Celebrating Evelyn Greene
By Dave Gibson
More than a couple of my Adirondack journal entries begin with something like this one dated February 15, 1999: “Evelyn phoned me. Have you been to Nate Davis Pond, she asked? Never, I answered. Wanna go, she asked?”
And I was off on another adventure with North Creek’s Evelyn Greene, one of the Adirondacks finest, self-trained natural historians. Evelyn (1940-2025) died recently at her home in North Creek, sparking many wonderful, some indelible memories. On this occasion, it was time for me to learn about what Evelyn’s father Paul Schaefer termed “Lost Pond,” a small Adirondack lake known as Nate Davis Pond south of Bakers Mills, Warren County located in a basin among rounded Adirondack hills, shown on 20th century Adirondack topographic maps as a beaver flow only, but which Paul Schaefer celebrated as one of the last Adirondack lakes to be discovered. Thanks to Evelyn, I also discovered it was both a pond and a beaver flow, and most beautiful on that sunny February day.
As we snowshoed towards the pond we met several skiers and their dog. Later, Evelyn noticed the ski and dog tracks had ended and “the skiers never made it to Nate Davis (pond),” she remarked to me as we surveyed the splendor off the frozen pond surface. “Oh well, they’ll just have to come back”!
That was Evelyn’s thinking. If only people went a little further and made a greater effort on a hike, snowshoe, or paddle, they would discover and learn the most amazing things – like the otter hole and otter scat we found on that frozen “lost” pond. As she spoke about the otters who used that hole, Evelyn reached into her pack and shared a slice of delicious cherry pie she thoughtfully had brought along.
Traveling with naturalist Evelyn on land or water was an exercise in careful observing. I recall another group walk she led into OK Slip Falls around 1992. She had received permission from the landowner (the route in was not yet publicly available) to access the falls from Rt. 28. Her route for the group hike was to the falls and eventually the Hudson River. That was her destination, but not her purpose. Evelyn’s purpose was to show the group the many varieties of mosses and liverworts, and how to distinguish between them along the way to the falls. Needless to say, the hike took all day as we all frequently knelt at ground level to try to see what she was seeing with her lens. From that day to this I have retained what Evelyn pointed out so often that day, the common leafy liverwort Bazzania trilobata. As for the uncommon liverworts and mosses she painstakingly pointed out to us, by the time I got home and wrote in my journal I had forgotten them.
Evelyn, husband Don, and son Dave Greene journeyed from Charlton, to Albany, and then to the Town of Johnsburg, their home for almost fifty years. Evelyn grew up with her sisters and brother in Schenectady County, children of Paul and Carolyn Schaefer. Her Dad Paul defended Adirondack wilderness. Mother Carolyn was also an adventurer and naturalist who during the 1950s led her children on High Peaks expeditions which they all chronicled in The Schaefer Expeditions. Evelyn edited the family’s private publication in 1985, in which Evelyn wrote:
“Dad would drive us to the trailhead on Sunday afternoon in his pickup truck and meet us the next Saturday at another trailhead, and we sank or swam – a mother, four children, and an assortment of other friends on occasion. We did not have a way to listen to weather forecasts, as we were staying at the family’s primitive log cabin near Bakers Mills between trips, but we probably would not have paid any attention anyhow. Dad meanwhile was designing, building, and restoring houses in the Schenectady area, and traveling around the state talking the Panther Mountain Dam out of existence….It has to be said that Mary and Mom were the instigators and enthusiasts of these 46ering forays; the rest of us were just along for the ride. And some ride. We were often among the first ones attempting a ‘bushwhack’ peak after the blowdown of 1950…Surviving for a week in the woods, a woman and four children, ages seven to seventeen the first year, was an accomplishment in the days before high-tech lightweight gear and food…we Schaefer Mountaineers did what we’d set out to do, learning to take the ups and downs in stride, and had a lot of wonderful adventures along the way.”
Evelyn took hundreds of friends for many, many wonderful adventures along her way. She seemed such a fine blend of her naturalist mother and her wilderness defender father. In 2021, Adirondack Wild presented her with a Champion of the Forest Preserve recognition. We wrote that “no one has done more to advocate for a motor-free Adirondack Forest Preserve than Evelyn Greene of North Creek. Her persistent field work and other investigations have shown the state’s relentless pursuit of snowmobile connectors to be, in most cases, senseless, as key connections lacked snow and private landownerships intervened. This year, the Court of Appeals ruled that the state lacks the authority to alter the Forest Preserve by snowmobile connectors or by any other mechanical contrivance. In this, the Court reaffirmed that only the people can amend our forever wild Forest Preserve. In this ruling can be found the footprints and influence of Evelyn Greene, Champion of the Forest Preserve.”
In August 2013 Evelyn and others in her family mourned the passing of her elder sister Mary Schaefer in Keene. Typically for her, she and her son Dave and others in the family turned Mary’s burial into a celebration of Mary’s life with a hike up Owls Head. During the easy hike with spectacular views of her familiar High Peaks, Evelyn came upon a snake on the upward trail – not just any snake, but a red-bellied snake. I recall Evelyn’s shout of sheer delight at encountering the snake, crouching down, identifying it, and watching it move across her path. The curious, observing girl on The Schaefer Expeditions had long transitioned to veteran Adirondack writer, naturalist, and teacher, as well as advocate, but she never lost her sheer joy of discovery.
Photo at top: Evelyn in her element on top of Owls Head in the Adirondacks, Keene Valley, NY. Photo by Dave Gibson