Cliff and Redfield Inc. (2022)
The Hudson and Sacandaga rivers merge in the distance.
Warren County has partnered with Cliff and Redfield Interactive to promote community development and heritage tourism in the First Wilderness Heritage Corridor. The First Wilderness runs roughly from Corinth to North Creek, connecting the communities of the Upper Hudson and Schroon river valleys.
CRI is run by longtime business partners and avid hikers Dan Forbush and Bill Walker.
“It started when Bill and I went for a hike at Dean Heritage Farm in Stony Creek. We saw a kiosk that displayed information on the First Wilderness Heritage Corridor, and it was eye-opening,” Forbush said.
“The First Wilderness area is not as well known as the Lake George Region,” Walker said. “The area is spectacular. We wanted to promote it.”
Walker said the area must be opened for community development through heritage tourism. The Warren County Board of Supervisors recently approved the relationship between the the county and CRI.
“The First Wilderness reminds travelers that ‘nature’ is a compelling presence in everyday life. Uniting New York's Upper Hudson River communities from Corinth to North Creek, this rough and unforgiving terrain — characterized by rocky peaks, uncultivated meadows, and seemingly endless forest — calls as strongly to Americans today as in 1864, when Thomas Durant started chiseling his Adirondack Railroad along the Upper Hudson,” their website says.
Under the agreement, Forbush and Walker will bring together experts and student writers in Zoom for 60-minute "civic conversations" focused on the history of western Warren County and issues related to its community development.
The goals of the partnership will ask the storytellers and experts to discuss the unique character of western Warren County and add rich content through which the county can draw audiences to its web platforms; to work with students and give them professional opportunities and connections; and to "produce for the Warren County Historical Society a manuscript that contributes to the body of historical knowledge of Warren County and the surrounding region," press materials say.
[They join a similar purpose with towns in Saratoga County also inside the Adirondack Park which are looking to develop and draw tourism without changing their basic nature. Read more here.]
Serving as "cohost/reporters," students will use a powerful speech-to-text transcriber, Trint, to process the recorded interviews and publish articles on the website StoriesFromOpenSpace.org.
The student writers will introduce the expert and summarize the interview, and the interviews will be condensed into a 2,000-word story.
“In the future, we plan on using students to produce podcasts and short documentaries,” Forbush said.
The conversations will be live-streamed to the public on the Stories from Open Space YouTube channel. The first civic conversation was held Friday, Feb. 4, featuring Warren County Planning Department staff member Wayne LaMothe. Additional sessions will be announced soon.
"This collaboration with CRI has the prospect of being an interesting, informative and enjoyable project," LaMothe said in a press statement, "The First Wilderness project was initiated in 1997 and has engaged a number of partners at the local and Statelevels. I look forward to seeing what new ideas come forth through this endeavor."
Forbush said both Bill and he come from an academic public relations background and saw value in using student volunteers in the project and know that they can handle the job.
By Jan. 31, 2023, the project heads will present the interviews as a book to the Warren County Historical Society.
Both Walker and Forbush are volunteering their resources. Forbush is founder and editor of Cliff & Redfield Interactive of Saratoga Springs. Walker serves as managing director.