This week's Artwork of the Week comes from David Crowell, Massena, NY. "Barnum Pond Reflections," 5x7, plein air watercolor, 2025. Artwork of the Week is sponsored by Downtown Artist Cellar in Malone. /
Rumors spread on social media over the winter: School kids with disabilities in the Salmon River Central School District, including Akwesasne Mohawk children, were being confined by special education teachers in wooden boxes.
Local school officials later confirmed that at least two boxes had been built and used by staff in November and December of 2025. That disclosure sent more shockwaves through the region.
Officials with New York state's education department have now quietly issued an official order requiring sweeping reforms in the district.
Read the full story from NPR’s Brian Mann on our website, ncpr.org.
☀️ In the High Peaks on Sat, the sun will rise at 5:27am and set at 8:17pm. There's a warmer and drier weekend in store, though summits are likely to be socked-in early Sunday.
🥾 Temps on High Peaks summits are expected to be in the upper 40s to lower-50s. While waters will be higher than usual, crossings should be passable, though some may be difficult. Wind chills up high will dip into the 30s, and there remains a foot or so of snow in sheltered areas. Mud season will be in full effect at higher elevations. Stick to lower elevation, drier areas.
🌊 Rivers and streams are mostly running at or a little above normal. The Hudson River is expected to be at about 4.5' on the gauge in North Creek this weekend. At Piercefield, the Raquette River is forecast to be a bit over 6.5'.
🛟 Lake Champlain remains at about 97'. The water temperature has risen to the upper-40s. Mirror Lake is in the lower 50s. Water temps remain cold enough to warrant cold water protection for early-season paddlers.
👷 The Lake Placid Boat Launch will close Mon-Fri. The Adirondack Rail Trail Station street parking area in Lake Placid is now closed for construction. Park instead at the Snowfield lot on Old Military Rd, east of the Fire Station. Parking at the Lake Durant - Terrill Pond Trailhead on Rts 30 and 28 will be limited due to a highway bridge project.
🟢 In the Independence River Wild Forest and the Stillwater Reservoir, Big Moose and Three Lakes Conservation Easement Tracts, all roads, including McCarthy Rd, are now open. The gates have also been opened to the Watson’s East Triangle Wild Forest, and the Croghan Tract and Oswegatchie Conservation Easements in the Bog River Complex, which includes Lows Lake and Horseshoe Lake Wild Forest.
🛶 O’Neil Flow, Minerva Club, and Pickwickett Pond Rds are closed, but you can still carry to the Fishing Brook. Old Military Rd and Jessup River Rd are now open, as are all roads in the Perkins Clearing - Speculator Tree Farm Easements, except Mud Lake Rd.
🛻 And finally, this week, a 25-mile section of the St. Lawrence County Multi-Use Trail in the Tooley Pond, Grass River, and Long Pond Easements is now open.
Photo: Ana Williams-Bergen
Dense forests have hidden remnants of Timbuctoo, a colony of Black pioneers who lived in the Adirondacks in the 1800s. Now, a drone rising above the trees is helping researchers search for traces of the nearly two-century-old settlement.
The project, led by professors from SUNY Potsdam and East Tennessee State University, is using LiDAR technology. It's a type of laser mapping that can see through dense forest cover, which the research team is using to scan the landscape for possible cabins, farm fields, and roads tied to the historic Black farming community near Lake Placid.
Researchers say the maps are already revealing subtle features in the terrain that could point to where Timbuctoo settlers once lived and worked.
Read the full story at the link in our bio. Reporting by David Escobar.
"This was an impromptu photo of my grandchildren as they watched the sunset. They do care about nature and I think it serves as a visual reminder of our responsibility to them."
Caption and submission by Diane Romlein, Potsdam, NY. Photo 📸: Gideon Williams, age 10.
We thank Essex County Arts Council for sponsoring NCPR's Photo of the Day.
Octavia Walker runs the Hay Memorial Library in Sackets Harbor, near Watertown.
It’s a job she stumbled into when she retired after nearly 7 years in the army. Walker’s husband saw the job posting on Facebook and suggested she apply even though she’d never worked at a library before.
While libraries are a gathering space in many small towns, Walker says this role is especially important here in Sackets Harbor. The village is close to the Fort Drum military base, and many of her patrons are military families.
"Just today we had a family come in," Walker tells me. "They were like, 'Oh, we just got stationed here. This is our first time visiting, tell me about what's going on in town.'”
Walker says a big part of her role is being a community encyclopedia for new families, helping them settle in.
"Most new people will come here, get a library card," she says. Then, they get to know the community through the library. Walker gives families restaurant recommendations, helps people find an apartment, or the right church. "I mean, we pretty much know everything here," she laughs.
Walker first fell in love with Sackets Harbor when she was stationed at Fort Drum, and today, she says that background makes it easy to connect with many patrons.
"We all have something in common," Walker says. "It's like... 'your husband deployed? So is mine... We understand each other. So I would say over half of the families that come here are military."
Military families move frequently, and it can be hard to start from scratch so often. Walker says the library can help bridge that.
"A lot of the moms have kids all of a similar age," says Walker. "They come hang out at the library and this is where they meet and create their own friend group."
During the summers, you can find Walker on the front steps of her library - armed with chalk and bubbles, building community one family at a time.
Reporting by Ana Williams-Bergen for our North Country at Work project.
The North Country is turning different shades of green as spring blossoms across the region. Wildflowers are sprouting up in the woods, the grass is beginning to grow back, and birds are providing a familiar chorus to it all.
Spring growth is especially apparent at the southern edges of the region, where warmer temperatures and longer days are encouraging new growth, like at the Meadowbrook Nature Preserve in Queensbury.
Meadowbrook is a 54-acre park with about 2 miles of trails for hikers and bikers in the warmer months and cross-country skiers in the winter. It’s owned and maintained by the town of Queensbury.
On a recent outing, the spring sunshine illuminated the new growth in the trees and on the ground below. Recent rain had created some puddles and pockets of mud, but the warm air and surrounding birdsong were signs of the warmer, drier months ahead.
Videos and production by Emily Russell
The New York State budget is more than a month late, the latest it's been since 2010. Last week, there was hope lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul had made a deal on a potential $268 billion spending plan, but leadership said there are still more details to iron out.
New York Public News Network capital reporter Jimmy Vielkind told Northern Light we can expect to see a 50% increase in child care spending, along with movement on cracking down on auto insurance rates and policies limiting actions of federal immigration authorities.
Vielkind said the tardiness is affecting school districts and local governments across New York that are building their own budgets.
"That's really where we start to see the consequence of this and the inability of other people down the food chain and down the line to make plans because the state has not gotten its job done," he said.
Vielkind said we're likely still more than a week or more away from seeing the budget finalized.
Listen to the conversation at ncpr.org
Reporting by Catherine Wheeler and Jimmy Vielkind
Photo courtesy NYS Senate Media Services
Come tell your story at the HOWL Story Slam at Smoke Signals in Lake Placid!
Join NCPR and @adkctr4writing for the 10th Season of the HOWL! True stories, no notes and no props, told live on stage in 5 minutes or less. The theme is "What's my line?” Lines in the sand, fishing line, lines in a play… If it’s about a line, it’s fair game.
The first 10 storytellers to sign up will get to perform, so arrive early. For more information, visit ncpr.org/howl.
