Mar 22, 2019 — While people all over the world are drawn to the North Country for its wilderness and wildlife, its mountains, forests, lakes and streams, the identity of North Country people can be seen more clearly in what architects call the "built environment." What we build gives insight into how we live and who we are and what we have made of this place. It evokes the history and evolution of our communities.

Taken together, these structures place a viewer more precisely within the landscape than a panorama of mountains and waters can.

Downtown Canton, NY from the air. Photo: Adam Hill

Going to town

Most of us live clustered for company or convenience in more than a hundred villages and hamlets or in a handful of pocket-sized cities. Within a few generations of settlement, most downtowns had evolved from timber to brick and stone, giving downtowns a strong "Turn of the Century" feel. (Century before last, that is.)

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In the neighborhoods

Our view of Fall. Photo: Alan Snedeker, Glens Falls, NY

Outside the few blocks of downtown the neighborhoods are dominated by older single-family homes, often a little larger than needed for the modern family size. Small parks provide a few municipal amenities.

Doing the people's business

Harrietstown Town Hall, from the River Walk in Saranac Lake. Photo: Mr. Wakiki

In reaction, perhaps, to being relatively new communities, North Country villages and towns wanted their civic architecture to have the appearance of permanence and conform to traditional styles. Like the downtown merchants, they went for brick and stone in a big way.

Gathering to worship

Morning on Mirror Lake, Lake Placid, Adirondack Community Church. Photo: Sue Cameron

While most North Country homes, commercial and civic building are in styles one could see anywhere in the Northeast, many houses of worship reflect their North Country character though construction in rustic styles or through the use of distinctive native stones such as Potsdam sandstone or Gouverneur limestone.

 At home and at camp, the other home

-18, headed down to -30, moonlight you can read by. Photo: Stephen Horne, McColloms, NY

Home is sanctuary from the weather, a refuge from the work-a-day world, and a chance to display a little personal flair. Camp is sanctuary from everything else, a place to relax and play. If home is outside the village, it might also be home to your barn, or your sugarhouse. And if camp is on the water, you might have a boathouse, too, camped next to the dock.

Infrastructure connecting communities

Lake Champlain Bridge from Fort Crown Point. Photo: Andy Vinciquerra

In a land of lakes and rivers, getting anywhere else takes a lot of  steel and stone, timber and concrete. So does keeping the lights on, keeping boats and ships off the bottom, keeping the the woods from burning down. Two of the first things a community builds are bridges and dams.

Playing around

Some of the last things to be built in a community are modern sports amenities such as the Olympic facilities in the High Peaks.  And some things are built anew each year, such as the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Ice Palace.

That used to be...

But sadly, everything built by human hands falls apart in the end. Even though North Country communities are new compared to the Old World, we still have our share of ruins - things once built with much labor and hope and love have now been left behind to brave the elements and years of disuse, no longer serving their intended function.

All photos in the this feature were published in NCPR's Photo of the Day feature and are used with permission. The original photographers retain all copyright to these images. They may not be used elsewhere without their permission.