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Curiously Adirondack

A web series exploring the weird, wild, and wondrous world of the Adirondacks.

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Curiously Adirondack

Curiously Adirondack

Curiously Adirondack

Curiously Adirondack

Curiously Adirondack

A web series exploring the weird, wild, and wondrous world of the Adirondacks.

A web series exploring the weird, wild, and wondrous world of the Adirondacks.

A web series exploring the weird, wild, and wondrous world of the Adirondacks.

A web series exploring the weird, wild, and wondrous world of the Adirondacks.

Josh Clement
Josh Clement
Josh Clement
Josh Clement
1 Campaign |
Saranac Lake, United States
$18,476 USD 138 backers
92% of $20,000 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal

In the tradition of Lennon & McCartney, Roosevelt & Churchill, and Laurel &  Hardy, the 8 episode online series “Curiously Adirondack” brings together the creative skills of two very different yet instantly compatible individuals: Josh Clement & Ed Kanze.

The Adirondack Park in New York is a wondrous and unique place -- three times the size of Yellowstone and the largest park in the Lower 48. On the private lands in the park live about 100,000 year-round residents, all of them hardy and a great many quirky and ferociously independent. To live in the midst of the most extensive temperate deciduous forest on the planet, they endure long cold winters, swarms of biting insects, and a rugged, rocky, frost-haunted landscape that defies inhabitants of all species to eke out their livings.

It's a hard place to prosper. Yet for all the rocky patches, the people who dare to live inside the park are well rewarded by grand scenery, abundant wildlife, and no end of free entertainment in the form of skiing, skating, snowshoeing, hiking, boating, swimming, berry picking, fishing, hunting, and gardening (although it's not always easy to produce a ripe tomato here.)

The aim of our project is high. That is, to do this place and its singular people justice. We want to bring Adirondack Mountain life alive for all the poor souls who don't share the pleasure and pain of living here.


Josh Clement is a Renaissance man, not only a talented and richly creative videographer but also a musician, composer, husband, and father of two with a delightfully demented sense of humor. Ed Kanze has a Renaissance streak, too. A former National Park Ranger, he writes books, magazine stories, and newspaper columns, climbs trees, chases birds, and when not behaving like Huck Finn, runs an Adirondack Mountain nature guiding service. He is the father of two, too, but not the same two. 

Clement & Kanze have produced two videos together, a straightforward piece on earthworms and a Monty Pythonesque piece on blackflies, that inspired Josh's employer, Mountain Lake PBS, to think these two could be cut loose to produce eight new quirky, supremely appealing videos to be posted on the station's excellent website, mountainlake.org. They'll parade under the banner "Curiously Adirondack."


PBS has given us a vote of confidence! They will match your donations, dollar for dollar, up to $20,000. So your gift has double the impact! So here we are, rattling a tin cup, asking you to reach into your pockets, pawn your jewelry, or cash in your childhood stamp collection to help PBS and Mountain Lake PBS set off in bold new directions, with Clement and Kanze as guides. 

Believe us, we're not going to fatten our wallets making these videos. We're going to work hard for modest rewards. Days of professional work go into producing a few minutes of polished final product. 


The videos supported by this campaign will entertain, encourage, inform, inspire laughs, and generally make the world, and the Adirondack Mountain region in particular, a better, kinder place, one short increment (five minutes or thereabouts) at a time. Sponsors will be listed prominently with the credits except for those that request anonymity.

Curiously Adirondack's tentative episode list includes:


  • Leaps of faith: a look at exquisite and hidden Adirondack swimming holes and the kooks who jump into them 
  • a moose-calling contest that has to be seen and heard to be believed 
  • an outing with four young naturalists who bear uncanny resemblances to the producers, and who will find and share seriously cool stuff
  • a walk through a historic cemetery with a vibrant, energetic elderly woman, a pillar of her community, who has extraordinary stories to tell of people we wish we'd known


Raising money isn't easy. We can all use more of it. We're going to work hard to carry out this campaign, pleading, cajoling, and doling out incentives. If we succeed, our work will only be beginning. It's not simple making videos in the Adirondacks. You have to face blackflies, mosquitoes, no-see-ums, deer-flies, the occasional lovesick moose and hungry bear, along with inquisitive tourists and locals who have good reason to wonder what you're doing behind and in front of that camera. Conditions like these breed tenacity. We never surrender. And so, the Clement-Kanze production team and Mountain Lake PBS will work hard and long. We expect to march forward until, with your help, victory is achieved.

Then comes phase two. It'll involve hard work behind and in front of the camera, writing, rewriting, recording voice-overs, and long hours in the production room cutting, splicing, adding, subtracting, plugging in sound effects and video flourishes, and then getting the final product up on the web for you to view and enjoy. 

If we fail to reach our goal (you won't let that happen, but in the unlikely case that the pawn shop denies fair value for your treasures or the pennies in jar on the kitchen counter add up to less than expected), we’ll still do our best to make a few episodes. But it might not be all eight.


If disposable income is short or otherwise indisposed, please contribute to Curiously Adirondack in other ways. Blab about us on Facebook. Effuse on LinkedIn. Yak on Twitter. Tell your friends, your auto mechanic, your hairdresser, the mailman. Be creative on behalf of creativity. We can use all the help we can get, and by golly, we'll be greatly grateful for it.

We like to think the more people know about Curiously Adirondack, the more they'll rummage dresser drawers for spare coins and push us toward our goal.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Thanks for supporting Curiously Adirondack! 


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Choose your Perk

featured

I am Curiously Adirondack

$50 USD
Tell it to the world! This t-shirt let's everyone know -- "I am Curiously Adirondack."
Estimated Shipping
October 2014
13 claimed

Thanks!

$5 USD
We'll give you a shout-out on twitter from the Curiously Adirondack crew.
2 claimed

Wallpapers

$10 USD
We've got some great photographers working with us, and while we're shooting these episodes, we'll be taking plenty of pictures. We'll create a pack of Curiously Adirondack wallpapers for your phone, tablet or computer.
Estimated Shipping
September 2014
5 claimed

Podcast Collection

$13 USD
We'll be creating a special edition of our All Things Natural podcast, and since you've got $13 to give, you'll hear your name as part of that. We'll also throw in a "best of" CD from the first year of All Things Natural.
1 claimed

Adirondack Terror Poster

$15 USD
Have you been tormented by black flies? Our first video, Adirondack Terror: The Black Fly Menace, makes merry with the hordes of biting insects that appear in May and June. Inspired by Citizen Kane and Psycho, we'll send you a "vintage" movie poster from this short film.
Estimated Shipping
September 2014
1 claimed

Adirondack Terror DVD

$20 USD
As described above, at $20, we'll send you the DVD of Adirondack Terror: The Black Fly Menace. It's a limited edition! Hand numbered!
Estimated Shipping
September 2014
6 claimed

Adirondack Terror Combo

$30 USD
From above, but at $30, you'll get both the (limited-edition! hand-numbered!) DVD, and the poster. And now, we'll autograph them!
Estimated Shipping
September 2014
7 claimed

Autographed Book

$100 USD
A good read with a special touch. Just for you, Ed will sign a copy of his new book "Adirondack: Life and Wildlife in the Wild, Wild East" and send it your way. We'll also throw in our Curiously Adirondack t-shirt and a DVD of Adirondack Terror: the Black Fly Menace.
Estimated Shipping
September 2014
9 claimed

15 minutes of fame

$250 USD
Come along on a shoot with the crew (don't worry, we won't put you to work) and make a cameo in an episode of Curiously Adirondack! We'll also throw in our Curiously Adirondack t-shirt and a DVD of Adirondack Terror: the Black Fly Menace.
1 claimed

Be an underwriter (credits)

$500 USD
We'll display your name or organization as a funder on our website, and in the credits on all 8 of our episodes.
4 claimed

Let Ed be your guide

$1,000 USD
Explore the location of your choice in the Adirondack region with your very own Adirondack Guide. Ed, a licensed wilderness guide, will spend a half-day with you, exploring a mountain, a river, a forest, or even your own property. We'll also throw in our Curiously Adirondack t-shirt and a DVD of Adirondack Terror: the Black Fly Menace.
0 out of 2 of claimed

Be an underwriter (1/4 screen)

$1,500 USD
Claim your corner of our underwriter's screen. We'll display your name or logo as a funder on all 8 of our episodes, and on our website.
0 out of 4 of claimed

Production Underwriter

$5,000 USD
You, (or your organization/business) will be recognized as the main underwriter for the Curiously Adirondack series, which entitles you to a 15-second spot appended to every episode. Oh, and you also just made this series possible.
0 out of 2 of claimed
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