“We’re just getting started,” she said, saying she has a lot planned for 2021.

David Gibson, managing partner of the environmental advocacy group, said this award is usually given to individuals doing work in the wilderness, but this year he felt it was necessary to recognize someone working to bring in a new, diverse generation of wilderness stewards.

“After watching one of her anti-racism seminars, I was just overwhelmed,” Gibson said. “She got to me. That’s what convinced me to go to my board and say, ‘If you’re going to keep a wild Adirondacks, everyone has to take ownership of it.'”

He said Hylton-Patterson represents the work of many people around the park and that long-term stewardship can only be achieved through a multi-racial coalition of environmentalists.

David Gibson, left, head of the environmental advocacy group Adirondack Wild, presents Nicole Hilton-Patterson, director of Adirondack Diversity Institute, with an award Friday in Saranac Lake. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

“It’s really a lot of self-interest in choosing her, but also an enormous amount of respect,” he said. “We’re not going to have an Article 14 for another 100 years without people of all colors and backgrounds supporting the Adirondacks.”

“Nicky carries out her work with patience, grace, and courage even under threatening and trying conditions,” Adirondack Wild Saranac Lake advisor Sunita Halasz wrote in a press release. “While these are difficult conversations, Nicky’s life experiences, professionalism and personal warmth and energy are breaking down barriers and bringing folks together to make them happen.”

Gibson also said retired forest ranger Lou Curth of Lake Placid pushed for this to happen.

“He took us by the ears,” Gibson said. “He said, ‘Look at your board. Look at who you are, and look at what your mission is, and think about the next 100 years of your mission without people of color. You can’t imagine it.”

They met Hylton-Patterson outside her ANCA office to present her with a framed photo from photographer Carl Heilman Jr., taken from the summit of Mount Van Hoevenberg.

“Can you see my face brightening up?” Hylton-Patterson said from behind her mask.

She said it was good the event had to be presented outside.

“I think it is meant to be outside, because this is where the work happens, right?” she said. “The work doesn’t happen sitting behind a desk. … It’s best that it’s done on a sidewalk.”

Hylton-Patterson said that starting June 29, 2021, the ADI plans to bring 110 students of color from around the state to the Adirondacks. She said she hopes this will reshape what the region means to them and cultivate a new stewardship generation.

She said the goal is to get more Black and brown people into the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry on a track to the Ranger School in Wanakena.

Hylton-Patterson is coming up on her one-year anniversary in the position, on Dec. 3.

“We’re going to call on you to do some real work soon,” she told Gibson.