Canoeing the Adirondacks with Nessmuk »

"She's all my fancy painted her, she's lovely, she is light. She waltzes on the waves by day and rests with me at night. But I had nothing to do with her painting. The man who built her did that. And I commence with the canoe because that is about the first thing you need on entering the Northern Wilderness." Thus opened Nessmuk's first commissioned "letter" for Forest and Stream in 1880. For years thereafter, George Washington Sears, under the penname Nessmuk, contributed a glorious series of pieces on canoeing the Adirondacks, exploring rivers and streams, climbing the many mountains and peaks, and chronicling his long relationship with one of the greatest canoe builders, J. Henry Rushton.

Library Journal

Sears traveled the byways of New York State's Adirondack region in the late 1800s, penning these ``letters'' for publication in Forest and Stream under the nom de plume Nessmuk. This revision of the original 1962 edition corrects some biographical errors and updates and adds new material. This is a must for outdoor as well as New York history collections.