Show And Tell: Axton Landing at Raquette Lake

Hello, my sensational Thrillerati!





Did you know that my mother is a painter? Above, I have posted one of her works that hangs in our home, and receives so many compliments! On the back, she wrote... "Axton Landing on the Raquette River, August 1998, Benna June." Axton Landing is located in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, a popular place for canoeing in the wilderness. Axton was once "Axe Town", where many lumberjacks worked, felling trees and floating them down the river to be milled. It always makes me chuckle when people presume that all of New York State is New York City. The Adirondack Mountain region is cold, wild, and isolated, even so much so as to be compared to life in Alaska. My parents loved to hike, camp and canoe when they were younger. They were so athletic, climbing many of  The High Peaks, the tallest mountains in New York, and paddling many of the canoe trails. In 1978, my sister was 8, my brother was 5, and I was not yet born. Do you ever imagine what your parents were like before you were born? In 1983, instead of replacing their car, my parents bought a cabin in the Adirondacks. It cost about the same as a car at the time. I spent half of my weekends at this cabin, when I was growing up, living without central heat or running water, while the rest of the time I was a typical, consumerist 1980s suburbanite, in hightops and a scrunchie.

This painting reflects the wilderness of the area, but it also reflects my mother. The wilderness in northern New York is very harsh, trees jut up aggressively into the landscape, but my mother likes order and symmetry, and brings balance to her work.


I found this photo attached to an article that said " Paddling Axton Landing to Stony Creek Ponds", after an quick google search. Look! There is the same reflection, and the same white tree branches reaching for the sky as in my mother's painting.

And, something else...
a link to traditional nordic "kulning", a way to call your cows in when one is very isolated. The recording is LOUD, but I find this to just GRAB my soul. I don't really know anything about my own heritage, only that I am western European, and we have been in America a long time. Still, this makes me feel something. I saw one comment that said something along the lines of,"Imagine you were a Roman Soldier, and you heard that echoing through the forest. Wouldn't you drop your weapons and run straight back to the Mediterranean?"

I wish I could learn to properly "kuln". Maybe some day.

Love and light,
Your friend,
Hil