On a crisp November night, my college roommate stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and gasped. “I’ve never seen the stars,” she told me.
Like many Gen Z students, I left for university feeling that I had outgrown the North Country. The grass was greener elsewhere. “Where are you from?” became a complicated question. “North of Syracuse… Along the Canadian border… East of Buffalo… No, I’m not from New York City!” is how the conversation typically went. I began my internship with the Thousand Islands Land Trust thinking that I would be returning to old stomping grounds. The street names were the same, but I was shocked to discover how little I knew about my own hometown. Over the summer, I gained numerous skills but the biggest lesson has been the realization that “100 miles north of Syracuse” is the least important thing I could say about life in the Thousand Islands.
As a nonprofit focusing on environmental conservation, TILT staffers spend a fair share of their days outdoors. We are “plant nerds,” and every community hike is a chance to discover new mushrooms for foraging. We are also bird nerds, and fish nerds, and occasionally rescue-the-turtle-before-somebody-hits-it-with-their-car nerds. TILT’s full-time staff are not casual observers or summer tourists. Every minute they spend outdoors, they are observing the world in motion. As a team, they identify how the natural world is changing, the consequences of those changes, and what role humans play in the evolving ecosystem.
At this summer’s “Harmony with the Land” TILTKids Camp, we taught children that humans play a huge role in determining the health of their surrounding landscape. “Harmony with the Land” is a way of living, and the countless hours dedicated by the TILT office to grant writing, education and outreach, community projects, and land preservation are all spent with the goal of moving Northern New York closer to a sustainable future. TILT knows that in a world where some people grow up having never seen the stars, the River is a gift that cannot be taken for granted.
When I look at the Thousand Islands now, part of me sees familiar old scenes: A loon bobbing on the waters, wildflowers lining walking trails, and kids on vacation jumping off the docks at cottages. Another part of me fears losing these moments. Where do the birds go when the wetlands they depend on no longer exist? What happens when the summers grow too hot for native ferns? But the newest part of me—the part that spent the summer months working side by side with TILT, its partner organizations, and the NNY community, sees the people keeping life on the River going. I see the volunteers who planted trees at the Zenda Farms preserve, and the families that spent their weekends picking up trash on Potters Beach. I see the beauty of a landscape as strong as the people behind it, and I know that the Thousand Islands is a place you can never outgrow.
