Far above the cool, clear waters of New York State’s Lake George, looms Black Mountain, the highest of the mountains guarding that deep, clear lake. I spent five summers on that lake as a seminarian, traveling many times, as the Iroquois once traveled, under the shadow of that awe-inspiring peak. The winding trail from the lakeshore to its summit has felt the rough leather boots of hikers of a century ago and the soft deerskin moccasins centuries before that. Along the trail runs a brook filled with rainbow trout. Occasionally a black bear will paw along that trail, looking for berries and trout, its snout always in the air for the smell of danger - especially the danger of human presence.

In the forest nothing signals greater danger to the animals than the smell of man. Man brings to the…