To even the most casual observer, the year 1996-1997 marks the emergence of a new lifestyle here in Tupper Lake. This is certainly the year of the walker. Demars Boulevard and Stetson Road are just two of the routes where walkers, not unlike lemmings headed for the sea, can be seen at almost any hour of the day or night.
There have always been people living in this community who enjoy walking, of course, but the recent explosion of people walking reflects a quantum leap in the numbers that are enjoying this great, healthy, rewarding pastime.
Here is a suggestion to add some variety to your walk, at only a light extra cost in time, while offering a glimpse of an area that has been historically significant as early as 1892.
Start your walk by first driving out past Bog River Falls, then to Horseshoe Lake, where you make a sharp left over the railroad tracks. Follow this road .3 of a mile after crossing the tracks and park your car near the first gated road on your left. This road was once a railroad spur that went to the station at Horseshoe and was part of the 15 miles of trackage laid out by A.A. Low for his Horseshoe Forestry Company operations.
This operation was a marvel even to Mr. Low’s close associates, who were aware of his inventiveness and great energy. He built a huge dam on he Bog River to generate electricity, and when he need more power, he built a second one.
He harvested timber from his 40,000-acre tract, bottled spring water from large flowing springs on his property and won awards for the quality of his maple syrup. (One year he tapped 10,000 trees!) He even made wine and preserves from native berries on his cutover land. He built a beautiful home on Lake Marion (named after his wife and now part of Otterbrook Park), and when he didn’t like the station the railroad built at Horseshoe, he built a handsome depot patterned after one in Garden City, Long Island and sold it to the M&M railroad for $1.
It is hard to imagine as you walk this spur that there was once rolling stock that consisted of two locomotives, a crane, a shovel, a log loader (all powered by steam, of course) and several flat cars designed to ship his products to the city markets by rail.
Walk around the gate, which is only to prevent motor vehicle access, and start your walk, which will take you in only 2.5 miles to what is known as the upper dam and the headquarters of the former Low operations. The trail or road is quite flat, and you will walk alongside a large black spruce swamp or peatlands for almost a mile and a Scotch pine plantation at 1.6 miles. At 2.5 miles, you will be at the dam.
If you have extra time, by all means scurry up Hitchins Mountain. It is only .2 of a mile, mostly across open rock ledges barren of soil due o the fiercely hot flames of the same fire that on Sept. 26, 1908 destroyed the entire village of Sabattis (2 miles distant) and was so intense that it warped the rails of the railroad bed as a relief train sent from Tupper rescued the residents and rolled out between a wall of fire that scorched and blistered cars and caught the caboose on fire.
The reward for this short climb (which starts out as a path to the rear of the two-story building to your right before you approach the dam) is a striking scenic panorama of the wilderness that is the Bog River drainage.
The late Armand Vaillancourt of this village, caretaker and manager of the Low estate for more than 40 years, carried the cremated ashes of A.A. Low to the summit (watched carefully with binoculars by a redoubtable Mrs. Low from her front porch at the base of the mountain), and if you follow the open ridge to its highest point, you will find an iron bolt and plaque in the rock to commemorate his memory.
A.A. Low was one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs in the history of this region and has left a treasured heritage now available to the public.

?Afterward:
As a result of that 1908 fire, locomotives would be required to burn oil with no wood or coal allowed except at night. The railroads would have to keep their rights of way cleared and remove all combustible material — a definite hardship that didn’t please the railroads.
A “tree lapping” law was established that required tops to be cut up so the branches rested close to the damp earth. The state built 61 fire towers (Mt. Morris had the distinction of being one of the first — July 1908 — Richard Gile was the observer), and the fire would become a contributing cause to the liquidation of the Horseshoe Forestry Company.