1 Tank Adventure: The Wild Center

TUPPER LAKE, NY — It's a lot to ask that a one-tank adventure take travelers to a whole new world, but a day trip to the Wild Center in the Adirondacks comes close.

The humble origins of The Wild Center, when a group of friends sat around a cabin on Long Lake in Adirondack Park discussing a bold idea, belies the impressive experience at the part museum, part park, part nature center that greets visitors today. The Wild Center opened its doors on July 4, 2006.

Nine years later, on July 4, 2015, the Wild Center literally blew the doors off a traditional museum experience when “Wild Walk” opened. The experience, created by Chip Reay, from the original Wild Center design team, took eight years to plan.

Wild Walk’s trail across the treetops includes a four-story twig tree house, swinging bridges, a human-sized spider’s web hovering 24 feet off the ground, and a spiral walk inside a ‘dead’ tree’s thriving core. There’s even an oversized bald eagle’s nest at the highest point where visitors can imagine life as one of the raptors that have made a remarkable comeback in the Adirondacks.

“It’s one of the best and most important collections in the world - and we’ve just begun to explore it,” Executive Director Stephanie Ratcliffe said, describing The Wild Center’s collection as a trove spread over all six million acres of the Adirondacks. “The Adirondacks can be a great success for everything and everyone who lives inside its borders and by being that success it can be an American model for a world that is looking for a way people and nature can coexist. Our story at The Wild Center has just begun.”

Each year, almost 30,000 children, including students from nearly 100 different schools, visit the Wild Center. (The Wild Center)

The Wild Center certainly isn’t done growing. Planet Adirondack, a NOAA project, features an interactive Earth where visitors and students can see how our world really works. The guided experience lets visitors ask the questions and watch the Earth answer in an amazing display of images and abstract concepts.

On July 3, 2017, the campus expanded by another 34 acres with a donation by the Adirondack Club. The campus now totals 115 acres.

If you haven’t been to the Wild Center recently, then it could be time for a return visit. This "whole new world" might just be a whole new world since the last time you were here.

The Wild Center has special events every day, including animal encounters and naturalist-led walks through the 115-acre grounds. (Wild Center)

FUN FACTS ABOUT THE WILD CENTER:

• The Wild Center is home to more than 900 live animals, including lake fish, porcupines, ravens and four otters.
• The Wild Center is the only place in the world where the award-winning 'A Matter of Degrees,' narrated by Sigourney Weaver, about the history of the Adirondacks is being screened.
• The Adirondacks, where The Wild Center is located, is bigger than Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Great Smoky National Parks combined.
• Visitors can get free use of snowshoes with admission to The Wild Center (snow permitting).
• The Wild Center was designed by the same group who designed the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C. and its companion museum near Dulles Airport.
• Around 10 percent of the Center’s power comes from solar panels on the roof of the BioBuilding. The rest of the electrical power is generated by Niagara Falls.
• At the time it was built, The Wild Center was the first, and only, LEED-certified museum with a Silver distinction in New York. There are fewer than a dozen Silver-certified projects in the entire state.
• Through its alternative sources of energy, the Wild Center purchased over 700,000 kilowatt-hours of renewable energy credits, which directly relates to the elimination of 685,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions or the equivalent of taking 60 cars off the road or planting 90 acres of trees.
• Over 5,000 celebrated the opening of The Wild Center on July 4, 2006, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Governor George Pataki and original Woodstock opener, Richie Havens.
• The four otters who call The Wild Center home love bloodsicles (a mixture of blood and water) as their special treat.

The Wild Center is located in Tupper Lake, New York. The interactive museum and interpretive center is open year-round.

SEE ALSO:

• 1-Tank Adventure: Bear Mountain State Park
• 1-Tank Adventure: St. Paul's Church National Historic Site
• 1-Tank Adventure: Stone Barns Center For Food And Agriculture
• 1-Tank Adventure: Building Memories At Legoland
• 1-Tank Adventure: Buttermilk Falls Inn & Spa
• 1-Tank Adventure: 'See For Miles' At This Hudson Valley Overlook
• 1-Tank Adventure: Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome