ISBN: 0997098201 9780997098204

Category: Nature / General

Page count: Unavailable

The title "Allegany Stalking" has many meanings. First, as the diving eagle on the cover suggests, it recognizes predators, hunters and fisherman who have stalked fish and game in this region since the last ice age. "Allegany Stalking" means exploring the Park and its vicinity with intentions to enjoy and protect and to exploit it. The intentions of the ghosts described are open to wide speculation. Our first Stalker is the Seneca, Billy Abrams. He is an expert fur trapper and fisherman who is even better known as a boxer. Randy John is as devoted and expert a fisherman as he is a Professor of Sociology. Both do most of their stalking in Allegany State Park and in the adjacent territory of the Seneca Nation. Wally Michaels knows every hill and hollow of the Park. He has hunted them more than 60 years. "Listen Up, Woods" is a poem that walks or stalks you through Allegany woods. Its author has been offended by poison ivy more than once. Some who stalk the woods have seen the spirits of early settlers, woeful Indians and tragic Irish maidens. An unimpeachable source testifies to the haunting of even the venerable Administration Building. But the mysterious Flannel Man is the ghost who most often affords us a glimpse of himself as he appears and disappears almost anywhere in the Park. Boy Scouts and Cross Country Skiers do stalk and have stalked the trails of the Park by the thousands. We are reminded of legends and legendary figures of the Park as we traverse the trails and places named for them; Quaker, Tunesassa, Dowd, Fancher. Railroads and lumberman have come and gone. Oil and Gas companies have done their stalking in search of black gold buried beneath the mountains and valleys of the Park. They have left scars, now mostly hidden by a hundred years growth of forest. Unfortunately National Fuel still owns a 9000-acre lease in the heart of the Park, despite angry protests against them.