Around Caroga Lake, Canada Lake, and Pine Lake

The southern Adirondack Mountains community of Caroga Lake, Canada Lake, and Pine Lake is known for the power of its water and the perseverance of its people. The quiet mountain-lumbering community changed quickly in 1865 when two entrepreneurs purchased 20,000 acres of hemlock-rich land and erected a tannery to cure leather for a shoe-making business. Additional lumbering opportunities followed, and sawmills sprung up around many of the lakes. Horse-drawn carriage services and wood-burning steamboats delivered summer residents and artists to rustic camps that dotted the lakes’ shorelines and tourists to grand hotels. Today the ghostly remains of Sherman’s Park on West Caroga Lake and Groshans’ Park at Pine Lake remind its residents and guests of the past that was and the future that might yet be.