The Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast

The Petersburgh Snow Hole: The Cold Chamber of the Taconic Range

Available on: Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Spotify, and all major streaming platforms

Episode Overview

This episode examines the Petersburgh Pass Snow Hole, a naturally occurring cold-air trap in the Taconic range of eastern New York that has drawn scientific attention, local curiosity, and recreational visitation for more than two centuries. Formed by fractured bedrock and subsurface voids, the site maintains unusually low temperatures well beyond the winter season, challenging assumptions about how cold behaves in temperate landscapes.

Through documented accounts, early scientific inquiry, and material evidence left behind on site, the episode explores how people have attempted to explain, record, and interact with this phenomenon. The Snow Hole becomes a case study in how natural features are interpreted over time, how knowledge is passed forward through inscription and observation, and how repeated human contact alters fragile places in ways that are often irreversible.

Act I – The Cold

Act I introduces the physical mechanics of the Snow Hole and explains how cold air becomes trapped beneath fractured stone. The Field Guide outlines the geological conditions that allow low temperatures to persist well into warmer months, separating measurable processes from folklore while grounding the site within broader patterns of cold-air pooling and subsurface insulation found across the region.

Act II – Names Cut Into Stone

Act II centers on the carved names, dates, and initials etched into the Snow Hole’s interior walls. These markings are treated as historical records rather than curiosities, offering insight into 19th-century outdoor culture, early tourism, and the impulse to document presence by leaving a permanent mark. The episode examines when inscription shifts from record-keeping to damage, and how cultural values influence where that boundary is drawn.

Act III – What Remains

The Field Guide explores how sites like the Snow Hole exist within a tension between access and restraint. As climate patterns shift and winters grow less consistent, cold-dependent landforms become increasingly vulnerable to disturbance. This act reflects on how visitation, documentation, and changing environmental conditions collectively shape what survives, and asks how responsibility is assigned when preservation depends as much on absence as it does on care.

About the Series

The Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast is an ongoing documentary series exploring hidden history, overlooked landscapes, and the material traces people leave behind. Each episode investigates how memory, place, and evidence intersect across time.

Learn More

Read more at restorationobscura.com or subscribe to the Restoration Obscura Substack for essays, restorations, and new field investigations. Field Guide to the Night is available worldwide in print and Kindle editions. Official merch is available at www.restorationobscurashop.com.

Credits

Written, Narrated, and Produced by: John Bulmer

Sound Design and Mastering: Restoration Obscura Audio

Copyright

© 2026 Restoration Obscura Press. All rights reserved.

Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or broadcast of this episode or any portion thereof is prohibited without express written permission. Restoration Obscura and The Restoration Obscura Field Guide are trademarks of Restoration Obscura Press.

The Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast

The Champlain Lake Monster: A History of Deepwater Myths

Lake Champlain has always carried stories. Its deep glacial trench, shifting weather, and cold, opaque channels create a landscape where memory and imagination overlap. Indigenous traditions described powerful beings in these waters, shaping how people understood the lake long before newspapers arrived.

19th-Century Sightings — In the nineteenth century, sensational culture turned local tales into a regional phenomenon. Reports like the 1819 Bulwaga Bay account spread quickly, feeding an American appetite for marvels and establishing Champ as part of the region’s folklore.

20th-Century Legends — Cameras, radio, and television pushed the legend into new forms. Families, campers, and fishermen shared sightings. The Mansi photograph traveled the country. Communities embraced the creature with festivals, statues, mascots, and stories passed down through generations.

A Global Tradition — The episode places Champ among worldwide lake-monster lore, from Scotland’s Nessie to Iceland’s Lagarfljót worm to the water spirits of the Okanagan and the Great Lakes. Deep water, with its distortions and uncertainties, has always invited myth and speculation.

Science and Belief — Scientific explanations account for many sightings, yet belief survives because the lake still feels unfinished. Champ endures as symbol, metaphor, and shared wonder, reminding us that even familiar water can hold the unknown.

Mystery remains part of the landscape. Champ endures because the lake does.

If you enjoyed this episode, please like and share. It helps the podcast reach more people and supports the work of bringing overlooked history back into the light.

Copyright 2025 Restoration Obscura and John Bulmer Media. All rights reserved.

The Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast: When The Grid Failed: The Blackouts of 1965, 1977, and 2003

Major blackouts have repeatedly reshaped the Northeast and shown how people respond when the systems that sustain daily life fail without warning. Through the events of 1965, 1977, and 2003, the episode follows the links between technology, civic trust, and the ways communities adapt when the lights vanish. These nights reveal the conditions that defined their eras, from postwar confidence to urban crisis to the vigilance of the early twenty first century. Taken together, they form a record of how darkness can expose what ordinary life keeps out of view.

Act I – 1965: The Night the Stars Came Back

This act explores the causes and cultural meaning of the Northeast Blackout of 1965, when a relay failure in Ontario triggered a cascading collapse across hundreds of thousands of square miles. The response that followed reflected a nation still rooted in cooperation and postwar belief in institutional stability, creating a moment remembered for calm streets and a sky that returned in full for the first time in decades.

Act II – 1977: The Bronx Is Burning

This act focuses on the July 1977 blackout in New York City, a night shaped by heat, fear, and a city already under strain from unemployment, arson, economic collapse, and unresolved tension. The failure of the grid acted as a release valve for years of pressure, revealing how fragile the civic fabric had become and how quickly fear could shift into widespread unrest.

Act III – 2003: The Fragile Grid

The Field Guide explores the largest blackout in North American history and the ways it reflected a world transformed by the events of 2001. This act follows the regional cascade that began in Ohio, the public uncertainty that followed, and the recognition that modern infrastructure can fail from smaller causes than many expect. The act closes with a broader consideration of vulnerability, resilience, and the lessons written across all three nights.

About the Series

The Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast is an ongoing documentary exploration of hidden history, cultural memory, and geography. Each episode investigates the stories that shape our understanding of the past and the traces that remain in the present.

Learn More

Read more at restorationobscura.com or subscribe to the Restoration Obscura Substack for essays, restorations, and new field investigations. Field Guide to the Night is available worldwide in print and Kindle editions.

Credits

Written, Narrated, and Produced by: John Bulmer

Sound Design and Mastering: Restoration Obscura Audio

Copyright© 2025 Restoration Obscura Press. All rights reserved.Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or broadcast of this episode or any portion thereof is prohibited without express written permission. Restoration Obscura and The Restoration Obscura Field Guide are trademarks of Restoration Obscura Press.