Who says Nothing Interesting Happens in the North Country?

In her fourth installment of her book series Cheri Revai reveals yet again just how wierd upstate New York can be.

Story by Noah Fitzgerald

Picture, if you will, a scene of houses haunted by restless ghosts, graveyards filled with wandering shadows, a fetus turned to stone in its mother's womb, reclusive hermits and a secret society of superior beings.

While first instincts may have one think this sounds like parts of a plot for a horror movie, it appears these paranormal and strange incidents take place a bit closer to home. In Cheri Revai's Weird Northern New York, the Adirondack area proves to be a bit more strange than it appears. The alleged non-fiction stories that fill the books pages may be hard to swallow at times, but serve as entertaining and occasionally tantalizing reads.

A particularly spooky story begins, appropriately enough, in a cemetery in the small town of Hopkins. Revai joins a spirit-hunting group called the "Shadow Chasers" in the dead of night to track and monitor the unusual (and, according to the group's member, unusually common) shadow creatures that scurry around the tombstones and even disrupt the street lamp's intensity from time to time. While I'm not easily scared, the story caused a tingling feeling to run down my spine as I imagined an absent-bodied silhouette creep by me in such a dreary setting.

Revai succeeds in drawing out some of the area's strangest and most unique people as well. The famous Adirondack hermit, Noah John Rondeau, is spotlighted along with the former "oldest person in the world," Delina Filkens. What interested me most, however, were the stories told by residents of the area who are still alive today. A favorite of mine is the story told by a former Whitehall resident, Steve A., who witnessed a fanciful experience of two "dinosaur-like beings" at the shore of a lake. What really interested me, however, was the story of Marc and Sarah Spicer of Malone who share a house with a ghost of an infant and a portal into the after-life.

After reading the author's collection of stories I felt jealous of those who have experienced these weird incidences (except, perhaps, for those who experienced a year with snowstorms throughout the summer of 1816). Revai is a master at drawing out some of the most unusual tales this seemingly mundane area hides. The essays are broken down into separate sections, such as "Bizarre Behaviors," "Wacky Wilderness," "Peculiar People," "Spectacular Spooks," and others, which pace the reader through the surprising tales of upstate New York. While the descriptions and story-telling skills in the book are satisfying to read, my only complaint is that they piqued my interest and then ended too abruptly. That, and the pictures are minimal at best and could use a splash of color.

Despite all of this, the book serves its purpose as an entertaining collection of short essays. A fan of stories of paranormal activities, strange events, and unique people wouldn't be disappointed in picking up a copy of Weird Northern New York. In Revai's fourth installment of extraordinary stories in the upstate New York region, the reader is left wishing there were more to read. Knowing of the author's tenacity and her tendency to seek out the paranormal, strange, and occasionally funny anecdotes of the area, we can only hope she publishes another soon.

Have you had any strange North Country experiences?

Weird Northern New York
Author: Cheri Revai
North Country Books Inc.
Utica, New York 2006
Page count: 137