Special Forces Heritage Exploration
September 5, 1973
Bob Rein, MN’24, Member The Explorers Club
My earliest exploration goes back to 1973. While vacationing in the Adirondack Mountains, on a cold, crisp September morning, while my wife and toddler son slept, I got into a canoe and paddled north to Crown Point.
Canoeing on Lake Champlain was peaceful and calm as I headed north to Crown Point from just north of Ft. Ticonderoga. Crown Point was home to Roger’s Rangers during the French & Indian War. Major Robert Rogers formed a unit of frontiersmen that utilized guerrilla warfare to assist the British in the French and Indian wars. Additionally, he had a quest to depart from Crown Point after the war and lead his Rangers on a quest to find the Northwest Passage. Spencer Tracey starred in a film about this made in 1939. I have watched that movie over a dozen times. It would later come back to me when in 1973, I would not only take this exploration to see firsthand where the movie took place but I would also become a Green Beret. Green Beret’s lineage goes back to Rogers Rangers and their style of guerilla warfare.
Upon arriving at Crown Point, I sat in the canoe and just stared up at the fort that towered above me. I relived the scenes of Rogers leading his men in 1759 with the aid of Iroquois and Mohican scouts, as they set out to battle the Abenaki that came down from St. Francis in Canada to rein havoc on the settlers in what is now New York and Vermont.
Photo courtesy of HistoryNet
An excellent article about this battle can be found at https://www.historynet.com/rogers-rangers-risky-1759-st-francis-raid/
After paddling back to our cabin, I dragged my wife and son in the car and drove to the fort. To this day (2024) I have the four prints I bought of those hearty Rangers. Little did I know that 33 years later, I was about to rekindle that desire to explore.
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