Camp Pine Knot

July 9thWe arrived last night to Camp Pine Knot, the first great camp built on Raquette Lake by William West Durant, son of railroad tycoon Thomas Clark Durant. Originally intended to be Durant’s vacation residence, it was later sold to C. P. Huntington to pay for Durant’s debts and renamed Camp Huntington. The Great Camps were wealthy New York City dwellers way of being close to nature without having to deal with all of the hardships of one who lived in nature. Located on a peninsula in Raquette Lake Camp Pine Knot was to be our home for the week.  My room was in Hemlock Lodge.

Hemlock Lodge

This morning we were privy to a lecture by author and Bowling Green University professor emeritus Dr. Philip Terrie. Dr. Terrie has written several novels on the history and politics of the Adirondack area. Dr. Terrie's lecture touched on the politics associated with the wilderness during the Gilded Age. The afternoon lecture was by author and professor Sheila Myers who has written a historical fiction series on the Durant family. 

                              

We then received a history lesson about the great camps from the camp staff who explained how the camp was built. The camps were designed to look as though they sprang from the forest floor. Color schemes are all reminiscent of those found in nature. Each building served a different function and the various functions of life were even separated into different spaces in the buildings. He relied heavily on he knowledge of the people native to the area when it came to planning and building his camps. Parts of the buildings are built Lincoln log style while the later sections of the building were built using birch trees and covering the outside with whole sheets of birch wood. This was a technique that had been used by the Iroquois in constructing their longhouses.  Construction of the camps was arduous.  Any non local materials had to travel by train then over rocky roads in order to get to the building sites.  Large panes of glass had to be transported by foot because they were too delicate to for the bumpy roads. 

The afternoon was built for fun, including canoeing and taking a ride in a sea plane. We Finished the night at the campfire with a discussion about the novel “A Northern Light”.