Quotes: Clarence Petty, on the Adirondacks

Clarence Petty, who spent most of his life defending and fighting to preserve the Adirondack wilderness, died earlier this month at the age of 104.

You can find some great articles/tributes to Clarence’s life online. Such as this one, from the New York Times: Clarence Petty, Protector of the Adirondacks, Dies at 104. And this one, from Adirondack Explorer: Recollections of Clarence

But I wanted to share two quotes from Clarence that I recently came across, and that I find especially interesting and valuable.

On the need for wilderness:

“Not all people feel they need to have wilderness, but I do. If things go bad and everything seems to go wrong, the best place to go is right into the remote wilderness, and everything’s in balance there.”

On land controversies in the Adirondacks:

“There are two very definite differences of philosophy. One philosophy says, ‘I own the land, I pay taxes on it, so I can do whatever I like with it.’ The other philosophy says, ‘I’m only a temporary custodian of the land, but there are thousands of others who are going to own it in the future, and I have an obligation to those people who come after me.’ That’s the difference between the two sides in the controversy in the Adirondacks today.”