Anne LaBastille
Leslie Surprenant, a longtime friend and trustee of Dr. Anne LaBastille’s estate, will present a special slide show tribute titled, Anne LaBastille: Woodswoman, Author, Ecologist, Friend, on Saturday, April 9 at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Theater in Utica.
The event is free and open to the public and will feature many unpublished photographs and a more in-depth look at LaBastille’s life and family background.
Anne LaBastille is best known for her autobiographical Woodswoman, published in 1978, in which she chronicled her journey from an urban New Jersey girl dreaming of life in the wilderness to cabin dweller on a remote western Adirondack lake.
She lived without electricity, running water, or even a road to her 12-foot by 12-foot “West of Wind” cabin she built in 1964.
LaBastille’s property has been donated to New York State and her “West of Wind” cabin has been donated to the Adirondack Museum.
The cabin was carefully dismantled in the winter of 2014-15 and the logs transported across the ice and trucked to the Museum.
The cabin will be re-constructed and on exhibit in the new Adirondack Experience area of the Museum and is scheduled to open in 2017.
An award-winning author and conservationist, LaBastille published a dozen books including four in the Woodswoman series, over 150 popular articles, and 25 scientific articles.
Her groundbreaking work researching and protecting the then-endangered (now extinct) Giant Grebe of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala earned her the prestigious World Wildlife Fund’s Conservationist of the Year gold medal in 1974.
Over her 50-year career, she worked hard to raise awareness of critical environmental issues including acid deposition in the Adirondacks, loss of biodiversity, invasive species and climate change in the decades before these threats were widely recognized.
Dr. LaBastille served as a Commissioner on the Adirondack Park Agency from 1976 to 1993.
She inspired many through her writings and her life’s work dedicated to conserving the most vulnerable wildlife and wild lands, noted Suprenant.
She was a pioneer for women in conservation fields. She was the sole female in her wildlife classes at Cornell University where she earned her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees and was hired as Cornell’s first female professor in its Department of Natural Resources.
One of her first jobs was as a wildlife tour leader for the Audubon Society—its first woman leader. She was the first woman to conduct research at a Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit in the U.S., and among the first female licensed guides in New York.
Through a funding gift from her estate, the LaBastille Memorial Writers Residency has been established to provide a “writers retreat in honor of other nature writers who lived and wrote in log cabins” envisioned by LaBastille.
Through a gift from LaBas-tille’s estate, Cornell University’s Natural Resources Program established the memorial Woods-woman scholarship for women.
LaBastille’s property has been donated to New York State and her “West of Wind” cabin has been donated to the Adirondack Museum. The cabin was carefully dismantled in the winter of 2014-15 and the logs transported across the ice and trucked to the Museum.
The cabin will be re-constructed and on exhibit in the new Adirondack Experience area of the Museum is scheduled to open in May of 2017.
Supernant’s program is free of charge, however donations to two LaBastille Legacy Projects—the LaBastille Memorial Writers Residency and the Woodswoman scholarship—will be gratefully accepted.
The presentation begins at 2 p.m. Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute is located at 310 Genesee St. in Utica.
