WILMINGTON — The community is invited to the Wilmington Historical Society’s program, “Aviation in the Adirondacks,” with speaker Aurora Pfaff, to be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 9 at the Twisted Raven restaurant’s Rondeau Room, located at 8 Whiteface Highway.

Based upon Pfaff’s new photo book published by Arcadia Publishing, the presentation explores the history, events and role of aviation in the Adirondacks. From early airplanes and airstrips to the people who experienced and flew the earliest aircraft, this step back in time is distinctly from the perspective of our remote mountainous region and the unique problems and opportunities that aviation presented.

The author will sign books, and the program is free and open to the public.

According to Karen Peters, president of the Wilmington Historical Society, the society was able to provide several photos and stories for the project, at least three of which were chosen for the final book.

“Wilmington’s businesses were early in recognizing the role air travel could play in accessing our rural area, which resulted in the construction of an airfield in 1928,” Peters said. “The society was glad to support the project and to provide unique historical images and accounts of aviation in our area.”

Aurora Wheeler Pfaff is a freelance writer and content coordinator based in the Adirondack Mountains. She writes passionately about Adirondack history, natural history and extraordinary ordinary people. She is also a photographer and budding historian.

A lifelong book nerd, she graduated with a master’s degree in liberal arts from the Harvard Extension School, where she studied Victorian literature, took the world’s coolest astronomy class and ate a lot of sandwiches at Au Bon Pain. Recent projects have included bog plant life and local history. Pfaff is currently researching and writing about the reading habits of queens of England, learning to fly and is creating a memoir about caring for her grandmother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease.

The “Aviation in the Adirondacks” program is made possible, in part, by the Essex County Arts Council’s Cultural Assistance Program Grant with funding provided by Essex County.

Attendees are welcome to arrive early or stay late to support the Twisted Raven.

For further information, go to www.wilmingtonhistoricalsociety.org or contact the Wilmington Historical Society at whs12997@hotmail.com or 518-420-8370.