The Adirondack Atlas: A Geographic Portrait of the Adirondack Park

The Adirondack Atlas offers a detailed geographic portrait of the largest protected area in the contiguous United States and the largest region of protected temperate forests in the world. Generously illustrated-complete with 450 full-color maps and 250 figures, graphs, tables, charts, and scientific drawings-this volume covers 130 topics on the six-million-acre Adirondack Park. As the first book of its kind, it is both a work of art and an authoritative reference.

The Park has a complex history. It is one of the only parks in the world to combine large wilderness areas with extensive private lands and a substantial residential population. Jerry Jenkins explores this connection between the wild and human communities within a protected landscape. As he maps out the diverse and ever-changing environment--the recreational growth, conflicts between users, development, pollution, and climate change--he highlights elements that threaten to alter the Park and undo the protection it now enjoys.

Jenkins includes old stories of fur routes and battles, log drives and Shea engines; new stories about school taxes and education, conservation easements and local economies, artistic ferment and social ills, about healthy towns, dying trees, and deer harvests. As a comprehensive and standard resource, the Atlas captures the full scope of the park's topographic, hydrographic, and ecological history for a wide audience of geographers, historians, and Adirondack enthusiasts.


About the Author

Jerry Jenkins was trained in philosophy and mathematics and works as a botanist and geographer. He lives in the Taconic Mountains and has thirty years of field experience in the North Country.

Andy Keal is a specialist in geographical information systems. Both Jenkins and Keal are researchers with the Adirondack Communities and Conservation Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society.