First Adirondackers: 12,000 Years of Indigenous Peoples in the Adirondack Uplands

by Curt Stager, David Fadden

The First Adirondackers challenges the widespread, long-standing belief that the Adirondack uplands of northern New York were uninhabited before the arrival of European colonizers. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Through local indigenous traditions and supporting findings by natural science, authors David Fadden and Curt Stager expose, document, and honor the long human presence in the Adirondacks, helping not only to redefine what it means to be an Adirondacker, but also contributing to a more complete understanding of America itself.

Like the upland mosaic of public and private lands that it describes, The First Adirondackers is a cultural crossroads in which Indigenous and Western worldviews meet, both figuratively and in the personal lives of the co-authors. Together, they use their different cultural backgrounds and professional expertise to reveal the human history of the uplands, the region defined as everything situated between 1000 feet elevation and the top of Mount Marcy, a mile above sea level. Fadden, a master storyteller and renowned painter, uses traditional oral history and stunning works of art to capture the humanity and vitality of Indigenous peoples of the region. Stager, a natural science professor at Paul Smith’s College, explains in scientific terms how people are elementally linked to the land, species, and waters of the Champlain-Adirondack region through his own research on the environmental history of the region and by documenting more than three dozen locations in the uplands where ancient items of Indigenous origin have been found.

By challenging the predominant Eurocentric narrative of the Adirondacks, The First Adirondackers does not seek to erase history, but rather to help recover a proud and wonderful history.

Genres: Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

Published December 16, 2025

About the author

CURT STAGER is a climate scientist, educator, and science journalist whose research over the last three decades has dealt with the climatic and ecological histories of the Adirondacks, Peru, and much of Africa. He has published numerous research articles in major journals including Science and Quaternary Research, was an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and has written extensively in periodicals such as National Geographic, Fast Company, and Adirondack Life. Since 1989, Curt has co-hosted Natural Selections, a weekly science program on North Country Public Radio. He is the author of "Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth," (Thomas Dunne Books, 2011), and his latest book, "Your Atomic Self: The Invisible Elements That Connect You to Everything Else in the Universe" will be published by Thomas Dunne Books in Fall, 2014. He has taught natural sciences at Paul Smith's College in upstate New York since 1987, and is also as an adjunct research faculty member at the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute. In 2013, the Carnegie Foundation selected him as the New York State Teacher of the Year. In his spare time, he enjoys playing guitar and banjo.

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Taking the Two Row Wampum approach to heart this book is written with both a Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) and a settler author and together they tell the story of the history of the Adirondacks. First and foremost this book outlines multiple lines of evidence to refute the theory that the Adirondack mountains were unpeopled. Instead we find evidence to support rich and vibrant communities from multiple peoples. The book’s strengths lie in the quality of the scholarship but also the storytelling which combine to make an insightful and highly readable book.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is seminal in understanding and acknowledging the history of indigenous peoples of the Adirondack region. It is clear that it is well researched work of love and respect for the land that is doing over time to undue the centuries of erasure that have removed indigenous peoples from the uplands physically and culturally.

Niawen Kurt and Dave