2019-20 Southern Adirondacks Guide to the First Wilderness Heritage Corridor

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Welcome to our North Country,
and the First Wilderness
Heritage Corridor
You will notice that the businesses and organizations participating
in our guide represent small businesses, organizations
and entrepreneurs. They are the strength of our economy, they
hold our communities together, they work tirelessly to give
you the very best in services.
Each town, village, hamlet in this guide is unique because
of its history and natural characteristics, each has a story to
tell you. While you’re here relax, kick back, and enjoy the
people of the North Country.
Top 10 Reasons to Support Locally
Owned Businesses
1. Local Character and Prosperity –In an increasingly
homogenized world, communities that preserve their one-of-a-kind businesses
and distinctive character have an economic advantage.
2. Community Well-Being –Locally owned businesses build
strong communities by sustaining vibrant town centers, linking neighbors in a
web of economic and social relationships, and contributing to local causes.
3. Local Decision-Making –Local ownership ensures that important
decisions are made locally by people who live in the community and who will
feel the impacts of those decisions.
4. Keeping Dollars in the Local Economy –Compared to
chain stores, locally owned businesses recycle a much larger share of their revenue
back into the local economy, enriching the whole community.
5. Job and Wages –Locally owned businesses create more jobs locally
and, in some sectors, provide better wages and benefits than chains do.
6. Entrepreneurship –Entrepreneurship fuels America’s economic
innovation and prosperity, and serves as a key means for families to move out of
low-wage jobs and into the middle class.
7. Public Benefits and Costs –Local stores in town centers
require comparatively little infrastructure and make more efficient use of public
services relative to big box stores and strip shopping malls.
8. Environmental Sustainability –Local stores help to sustain
vibrant, compact, walkable town centers-which in turn are essential to reducing
sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and water pollution.
9. Competition –A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses
is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term.
10. Product Diversity –A multitude of small businesses, each
selecting products based, not on a national sales plan, but on their own interests
and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of
product choices.
We encourage you to use our printed magazine, our electronic
magazines and our downloadable app as a map to
Adirondack experiences. Learn our history, explore our lakes,
rivers, mountains and historic landmarks. Enjoy our activities
and discover the many small towns along our back roads and
country highways – their hidden treasures will delight you.
Welcome to the North Country, We’re happy you’re here!
Reach our advertisers at:
— About The Corridor —
Established in 1999 as a way to boost tourism, the First
Wilderness Heritage Corridor was designed to highlight
the attractions, events, outdoor activities and businesses
along the railroad corridor between Saratoga Springs and
North Creek. With a memorandum of understanding - the
railway spans two counties, Saratoga and Warren, and follows
the Hudson River north as it did when it first opened
as Thomas Durant’s Adirondack Railroad in 1871.
There are currently two aspects of implementing the
First Wilderness experience. First planners have to answer
the question, “What can people do when they come here?”
Then there is the physical side - the infrastructure - such as
improving streetscapes, constructing train stations, or developing
waterfront parks.
The First Wilderness Heritage Corridor program is
primarily managed by Wayne LaMothe, County Planner
for the Warren County Planning Department. LaMothe
approaches he First Wilderness Heritage Corridor project
with one goal in mind: enhancing the economic opportunities
by creating a corridor-wide tourism experience. “When
it all comes down to it, it’s an economic development activity,”
LaMothe said. “There’s no other reason for it. It is
to enhance what the community has A) for itself and B) for
the visitors that come here. Hopefully, it’s a quality experience
and through word-of-mouth and promotions, other
people will follow.”
Yet, in order to be successful, the corridor needs to
be promoted as a whole, and not on a town-by-town basis.
“The way for this to work is each town has to complement
each other and not compete,” LaMothe said. Promotion
of the Corridor focuses on coordinating efforts that
will showcase each town’s attributes and the Corridor to
potential visitors.
But it’s the “First Wilderness” experience that sets
this region apart. It was the first place where Americans
realized that wilderness was going to be a distinguishing
and permanent feature of their civilization. By the 1880s,
more had been written about the Adirondacks than any
other wilderness area in America. In 1892, the Adirondack
Park was created as the largest protected wilderness area
east of the Mississippi. Since then, the Park has challenged
each generation to define the role of wilderness in our increasingly
urbanized civilization.
Today, there is a concerted effort to create a genuine
Adirondack experience for the visitors to the corridor.
The communities of the First Wilderness Heritage Corridor
invite all to experience the wilderness way of life.
For more information, visit us online at firstwilderness.com
or find us on Facebook.
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