Sunrise reflects off the water of Upper Saranac Lake in June 2021. (Provided photo — Dede Poole Vaughn)

SARANAC LAKE — The state Department of Environmental Conservation has acquired 5 acres of forest along the southeastern shore of Upper Saranac Lake and plans to keep the tract as undeveloped shoreline.

The DEC purchased the property from the Keene-based Adirondack Land Trust in May for $225,000 — money that came from the state’s Environmental Protection Fund, according to a news release from the department. The sale was announced on Thursday.

The land, which includes 570 feet of undeveloped shoreline, will join the broader 75,000-acre Saranac Lake Wild Forest, according to the DEC.

“This small but significant parcel will protect this Upper Saranac shoreline and keep it forever wild,” DEC Region 5 Director Joe Zalewski said in a statement.

Protecting wild shoreline improves water quality, promotes flood resilience and provides fish habitat, according to the DEC.

“We are proud to partner with New York state on this project and honored to have helped the previous landowners fulfill their wish to see this parcel become a public resource,” said Mike Carr, executive director of the Adirondack Land Trust.

The Adirondack Land Trust purchased the land in January 2020 — with the intention of selling the property to the DEC and closing a gap in the Saranac Lake Wild Forest — for $200,000 from Ed and Teresa Palen of Keene. Prior to the Palens, the property was owned by Bill Petty, who purchased the land in 1952. Petty was a former regional director of the DEC and the brother of Adirondack conservationist Clarence Petty. Bill Petty intended to build a retirement cabin on the land but didn’t get around to it, and his daughter sold the land to the Palens in 2017.

The property includes a portion of the 740-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail between Indian Carry and Indian Point. The Adirondack Land Trust also worked with the DEC and another landowner in 1989 to purchase land to reroute a portage trail at Indian Carry, which connects the Raquette River to the Saranac Lakes chain, and in 2003, the trust conserved 1,800 feet of shoreline east of Indian Point.