Travel | www.canarsiecourier.com

The term “vacation” is said to have originated in the late 1800s when millionaires of the Industrial Age “vacated” polluted urban environments for their Adirondack summer retreats. They called these resorts “great camps” — huge, rustic clusters of buildings or-ganized like rooms in a house, each serving a different function: one for sleeping, another for eating, yet another for recreation. Naturally they in-cluded masses of servants to cater to the magnates and their guests.

The glory days of the likes of the Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Rocke-fellers are over, but some of the camps still exist—to be enjoyed by the many visitors who flock to the Adirondacks for rest and fun.

Today, vacationers can stay at great camps that range from the very basic Great Camp Sagamore, a National Historic Landmark on Raquette Lake (not to be confused with the modern resort in Lake George called the Sa-gamore), to the very comfortable and charming Lake House at the Wawbeek on Upper Saranac Lake to The Point, an exclusive inn once owned by Wil-liam Avery Rockefeller.

The Adirondack State Park is a unique entity of more than 6 million acres, where state-owned wilderness areas and privately owned land coexist. It’s surprisingly big: If you combined the famous national parks of the West—Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier and Olympic—the result would be about the same size as the Adirondacks. A crisp and sparkling area of lakes, streams, forests and mountains, it contains 85 percent of all wilderness east of the Mississippi. Within the park, 2.6 million acres are state owned Forest Preserve, designated “forever wild” by the New York constitution.

To begin to understand the Adiron-dacks, I recently headed to the world-class Adirondack Museum at Blue Moun-tain Lake. The museum is a brilliant concept: a place that works synergistically with the landscape to demonstrate the unique qualities of the Adirondacks. In this dynamic setting you learn about Adirondack life as you move from building to building. In the Living in the Wilderness building, there’s even a picture window where you can look out onto beautiful Blue Mountain Lake.

The exhibits show how people have lived, moved, worked and played over the years in this vast region. In the Boat House you can watch skilled volunteers making a boat in the traditional manner, using copper tacks and no adhesives. Kids who are inspired by this can make their own little boat from a kit. Bull Cottage, a two-story house dating from about 1901, displays rustic furniture made by area craftsmen. Sunset Cottage, a one-room build-ing originally located at one of the great camps, is a work of art in the Adiron-dack style, covered entirely with split wood laid out in elaborate designs. I was especially taken with the plush railroad car from 1890 that was the private transportation of financiers Austin Corbin and, later, August Belmont,Jr.

For a sample of some of the history of the region a visit to Fort Ticondero-ga is in order. Strategically located above a narrow chokepoint on Lake Cham-plain, the fort was a vital military in-stallation during the French and Indian War (the colonial version of Europe’s Seven Years War) and the Revolution-ary War. Many of the people referred to in history books — Ethan Allen, Ben-edict Arnold, the Green Mountain Boys, General John Burgoyne — all played a role here.

Most visitors are drawn to the Adirondacks for its outdoors activities, and with 46 major mountains (all contained in the Keene/Lake Placid area), the park is ideal for hiking. The more than 2,000 miles of marked hiking trails make this the largest hiking trail system in the nation. The trails are suited to varied abilities and interests, from easy hikes on small mountains such as Mount Jo near Lake Placid to Mount Marcy, which, at 5,300 feet, is the highest mountain in New York.

For a more relaxing ascent up a mountain, visitors can take the 10-min-ute chair lift ride to the top of Mc-Cauley Mountain, near the town of Old Forge, and marvel at the view of the Fulton Chain Lakes, Blue Moun-tain and the Moose River.

Though probably best known for its mountains, the Adirondack State Park is also a major area for water activities, with more than 3,000 ponds and lakes, 1,500 miles of rivers, and 30,000 miles of brooks and streams.

Ultimately, the lake that captured my heart was Elk Lake. The view from the intimate Elk Lake Lodge offers the picture-perfect Adirondack scene: a pristine lake ringed by mountains. Noth-ing but trees, islands, water and sky. And, of course, an Adirondack chair from which to gaze at it all.