Well it’s November. I think we can all agree that summer feels like it ended ten years ago. We have all let out a breath that we’ve been holding for four years, and with news of a possible COVID vaccine I almost dare to believe that there is a light at the end of this 2020 tunnel.
It is still a difficult time. Cases are rising in the North Country, and all Franklin County schools, including Saranac Lake, have announced that they will be switching to fully remote learning.
The warm weather has lingered longer this year, but as people shift to spending more time indoors, it seems likely that cases will continue to rise.
November is a hard time of year for many people, as the days get shorter and darker, mental health tends to suffer. It’s not something we talk about a lot up here, but check in on your friends. Even if we can’t get together normally right now, a phone call or walk outside can mean a lot.
The High Peak off-season isn’t a time that’s talked about as much as the summer spike in visitation. Some folks look forward to the quieter trailheads and the ski season, others dread the shift to winter jobs and short daylight hours.
Now that the crowds have faded, and the leaves have fallen, a lot of younger locals question why we live in such a small town.
As people merge onto I-87 and set their sights towards home I find myself wishing I were driving off with them.
With the end of summer and the leaf peeping season comes the end of jobs like Summit Stewards and Assistant Forest Rangers. The people who work them have to decide to leave, or stay and try to find something else.
I decided to stay, and that means I work part time in a cafe, and attempt to launch my career as a freelance writer – which is why I still work in a cafe.
There aren’t a lot of young people here, it’s an issue that isn’t talked about as much as the “High Use” summer narrative. The truth is when the hikers leave, what’s left is a small town with limited housing and hardly any year-round jobs.
I find my conversations with other people centering around getting out. Of moving west, of going somewhere with more diversity, more opportunity, and more culture.
It isn’t that I don’t love it here, if there was a more diverse and substantial population of people under the age of 35 and more jobs to make a living from, things would be different. I know many young people who don’t want to leave, but most have found a full time job in something they enjoy. For those of us who don’t have a job in our field, and spend the days making sandwiches and checking job boards, we’re afraid of getting stuck.
In other ways it is a hard place to leave. As I sit on a railroad track in the woods, I can see Whiteface rising up in the distance, and I watch as a porcupine lumbers its way through the leaves. Several pairs of hooded mergansers float lazily in a small lake, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather on their way south.
I trace my fingers through the soft imprint of a moose track. I’ve been coming to this place since March, and almost every week I see the footprints. I like to think about how we both walk the same tracks, always just missing each other. It’s comforting to be so close to something so wild.
If I left, I would miss it.
There is a strong community here, and it’s something I hear folks comment on a lot. It is true, there is something special about listening to live concerts put together by local musicians or meeting for a small socially distant bonfire in someone’s backyard. Yet the vast majority of my friends are straight white men (no offense, you are all great), but as a queer woman it can be hard to feel a sense of community in the same way that others might.
Even though this past week the country sided with basic human decency and civil rights, every county in the North Country went red. I had naively hoped that after four years more people would see that the man in office no longer represented one political party over the other, but a figure that encouraged hate and lies. That was indeed, a bit naive.
I hope that one day the towns like Saranac Lake and Lake Placid and Keene will have a more diverse and higher population. To create more year-round jobs and provide the opportunity for young people to stay, and to want to be here for more than the mountains.
I am given a lot of hope by the people I see in groups like The Sunrise Movement, who fight for a greener future. And by the thousands of people who turned out this spring for Black Lives Matter protests. That is the direction the North Country needs to go, and I sincerely hope we make it there sooner rather than later.
It’s hard to say what the next few months will bring or where we will all be next summer. But wherever you live, make an effort to check in on your friends, keep wearing masks, and as always: keep it wild.
Nicely written and I can understand the frustration for the lack of jobs in that area and good affordable housing. You would think with the college that there would be more to offer. Being that we are still in a pandemic I think the options are fewer . There seems to be some traction from the state to better preserve and protect the beautiful area we live in. Let’s hope that the change in administration can provide some state level funding for that T.D