers across the US of A.
A few excerpts:
LaBastille was a commissioner of New York's Adirondack Park Agency for 17 years, with an unpaid seat on its board from 1975 to 1993. The APA regulates land use in the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park.
"We always knew she was going to vote for protection. No matter what the project was or the issue was, she would always come down on the side of protecting nature," said Beamish, who worked for the agency early in her tenure. "She was reviled for that by those who didn't believe in the APA or who didn't believe that the APA should be telling people what they can or can't do with their land. For them, she was seen as the worst of the APA. For a lot of people she was the best of it."
Bowes recalled that the cabin (ed: LaBastille's cabin), which had no road leading to it, was built too close to the lake, a land-use violation that prompted a neighbor to complain. He slid logs underneath it and inched it back in a rainstorm, while LaBastille worked away at her typewriter inside. - Washington (DC) Examiner
On August 7, 1992, during the debate over the findings of the Commission on the Adirondacks in the Twenty-First Century, LaBastille's barns at her home in Wadhams were destroyed in a fire she believed was an act of arson by residents opposed to the APA (the Adirondack Council's offices were vandalized on several occasions around the same time).
"I'm a woman alone, so I'm a great target" she said at the time, "What's happening in the Adirondacks reminds me a lot of the death squad stuff in Central America [where the game warden she worked with was murdered]." Although she claimed at the time that she was doing so out of the demands of her career, she stopped regularly attending APA meetings and resigned the following year.
"Anne became a symbol to these people," former APA Director Bob Glennon (the man who captured arsonist Brian Gale in the act of torching an APA building in 1976) later remembered. "They'd point to her as a world conservationist and say she didn't represent the Adirondacks' point of view, meaning theirs." - Adirondack Almanac
And then there's this, which will endear her to me forever(wild):
LaBastille could also be outlandish and sometimes interrupted comment at APA meeting by saying. "It's a park, a park, a park." - Press Republican - Plattsburg, NY
IMO, you just gotta love (and miss) a woman like Anne.
Reader Comments (3)
I share your sadness Mark. I had vaguely wondered if you had ever crossed paths with this warrior woman knowing she lived in your neck of the woods and was a ferocious park protector. Her writing has had a huge influence on my life and after first reading Woodswoman back in 1976, I wanted to be her when I grew up. The older I get and the more disillusioned I become with the way the world works, I begin to dream more and more of a quiet life alone in a cabin by a lake or deep in the woods.
This is a great photograph of her I think.
Mary, to quote a truly great,great American (lol)
"Don't retreat. Reload."
Keep fighting the good fight!