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Upstate New York is a haven for nature lovers with its breathtaking landscapes, stunning waterways and abundant wildlife. Whether you’re an avid hiker, a photography enthusiast or simply enjoy being immersed in nature, this region offers an endless array of outdoor adventures. Here are some of the best spots in upstate New York for nature lovers.

Letchworth State Park

Known as the “Grand Canyon of the East,” Letchworth State Park spans over 14,000 acres and offers picturesque views and spectacular landscapes. It is located along the Genesee River and boasts numerous hiking trails ranging from easy to challenging. There are three major waterfalls: the Upper, Middle and Lower Falls. The park is open year-round, and visitors can enjoy activities such as camping, fishing and snowmobiling during the winter months.

The Catskills

The Catskill Mountains offer dense forests and majestic waterfalls, making this region a popular spot among tree huggers. With plenty of hiking trails, visitors can explore the incredible beauty of the mountains while enjoying fresh air and exercise. The Catskills also are home to some of the best fly fishing streams in the country. In addition to outdoor activities, there are numerous restaurants, shops and art galleries to enjoy in the towns that have sprouted up in the area.

Howe Caverns

Located 156 feet below the earth’s surface, Howe Caverns are a unique underground nature adventure in upstate New York. Guided tours are available to take you through the caverns, where you can witness unique rock formations and underground lakes. There is also a gift shop, a cafe, a zip line course and a motel on site. Howe Caverns is open year-round and hosts various special events in the winter.

Niagara Falls

One of the most famous destinations on this list, Niagara Falls is a natural wonder that draws millions of visitors each year. The massive waterfall can be seen from both the American and Canadian sides of the Niagara River, and visitors can take a boat ride to get up close and personal with the falls. The surrounding area offers a variety of activities. The Niagara region also has a lively entertainment scene with casinos, restaurants and theaters for travelers to enjoy.

Watkins Glen State Park

This sprawling park is located at the southern tip of Seneca Lake. It is famous for its stunning 400-foot gorge and cascading waterfalls. It boasts 19 falls along the winding trail that will take your breath away. Outdoors enthusiasts will enjoy the lush greenery and unique rock formations found throughout the park. Activities, like camping, fishing and boating, are also available, making it a great place to visit for an extended period.

Saratoga Spa State Park

Saratoga Spa State Park is known for its natural mineral springs and classical architecture. Visitors can take a leisurely stroll through the park, which has a unique history and many natural attractions to admire. The park also offers a variety of activities, such as golfing, ice skating, hiking and picnicking. Saratoga Spa State Park is a great place to relax and enjoy the magnificence of nature and American architecture.

Lake Placid

A historic village nestled within the Adirondack Mountains, Lake Placid is renowned for its beauty and excellent outdoor activities. The village has hosted two Winter Olympics and has a museum dedicated to the events. Skiing is undoubtedly the most popular activity during the winter months. In warmer seasons, visitors can hike through the Adirondack Mountains, enjoy the lakes or try their hand at bobsledding. The village is also known for shopping with its trendy boutiques and art galleries.

Finger Lakes

The Finger Lakes are a group of 11 long, skinny lakes in upstate New York, surrounded by rolling hills and deep gorges. The region is known for its wineries, and visitors can explore numerous vineyards. The scenery also is ideal for hiking or biking, and the lakes are famous for their fishing. The Finger Lakes region is a great place to visit year-round with ice fishing and other winter activities available throughout the winter months.

For Zoe Leonard, photography is not just about using a camera. Photography is also about a way of thinking, seeing and interacting.

This focus continues in her recent series Al río/To the River at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

An American artist who works across photography, sculpture and installation, Leonard’s work is wide-ranging in theme but always finely attuned to the role of photography in how the world is ordered and understood.

Interested in the role of photography in mapping and archiving, Leonard often turns her camera towards the uneventful and the everyday.

Leonard has photographed bricked up houses, with windows and doors closed up; and the trunks of trees pressing against fences. In Analogue (1998–2009), she observes the changing urban fabric of New York and the global movement of recycled objects and textiles in secondhand market stalls.

Queer politics also informs her work. Strange Fruit (1992-1997), a collection of fruit skins sewn together with thread, zippers and buttons, engages with loss, mourning and repair – an acknowledgement of the many who died in the early days of the AIDS crisis, including many of Leonard’s friends.

She is most famous, perhaps, for I want a president, a work she typed out in 1992. This work was given new life as a large scale installation on the New York highline during the 2016 US election, the same year Leonard began photographing the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande.

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Movement and displacement

Al río/To the River surveys the stretch of river known as Rio Grande in the United States and the Rio Bravo in Mexico. The river marks the politically contentious border between the US and Mexico. Al río/To the River consists of photographs taken between 2016–2022 along the expanse of this river/border, but it is not straightforward documentary.

The images in Al río/To the River imply narratives about movement and displacement. They suggest the underlying hum of surveillance, industry and commerce. They observe the persistence of trees, soil and birds and the movement of water, as well as the rigidity of walls and bridges.

Like much of Leonard’s work, human subjects are often not directly represented. Instead, their presence and stories are felt through objects, structures, detritus.

In one image Leonard gives us the afterlife of a cleaning broom, resting at the border. The broom suggests the labour of cleaning, of workers who constantly negotiate the barrier between the two countries.

The exhibition is a complex portrait of the border that trades in traces. In one sequence of images Leonard focuses on the tyre and rake marks left on soil by patrol cars. Another image presents discarded tyres attached to rope, used by border patrol to flatten soil ready to reveal the footprints of fleeing bodies.

Another sequence of black and white photographs observes the lines of an agricultural field, and a flock of birds taking flight. By the end of the sequence the birds in flight almost fill the frame.

These moments of beauty and movement provide relief from other photographs which document the rigidity of fences and walls, the sharpness of barbed wire.

There is no singular vision here of the river. There is harshness as well as beauty, surveillance and flight.

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Fragments of a whole

While most of the modestly-scaled photographs are gelatin black and white prints, there are also some colour photographs. The colour appears in a sequence of photographs of bright pink flowers blooming on the ground and a set of close-up photographs of the river’s churning brown water.

At the end of the exhibition a series of iPhone photographs document a live-feed on Leonard’s laptop witnessing people migrating across a bridge.

All these photographs need to be understood cumulatively: each a layer or fragment of a more complex picture.

Leonard’s vantage point is unfixed, shifting. Leonard photographed from both sides of the river. Sometimes she pointed her camera skyward at ominous hovering helicopters. At other times she observes what is at her feet, or the cars queuing ahead of her at border checkpoints.

These vantage points are, of course, Leonard’s own. She emphasises this through her choice not to crop out the black edge of the negative. This thin black frame from the unexposed edge of negative film is a reminder these photographs do not give us direct access to the river/border. Our access is mediated – framed – by Leonard’s camera and position.

The lens flare on one image reminds us these images are the result of a relationship between a lens, the sun and Leonard’s finger on the camera’s shutter.

Al río/To the River is organised around a suite of rooms, and structured into passages which reflect the flow of the river it observes. The exhibition offers a spatial experience as much as a visual one.

In one room the windows reveal Sydney Harbour, which connects to a river with its own complex history. A wall in the same room is covered with a grid of 34 photographs: an echo of the photographic contact sheet, again showing how Leonard brings into conversation the matter, form and scale of photography with questions about the politics of looking.

Zoe Leonard: Al río / To the River is at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, until November 5.

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Image caption: Zoe Leonard, Al río/To the River (detail) 2016–2022 gelatin silver prints, C-prints and inkjet prints. Production supported by Mudam Luxembourg–Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris Musées, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Galerie Gisela Capitain and Hauser & Wirth. Image courtesy the artist, Galerie Gisela Capitain, and Hauser & Wirth © Zoe Leonard

Town Island, ON (Photo by Patty Nelson)

September 11, 2023 | by Jon Werenko

As a conservation technician with the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), I’ve come to intimately understand the rejuvenating effects of nature. During my recent visit to Town Island, located about two kilometres from the mainland on Lake of the Woods, I had the privilege of experiencing this magic first-hand.

Given the growing development pressures in the region, Town Island’s size and relatively unaltered shorelines and woodlands make it a crucial conservation initiative. The island’s biological importance has long been understood. In August 2022, NCC acquired Town Island with the support of the B’nai Brith children’s summer camp (BB Camp) and several community benefactors, guaranteeing that its 82 hectares of habitat would always be protected. 

In July of this year, in honour of the significant contributions of all those who supported this initiative, a celebration was held at BB Camp. Everyone I spoke to at the event described how elated they were to see the island permanently protected, and from the moment I set foot on the island, I understood why.

On Town Island, I felt an immediate sense of harmony — the crashing waves, leaves rustling in the wind and the distinctive calls of eagles, gulls, blue jays and sparrows created a symphony that resonated in the air around me. The sweet scents of pine and fir wafted everywhere I went, and I felt at peace in nature.

I am not alone in this feeling, either. Science has proven that engaging our senses in nature has psychological benefits, something us nature lovers have long suspected. Recent studies have identified over 200 different ways that our interactions with nature contribute to our well-being. For example, a report from last year found that those who listened to birdsong reported decreased anxiety, and a study from this year found that smells experienced in nature influence well-being by drawing on our positive memories.

At a time characterized by rapid urbanization and with over 80 per cent of Canadians residing in cities, many of us see ourselves as distinct and separate from other species. Yet, we are inextricably part of nature, and this disconnect harms us and the planet. Reconnecting with the natural world is crucial, and a great place to start with this is helping younger generations enjoy the outdoors. Children’s connection to nature is incredibly powerful, and encouraging this connection has the potential to inspire the next generation of conservationists. In fact, adults who spent time outdoors as children report a  higher level of motivation to care for the environment later in life.

For this reason, protecting Town Island feels especially meaningful. Today, BB Camp is the sole development on the island, and the island is also accessed by the nearby YMCA-YWCA Camp Stephens. I felt comforted knowing that where I stood, lasting memories of the natural world would continue to be built for generations.

As our boat left the dock at the end of the day, I felt a deep sense of connection to the environment and those devoted to its conservation. In that moment, I felt as if I was bearing witness to a force greater than myself. This experience reaffirmed the notion that caring for nature is also a form of self-care and compassion for others. With Town Island now safeguarded, thanks to the work of NCC, BB Camp and generous donors, countless future visitors will be able to experience its healing powers like I did. I hope this will be one of many environmental stewardship opportunities in the Lake of the Woods area — this is just the beginning.

The 2023 Conservation Intern Program in Ontario is proudly supported by 407 ETR.

A globular cluster glitters with starlight in a new photo from the Hubble Space Telescope. 

Located 15,000 light-years from Earth, the globular cluster — formally known as Terzan 12 — is nestled deep in our Milky Way galaxy, in the constellation of Sagittarius. A globular cluster contains hundreds of thousands to millions of stars tightly bound together by gravity, causing the large structures to appear spherical when viewed from Earth. 

Aim and shoot. It may seem simple to a novice in the world of photography, but anyone who has tried to capture the right image on a cell phone knows that is not true.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Paula Glaser did not have to delete when she captured a stunning image of a mountain lion in Utah showing its feline prowess in a simple jump.

The photo, called “Leap of Faith,” was among entries submitted to The Nature Conservancy’s global contest last year aimed at promoting and celebrating nature that is all around us, the threats to the environment and the reason to be good stewards of the only place we can call home. It did not win, but it reminds you of something outside yourself.

In 2022, the competition had the largest global participation ever, with entries from 196 different countries and territories across six different categories. Winning images were selected by a panel of judges that included renowned conservation photographer Ami Vitale and Coyote Peterson, host of YouTube’s Brave Wilderness.

From more than 100,000 entries, the contest’s winning photo featured a drone’s eye view of a lonely highway in Tibet, bordered on each side by gullies extending outward in the shape of a tree. It was taken by photographer Li Ping in China, who slept in a roadside parking lot overnight to get this striking early morning shot.

The contest is expanding this year and offers another opportunity for photographers in Utah and the West to get in on the action for cash awards of more than $25,000. This is the way to enter.

Last year put the world and nature on stage through the eye of the camera and the person behind it.

“The diversity of images from around the world gave a glimpse into our fragile planet and all the life that inhabits it,” said judge Ami Vitale. “The contest itself was a mesmerizing odyssey and we are left with a profound message of how interconnected all of us are and what it means to our own survival to intermingle with wildness.”

The Nature Conservancy is active in Utah and a vital part of protecting Great Salt Lake wetlands and other vital landscapes, such as the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve.

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The organization captures attention with boots on the ground conservation, outreach and of course, this contest.

“These incredible images from talented photographers all over the world remind us how connected we are to each other and to this beautiful planet, and at the same time of the challenges we face,” said Meg Goldthwaite, chief marketing and communications officer for The Nature Conservancy. “It energizes us as we work to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends, so that future generations can enjoy the same natural wonders depicted in these amazing photos.”