Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks transports the reader back in time to the days when steamboats, buckboards, and gas lighting were common. Jane and Mark Barlow deliver tales of one-room schools, of ice harvesting, of women who managed households accessible only by boat, of families struck by deaths from tuberculosis or from drowning, of uncontrollable fires and stories of exuberant amusements such as primitive motorboat regattas. People arrived on the first railroad to stretch through the uninhabited Adirondack wilderness and helped establish a thriving community. Early trappers and hunters of the Adirondacks became guides there, eventually establishing permanent camps and hotels. Prosperous businessmen brought their families and built private summer homes.