The First Adirondackers with Dave Fadden and Curt Stager
Sunday, September 20, 2026 at 1 pm with book signing to follow
Cost: Free for Members or with Admission
Admission Tickets
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.
Get a copy of The First Adirondackers from The Wild Supply Co.!
About the Speakers:
David Kanietakeron Fadden is an esteemed Akwesasne Mohawk painter, author, illustrator, and storyteller, and Director of the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center. Deeply rooted in Mohawk traditions and the natural world, his work celebrates Indigenous history, culture, and the enduring connection to the Adirondack region. His newest book, The First Adirondackers, honors the Indigenous people whose relationship with the Adirondacks reaches back thousands of years.
Fadden’s acclaimed work includes A Peacemaker for Warring Nations: The Founding of the Iroquois League, a multiple award-winning book, and First Fire: An Algonkian Story, created with Joseph and James Bruchac. His paintings and illustrations have been exhibited at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and featured in numerous books and media. Through his award-recognized body of work, storytelling, and cultural leadership, Fadden brings Indigenous history and contemporary Native life vividly to audiences today.
Dr. Curt Stager is an ecologist, paleoclimatologist, science journalist, and award- winning educator whose work spans climate change, environmental history, geology, biology, and ecology. With a Ph.D. in biology and geology from Duke University, he has published research in leading scientific journals, written for publications including National Geographic and The New York Times, and since 1990 has co-hosted Natural Selections, a weekly science program on North Country Public Radio. His wide-ranging research has taken him from the lakes of Africa and South America to the Caribbean and the Adirondacks, where he continues to investigate long-term climate change and environmental history. Named New York State Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation in 2013, Stager brings the perspective of a scientist, teacher, writer, and storyteller to his work. He is the co-author, with David Kanietakeron Fadden, of The First Adirondackers, and has also helped bring overlooked Adirondack history to light through his work to rename a formerly derogatory waterway John Thomas Brook, honoring a Black Adirondack pioneer.