It’s not uncommon to see people snowshoeing at a cross-country ski center. But near the end of my tour of Paul Smiths College Visitor Interpretive Center (VIC), I espied a veritable gang heading towards me on snowshoes. Thirty or 40, mostly guys and a few women. They were all wearing hard hats, and Carhartt or buffalo plaid and Malone pants. Heavy gloves. They were all on one side of the trail, so I had no worries gliding by.
I accosted a straggler adjusting his snowshoe bindings. They were doing an outdoor session for a class in civic culture: How to manage a woodlot for a client. With a name like that, one would think the class covers polite debate, or how to hold a cup of tea with your pinky finger sticking out.
