"Clearing a Jam, Great Falls of the Ausable": This 1874 illustration of loggers working at Ausable Chasm near Keeseville, Essex County, emphasizes some of the dangers endured by North Country lumberjacks.

On Feb. 18, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained nine immigrants working at Tupper Lake Pine Mill in the Adirondacks and scheduled them for deportation. ICE said the workers were in the country illegally, though lumber mill officials said they had met all work eligibility requirements.

This raid was surprising: Tupper Lake is not an immigration hub, and while the lumber industry persists in the Adirondacks, the region is now known more for its logging restrictions.

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Yet logging has been an ever-present part of regional history and once drew immigrants from across the globe. A look at the history of the Adirondacks affirms that immigrants have been essential to the economy and have positively shaped regional and national culture.

Immigrant workers are embedded in the traditions of the Adirondacks. In Tupper Lake there is an 11-foot tall lumberjack statue, the school mascot is the lumberjack, and the baseball team is the Riverpigs, a moniker for log drivers. The workers that created this venerated lumberjack, the embodiment of strength, hardiness and determination, came largely from the Adirondack’s northerly neighbor, Quebec.

In 1870 about 24% of residents of Franklin County, where Tupper Lake is located, were foreign born. Into the 1920s, about one in 10 were Canadian and probably half of them were French Canadian. During this period, there were consistently about 3,000 French Canadians in the county. And not all this historical immigration was legal. Into the 1920s the border was lightly policed. Americans and Canadians crossed at will.

In the 1900s my great-great grandfather Louis Auguste Deschene and his wife,........

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