History of possesion, uses and disputes over former North American Indian lands with Allegany State Park as the central focus.

I In the year 2000 I put together a book titled "My Grampa's Wood, the Adirondacks." It was a collection of a lifetime of stories about my own and my family's experiences in the Adirondacks. In it there are stories about the family logging on the Little River near Aldrich and a lot of mountain climbing, backpacking and canoeing.It was received well so I was encouraged to go on. The book brought me in contact with many North Country relatives and friends, thus putting me in the way of more stories and photos. Some folks were kind enough to ask for another book so here it is."North Country" is about people of the Adirondacks and the Tug Hill-Fort Drum area just to the west. It's about canoe trips that nostalgically bring to mind the aspirations and accomplishments of those people in times long past. The Coyote story, that starts things off, is to suggest that in the stories that follow I am presenting facts but that since facts are scarce they are much expanded by imagination.Uncle Charlie Royce's military history is accurately presented but I wasn't satisfied with that alone. I wrote three letters for him to send home so that he could speak to you directly.I pick up the lives of Minnie and Tom Beahan from the earlier book. In "Minnie and Tom" and in "Runnin' Off" I fill out their story before and after the "Camp on the Little River." But "Runnin' Off" is their oldest son Raymond's story; the effect on him of life in the woods and his boyish attempts to meet the family's dream of becoming prosperous land-owning farmers.

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.

In Adirondack Pulp Fiction you will find six tales of crime and passion. Despite what Chambers of Commerce and Adirondack Park authorities may claim, these human qualities do fire souls inside the Blue Line as well as out. The stories are not of lumberjack heroes, pioneers, hotel magnates, hermits or even mountain climbers. They are of ordinary people tangled in extraordinary emotions which lead them to extremes. These lives in backwaters, backwoods and mountain towns aren't just peaches and cream served up to you Little-House-on-the-Prairie style. You'll find very few log cabins with cheery fires and snug families in them.These stories tell of the darker side of the hearts of Adirondack denizens. You already know of their good nature, hospitality and kindness now see the passion, envy, avarice and rage that dwell there too. Come stalk with me the slums, back roads, deserted mines, honky-tonks and gin-mills of Tupper Lake, Saranac Lake, Lake George, Lake Placid, Tahawus, North Creek, Gore Mountain and Fort Drum. Keep in mind, my good companions, these stories, like all fiction, have some basis in reality. Their events may have happened where we journey but, as far as I know, they did not.

This is the 2019 Northside Writers' Anthology featuring fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

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.

Adirondack Sasquatch is the story of a woman living alone in the wilderness north of Stillwater Reservoir.The building of a new dam and expansion of the reservoir puts her and her dog in contact with an intelligent giant wild creature and a marauding moose. She objects both to her Mohawk relatives attempts to protect her from the giant and their plans to exhibit him for cash.