A Catskill Catalog by Bill Birns

The late Nat Ciccone used to photograph Catskill Mountain barns. The longtime Margaretville Central teacher and coach would drive scenic mountain back roads, stopping to capture, on 35 millimeter film, those barns of Ulster and Delaware counties, that, Nat knew back in the ’80s, would not be around too much longer.

Just got in from shoveling. Big snow is all encompassing, takes our full attention: physically, certainly, but mentally, psychologically, and emotionally, as well. Big snow brings up wellsprings of memory and talk.

There’s this great video posted on the video-sharing Web site YouTube. Go to YouTube.com and search for “1955 Game Warden.” You’ll find an eight-minute movie about the late Bryan Burgin of Margaretville.

In 1921, along the East Branch of the Delaware River, rumors began to circulate: the City of New York was coming, and it meant to take the valley for its water supply.

Two days before Christmas in 1890, The New York Times reported on the ice harvest upstate. “All the icehouses in the Catskill Summer boarding region and of the Delaware County dairymen are filled with the clearest and best ice ever gathered.”