- Tonight on WPBS Weekly.

"Inside the Stories".

Recognize this book series?

Join us in the studio as we meet the authors behind the Children's Book series, "The Adirondack Kids", and visit the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center in Northeastern Adirondacks.

Since 1954, stories in cultural pieces from six New York State tribes are showcased.

Also, we'll introduce you to Mitch Beattie, a Canadian filmmaker determined to show you the islands in a different light, your stories, your region.

Coming up right now on WPBS weekly, "Inside the Stories".

(contemporary music) - WPBS Weekly "Inside the Stories" is brought to you by the Watertown Oswego Small Business Development Center, Carthage Savings, the JM McDonald Foundation, and the Dr. D Susan Badenhausen Legacy Fund of the Northern New York Community Foundation.

Additional funding from the New York State Education Department.

- Good Tuesday evening everyone, and welcome to this edition of WPBS Weekly.

"Inside the Stories".

I'm Stefan Brunson.

For over two decades, our North Country kids have enjoyed the adventures of the Adirondack Kids.

The children's books are written by father and son duo Gary and Justin Van Riper.

If you're not familiar with the books or the authors, you are about to meet them.

They joined Jolene DeRosier inside the studio to talk about their latest release and the purpose behind the books.

- So we are in the studio right now with two incredible authors that I cannot wait to introduce you to the audience.

You are Gary Van Riper, Justin Van Riper, and you are the authors of the ever-loving series, "The Adirondack Kids".

And I don't wanna forget Carol, your wife, she's not here, but she's the illustrator and we'll get into all of that good stuff.

But first of all, welcome and thank you so much for being here.

.

- Thank you for having us.

We're excited to be here.

- Yeah, and I'm excited to dig in because these books are so iconic, especially to the folks that live here in the region, but throughout the world.

- Mm.

- Essentially.

- Right.

So let's dig in a little bit and what I want folks to understand and know is how this adventure began and how these books began.

And Justin, that story starts with you.

- Yeah.

so growing up, we gotta go way back.

Growing up when I was four or five years old, we started working on stories together for fun.

We would take printer paper, staple 'em together and draw stories, make pictures, and just come up with ideas.

And we often take these stories that we did to different school events and show kids like this is the first book we ever did together.

So we love telling that story.

But we've been writing together really my entire life, starting, you know, even as young as four or five years old.

But the first Adirondack Kids' book idea came to us when I was about nine, 10 years old.

We had been speaking at appearances or my dad was invited to speak at appearance's Reading Partners event.

And we had been writing a story together for fun at home anyway about our camp 'cause we love the Adirondacks, we love our camp and we like spending time together already doing the writing.

And people came up to us after that event and asked when our book was coming out.

So we thought, okay, I guess let's think about maybe doing a whole book here instead of just our little chapter.

So that's really how it began.

And from there we expanded the story, changed it a lot, and several months later printed our first couple of copies.

- And Gary, you're no stranger to writing.

You're an award-winning journalist.

Talk to me about that.

- Well, started a community newspaper and we just, you know, a little team and we were able to be nimble because, you know, the technology, you know, had come around where you could do a lot of things that even larger papers had a harder time doing.

So yeah.

And I thought, you know, when you had a community newspaper, this is gonna be great 'cause I love to write.

Well then we found out writing's like a little sliver when you have a community newspaper, There's so many things you have to do.

But yeah, the writing, several stories won awards, Syracuse Press Club Awards, and we had a political cartoonist and he won an award.

I mean, it was a number of things for a little newspaper, but it was a about a seven year run.

And actually we started the book series in the middle of that.

It was toward the end of that run of the newspaper.

So we ended up closing the newspaper.

I took a full-time job as a pastor and the books continued to go on.

- So I wanna just back up a second before we dive into that piece.

What was it like writing with your child, seeing these illustrations?

And I know again, we said, Carol, your wife started illustrating in book four.

What is that like when your little guy is just like, look at this, let's make this bigger and better.

You as a writer?

- Well, here's what happened.

As Justin was getting older, I came across a book about how to raise a reader for life.

And I found out that there were several danger times when young people drop out of reading.

And one of 'em was fourth grade and the other's ninth grade and boys tend to drop out of reading before girls do for pleasure.

I didn't want him to drop out.

So that's why I decided, I read to him every day of his life.

When he got a little bit older, you know, he might stay overnight at friend's house, but pretty much I read to him every day of his life, even from an infant with little board books and the plastic books, you know, that they chew on and they drool on when they're little right on, right through.

And then when he got older, we would proofread some of our reading time was what we had been writing.

But with him entering third grade, I thought maybe we can ratchet this up, read to him every day, how about writing for real stories?

And I didn't even know if I could write fiction because I was so non-fiction oriented.

But so that's when I got serious about it.

So yeah.

Then Justin kind of filled in there how we started writing the first book together.

We weren't planning on a series, we didn't even, wasn't even thinking about publishing it, you know, until this person came up and said, well, you know, when was that book coming out?

So, and then you know, that first book, we had about 2000 copies printed.

I coached basketball at our high school and I took my coaching money and we invested it in 2000 copies of number one, not knowing if anybody would even buy one.

- And they did.

- Well, what we knew was my wife's family has like five siblings, so we said there's five copies and then there's grandparents, you know, but those copies were gone in the first couple of months, even before the season for the Adirondacks, which is kind of like, you know, 4th of July to Labor Day, before that even happened.

And so we ordered a reprint and then so well let's try number two.

And then we've been doing that one book a year for about 20 years now.

- And you self-published?

- Yeah, totally self-published.

- Still today.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Justin when even when he was young, he said, Dad, maybe we should.

- Yeah, I, well we started looking at publishers and folks that were behind on their contracts.

It would've been years anyway before they could've published our books.

And I didn't wanna lose the one thing I knew, I didn't know a lot about publishing as a little kid, but the one thing I knew is that I didn't wanna lose control over everything that we have with our stories.

We wanted our stories to be the way we wanted them, the pictures we wanted, the characters we wanted, we wanted control over everything.

And I didn't want to give that up.

- His instincts were good.

- Yeah, even as a kid.

So he said, okay.

And so we tried the self-publishing route and we're very glad that we did.

I mean, you, we were invited to be a keynote speaker at several different events and they were talking about publishing, there was publishers there saying like, we can't offer you anything that you're not already doing for yourselves at this point.

- What a great message to folks that are considering this.

And I really appreciate that share.

Can we dig in a little bit about what your mission is with this?

And we were talking before the cameras came on.

It's not just writing and illustrating and working with your wife.

This is more than a family affair.

Talk to me about that.

- Yeah, so, well, reading of course is important, right?

And we knew that we wanted to write stories that well we enjoyed, right?

I grew up with the Hardy Boys, you know, chapter books, things like that, adventure, that sort of thing.

And so we wanted to write wholesome stories.

The parents and grandparents weren't like afraid if it was a read aloud, let's say, Ooh, what's gonna happen if I turn the page you know,?

They're safe, you know, in that respect, wholesome adventure, you know.

But we also wanted an educational aspect about it so that each one of these stories revolves around an important person, place, or thing in the Adirondacks.

So there was that aspect.

So reading, right?

When we speak in schools, you know, we emphasize that, you know, read, read, read.

You want to be a writer someday, you must be a reader, that sort of thing.

But the other thing is so many children now, these last few years with, you know.

- Phones, technology.

- Phones and technology and all this stuff.

And it's like.

of course when I was a kid we played outside all the time.

So that's another part kind of of our mission is to try to get kids to set down their electronic devices and maybe inspired through the stories, get outside and realize what's out there, the wonder, you know, of nature.

And in this case, the Adirondacks but it could be anywhere, but get outside.

Yeah.

You know, put down those electronic devices.

So yeah, that's kind of our twofold mission.

Read, read, read.

Don't drop out of reading for pleasure and get outside, put those electronic devices down and get outside and make your own adventures.

Have your own adventures.

Find out what's out there.

- I'm an adult and I really appreciate this message.

(laughter) Yeah.

So in 22 years you've authored 21 books, you've got some puzzles, we've got one up here.

I want to talk a little bit about your 20th anniversary edition, because I understand that's basically a rewrite, a reprint of the first.

- Yep.

- And the 20th book that came out, "The Amazing Migration Vacation".

So talk to me about that a little bit.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, in 20 plus years, technology and things change.

Growing up, you know, not a lot of kids even 20 years ago were necessarily using film cameras and things like that.

Things were already changing.

And so we had written about, for example, a 35 millimeter camera in the first book.

And I had used one when we would go out on adventures.

I remember we went kayaking one morning at Moss Lake and I took the shot of a loon that my dad had been trying to get for 25 minutes.

And seriously.

And I was 11 years old.

- I wanted one vocalizing, I wanted a loon vocalizing, you know, and he asked if he could, and my camera, it was manual, it wasn't automatic, it's got a long lens on it.

Yeah, I can use your camera.

- And he was nervous naturally.

- Loon comes up, opens its mouth and bang, he gets it.

- But because technology and things have changed over the last couple of decades, we wanted to add a little bit to the back of the story.

Explaining some of that stuff, you know, what is a manual film camera, but because also because the characters have been, people have fallen in love with the characters and things like that.

We wanted to do some expanded information, you know, bio pages on the characters and all these other things.

So we really updated the book in terms of any mistakes that might have been still in there for many years ago.

But we expanded it, we did some special content for the book and then did a special cover and then released it.

Yeah.

- Are you one of the characters?

'cause there's a Justin in there?

Is that you?

Yeah, so when we first started writing, I thought it'd be cool, hey, if we're ever famous one day it'd be cool to be in a story.

And so Justin Robert, my middle name is Robert, and so he was kind of based on a bit on me.

We had some differences, but we both love the Adirondacks, we love the outdoors.

We love animals, we love Reese's peanut butter cups, you know, and so he was an easy character to create and it felt like I got to be part of the story without necessarily actually being part of the story.

So it's fun.

- Where did Dax come from and tell us who Dax is.

- So yeah.

- You could do it, like tell like when we visited a school.

Right, so a lot of stories have animal sidekicks, you know, especially kids stories, but there wasn't a lot with like cats and we had a cat at the time and I thought, let's do a cat, why not?

And so the cat we had at the time though was not particularly friendly.

And so we thought we want a cat that's gonna be interesting and unique.

Calico cats are really fun, lots of different colors, very interesting to look at.

Supposedly very adventurous type cats.

So we actually went to a humane society in Rome, New York, and we looked at all the different cats there to try to find a calico cat, shorthaired calico cat that fit the bill.

It wasn't looking good.

So we were getting ready to leave and on the way out we saw a cage that we had missed with some kittens and there's a calico cat in there.

So we thought, oh great.

So we always get the kids involved, you know, we start telling this real dramatic story about how we're looking at the cats and we get really close and we get down on one knee and all the cat kittens are like getting close to the front of the cage.

And we put our hands up and they all jumped to the back of the cage.

And except for very conveniently Cross the calico cat who came to the front and was like licking our fingers and trying to get to us.

So we got her, brought her home, her name was Chickadee and we renamed her Dax.

We always ask the kids, you know, what do you think Dax is short for?

They always say Daxter or some other thing, but we thought it'd be short for Adirondacks.

So we renamed her Dax, brought her home, she was with us for almost 18 years.

- I love how the universe works and put that, that cat right in front of you.

- It was amazing.

- As we wrap things up, tell me a little bit about your roots in the Adirondacks.

Obviously you're experts and you've created this beautiful world based on people, places and things there.

And then tell me what's next because you have a little boy named Levi and he's six and I wanna know about him and what he thinks of these books.

- Yeah, so my wife, Justin's mom is part of a family that has had a camp in the Adirondacks on the North Shore Fourth Lake for 118 years.

So they actually brought, I guess, materials up the Fulton Chain of Lakes because for the first camp.

And so that's how we really got connected.

A lot of the background and the epicenter of the books is right there in Eagle Bay and Inlet because that's where the kids hail from.

So that's kind of our strongest connection with the Adirondacks.

I'm not a dock person, you know, everybody kind of spends their time in the dock, but it's my headquarters kind of to go out and hike.

And I've hiked a lot in the High Peaks and other places and stuff, but that's kind of our strongest connection with the Adirondacks.

- And how do we keep us going?

This father son family writing adventure.

- Yeah, well we always tell people as long as they keep reading and buying our stories, we'll keep writing them.

The big thing for us is we like to hear from kids or from parents who've had reluctant readers who have been like, you know, our son hated reading and then he picked up your books and now he won't stop.

- That's what's been amazing is the letters.

- Yeah, that's been really, really neat to see.

And so that's been one of the biggest inspirations for continuing the way that it's impacted other people.

Now because it's been so long.

I have friends who grow up reading the books, who are having kids who are now reading the books, which is wild, feels wild.

But, so that's been really, really cool to see.

And yeah, I mean, as long as there's a market for it and we continue to have ideas, we'll probably keep writing.

My son is like, like you said, he's six.

He loves reading, he loves doing, we do same thing.

We read every single night before bed.

Haven't missed a night since he's been born.

So he loves stories, he loves reading stories, telling stories.

If we don't have a book and we're somewhere, we make up stories, he loves it.

So he's not quite to the reading age of chapter books yet.

- He's three years away from when I started with him.

- So, so we haven't quite jumped into these stories yet.

But for him, kinda like me growing up, it didn't seem special.

It's just normal life.

And so for him it's just kind of, this is just life, it's just the way that the things are.

So.

- Well this has been a fun adventure for all of us in here, I think learning about it.

Thank you Justin.

Thank you Gary.

Thank you for the books and folks, we can find these at many local bookstores throughout the Adirondacks and beyond.

Really appreciate your time and I look forward to the next book.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you.

- Still in the Adirondacks tonight?

We take you to a cultural museum like no other.

It is the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Museum, family owned by the Mohawk of Akwesasne.

It has celebrated the rich and profound history of the Hode Ashoni people.

Visionary Ray Fadden and subsequent Fadden generations have kept their tradition alive.

Take a look.

- Nestled away in the northeastern Adirondacks, near Anchiota, New York, sits the Sixth Nations Indian Museum.

This modest rough-hewn structure was conceived and established in 1954 by educator, orator and visionary Ray Fadden.

- One of the greatest, deepest loves that my father had was toward the natural world.

I mean, he loved the forest and the streams and the rivers and the lakes and so forth.

And then as my father grew older, he was still a child.

But somehow he learned that there was a cultural group of people that had a sensitivity toward the natural world, a natural sense of the fact that we're part of it.

We're not something above it, hovering above it, but we're part of the natural world.

And of course, those cultures are Native American cultures.

And so because of that understanding and learning, you begin to learn more about them as a culture group.

And understandably zeroed in on the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.

- Celebrating one's native history and contributions to the world was frowned upon in the early 20th century, especially in schools.

Fadden's agenda was to celebrate the heritage of the Hoda Nashoni people.

- You know, like my grandfather when he started this, it was kind of urgent.

There was an urgent need to teach the culture because it was disappearing.

General attitude towards native people.

You know, beginning, you know, the late 1800s right into the '50s and '60s.

It really wasn't that positive, especially in the educational system to schools.

They didn't teach the children or anybody really the history of their native people, and especially native people to be proud.

And you could see that the native kids really didn't have a sense of who they were identity-wise, and he couldn't teach it out in the open.

It wasn't allowed.

The schools were run by non-natives.

And one of his biggest obstacles was the non-native administration, and also amazingly was the church.

They actually had masses where they would preach against what my grandfather was teaching.

- Work on the museum began when Fadden retired from the St. Regis Mohawk school and moved to Anchiota.

- And my father, as long as I can remember, always had this idea of having a museum, a place like this.

And so that was always his dream to do this.

Then he got a saw and got some help and went out in the woods and cut down some trees.

And he envisioned a building with six rooms and each room would represent Mohawk, Oneida, and so forth.

- The collection of artifacts and cultural items come from a wide variety of sources.

- As I grew up, and I was a young lad and my father always had a lot of native things in the house, and our house started looking like a museum, but he'd have trunks with stuff in it that he'd gathered.

Things like, there was a fellow came here once, parked out parallel to the museum.

He came in and he told us, you from Dannemora up the road here.

And he said, you know, he says, I found this thing in the woods.

And he popped the trunk and we looked in and there was a box, and inside of the box was an Iroquois pottery bowl.

And he gave it to us.

And then we had it put in there.

It's in the third room in the corner, and it's been estimated to be about five centuries old.

And a number of pictographic record belts that are within this room he produced over the years.

And the most outstanding one, although they're all quite beautiful and effective, is this long belt that's 75 feet long that goes around the room.

And that tells the epic story and pictograph symbolism of when the Iroquois Confederacy was formed.

- Ray Fadden passed on to (indistinct) in 2008 at the age of 98, but his museum lives on and so does his rich legacy.

- So I think now, one of the main goals here is to again, re-reaffirm the teachings that my grandfather taught that he learned and that go back thousands of years that are these value systems.

These stories, the code of of being a good human are passed down throughout the generations.

What I try to do when I see young Mohawk kids or young native kids, is to remind them that they're living during a good time.

They're able to learn the language, they're able to learn the stories out in the open.

They're able to wear the traditional outfits, you know, hold their heads up high.

And so it's a responsibility to them to keep it going, to learn the language, to keep the stories going.

We're all here.

We have things, we have a past, but we also have a present and we have a future.

- As we head into spring, our minds may be on the melting snow and warmer weather.

Here to tease those warm spring vibes is Canadian filmmaker Mitch Beattie, and he's determined to show the islands in a different light.

(horn honks) (birds twitter) (soft jazz music) - Hello everybody and welcome to "Thousand Islands Wanderer".

I'm super excited to be selected for this position this year.

(soft jazz music) For those of you who haven't heard of the Thousand Islands, yes, this is a real place and not just a salad dressing.

Some of the islands are Canadian owned and some are American.

So we have friends on both sides.

We are located three hours east of Toronto and about an hour south of Ottawa.

So what is "The Thousand Islands Wanderer" Project?

It's my job to tour through the islands and showcase all the activities, the people, the businesses, and the unique experiences that make up this area.

We recognize that we are fortunate to be in one of the most amazing regions with a world renowned river, larger than lakes, unique cultural and heritage experiences, and a ton of outdoor spaces.

So who am I?

My name is Mitch Beattie.

I'm a videographer who owns a video production and marketing agency in the Thousand Islands region.

We work with a lot of local clients as well as global clients all over the world.

For some reason, from all the beauty that we've seen, there's something about the Thousand Islands region that is still one of my favorite places on the globe.

There aren't just a thousand islands.

There's actually 1,864 Islands, which are either privately owned parks, Canada owned, city owned, or historical sites that are owned and maintained accordingly.

So we've got over a thousand reasons for you to come and visit us.

Breathtaking views from all angles, plenty of activities to do, and the warmth and hospitality by the people that call this place home.

So join me as I travel through Gananoque and the township of Leeds in the Thousand Islands.

I am super excited to be, oh, I'm super.

- That does it for us this Tuesday evening.

Now join us next week for a fresh look inside the stories.

We continue our in-depth coverage of the overdose epidemic in New York as we talk to one parent who lost her daughter to a fentanyl overdose and one movie rental store in Ottawa is still very much in business and is beating the streaming odds.

We'll tell you how.

Also meet Oswego County musician, Gary Carpentier, his original music will make you understand how he became the contestant on season 13 of the Voice.

Meantime, we wanna tell your story.

If you or someone in your community has something meaningful, historic, inspirational, or educational to share, please email us at wpbsweeklywpbstv.org and let's share it with the region.

That's it for now, everyone.

We'll see you again next week.

Good night.

- WPBS Weekly "Inside the Stories" is brought to you by the Watertown Oswego Small Business Development Center, a free resource offering confidential business advice for those interested in starting or expanding their small business.

Serving Jefferson Lewis and Oswego Counties since 1986, online at watertown.nysbdc.org, Carthage Savings has been here for generations.

Donating time and resources to this community, they're proud to support WPBS TV online at carthagesavings.com.

Carthage Savings, mortgage solutions since 1888.

Additional funding provided by the JM McDonald Foundation, the Dr. D Susan Badenhausen Legacy Fund of the Northern New York Community Foundation.

and the New York State Education Department.

- We recognize that we are fortunate to be in one of the most amazing regions with a world renowned river, large than lakes, unique cultural and heritage experiences, and a ton of outdoor spaces.