10 Surprising Facts About The Adirondacks In New York

by Jessica Festa on

Most people think of the Adirondack region in New York for its great hiking opportunities, but the area also holds a lot of records and history that many people don’t know about, locals included. To provide some information on the uniqueness of the Adirondacks, here is a list of 10 fun facts you probably didn’t know. Additionally, if you’d like a more visual tour of the area, check out the gallery below.

1. The Adirondack Chair was created in Westport, New York, on the Adirondack Coast of Lake Champlain.

2. The source of the Hudson River is located on the highest lake in New York State – Lake Tear of the Clouds on Mount Marcy – at 5,344 feet.

3. In 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as President of the United States at North Creek Station. This was after learning that President William McKinley – who had been shot a few weeks earlier – had died.

4. The Adirondack Mountains are growing faster than the Himalayas, at a rate of one foot every 100 years.

5. Lake Placid, located in the northern Adirondack Park, is one of three places in the world to host the Winter Olympic Games twice, once in 1932 and 1980. The village was the first place in North America to host the event twice.

6. The term “vacation” is said to have originated in the Adirondacks. Wealthy New Yorkers would “vacate” the city during the sticky summer months and head for the cool northern woods.

7. The Adirondack Park spans 6.1 million acres and is larger than the state of Massachusetts. In fact, several National Parks could fit inside the Blue Line (the line on a map that designates the outline of the park), including Glacier, Yosemite, the Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.

8. The Adirondack Park is the largest park in the continental United States.

9. The Prospect House, built in Blue Mountain Lake, was the first hotel in the United States to have electric lights.

10. Painted Pony Rodeo in Lake Luzerne – five miles west of Lake George – is the oldest weekly rodeo in the United States.

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A Photo Tour Of Cape Town’s Colorful Bo-Kaap

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Cape Town might be the world’s most visually striking city, between its dramatic coastal setting perched precariously against the looming Table Mountain and the town’s riotous collision of Europe and Africa, and from textiles to colonial Dutch architecture. Perhaps no Cape Town neighborhood better represents the sensory feast that is Cape Town than the Bo-Kaap, a wildly colorful enclave of brightly painted houses long home to the city’s unique population of Cape Malay residents.

Bo-Kaap got its start in the late 16th century, as Cape Town rose to prominence as a key stopover for merchant ships traveling between Europe and Asia. The largely Dutch traders who controlled Cape Town introduced Indonesian slaves (now known as Cape Malays) to the city, who then brought along their Islamic culture and cuisine. Bo-Kaap became home to the city’s Cape Malay community, weaving its way through a patchwork of brightly painted houses, historic mosques, spice shops and cobblestone streets.

Though the Bo-Kaap is quickly gentrifying, the neighborhood remains a fascinating sensory feast for an afternoon stroll. Turquoise and bright green houses compete for your eye’s attention with nearby Table Mountain, as a thick blanket of clouds gently rolls across its summit. Nearby a group of worshippers kneels outside one of Bo-Kaap’s mosques, their chanting wafting its way to your ears. On the next corner, a market stocks halal meats and fresh-made Koeksisters, a sweet South African donut.

Begin your own exploration of the Bo-Kaap signs and sights of the neighborhood in the Gadling gallery below!

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Peru’s Mysterious Animal-Shaped Mounds

by Sean McLachlan on


It’s always an odd experience to see a familiar name in the news. Dr. Robert Benfer was a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia when I was getting my master’s in archaeology. I was studying the early medieval Europe while he taught about prehistoric Peru, so our paths didn’t cross much, but I did go to some of his lectures. I especially remember his skewering of the controversial book “The Bell Curve” for its shoddy use of statistics.

Dr. Benfer has announced that he has discovered several effigy mounds in Peru — artificial hills in the shapes of birds, including a giant condor, a 5,000-year-old orca, a duck and a caiman/puma monster.

“The mounds will draw tourists, one day,” Benfer said in a university press release. “Some of them are more than 4,000 years old. Compare that to the effigy mounds of North America, which date to between 400 and 1200 A.D. The oldest Peruvian mounds were being built at the same time as the pyramids in Egypt.”

An interesting aspect of this discovery is that it shows how science works, and occasionally doesn’t work. Because it was thought there were no effigy mounds in Peru, nobody looked for them. Benfer himself admits to not seeing one that was right in front of him. Once he noticed several animal-like patterns on Google Earth, however, he rethought his assumptions. He set out to survey six valleys and found effigy mounds in all of them. Another old theory is discarded in the face of new evidence.

Some of the mounds are more than 1,000 feet long and are only clearly visible from above, much like Peru’s famous Nazca Lines. Dr. Benfer suggests they may represent the Andean zodiac. Indeed, many appear to have astronomical alignments. A giant condor’s eye, for example, lines up with the Milky Way when observed from a nearby temple.

Dr. Benfer’s discovery has been published in the journal Antiquity and he is heading back to Peru this summer to look for more effigy mounds.

Photo courtesy Dr. Robert Benfer. More photos, including Google Earth images, can be seen here.

The First Floor Of The Stoa Of Attalos To Reopen In Athens

by Sean McLachlan on


Despite hard economic times in Greece, its capital city, Athens, is about to expand visitation to a major archaeological treasure — the Stoa of Attalos. This ancient Greek colonnade and indoor market was built in 150 B.C. by Attalos II, King of Pergamum, as a gift to Athens in gratitude for the happy schooldays he spent there.

The Stoa was meticulously reconstructed in the 1950s by The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and houses the Museum of the Ancient Agora. While visitors have been able to visit the ground floor, the first floor has been off-limits for thirty years. It will reopen in mid-May, just in time for the start of the peak tourist season. The floor will house a display of Greek sculptures that have never been shown to the public. Windows will allow visitors to get a good view of the rest of the Agora, the ancient city’s social, spiritual and political hub.

Top photo courtesy Ken Russell Salvador. Bottom photo courtesy Tilemahos.

New Civil War museum at Appomattox features General Lee’s sword and uniform

by Sean McLachlan on

As we reported a year ago, a new Civil War museum has been under construction at Appomattox, Virginia. It is a branch of Richmond’s Museum of the Confederacy and will commemorate the surrender of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and the aftermath of the Civil War.

Now the Museum of the Confederacy-Appomattox is almost complete and will open March 31. Among the displays are General Lee’s uniform and gold ceremonial sword — the very same he wore and carried on April 9, 1865 when he met General Ulysses S. Grant to surrender.

More than 450 items will be on display in an exhibition space spanning 11,700 square feet. It’s located near Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, which includes the McLean House where Grant and Lee met.

The Museum of the Confederacy is planning more regional museums in order to make their large collection more accessible. Satellite museums are planned for Fredericksburg and Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.