Life Cycle of the Brook Trout - Center for Northern ...Life Cycle of the Brook Trout A Logger’s...

A N E W W AY O F L O O K I N G AT T H E F O R E S T

AUTUMN ’14

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Life Cycle of the Brook TroutA Logger’s Prayer

Mast (and the animals tied to it)

A 90-Mile Canoe Race, Meat-eating Trees, Red Spruce Guitar Tops, and much more

Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 1

VOLUME 21 I NUMBER 3 AUTUMN 2014

Elise Tillinghast Executive Director/Publisher

Dave Mance III Editor

Patrick White Assistant Editor

Amy Peberdy Operations Manager

Emily Rowe Operations Coordinator/ Web Manager

Jim Schley Poetry Editor

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORSVirginia Barlow Jim Block Madeline Bodin Marian Cawley Tovar Cerulli Andrew Crosier Steve Faccio Giom Bernd HeinrichRobert Kimber Stephen Long Todd McLeish Brett McLeod Susan C. Morse Bryan Pfeiffer Joe Rankin Michael Snyder Adelaide Tyrol Chuck Wooster

DESIGNLiquid Studio / Lisa Cadieux

CENTER FOR NORTHERN WOODLANDS EDUCATION, INC. Copyright 2014

Northern Woodlands Magazine (ISSN 1525-7932) is published quarterly by the Center for Northern Woodlands Education, Inc., 1776 Center Road, P.O. Box 471, Corinth, VT 05039-0471 Tel (802) 439-6292 Fax (802) [email protected]

Subscription rates are $23 for one year, $42 for two years, and $59 for three years. Canadian and foreign subscriptions by surface mail are $30.50 US for one year. POSTMASTER: Send address corrections to Northern Woodlands Magazine, P.O. Box 471, Corinth, VT 05039-0471 or to [email protected]. Periodical postage paid at Corinth, Vermont, and at additional mailing offices.

Published on the first day of March, June, September, and December. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written consent of the publisher is prohibited. The editors assume no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. Return postage should accompany all submissions. Printed in USA.

For subscription information call (800) 290-5232.

Northern Woodlands is printed on paper with 10 percent post-consumer recycled content.

magazine

on the web WWW.NORTHERNWOODLANDS.ORG

THE OUTSIDE STORYEach week we publish a new

nature story on topics ranging from

moose noses to damselfly wings.

EDITOR’S BLOGRed was a 20-something

Irish-looking kid with a kind face.

Georgia was his mutt dog;

piebald and floppy-eared with

beautifully expressive brown

eyes. Gentle. Well behaved.”

From The Hiker

WHAT IN THE WOODS IS THAT?We show you a photo; if you guess

what it is, you’ll be eligible to win

a prize. This recent photo showed

a wool sower gall.

Sign up on the website to get

our bi-weekly newsletter

delivered free to your inbox.

For daily news and information,

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK

Cover Photo by Nancie BattagliaPaddlers in the Adirondack Canoe Classic wind their way through boggy Brown’s Tract near Raquette Lake

in the south-central Adirondacks. “The photo was made from a small airplane and shows nature coloring

into autumn hues in the meandering marsh, and the challenge faced by the participants in this wilderness

maze,” said Battaglia.

The mission of the Center for Northern

Woodlands Education is to advance

a culture of forest stewardship in the

Northeast and to increase understanding

of and appreciation for the natural

wonders, economic productivity, and

ecological integrity of the region’s forests.

Well, it took some practice, but I’ve finally learned to pronounce “anthocyanin.”

This is the pigment that manifests as deep, glossy red in staghorn sumac – one

of the earliest shrubs in our woods to change color, and also one of the most

spectacular. It’s a chemical nudge, akin to the two-minute warning at the end

of a football game. Time to do the work that will be hard to do later. Brush

hog the sled run. Remove the wren nests. Roll the studded snow tires out of

the barn.

At the Center for Northern Woodlands Education, we’re also working down an autumn task

list. The nonprofit’s fiscal year ends on September 30, so in addition to all the normal activity at

the office, there are numbers to crunch and decisions to make as we consider how, and where,

to focus educational resources in the next year.

We’re also heading into our busiest time for subscription renewals. Here’s how that

typically starts: One day in October, a first wave of Northern Woodlands readers rise from

their dens, sniff the cooling air, and decide that today is the day to renew their subscriptions.

This will continue, on and off, through the second half of December. It’s an awe inspiring

seasonal phenomenon, right up there with hawk kettles and monarch migrations … but it

sure gets busy around here.

Another fall event that we’re eagerly awaiting is our first annual writers’ conference, taking

place on the weekend of October 17-19 in Fairlee, Vermont. Sponsored by The Trust for

Public Land, the conference will be hosted by the Hulbert Outdoor Center on beautiful Lake

Morey. If you enjoy this magazine, it’s a good bet that you’ll also enjoy the weekend – we’ll have

writers’ talks and workshops, as well as walks in the woods, s’mores by the fire, syrup tasting,

and opportunities for informal discussions with naturalists, educators, and, of course, the

Northern Woodlands crew. So please join us. You can sign up via the link on our website or by

calling Hulbert’s office at 802-333-3405.

And finally, a bittersweet note – this issue of the magazine is the last that will include Ed

Wright and Marcia McKeague on our Board of Directors. Ed and Marcia share bragging

rights for longest tenure on the board – so long, in fact, that they’ve come smack up against

the bylaw limit of three successive terms (nine years total). Both have been enthusiastic,

thoughtful contributors to the board’s work and are representative of the forest stewardship

culture this nonprofit promotes. They will be missed.

Elise Tillinghast, Executive Director, Publisher

Center for Northern Woodlands Education

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President Julia Emlen Julia S. Emlen Associates Seekonk, MA

Vice President Marcia McKeague Katahdin Timberlands Millinocket, ME

Treasurer/Secretary Tom Ciardelli Biochemist, Outdoorsman Hanover, NH

Si Balch Consulting Forester Brooklin, ME

Sarah R. Bogdanovitch Paul Smith’s College Paul Smiths, NY

Richard G. Carbonetti LandVest, Inc. Newport, VT

Starling Childs MFS Ecological and Environmental Consulting Services Norfolk, CT

Esther Cowles Fernwood Consulting, LLC Hopkinton, NH

Dicken Crane Holiday Brook Farm Dalton, MA

Timothy Fritzinger Alta Advisors London, UK

Sydney Lea Writer, Vermont Poet Laureate Newbury, VT

Bob Saul Wood Creek Capital Management Amherst, MA

Peter Silberfarb Dartmouth Medical School Lebanon, NH

Ed Wright W.J. Cox Associates Clarence, NY

The Center for Northern Woodlands Education, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) public benefit educational organization. Programs include Northern Woodlands magazine, Northern Woodlands Goes to School, The Outside Story, The Place You Call Home series, and www.northernwoodlands.org.

from the enterC


in this ISSUE

features24 The Life Cycle of a Brook Trout ROBERT MICHELSON

30 Theology of a Quaker Logger MARTIN MELVILLE

36 Big Trees of New Hampshire PATRICK WHITE

40 Adirondack Canoe Classic KATIE JICKLING

50 Timber Theft KRISTEN FOUNTAIN

56 Autumn’s Unheralded Mast Species SUSAN C. MORSE

62 Timber Rattlesnakes TED LEVIN

departments 2 From the Center

4 Calendar

5 Editor’s Note

7 Letters to the Editors

9 Birds in Focus: The Rockin’ Robin BRYAN PFEIFFER

11 Woods Whys: Forest Fragmentation MICHAEL SNYDER

13 Tracking Tips: Moose Rub SUSAN C. MORSE

14 Knots and Bolts

23 1,000 Words

48 The Overstory: Pin Cherry VIRGINIA BARLOW

66 Field Work: At Work Searching for Sweet-Sounding Spruce ROSS CARON

69 Upcountry ROBERT KIMBER

70 Discoveries TODD MCLEISH

74 WoodLit

77 Tricks of the Trade: The Perfect Splitting Block BRETT R. MCLEOD

79 Outdoor Palette ADELAIDE TYROL

80 A Place in Mind DAVID BUDBILL

24

4036

50

56

62

4 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014

A Look at the Season’s Main Events

SeptemberBlueberries are eaten by white-footed

mice, chipmunks, skunks, and bears, as

well as by many birds / The snapping

turtle eggs that were laid about three

months ago are hatching. Some hatchlings

head for the nearest pond, but others will

remain in place until spring / Honeybees

are gathering nectar from goldenrods /

Mourning cloak butterflies are fattening up

for hibernation. They overwinter as adults

and can be seen flying in spring before the

snow melts

Loons are molting and most of them

will have finished growing out their

grayish-brown winter feathers before they

migrate / Fall dandelions (Scorzoneroides

autumnalis) are blooming along roadsides.

The flowers are similar to, but somewhat

smaller than, the dandelion that blooms in

the spring / Beaked hazelnuts are ripe, but

squirrels and chipmunks are likely to get to

them before you do. Moose, deer, hare,

rabbit, and beaver eat other parts of this

shrub

Monarchs begin arriving at their

overwintering site in Mexico; some have

travelled 3,000 miles. In March, they’ll

head north but will lay eggs part-way

home, leaving it to the next generations

to get back to New England / Luna moth

cocoons, wrapped in brown leaves, have

fallen to the ground / Some golden-

crowned kinglets migrate, but some are

found here through the winter, which is

amazing considering that they aren’t

much larger than a hummingbird

Dry days will cause milkweed pods to

open, releasing streams of fluffy para-

chutes that are each attached to a seed.

All the seeds in a pod are from just one

flower; it’s the rare flower that makes

seeds / Crickets may move into buildings

as they search for places to hibernate.

Their incessant chirping can be

aggravating at close range / It is quieter

in fields and woods, now that fall

migration is underway / Beginning of

the month-long moose mating season

Whitetail bucks tear away the velvet on their

antlers and polish them by thrashing them

against shrubs and low branches / Common

green darners are known to migrate more

than 400 miles over a period of two months.

This usually takes place between August

and November / Catbirds are fattening up

on almost any fruit or berry you can think

of. They will soon leave to winter from the

Gulf Coast south to Costa Rica / Crows are

collecting and stashing acorns

Sparrow migration is well underway, with

white-crowned, song, chipping, white-

throated, savannah, swamp, tree, and fox

sparrows all on the move / Wood turtles

return to streams, rivers, and ponds to

mate before hibernating in undercut banks

and root masses / Hard-up birds may be

eating jack-in-the-pulpit berries, generally

considered to be a low-quality wildlife

food / Damselflies and dragonflies may still

be flying around, mating, and laying eggs

Rattlesnake plantain (it’s really an orchid)

stays green all winter. The leaves are

covered with a net of white veins and

grow in a small rosette / Bruce spanworm

moths, also called hunter’s moths, may

be abundant in sugar maple stands on

sunny days from mid-October through

November / Scarves of smoke rise from

deer camp chimneys / Meadow voles

are still breeding / Hooded mergansers

go south just far enough to find ice-free

water. Most of them have left by now

Snow geese are migrating, often in huge

flocks / At least two species of cluster fly are

from Europe. They are experts at squeezing

through tiny spaces to get into your house /

Fishers are eating apples, berries, and nuts

now. Their diet does not consist entirely of

small mammals and house cats / Apple-

eaters include red and gray fox, eastern

coyote, fisher, black bear, raccoon,

opossum, white tailed deer, porcupine,

beaver, wild turkey, and pine grosbeak

October 22-23: Orionids meteor shower.

This shower is produced by the dust left

by Halley’s Comet and is best seen after

midnight / Most killdeer leave during

the last half of October. They will begin

to return in March / The nests of paper

wasps become more visible now that the

leaves have fallen. These large structures

are begun by a single female (the queen)

and enlarged over the summer by her

many offspring / Flocks of juncos arrive

from the north

October 7-8: Total lunar eclipse / Apple

cider pressing is in full swing / It’s skunks

that leave those small conical holes in

the lawn while doing pest control for

you: beetle larvae are a skunk favorite /

Halloween lady beetles are seeking shelter

in houses. Each one has consumed about

300 aphids during its larval stage, but

these newcomers might be outcompeting

native lady beetles / Evergreen woodferns

are still bright green and will stay green

all winter

November 17-18: Leonid meteor shower

peaks, and this year the crescent moon

will not interfere / Snowshoe hares are all

white by the end of November, and praying

for snow / Eastern red-backed salamanders

are headed downwards. Sometimes they

use the burrows of other animals to get

below the frost line / Shagbark hickory

nuts are falling from their husks. Wood

ducks and wild turkeys eat them, as do

many mammals / The last litter of deer

mice is on its own

Moose antlers can weigh 30 to 60 pounds

and have a five-foot spread / Falling birch

seeds will travel far if blown across crusted

snow / Christmas fern stays green not just

till Christmas, but till next summer. The

individual pinnae are shaped like Christmas

stockings – another way to remember the

name / Males of many migrating bird

species don’t fly as far south as the

females, perhaps so they can return north

earlier to claim a high-quality territory

October NovemberFIRST WEEK

SECOND WEEK

THIRD WEEK

FOURTH WEEK

C A L E N D A R

These listings are from observations and reports in our home territory at about 1,000 feet in elevation in central Vermont and are approximate. Events may occur earlier or later, depending on your latitude, elevation – and the weather.

By Virginia Barlow


By Dave Mance III

EDITOR’S note

For those of you who aren’t following the

battle to ban bear baiting in Maine, here’s a

quick recap: Animal rights groups are pushing

a ballot measure that will ask voters this

November to ban bear hunting over bait, the use

of dogs in bear hunting, and bear trapping. They

claim these methods are cruel, unsportsman-

like, and unnecessary for population control. Opponents, includ-

ing sportsman’s groups, guiding services, and state biologists,

disagree.

I found myself discussing the issue with a friend the other day,

who does not hunt and does not live in a rural place. “It’s a mor-

alistic argument,” I was telling him of the proponent’s logic. “They

think it’s immoral to shoot bears over a pile of jelly donuts.”

He put his pint glass back on the bar and furrowed his brow

in consideration. Then said: “I had no idea that people liked jelly

donuts enough that they’d be willing to fight bears over them.”

Jokes aside, this is a big deal to a lot of Mainers and to sports-

men and women and wildlife managers everywhere who are

worried about the precedent such a ban could set. It’s important

to note that the ban does not stem from a perceived threat to the

overall population of black bears in Maine; the bear population

has grown by 30 percent over the past ten years and is currently

estimated at around 30,000. (Hunters kill around 3,000 in any

given year.) Rather, the ban is being pushed by people who don’t

think it’s ethical to hunt bears over bait or with dogs or traps.

The wildlife management status quo is that state biologists create

hunting and trapping seasons with population objectives in mind;

they calculate how many bears the landscape can support, how

many bears people are willing to tolerate (Maine averages 500

nuisance complaints a year), and the desires of people who want

more bears (including both animal lovers and hunters); they then

set rules and guidelines and hunters help carry out their manage-

ment objectives. This whole idea of citizens dictating manage-

ment particulars via the ballot box is something else entirely.

I don’t live in Maine, and so can’t vote on the matter myself,

but I can speak to it as a hunter who cares about the animals I

pursue. I can tell you first-hand that the vast majority of hunters

I know already adhere to a near universal set of ethical consider-

ations. We aspire to make clean shots and limit animal suffering.

We don’t kill flippantly – we eat the animals we harvest. If you’ve

lived in a rural place long enough you’ve come across a jacked

deer that was killed in a wasteful manner, but this was the work

of a poacher, not a hunter. I’ve yet to meet a hunter who didn’t

go about this business of killing with at least some measure of

depth and respect – it’s an ethos that’s passed down from gen-

eration to generation and reinforced in hunter safety classes.

But when we get into particular methods of hunting, as this

ballot question does, things get a lot grayer. I know hunters

who only use a bow – they see it as a way of leveling the playing

field and giving the animals more of a sporting chance. I also

know hunters who won’t touch a bow because a shot with a

high-powered rifle will almost always result in a quicker, cleaner

kill. I know hunters who won’t shoot does or sows because it’s

“wrong” to shoot mothers, and other hunters who, in areas

where herd reduction is the goal, won’t shoot males. I’ve heard

hunters argue that running bears with dogs is anachronistic and

others who argue that hunting with dogs keeps bears afraid of

people and dogs year round, thus limiting those summertime

human/bear conflicts that often end with dead (and wasted)

bears.

The point is that reasonable people often have contorted

opinions about the ethics of different methods of hunting, and

the way hunters deal with this ambiguity is to form their own

personal ethical codes. A young man from the country heads

to a high mountain peak and tracks a bear like an Indian; an

older man from the city hires a guide and travels to Maine for

a baited hunt; a farmer sets a trap and harvests a bear for the

freezer that’s been fattened on corn he planted. And as long as

these are all legal hunts that fall under the umbrella of a state-

regulated management system, everything shines on in the big

picture. There’s something very organic about how individual

liberty and personal ethics and state management play together

so well here.

This proposed ban, however, doesn’t feel organic to me. I

think that proponents make a legitimate point that jelly donuts

are an unnatural part of any ecosystem. And if there are places

where bait piles are acclimating bears to humans and leading to

more human/bear conflict, I think it’s reasonable for a commu-

nity to regulate them. But this blanket ballot question contains

no such nuance. If passed, this would be an outright ban on

three very different forms of hunting.

It’s also worth noting that the driver here is the Humane

Society of the United States, a national animal rights group, and

they’re using gobs of out-of-state money to try to make their

own moral code into Maine law. If the idea of an outside special

interest group fighting to ban “objectionable” books, or art, or

speech, or love leaves a bad taste in your mouth, this ballot mea-

sure should do the same.

But these opinions are my own. I suspect our readers will

have strong feelings on this matter, both pro and con. Since

the matter will be decided before the winter issue goes to press,

we’ll post this editorial to our website and you can submit your

comments there.


letters to the EDITORS

A Look BackTo the Editors:

Hard not to like the 20th anniversary

issue [Summer 2014]. The usual good

stuff and even more, better stuff.

One tiny point: I think your then-

and-now firewood comparison [page

28] is a little misleading. You show firewood use

has declined significantly, but if you included

wood pellets it might be a different story. Twenty

years ago there was not much of a wood pellet

market. Now, every hardware store and lumber

yard in our rural area sells wood pellets, and last

winter a tractor trailer load of wood pellets would

sell out in two hours in our area. (Obviously, I

looked at the 20-year comparisons carefully and

greatly enjoyed them.)

Ted Cady, Warwick, Massachusetts

To the Editors:

In your piece on stumpage prices [“The Story of

Stumpage,” Summer 2014], you said that the

price for firewood goes up or down depending on

the price of fuel oil. But, dollar for dollar, how do

they compare with each other? And what about

wood pellets?

Gerard Robben, Blue Hill, Maine

Editors’ Reply: According to the Energy Information

Administration, when fuel oil is about $4 a gallon,

you’re paying around $29 per million BTUs. At

$250/ton, pellets buy you the same amount of

BTUs for $15.15; at $200 a cord, firewood buys

you the same amount for $9.09. Put more simply,

switch from oil to pellets and you’ll cut your fuel

bill nearly in half. Switch to firewood and you’ll

pay less than one-third the price of fuel oil.

To the Editors:

Amazing. Twenty years of outstanding reporting

on this great natural resource that we all live in.

Congratulations!

To give you an idea of how much you are

appreciated, I recall an event that happened in

June of 2013. I was at a workshop in White Creek,

New York, that was sponsored by the Bennington

County (Vermont) Sustainable Forest Consortium,

the New York State DEC, and the SAF Adirondack

Chapter. It was attended by foresters, soil conser-

vationists, forest ecologists, loggers, farmers, and

the general public. At the start of the workshop,

the instructor asked each of us to introduce

ourselves. The person to my

left said he was a writer for

Northern Woodlands magazine,

and the whole room spontane-

ously applauded.

Founders Virginia Barlow

and Stephen Long should take

to heart the words of Dick Proenneke [of “Alone

in the Wilderness” fame], as recounted in Ross

Caron’s article “A Cabin in the Woods” [Winter

2013]. Proenneke said he “enjoyed thinking about

what I had done to make reality out of a dream.”

Thank you for creating a wonderful reality from

your dreams.

Fred Hathaway, Oneonta, New York

Hybrid PowerTo the Editors:

I was pleased to read David Maass’ article on the

hybridization of European and Japanese Larch

[Exotic Larch, Summer 2014]. In 1981, I left the

Institute of Paper Chemistry in Appleton, Wisconsin,

with a master’s degree in paper science and about

a dozen of these hybrid larch seedlings left over

from trials being conducted at that time.

When I got home to western Massachusetts,

I created my own (poorly marked) mini-nursery

on a field edge. The first mowing was a near

disaster. Among the four hybrid seedlings that

survived the mower and eventually grew to adult

trees, the tallest and most robust grew at the

corner of our barn in fertile soil and full sun. David

Maass makes a good point about the growth

rate of vigorous hybrids. One can experience

not only the growth from seedling to 17-inch

diameter tree (see photo) in a lifetime, but com-

fortably within adulthood.

Tim Crane, Dalton, Massachusetts

A Handle on the SituationTo the Editors:

In the Summer issue of Northern Woodlands, Bill

Guenther of Newfane, Vermont, writes that the

so-called monkey grip, when the thumb is not

wrapped completely around the handle, should

never be used when operating a chainsaw, as

having the thumb around the handle gives better

control in the case of a kick-back.

I am old enough to remember when cars had to

be hand-cranked to be started, and the so-called

monkey grip on the commencing iron handle was

the one to use in case the engine kicked. Having

the thumb around the handle could result in a

strained or broken arm. The Fordson tractor was

notoriously prone to kicking.

Wayne Rowell, Wilmington, Vermont

What’s in a Name?I enjoyed your essay on plant names [Naming

Names, Summer 2014]. I thought I’d share this

poem on names.

SPRING NAMES

Clearly against the snow

“Red Maples” are gray.

You must look at the tips

To see the name and promise.

Joe calls them “swamp maples”

Which tells us more perhaps,

Yet when the snow is gone

We’ll see that both are good.

Prof says Acer rubra

And lectures against common names

Which even Roman kids ignore

And settle for just plain maple.

Only sap would argue this,

It’s now rising swamp to red.

Pike Messenger, Middleton, Massachusetts

We love to hear from our readers. Letters intended

for publication in the Winter 2014 issue should be

sent in by October 1. Please limit letters to 400

words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.


The Rockin’ Robin

Story by Bryan Pfeiffer

From his perch high on a balsam fir near a bog in northern

Vermont, far from suburbia and barnyards, an American robin

sings as if he owns the place. And, in many ways, he does.

Although hardly an icon of the North Woods, the robin is a

paragon of versatility – a songbird of north, south, east, and

west – covering forested and fragmented habitats across the

continent. Few other birds can claim such range. The robin pulls

it off with a blend of moxie and manifest destiny.

Food figures big in this story of success. The American robin

does not live by earthworm alone. Changing diet with the sea-

sons, the robin tugging worms from your lawn in summer may

move to high peaks to feast on mountain ash fruits once snow

falls. On the way, he’ll graze on anything from beetles to spiders,

from the fruits of poison ivy to the cones of junipers. A study of

stomach contents from 1,169 robins featured fruits of 50 genera

and invertebrates from more than 100 families.

That kind of diet requires dexterity. A robin hunting earth-

worms will pause, wait, watch, and adjust its gaze before striking.

But robins also run down and nab dashing insects or probe the

forest floor by flipping leaves and twigs. On the wing, they can

snatch fruits off the vine. On rare occasions, robins have been

found to have eaten fish, frog, snake, and skink.

The varied diet helps make robins our most cosmopolitan

songbird – from boreal forests in Alaska to dairy farms in New

England to shopping malls in Miami. In the fir and hemlock

forests of the American and Canadian West, I find robins to

be regular nesting birds, perhaps more so than in softwoods

here in the East, although research suggests robins prefer early-

successional forests. As we cleared and fragmented forests for

homes, parks, and commerce, robins followed in our wake.

They live in edge habitats that include riparian zones, city

parks, and even new settlements in the formerly inhospitable

Canadian arctic.

Once they claim turf for breeding, robins tenaciously defend

their nests from predators with what seems to be an enhanced

version of the songbird arsenal: harassment, gang warfare, and

an occasional thrashing. Confronted with a raccoon, squirrel,

crow, or hawk at the nest (or even a human wandering too

close), robins spring into a dance of agitation: they hop from

perch to perch, flick their wings, wag their tails, and blurt

emphatic, staccato yeep! and chuck! calls. These antics often draw

additional robins and other songbirds into the fray. Lacking

talons or hooked beaks, songbirds go for strength in numbers.

Occasionally, robins make at least glancing contact with a

predator, usually around the head and neck. One robin was

reported to have killed a Steller’s jay by thrashing the jay with its

wings and feet and then pecking at – and penetrating – its head.

If that isn’t enough, robins are pushy. When they head south

in fall they don’t go too far – some winter as far north as southern

BIRDS in focus

Quebec and central Maine. By pushing the northern edge of

their winter range, robins (mostly males) linger near the front of

the line so that they can be first to claim high-quality territories

and the spring buffet of fruits and insects.

With its undiscriminating diet and brash behavior, the

American robin is a lot like, well, a lot of other Americans.

Bryan Pfeiffer is an author, wildlife photographer, guide, and consulting naturalist who

specializes in birds and insects. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont.

The American robin has an attitude – and an appetite.


THE A. JOHNSON CO.Bristol, VT (802) 453-4884

Evenings & Weekends call:802-545-2457 - Tom

802-373-0102 - Chris M.

802-363-3341 - Bill

WANTED: SAW LOGS


By Michael Snyder

What Is Forest Fragmentation and Why Is It A Problem?

Forest fragmentation is the breaking of large, contiguous,

forested areas into smaller pieces of forest; typically these

pieces are separated by roads, agriculture, utility corridors,

subdivisions, or other human development. It usually

occurs incrementally, beginning with cleared patches

here and there – think Swiss cheese – within an other-

wise unbroken expanse of tree cover.

Over time, those non-forest patches tend to multiply

and expand until eventually the forest is reduced to

scattered, disconnected forest islands. The surrounding

non-forest lands and land uses seriously threaten the

health, function, and value of the remaining forest.

Any large-scale canopy disturbance affects a for-

est, but it is important to distinguish between a forest

fragmented by human infrastructure development and

a forest of mixed ages and varied canopy closure that results

from good forest management. The former is typically much

more damaging to forest health and habitat quality, usually with

permanent negative effects, whereas the latter may cause only

temporary change in the forest.

The effects of fragmentation are well documented in all for-

ested regions of the planet. In general, by reducing forest health

and degrading habitat, fragmentation leads to loss of biodiversity,

increases in invasive plants, pests, and pathogens, and reduction

in water quality. These wide-ranging effects all stem from two

basic problems: fragmentation increases isolation between forest

communities and it increases so-called edge effects.

When a forest becomes isolated, the movement of plants

and animals is inhibited. This restricts breeding and gene flow

and results in long-term population decline. Fragmentation is

a threat to natural resilience, and connectivity of forest habitats

may be a key component of forest adaptation and response to

climate change.

Edge effects are even more complicated. They alter growing

conditions within the interior of forests through drastic changes

in temperature, moisture, light, and wind. Put simply, the

environment of the adjacent non-forest land determines the

environment of the forest fragment, particularly on its edges.

This triggers a cascade of ill effects on the health, growth, and

survivability of trees, flowers, ferns, and lichens and an array of

secondary effects on the animals that depend on them. Ecologists

suggest that true interior forest conditions – you know, where it’s

hard to hear cars and lawnmowers and it remains cool, shady,

and downright damp even during a three-week drought – only

occur at least 200-300 feet inside the non-forest edge.

And so a circular forest island in a sea of non-forest would

have to be more than 14 acres in size to include just one acre of

woods WHYS

such interior forest condition. Put differently, reports indicate

that the negative habitat effects of each residential building

pocket within a forest radiate outward, affecting up to 30

additional acres with increased disturbance, predation, and

competition from edge-dwellers. This may not matter to

generalist species like deer, raccoons, and blue jays, which may

actually benefit from fragmentation, but it is hell on interior-

dependent species like salamanders, goshawks, bats, and flying

squirrels. The smaller the remnant the greater the influence of

external factors and edge effects. A wise person once likened it

to ice cubes: the smaller ones melt faster.

Moreover, as forest fragments become ever smaller, prac-

ticing forestry in them becomes operationally impractical,

economically nonviable, and culturally unacceptable. In turn,

we lose the corresponding and important contributions that

forestry makes to our economy and culture. The result is a rapid

acceleration of further fragmentation and then permanent loss.

Here is the tricky part: when fragmentation occurs in a

heavily forested region like ours, at least in the early going we

are still left with a largely pleasant condition. We sense that we

still have lots of woods where we can work, hunt, ski, and walk

the dogs. And to most of us, this seems good enough, even

when the perforations expand and those woods are the scattered

remains of a fragmented forest.

But is it enough? At some point when the larger forest is highly

fragmented, the size, integrity, and connectivity of those wooded

remnants deteriorate beyond recovery and they are no longer ade-

quate for native forest plants and wildlife. After all, when the Swiss

cheese has more holes than cheese, the whole sandwich suffers.

Michael Snyder, a forester, is Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forests,

Parks, and Recreation.

BLAKE G

ARD

NER


In Alaska and the more open terrain of northwestern alpine

meadows and muskeg habitats, a rutting bull will flash and

flag his massive antlers like “social semaphores,” as described

by renowned antler scientist Richard Goss. Rocking his rack

side-to-side, he deliberately displays their shape and size to both

attract mates and warn off male competitors. Here in our heavily

treed boreal and temperate forests, the eastern (or Canadian)

moose uses his palmate antler surfaces like satellite dishes to

amplify the distant wavering calls of a cow in search of court-

ship. But that’s not all. He thrashes pliant shrubs and saplings

and rubs larger trees while deliberately clonking his antlers

against them. In this way, he uses auditory marking to announce

his reproductive intentions and his dominance to cows and

other bulls alike. Eastern Native American moose hunters

mimicked these antler sounds by using a moose scapula to create

similar scraping, banging, and brush-breaking noises, which

could often be relied upon to draw a moose out of cover.

For a bull in the near company of an estrus cow, wooing can

be a slow process. In addition to his soft grunts and visual and

auditory antler communications, his urine wallows and rubs

stimulate her sense of smell. Concentrated testosterone

in his urine and salivary pheromones mixed with other

glandular scents concoct a kind of eau de cologne that

permeates the environment, enticing her with reminders

of his reproductive readiness and desirability as a mate.

Large-diameter rubs on balsam fir and white birch

are often made in late fall, as a bull’s urge to rid him-

self of his ponderous antlers increases; if you’re lucky,

you may find an antler prize at the base of such a tree.

Rutting rubs are made in September and October, and

these smaller-diameter trees are extensively damaged,

with bark removed, xylem exposed, and limbs twisted

and broken. Gouges and scratches may show where the

bull rubbed his antler surfaces up and down the tree and

where the antler tines penetrated and scored the bark.

These rubs serve as visual and olfactory bulletin boards

whose chemical depositions function as breeding season

announcements. Look for facial hair that has adhered to the

tree where the bull rubbed his forehead and pre-orbital glands.

Search also for traces of mud and neck hairs that were deposited

when the bull rubbed his wallow-soaked neck and bell onto

his signpost. Finally, a really fresh rub will reek of his piss de

résistance.

Susan C. Morse is founder and program director of Keeping Track in Huntington, Vermont.

Story and photos by Susan C. Morse


TRACKING tips

Clockwise from top: Young Canadian bull moose; these skid marks were created by the

smooth edge of an antler palm; hair stuck to a fresh rub; note high placement of this

rub on a balsam fir.


K N O T S & B O L T S

[ F O R A G I N G ]

Black Walnut: Harvest and FellowshipStanding in a supermarket amidst frozen dinners, bakery items, and cereals,

it’s easy to forget the work involved in preparing food. While it is wonderful

to be relieved of so much work, this luxury has its cost. Food preparation

has always been the thing that brings us together to enjoy one of the great

pleasures of human life – the company of family and friends. Preparing wild

black walnuts (Juglans nigra ) is one of my family’s favorite excuses to do

just that.

The black walnut is not native to much of the Northeast but is widely

naturalized and often found in the yards of old farmhouses. The nuts from

these yard trees are easier to gather than those that fall in the forest, so

hunting for black walnuts provides a great reason to meet new neighbors.

In October, ask for permission to gather the fallen nuts and your neighbors

may thank you for saving them the chore, as the hard-shelled walnuts are a

nuisance to lawn mowers. Bring thick gloves and some five-gallon buckets;

on good years, gallons of nuts can be gathered in a matter of minutes.

The next step is to remove the sticky, green husk from around the nut – it’s

the only part of the process that I tend to do alone. I let the husks rot outside

for several weeks in large milk crates; then I work them off with my hands

under a hose. Because the husks contain a dark ink, I don clothes that I don’t

mind getting stained and long rubber gloves. (Soak the husks in water and you

can make a purplish-black dye.) Then I let the nuts dry for at least a month.

The black walnut can be an intimidating nut to crack, so teamwork is

essential. Enthusiasts recommend all kinds of methods, from expensive

specialty nutcrackers to running the nuts over with your car. But in our

household, we invite friends over and set up a little assembly line. First,

someone with a sledgehammer breaks the nut in two over a rock – being

careful only to crack and not to shatter the shell. They pass the broken nuts

on to someone armed with a smaller hammer and a pair of wire cutters,

whose job it is to break or cut away enough of the shell to expose the

nutmeats. At the end are folks with nut picks who remove the nutmeat and

discard the shells. We do everything over a tarp so that the broken nutshells

are not left around to cut any bare feet.

Most people know how to cook with and eat the

common English walnut, and black walnuts can

be used in the same ways. But the flavor of the

black walnut is far superior, with an almost fruity

aroma. In our house, most of the walnuts are

eaten before they ever make it into a recipe.

The time it takes to procure a quart or two of

wild black walnuts makes me grateful for the easy

abundance of prepared foods available in the super-

market. But I am also grateful for the satisfaction of

being able to share a meal won through my own

work and for the chance to experience the fellowship

that has bound our human family together from its

earliest days as people sang, joked, shared secrets,

and fell in love over the happy chore of turning nuts

into food.

Benjamin Lord

Dandelion and Black Walnut

Muffins

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 cup yogurt – plain or va

nilla

1 egg

1/4 cup melted butter or o

il

1-2 cups dandelion petals,

separated from the green b

racts

1 cup black walnuts

Preheat oven to 425°. Grea

se muffin tins. Mix flour,

salt,

and baking powder in large

mixing bowl. Add maple sy

rup, egg,

and yogurt. Mix well. Add

butter or oil. Mix. Add da

ndelion

petals and black walnuts.

Mix well. Pour into grease

d muffin

tins and bake 10 to 14 min

utes until a toothpick com

es out

clean. (Makes one dozen.)

WIK

IPEDIA

CO

MM

ON

S


[ N A T U R A L LY C U R I O U S ]

Green lacewings are aptly named for the

prominent venation on the adults’ wings.

Some species in this insect family have

“ears” in the larger veins that allow them

to detect the ultrasonic sounds made by

hunting bats. Lacewing larvae eat soft-

bodied insects, such as woolly aphids.

They have long, hollow mandibles that

they use to puncture the aphids and suck

out their liquefied contents. Some species of lacewing larvae have hairy backs, and they dress them-

selves in the carcasses of their prey. These woolly husks camouflage the lacewing larvae from predators,

including ants that would attack the larva if they recognized it as a lacewing and not an odd-looking

mound of woolly aphids.—-Mary Holland/www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.



[ O B J E C T I F Y ]

The Cox SawchainWatch old footage of a lumberjack using a crosscut saw (colloquially called

a misery whip) – or better yet, pick one up at a farm auction and try it out

yourself – and you’ll come to appreciate how ripe the tool was for innovation.

And yet, the birth of the modern chainsaw wasn’t easy. The U.S. Patent Office

issued a patent for what might be considered the first mechanical chainsaw

in 1858, but 80 years later loggers were still using crosscuts. Why? Partly

because early saws were unwieldy in the woods (one “portable” saw manu-

factured in 1933 weighed 490 pounds and was mounted on bike wheels.)

But also because the “scratcher” chains on the early saws, which simply

mimicked the crosscut design, didn’t cut well. Inventors were so tunnel-

visioned on replacing muscle power with gasoline power that they neglected

to scrutinize the design of the chain. As a result, even when engine technology

had advanced to the point of making a saw light enough to be truly portable,

loggers were abandoning the smelly, loud, quick-to-dull-and-

hard-to-sharpen contraptions and going back to crosscuts.

Enter Joe Cox, a jack-of-all-trades who took on itinerant

work as a logger in the 1940s and was perplexed that the

power saws cut so poorly. Legend has it that one day he came

across a tree riddled with pine sawyer beetle larvae (Ergates

spiculatus). He stopped and admired how they cut through

the wood with an efficient, left-and-right, side-to-side motion.

He took some home and studied the larvae and the sawdust

they created under a microscope. He then went down into the

basement of his two-story frame house in Portland, Oregon,

and set to work on a chain design featuring alternating cutter

teeth that mimicked the larva’s c-shaped jaws.

He patented the idea, became

a very wealthy man, and retired

to California with his wife. He died

childless and his wife, upon her

death, split the six million dollars

that was left of the sawchain fortune

equally among the 42,238 people

in Kandyohi County, Minnesota, the

place where she grew up. They

received $142 each.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of stories about objects that revolutionized

the (rural) world.

Above: An early Cox-branded chain.

Below: The illustration demonstrates how a chipper chain works.

A pine sawyer larva – the inspiration for the chipper chain.

JOH

N FO

WLER

MB

C D

ESIG

NW

AYNE’S

CH

AIN

SAW

MU

SEU

M

Dear Northern Woodlands reader,

Please consider making a donation to support Northern Woodlandsthe Center for Northern Woodlands Education.

It’s no secret that the population of our region is growing. There are approximately 874,000 more people living in New England and New York today than there were ten years ago. At the same time, younger generations have fewer connections to the land and less familiarity with local nature.

In this context of continued change, there’s a corresponding need for forest education.

Many people care deeply about the environment in the abstract, but lack knowledge about local ecosystems. They enjoy hiking on trails or watching birds, but they see no reason to protect “messy” understories, swamps, or old snags full of woodpecker holes. Similarly, even as public support for local agriculture increases, there is scant public awareness that forests, too, are a traditional and important part of the working

Your contribution helps us reach more people with the message that forests matter. With your help, we spark curiosity, promote learning, and encourage deeper appreciation of our region’s natural wonders.

Thanks to supporters like you, we continue to put Northern Woodlands magazine into new readers’ hands. We help new landowners learn to be thoughtful stewards. We raise awareness of the value of sustainable wood products. We share educational resources with teachers, conservation groups, landowner associations, foresters, and others who are working to keep forests intact and thriving.

Through the magazine, newsletters, special publications, and, increasingly, on-line content, the Center for Northern Woodlands Education makes a difference in how people think about northern forests and how they care for this precious resource. We could not do this work without your help.

Thank you for considering this request.

Elise TillinghastExecutive Director/Publisher

a high score, you’ll qualify to win a “Season’s Main Events” daily calendar.

a new way of looking at the forest

Northern Woodlands sincerely thanks Adelaide Tyrol for the use of her illustrations, originally featured in The Outside Story.

Quiz: Rate Your Woods Savvy (circle correct answer)

Which species is unlikely to share body heat in winter? (a) Skunk; (b) Bluebird; (c) Honeybee; (d) Wood frog; (e) Beaver.

What’s the maximum speed that a peregrine falcon can dive? (a) 80 MPH; (b) 100 MPH; (c) 160 MPH; (d) over 200MPH.

What does the old logging term “hair pounder” mean? (a) A large tree that began to fall down, but got hung up on saplings; (b) A bunch of debris in a river log drive; (c) A person in charge of a horse team; (d) A severe storm that defoliates trees.

What isn’t true about the Virginia opossum? (a) It’s resistant to pit viper venom; (b) It exudes foul green liquid; (c) It imitates owl hoots; (d) It has an average of thirteen nipples; (e) It can eat a lot of ticks.

A friendly stranger appears on your doorstep and offers to “clean up your woods” - for free! You agree. You: (a) Have probably just made a big mistake; (b) Should talk with a consulting forester;

What is least likely to affect next year’s fawn population? (a) A decline in the number of mature bucks; (b) A long, severe winter; (c) An outbreak of chronic wasting disease; (d) The loss of winter deer yards.

What wood produces the most heat energy when burned (BTUs per cord)? (a) Alder; (b) White oak; (c) Eastern white pine; (d) Black cherry.

(a) To escape predators; (b) To communicate pollen locations; (c) To dust their wings in order to remove mites; (d) To feed on salt and other nutrients.

Which of these plants is least likely to be found in the same habitat as the others?

What does “high-grading” a woodlot mean? (a) Managing it to the highest forestry standards; (b) Making an unrealistically high assessment of its timber value; (c) Cutting the best trees and leaving the low value ones; (d) Harvesting all of the trees of a certain height, regardless of species.

The mission of the Center for Northern Woodlands Education is to advance a culture of forest stewardship in the Northeast and to increase understanding of and appreciation for the natural wonders, economic productivity and ecological integrity of the region’s forests.

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Plants are not often thought of as meat-eating

predators. They’re the nice guys. But recent

research suggests that at least one local tree

may owe its size to more than just sun, water,

and good soils.

The eastern white pine is the tallest native tree

in our region. Give them a few hundred years in

ideal habitat, with roots sunk deep into sandy and

silty soils, and they’ll grow to over 200 feet tall

with trunks nearly eight feet in diameter.

It takes a lot of nutrients for a tree to grow to

such grandeur, and one thing that might help the

eastern white pine is its surprising relationship

with a meat-eating fungus.

The bicolored deceiver (Laccaria bicolor)

appears above ground as a small tan mushroom

with lilac-colored gills. It is found in most conifer-

ous woodlands throughout temperate regions

around the globe and has a symbiotic relationship

with many trees, including the eastern white pine.

It forms a mycorrhizal sheath around the small

root tips of the tree, where it receives sugars from

the tree’s photosynthesis, supplies the tree with

essential nutrients, and helps to increase water

uptake by the tree roots.

Such symbiotic relationships between trees

and fungi are common. About ninety-five percent

of plants get some nutrients from fungi, and fungi

play an important role in the food web. In particular,

fungi (along with lightning strikes and soil bacteria)

are critical for converting atmospheric nitrogen

into reactive forms, such as nitrate and ammonia,

which other living things can use for growth.

What makes the eastern white pine’s relation-

ship with the bicolored deceiver surprising is the

way the tree benefits from the fungus’ meat-

eating habits – something scientists discovered

by accident during a study of tiny soil arthropods

called springtails.

Many people know springtails as snow fleas,

the wingless insects often seen by the thousands

jumping across the snow in late winter. Soil ecolo-

gists John Klironomos, now at the University of

British Columbia, and his colleague Miranda Hart

wondered if springtails had an adverse effect

on trees since they eat fungi that help

secure nutrients for many plants.

They set up a simple experiment

to feed the springtails a diet

of fungi, including bicolored

deceiver.

[ T H E O U T S I D E S T O R Y ]

Meat-eating Trees? That’s when things took a strange turn. All of

the springtails placed with bicolor deceiver died.

“It was as shocking as putting a pizza in front of a

person and having the pizza eat the person instead

of vice versa,” Klironomos told Science News.

To confirm their findings, Klironomos and Hart

fed a few hundred springtails a diet of bicolor

deceiver while others were fed a diet either

devoid of the fungus altogether or with another

fungi species. After two weeks, only five percent

of the springtails that ate the bicolor deceiver

remained alive. In contrast, nearly all the spring-

tails that ate other species of fungi or whose diet

was devoid of fungi survived.

The researchers believe that the fungus first

paralyzes the springtails with a toxin, breaks them

down with a special enzyme, and then extends

fine filaments into them to absorb nutrients.

So how does this make the eastern white pine

tree a meat-eater? Klironomos and Hart fed a

batch of springtails a diet of radioactively tagged

nitrogen so they could follow it through the food

web. The insects were added to containers of

bicolor deceiver growing with white pine seed-

lings. After a few months, they tested the seed-

lings and found that 25 percent of the nitrogen

in the trees was radioactive, and thus had come

directly from the springtails. It’s as if white pine

were fishermen using the fungus like a giant net

to capture their prey.

Now, new research from scientists at Brock

University in Ontario suggests that this adaptation

may be shared by many plants. Green muscardine

fungus, a soil-dweller found in many ecosystems,

has long been known to infect insects. It has now

been shown to associate with plant roots and

transfer nitrogen from its insect prey to grass and

even beans.

With webs of mycelia hunting tiny prey under-

ground to help giants grow and capture the sun

above, understanding who is eating whom just

got a lot more complicated.

Kent McFarland

The Outside Story is sponsored by the Wellborn Ecology Fund

of New Hampshire Charitable Foundation: [email protected].



[ S T E W A R D S H I P S T O R Y ]

The Pride of ParticipationAs I make the drive from my suburban home to

my country property – a 75-acre woodlot in the

northern part of Allegany County, New York – I

reflect on that piece of land with great pride. It

had been mismanaged for years before I pur-

chased it in 1985. The property was abandoned

as farmland in the 1950s, except for a 15-acre

parcel kept in production until the 1970s. That

area saw its final plowing in 1971 and was then

mechanically planted with 15,000 conifers (pine,

spruce, and fir). At that time, the New York State

Department of Environmental Conservation was

recommending such plantings to stabilize soil

and improve wildlife habitat. In retrospect, we

know that this was not a good policy. Today, the

stand is a sterile monoculture with little economic

or ecological value. The remainder of the prop-

erty was left to natural succession and, thanks

to recent management work, it is now a beautiful

northeastern deciduous forest.

I purchased this property solely as a hunting

camp. I really didn’t know much about trees or

what timber management was until state forester

Paul Kretser evaluated my property around 1990.

He explained that by taking an active steward-

ship role I could improve the deer habitat (and by

extension the deer hunting) while also building an

investment in timber. That concept changed my

world. He drew up a 10-year management plan

and I went to work.

I started by improving access to the property

by building a series of trails and roads. Then I

started wildlife habitat improvements. I clearcut

approximately five acres to create early suc-

cessional habitat and released roughly 50 apple

trees. I initially decided to put two of those clear-

cut acres into a small Christmas tree plantation.

Big mistake! After eight years trimming and

nurturing those 300 trees (most of which I gave

away), I converted the area into a wildlife food plot

consisting of clover, chicory, and brassica. Now I

till that plot on a two-year cycle and often enjoy

visits by wildlife.

Elsewhere, I have completed a number of tim-

ber stand improvement projects. This work was

largely facilitated by federal cost share programs

administered through the Natural Resources

Conservation Service. State foresters marked the

cull trees. My friends and I put them on the ground

and turned them into firewood. The improve-

ment was remarkable. Now I see tall, clear crop

trees with good spacing and open crowns. I also

began controlling woody invasives like multiflora

rose, honeysuckle, and grapevines through cut

stump and basal bark herbicide treatments. This

involves applying an herbicide (I use triclopyr or

glyphosate) on the cambium of a cut stump or on

the bottom six inches of trees with a diameter of

eight inches or less. I reduced American beech

regeneration with the same methods.

In addition to this work, I conducted two “worst

first” harvests to release high-value crop trees.

I tackled these jobs on my own – cutting, skid-

ding, and bidding out the sales. It was a valuable

learning experience, but not a wise decision. In

this case, selling logs on the landing was no more

profitable than selling trees on the stump.

This year I am having a major timber harvest.

Now that I am wiser, I have hired a consulting

forester to bid out my veneer-grade black cherry,

sugar maple, and red oak. He will conduct the sale

from start to finish with a performance bond held

in escrow. A stumpage sale is safer and a lot less

work for me. My main concern is the presence

of heavy logging equipment on the property. My

sons and I have built and maintain miles of recre-

ational trails, and I hope these will be intact after

the logging operation is complete. The remaining

slash will pose no problem, as I will leave most of

the tops in place to shelter the regenerating tree

seedlings. The forest should be ready for another

selective harvest in about 15 years.

My efforts have produced some prime timber,

excellent wildlife habitat, and better access. I

am grateful to the forestry experts from the

Department of Environmental Conservation, the

New York Forest Owners Association, and the

Cornell Cooperative Extension. With their assis-

tance and instruction, I learned proper timber

management. In kind, I have demonstrated these

management practices to others through my

volunteer work as a Master Forest Owner with

the Cornell Cooperative Extension and through

woodswalks on my land. My greatest satisfaction

is that my two sons, a few friends, and I have car-

ried out this work ourselves. This stewardship will

provide benefits for years to come – even after I

am gone. This forest is my pride and my legacy.

Jim DeLellis

This series is underwritten by the Plum Creek Foundation,

in keeping with the foundation’s focus on promoting

environmental stewardship and place-based education

in the communities it serves.


[ S T A C K S T U M P E R ]

How solid is a cord of wood? Most of us have been trained to picture a cord of wood as a neatly stacked pile measuring

4x4x8 feet. But how much of that 128-cubic-foot rectangle is wood and how much is air?

Searching on the internet, I found the consensus to be that one cord of wood contains

about 85 cubic feet of solid wood, which means that 43 cubic feet of that must not be wood.

That breaks down to roughly two-thirds wood and one-third air. But I’ve stacked a lot of

wood, and my instincts told me that couldn’t possibly be right. To visualize what a stack that

airy would look like, I took my son’s Lego set and made a wall that was exactly one-third air.

There was no way I could stack a row of wood with that much air in it even if I tried.

But Legos aren’t firewood. To figure out how much air was in a row of firewood, I came

up with the idea of stapling a piece of garden fence to my stack of wood and counting the

number of times I found air versus wood at each corner of the 1-inch x 3-inch rectangles.

With enough samples, I would have a good approximation of how much wood and how much

air there was. The area of fence that I counted had 200 corners, and I found wood 171 times.

So, in my case, a well-stacked row of wood is 86 percent solid, which in a perfectly stacked

row would amount to about 110 cubic feet of wood.

But my row is not a perfectly stacked cord, nor is each piece cut to exactly the same

length. I typically cut my firewood to 16-inch lengths, measured with a stick of wood and

marked with an axe, hardly a precise method. Sampling my stacks, I found that my pre-

sumed 16-inch pieces of wood ran between 15 and 17 inches, averaging 15.5. (Nor is every

piece cut square on the ends.) My pieces are short by an average of 3.1 percent, so my

stacked “cord” is now down to around 106 cubic feet of wood. There’s undoubtedly more

loss in other places, like the bark itself. I’m happy when I come across black locust, but there

certainly is a lot of air space contained in its deeply furrowed bark.

So where did this consensus figure that a stacked cord is two-thirds wood come from?

I was able to contact the owner of one of the websites that published that information. He

informed me that his figure wasn’t based on measuring a carefully stacked cord but rather

on a study that measured the average weight of wood that was delivered to a typical con-

sumer. This is quite different than the way I was looking at it. In that context, how would you

know if the cord was really a cord to begin with? I found tables online that gave both the

weight per cubic foot and the weight per cord of several firewood species, and some quick

math indicated that there’s roughly 60 percent solid wood in a cord, though it’s not clear

what assumptions they made about size and stacking.

Even simple science provides more questions than answers. I think I was able to prove,

though, that an honest cord will be, at best, about 82 percent solid wood when stacked. Then

that cord will shrink as it dries – 6 percent or more. Is it no longer a cord at that point, or is

it a cord with more air space? More questions to ponder, but the good thing is that all of the

BTUs are still there.

Brian LaniusThe author’s experiment.

BR

AIN LAN

IUS

[ E C O L O G I C A L E T Y M O L O G I S T ]

Dear E.E.:

How did fisher-cat become

the common name in northern

New England for an animal that

does not fish and is not a cat?

Good question. I distinctly remember the first time I

heard its name. An excited friend exclaimed, “Guess

what? I just saw a fisher running down the road!”

And the first image that popped into my mind was

of an old man, wicker creel swinging as he dodged

oncoming cars.

At least one science writer claims the term fisher

derives from the first time Sir Humphrey Gilbert (a

sixteenth-century explorer for Queen Elizabeth) saw

a sea mink, which he described as a “fyshe like a

greyhound.” The sea mink is extinct now, but looked

an awful lot like a fisher. Maybe the name transferred

to its terrestrial cousin, but this seems like a stretch.

More likely, the word came from the Old English

word fitchet, for polecat. In England, a polecat was

a generic term used to refer to several species of

mustelid (mammals in the weasel family). The word

fitchet comes from the Old French word fisseau, which

probably comes from the Old Dutch visse, for nasty (in

temper or smell, I couldn’t say). All members of the

weasel family are ferocious predators with pungent

anal sacs, so this makes a certain amount of scents.

So we have an explanation for fisher, but what

about cat? Fishers have a bad (sometimes unde-

served) reputation as domestic cat killers, and I’ve

heard it said that they eat so many cats they’re

practically fishing for them. This is an unsatisfactory

answer, I know. Perhaps fishers look a little like cats

slinking through the grass, but I’m quite sure my own

cats would be offended by the comparison. My best

guess is that it’s a portmanteau, created by blending

fitchet and polecat into fisher cat, though we’ll have

to live the question for now.



[ M A N Y M I L E S A W A Y ]

Growing Teak in India’s Northern WoodlandsEditor’s Note: This is the first in a series of stories about how forests are managed in far-away places.

I’ve always wanted to see teak silviculture, and

today’s my lucky day.

I’m in Bhopal, India, visiting Professor Parag

Dubey of the Indian Institute of Forest Management,

a major graduate school for forestry and related

fields. Professor Dubey and his driver pick me up

at the campus guesthouse for the two-hour trip to

a teak plantation. We are accompanied by Captain

Khure, an Indian Forest Service officer with strong

field experience who prefers to be addressed by

his former Army rank.

Bhopal is in the midst of Madhya Pradesh, a

large state in north-central India. The 19 million

acres of forest here account for a considerable

share of the nation’s total. Private forestland as we

know it in the United States is scarce in India – the

majority is in tiny patches less than an acre in size.

And forest itself is scarce, covering only about 20

percent of the land. This is a country that’s roughly

one-third the size of the U.S., but with more than a

billion people the forest faces many demands. (To

put their population into perspective, one out of six

people in the world lives in India.)

Teak has been planted in India since the 1840s,

and is what Indian people think of as the queen

of woods – the mahogany of the subcontinent. As

soon as they can afford it, people trade up to teak

furniture. India is thought to be the home of the

largest area of planted teak in the world, and much

of it is grown in Madhya Pradesh. India also imports

a lot of teak. When teaching at Yale recently, I had

a student from Ghana who worked on government

teak plantations, growing wood that mostly went to

India. Globalization knows no boundaries.

At dawn it is cool under a grey sky. We turn

south in a light drizzle. Small groups of people

are walking along the road, some with little

backpacks, some with rain gear. In every group

one person carries a flagpole with a long red ban-

ner. They are pilgrims, the captain says, walking,

sometimes for days. They seek to honor a local

god by bringing water to its shrine. Almost all day

we pass them along the roadside.

The road is choked with traffic. In the villages, all

the brightly lit little market stalls are open. Barbers

ply their trade, as do those selling small hardware

items and various foods. Many shoppers and

strollers are out and around. The truck ahead of

us moves. We inch forward, lurching a few feet

at a time. After a few minutes, our line of traffic

swerves into the opposite lane to avoid something.

A cow, sitting in the roadway, taking up the entire

lane. I suppose if I had to choose between the

pavement and the mud I’d choose the pavement,

too. The cow sits, looking bored and tired. No driver

or passerby moves to shoo the animal off the road.

I wonder aloud, do these cows have owners? Why

do they put them at risk like this? Turns out, it’s

complicated. First, cows are sacred. They symbol-

ize motherhood and may not be harmed. Then

why leave them in the middle of the road? Aha!

Precisely because nobody will harm them there.

Hours of lurching along, stop-start, side to side

to pass or avoid potholes, begin to wear on the

nerves. Everyone is in a rush and swerving back

and forth to avoid oncoming vehicles is routine.

Horns are blasting almost continuously. Our driver

takes it all in stride.

As we leave the chaos of Bhopal, the land turns

more pastoral with every mile. When we turn onto

a one-lane tarred road, we pass women in color-

ful robes. Some weed corn by hand, others carry

headloads of wood or gather wild vegetables.

We eventually arrive at the plantation, which

is overseen by the Madhya Pradesh Forest

Department. This is state-owned land. Years ago,

when the British came in the form of the East India

Company, they declared, as good empire guys

always do, that the forests were to be the property

of the state, with only a few exceptions. If you were

an Imperial planner that’s what you would do,

too. When British rule was cast off in 1947, state

ownership of the forests was not. In a curious twist,

the new constitution declared that the forests were

national assets but were to be managed by the

individual states.

The management practices on state forests

are controlled by rulings from the Supreme Court

of India. Addressing litigation brought by environ-

mental groups, the court ruled that all resources

must be spent on “degraded” forest before any

can be spent on planting on new ground. The

court also effectively reduced annual allowable

cuts by 50 percent. This will sound eerily familiar

to folks in the Pacific Northwest. Harvests from

natural forests fell dramatically. Much of the slack

in the teak market was picked up by imports from

Myanmar, which was under military dictatorship at

the time and said to be overcutting its teak by 100

percent. Partly as a result, India became the second

largest importer of tropical hardwood in the world

after China. I wonder if the Honorable Justices and

triumphant litigants ever heard of this or would be

interested if they did.

Arriving at the plantation, we step out and are

greeted by a group of uniformed officials and

forest guards who snap to attention to greet the

District Director, Mr. R. Dubey, and their foreign

visitor. They are the rangers and forest guards

who manage this area. They show us detailed

maps and we walk through, discussing forestry

and natural history.

Silviculture in this stand focuses on teak trees,

readily identifiable by their distinctive, huge leaves.

This area looks like anything but a plantation – it

The author, center, with his hosts at a state-owned teak plantation in Madhya Pradesh.

LLOYD

IRLA

ND


contains large overstory residual trees and a variety

of other species here and there. It is quite patchy

and rarely looks uniform. The management regime

is described as very mechanical, multiple cleanings

in the first three to four years, followed by regular

thinnings, then final harvest at age 60. “The rotation

for teak is 60 years,” we are told. This was apparently

settled long ago. The next step is three coppice

rotations of 20 years each, at which time similar

tree sizes are reached. At age 120 the coppice is

spent, and then the stand is replanted.

The work week is long – it’s Sunday and a crew

of women is cultivating newly sprouted seedlings,

removing unwanted leaves. Others are prepping

seeds to be planted. The seeds are spread almost

a foot deep in a large cement basin, then a worker

turns them over with a shovel and a tractor runs

over them to finish the job. This process softens

the hard shells for germination. The seeds are so

bitter that birds will not eat them. Adjacent is a

stack of piping that will supply irrigation water

during the upcoming hot dry season.

The seedlings, when ready, are processed by

hand. The roots are pruned, the tops lopped off,

and then they are bundled. This was demon-

strated for us. The cuttings are planted with a

small dibble and tamped in by foot.

Finally, we visit a timber depot. The district

hires cutting and hauling contractors who deliver

logs to this depot, where they are sorted into small

piles based on dimension. The stacks are then

auctioned one at a time to dealers in bimonthly

auctions. We were told that one tree can be worth

$1,000 on the ground here. The wood we saw

was unimpressive in size and straightness; it must

have been generated from a thinning.

Buyers must have a timber transport permit

to assure legality. And the mills must be able to

produce these for every load. Even India’s few

private landowners who want to cut one single

tree must have a permit from a local forester and

also a timber transport permit. The “license raj”

continues to reign, having outlasted the British by

almost three-quarters of a century.

This entire trip was well off the beaten track – I

saw no other Westerners the entire day. Rainy and

bumpy and noisy as it was, this was a refresh-

ing change from steamy and smoky Delhi, from

reviewing columns of figures and usual business

in the lecture hall and office. Now, finally, I’ve seen

my teak.

Lloyd C. Irland

Forest guard with teak seedling. Inset: Teak logs,

sorted into piles based on dimension and waiting to

be auctioned.

PHO

TOS

BY LLO

YD IR

LAN

D

Photo by Frank Kaczmarek

Photographer Frank Kaczmarek captured

this impressionistic photograph at a small

pond in northern New Hampshire. “Including

the lily pads in the frame, in a small way,

reminded me of Claude Monet’s series of

paintings depicting lily pads,” he said.

1,000 words



Like sugar maple leaves, the fins and bellies of male brook trout turn orange in fall. Males develop an upward hook in the lower jaw as they

age, called a kype. This, along with sharp, saw-like teeth, helps in battles with other males as they jostle for breeding position. Note the white

markings on the front edge of this big male’s fins; the white can be used to distinguish eastern brook trout from other trout species.

Eastern brook trout will grow to a length of 4-16 inches, averaging around 6-

8 inches in the Northeast. Females, like the one pictured here, are generally

smaller and less colorful than males, with cucumber-shaped bodies.


Photos by Robert Michelson

People who fish tend to be poetically inclined

– it probably has something to do with the

hours spent in silent contemplation. And of all

their piscatorial muses, the brook trout reigns

supreme. Thoreau referred to them as the

painted fish. Burroughs was a lifelong seeker.

Perhaps the best recent compliment paid the

species was by Cormac McCarthy, who ended

his grueling, post-apocalyptic novel The Road –

a book about a father and son limping through

a ruined, colorless landscape – with the image

of brook trout in a mountain stream:

Once there were brook trout in the streams in

the mountains. You could see them standing

in the amber current where the white edges

of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They

smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and

muscular and torsional. On their backs were

vermiculate patterns that were maps of the

world in its becoming. Maps and mazes…. In

the deep glens where they lived all things were

older than man and they hummed of mystery.

McCarthy’s evocation of the world in its

becoming is no throw-away sentiment. Brook

trout were among the first colonizers back to

our region after the last natural apocalypse.

As the Laurentide ice sheet retreated between

8,000 and 13,000 years ago, you can imagine

these cold water-loving trout at the edge of

the melting ice, following the newly fissured

streams into the greening hills.

Because brook trout live in water, their life

cycle can seem mysterious to us terrestrial

beings – which is why we’re happy that people

like Robert Michelson exist. Michelson donned

a wet suit and braved freezing fall temperatures

to show us the brook trout’s mating rituals,

then followed up in spring to capture the

results of the spawn. Here’s what it looks like

down there. —The Editors

The Life Cycle of a

Brook Trout

In the fall, females use their tail fins to create small nests in the gravel bottoms of shallow, fast-moving

water. They deposit their eggs – as many as 3,000 per fish – in these redds, where they will be

fertilized by a cloud of sperm from a nearby adult male. As the female expands the size of her redd

or adds new nests, she stirs up gravel that is carried downstream to cover previously laid eggs.


Getting the ShotThe eastern brook trout is one of the most beautiful

fish I have ever had the privilege to photograph,

though capturing these images was a less than

beautiful experience.

The saga began with a 2009 trip to northern New

Hampshire during Columbus Day weekend – peak

spawning time according to biologists from New

Hampshire Fish and Game. It was an unseasonably

raw day when I left my home in Massachusetts; five

hours later, I arrived at the Dead Diamond River in

Coös County to find four inches of snow and tem-

peratures in the upper 20s.

I climbed down a very steep embankment with

my heavy underwater cameras and snorkeling

gear (difficult even in dry conditions) and slipped

into the river. It didn’t take me long to see that, on

account of the cold, all of the brook trout had left

the spawning area early. The following day, I was

guided to several other small brooks in the region

and found only one three-inch brook trout. A third

day was spent diving in a newly restored section

of Nash Stream, only to find nothing but more cold

water – beautiful area, but no fish!

At this point, I began to panic – where and

how was I going to capture spawning? There was

a small brook in central New Hampshire with a

spawning population of trout that I knew of, so I

pinned my hopes there.

Fast forward to the second week in November

– it was snowing and very cold. My wife and I had

traveled to the stream six times looking for “the

shot.” After about four hours in 42° water, I’d lost

feeling in the area around my mouth where I was

biting down on the snorkel and decided to take a

break. My wife, who’d been patrolling the shore,

said, “They’re doing something over here. Get

back in the water. We are not coming back up here

again this year.” Call it luck or the power of wifely

persuasion, but shortly thereafter I captured the

images you see here. —Robert Michelson

A newly hatched trout is called a sac fry. The sac fry develop for

six to eight weeks in the redd, using their yolk sacs for nutrients.

Fertilized eggs need cool, fast-moving water with a lot of oxygen to survive. As the eggs continue

to grow, the eyes and spine of the developing brook trout can be seen through the clear shell. It

takes one to four-and-a-half months for eggs to hatch, depending on the water temperature.


As stream temperatures rise in early spring, the young trout – called fry – leave the redd. As they grow, they

develop dark vertical bars on their sides, which provide some measure of camouflage. This stage of development

is called the parr stage. It might be three years before these young trout are mature enough to spawn.


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Theology of a Quaker


Logger

By Martin Melville

riends sometimes express surprise when

I tell them that I’m a Quaker logger, and

that I find logging to be deeply spiritual

work. How, they ask, can it possibly be spiri-

tual when you’re out there raping and pillaging

Creation? The fact that my friends can ask

such a question earnestly has led to some intro-

spection. What is it about this work that is so deeply

spiritual?

When I spend time in nature, I see God at work everywhere

– in Queen Anne’s lace, in bird song, in the order of everything

around me. I take the perhaps old fashioned approach that we

are to worship the Creator, not the creation (Romans), though

I have come to understand that this is perhaps a narrow inter-

pretation of the Presence.

Logging is where the rubber meets the road in stewardship

of God’s creation. It is a weighty commission. My logging is

done in the service of silviculture, analogous to agricultural

science for farming, but more complex because of the many

ecological processes inherent in forests. In many ways, logging

mimics what occurs in nature. Sometimes storms blow down

large swaths of forest. Seeds germinate in the light that’s let in

to the forest floor and grow into trees. We work within this

natural model, manipulating forest composition and succes-

sion, whether it’s to improve forest health and animal habitat or

to harvest a token amount of merchantable timber. Through it

all, we strive to keep water clean, to keep the overall forest bal-

anced. Large trees have their own order, so do thickets. Every

twig has its place.

Work is a great way to experience the Presence. Consider

Brother Lawrence, a seventh-century monk who found it easi-

est to be aware of God while performing menial tasks. Among

his favorite places was the monastery kitchen, doing the dishes.

Brother Lawrence’s experience lacked the intense physical exer-

tion which can add to the framework of deep meditation, but

anything that requires concentration can serve to bring us into

awareness of God.

Work teaches me patience. The typical logging job is large

enough that it won’t be completed in a day, or even a week. You

come to understand that those trees will still be there in the

morning, waiting for you. Forestry works on an even longer

time frame: often the job you begin today will not be yours to

complete. Trees grow, but a tree planted today may take 80 years

to be harvestable. I’ll not be around to see it.

JUS

TIN C

OLEM

AN


Work offers lessons in serving your fellow man. In general,

each person tries to make the work the next will perform a little

easier. For example, there is usually a range in the direction a

tree can be felled. The feller should choose the direction that

will best facilitate taking the tree to where it can be picked up

by the truck, while minimizing damage to trees that will remain.

Job descriptions are fluid. Ultimately, they all boil down to “if it

needs done, do it.” To extrapolate to life, a range of solutions is

usually available for any given problem. In most cases, we can be

intentional in choosing actions that make the life of those who

follow a little easier. If you see a place you can help, part of being

faithful is acting instead of just watching.

Of course, I tell my friends of the dangers in logging. You

can get clobbered by a springpole, trees can roll, even a piece

of branch two feet long and two or three inches in diameter has

enough force to kill a person if it falls from a sufficient height.

Every day, every action, every night you get to go home, all of

life becomes a gift.

But the theological lesson here goes beyond the idea that there

are no atheists in foxholes. Thirty-few years ago I was hit by a tree.

I got a cracked cheekbone and a dislocated hip out of the deal.

The same day, another fellow cutting firewood was killed, not too

far down the mountain I was working on. It was a very similar

accident. My hip is becoming arthritic. I could wish I hadn’t had

the accident, but it had a huge effect on who I became and the

direction of my career. To say it was bad, I think, would be wrong.

It was interactive, instructive. Which of us was lucky and which

was unlucky is not ours to judge. Every choice we make opens

new possibilities and eliminates others. In the end, we must learn

patience and forbearance. As a friend told me, “In retrospect, life

is a series of serendipitous events. When we are in the thick of it,

we lack perspective.” In the end we will see clearly.

In his book, The Company of Strangers, Parker Palmer writes,

“Faith is a venture into the unknown, into the realms of mys-

tery, away from the safe and comfortable and secure.” I tell my

friends that logging has the same basis. In this business, you

don’t know what a load of logs is worth until the check comes in

the mail. We pay for the trees before we know if they are solid

or rotten. We live in a world where work can be suspended for

weeks due to the weather. Equipment is cranky. Employees

and managers are human. We are, even as the children of God,

flawed individuals. All we can do is our best. All we can do is

have faith that we’ll come home at the end of the day, that the

bills will be paid, that there will somehow be a roof over our

heads and food on the table.

Working in the woods has allowed me to practice living in

the moment. What has happened is in the past and is imma-

terial. What will happen isn’t here yet. Much of what I do is

simple – felling a tree or driving a skidder or forwarder out

of the woods. During these “quiet” times, I pray. At first I was

skeptical, but I kept at it. I found that the idea of centering and

worshiping wasn’t limited to Sunday morning. The practice

of enlisting God’s help and direction didn’t need to be, and in

fact shouldn’t be, limited to meeting for business. It was avail-

able to me as I lived and worked. I’ve come to understand that

chainsaws and machines and the petty aggravations of life are

outward noise and need not interfere with the audibility of the

inward Teacher. I practice lectio divina on the Lord’s prayer.

“Thy will…” I roll it over and over on my tongue. In my mind.

“Thy will, not mine, be done.” Submit. Acknowledge who’s

in charge here. Give praise in all things to the creator, for the

praise is Hers. The work my hands do is Her work. My strength

is finite. Hers is not. In every one of these cases my prayer, my

conversation with God, was answered. There were times when

the answer was “not now,” or “that is not for you to know.” I

knew when to quit pushing; I had faith that if I was to know, it

would be revealed.

I do not mean to suggest that this philosophy is the norm for

my peers. It is my simple hope that this short epistle will give a

glimpse of how logging is, for me, a deeply spiritual way to care

for God’s creation, to earn a living, and to witness His glory.

Martin Melville is a logger from Centre Hall, Pennsylvania.

“In retrospect, life is a series of serendipitous events.

When we are in the thick of it, we lack perspective.”


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“IT SHOULD BE RIGHT UP HERE AHEAD OF US,” promised Kevin Martin, his focus alternating between his

handheld GPS and the knee-deep water that surrounded us.

He was looking for the best (and driest) route to the biggest

black gum tree in New Hampshire. The woods-and-water set-

ting was appropriate, as Martin has been building and repairing

wooden boats for three decades. His other passion is big trees. In

2013, he authored a guide book on the subject, Big Trees of New

Hampshire, intended to help oth-

ers find and marvel at some of the

largest specimens in the state.

Martin was a carpenter who

transitioned to boat-building in

1980 when he built a home on

the banks of the Lamprey River in

Epping, New Hampshire. There,

he has a workshop and a handy

place to test out his creations. He’s

self-taught and started out read-

ing books to learn the history and

construction of wooden canoes

and other small boats. “I started

by building a strip-plank canoe

covered with fiberglass, inside and

out,” Martin explained. Wood-

canvas canoes are more his focus

these days, as there’s more demand

for that type. He restores historic models and got his hands on

some vintage steel molds that he uses to build exact replicas.

Outside his shop, beside covered racks of project boats, are

piles of sticked lumber. “I try to use local wood whenever I

can,” said Martin. “It doesn’t have to be furniture-dry for boats.

In fact, sometimes, if you want it for ribs, you want it a little

green so you can bend it.” Martin typically searches out the logs

– cherry, tamarack, ash, oak, spruce, pine, cedar, and others

– and brings them to a bandsaw mill down the road.

While the species he seeks out vary, the logs have one thing

in common: they’re big. “With this kind of boat work, you can’t

really have knots in the wood because it’s cut so thin. Plus, with

the planking you need tight grain, and I’ve found that the best

logs for tight grain and clear wood are the butt logs of big, wide

trees,” Martin explained. “So I’m always on the lookout for

good-sized logs.”

He never gave much thought to the big trees that pro-

vide those logs until serving on the Lamprey River Advisory

Committee. Some large black gums had been documented along

the river during a wildlife study, and the suggestion was made

that they be entered in the New Hampshire Big Tree Program, a

volunteer organization that tracks and tallies the biggest trees of

each species in the state. “But nobody ever did it,” said Martin,

“so I thought, ‘I’m going to go look for those trees and enter

them.’” It took a lot of wandering around, but his bushwhacking

through the swampy site paid off. He found the trees and submit-

ted the measurements of the largest to the New Hampshire Big

Tree Program, which pronounced it a state champion.

Martin says the pride of having found a champion tree, and

what he learned about the ecological and social benefits of big

trees, inspired him to look for oth-

ers around New Hampshire. “I was

excited about it and I joined the

New Hampshire Big Tree Program.

They gave me a list of trees to find

in Rockingham County that hadn’t

been measured since the 1970s,”

he said. That scavenger hunt rein-

forced the enjoyment of searching

out big trees, but also the difficulty

of the pursuit – either directions

were sketchy or the land had been

developed or the trees were on

private property.

Though he had no experience

as a writer, Martin was determined

to put together a book to help

others find some of the biggest

trees in the state. Big Trees of New

Hampshire, from Peter E. Randall Publisher, includes 28 trees dot-

ted throughout the state, all on land accessible to the public with

no more than a short hike. GPS coordinates are included for each,

as are photos and details such as bark texture, uses for its wood,

and other interesting facts. Martin says that hunting for big trees

is an inherently educational experience. “Especially the introduced

species. I didn’t know much about them. And I didn’t know how to

tell some of the different spruces apart. I learned a lot,” he said.

Even on this return visit, Martin’s amazement at the huge

black gum remains. “See the bark? It looks almost prehistoric,”

he said, running his fingers down the unusually deep furrows of

the surface. “And as they get older, they get hollow inside, even

down low.”

Martin has plans to produce a similar guidebook to the big

trees of Vermont in the near future, and currently is hoping to

locate the biggest tamarack in New England. It’s a species he’s used

in boat-building and for which he has a personal affinity. “They’re

spectacular. I’d love to find a national champion,” he said.

Patrick White is the assistant editor of Northern Woodlands.

Copies of Big Trees of New Hampshire can be ordered at www.enfieldbooks.com.

THE BIG TREE PROGRAM UTILIZES A POINT SYSTEM TO DETERMINE CHAMPION TREES: Circumference at Breast Height in inches + Vertical Height in feet + 1/4 x Average Crown Spread in feet = Total Points

State champions are forwarded to American Forests, a Washington D.C.-based conservation organization that maintains a registry of big trees across the country and annually announces national champion trees in each species.


PATRICK WHITE


Big Tree Sampler1 “The first thing you notice is that the trunk

is quite hollow,” wrote Martin of the state

champion mockernut hickory, which seems to

stand on four legs made of bark. “It makes you

wonder how much longer it will hold up under

some of the strong winds that must blow on

the hillside.”

122 inches CBH, 95 feet VH, 48 feet ACS

Bragdon Farm, Amherst, New Hampshire

GPS: N 42° 54.319’

W 071° 34.519’

2 Forest Lake State Park is home to several

Coös County champion trees, including this

paper birch (seen with retired county forester

Sam Stoddard). “This is a healthy looking tree

that should keep gaining in size,” wrote Martin.

“It is the third-largest in the state, but in better

condition than the other two, so as long as it

doesn’t fall over from the lean it has, it could

gain on its status.”


Forest Lake State Park, Dalton, New Hampshire

GPS: N 44° 21.617’

W 071° 41.282’

3 Known as “Mister Twister” for its distinc-

tive appearance, this is the state of New

Hampshire’s largest white cedar. “I am sure

the wood under it has the same twisted grain,”

wrote Martin. “It is an unusual looking tree that

has great character and deserves the honor.”


Webster Wildlife and Natural Area, Kingston,

New Hampshire

GPS: N 42° 54.042’

W 071° 03.692’

4 Though there are no state champions to be

found (based on points), the Big Pines Natural

Area features a loop trail that travels through

a collection of huge pines, including the tallest

in New Hampshire at 148 feet. “On your way

down and back to the river, you will notice

how damp the air is with the river and streams

flowing through here off the hills,” wrote Martin

(shown with the biggest of the Tamworth

Pines). “The moisture seems to hold and col-

lect, giving that rain forest feel. Maybe that is

what helped these trees reach their great size.”


Big Pines Natural Area, Tamworth,

New Hampshire

GPS: N 43° 53.047’

W 071° 17.71’

PHO

TOS

: BIG

TREES

OF N

EW H

AM

PSH

IRE

1

2

4

3

HAVE A GREAT PHOTO OF A FAVORITE BIG TREE? Send us your photos for our Facebook page.


Adirondack Canoe Classic


n the morning of September 6, 2013, 275 canoes and nearly 700

paddlers converged at Old Forge Beach in New York’s Adirondack

Park. Eager anticipation lingered in the air as canoers snacked and

stretched and prepped their boats for the Adirondack Canoe Classic,

a 90-mile, three-day race from Old Forge to Saranac Lake.

Bobbing near the starting line in a C2 (two-person canoe), I

perched on the edge of my bow seat and held my bare arms to my

chest, shivering from nerves and the morning chill. Silvery tendrils

of fog rose from the water. I turned to Ally Kontra, my teammate

and boat captain: “Remind me again why we signed up for this?”

A gray-bearded man wearing a baseball cap regarded us from a

canoe to our right. He raised a scruffy eyebrow. “This your first 90?”

Ally and I were part of a team from Hamilton College that featured 22 pad-

dlers and six boats of various sizes and capacities. Eleven pit crew members

– our drivers, chefs, cheerleaders, and support squad – filled out the team.

The paddlers that surrounded us were of every age: a few teenagers and col-

lege students, as well as experienced canoe racers and septuagenarians. Bearded

Adirondack natives comprised a substantial proportion, but some hailed from as

far as France and Hawaii.

Race organizer Brian McDonnell issued instructions from the dock, and at

the call we dug our paddles into the black water and our boat lurched forward.

Around us, the lake churned as canoes, bumping and jostling, hurried toward

open water. A cheer rose from spectators on the beach. We were off.

The Canoe Classic was conceived in the late winter of 1982. Bill Hulshoff, who

now acts as head timer, came up with the idea during a Saranac Lake Chamber of

Commerce meeting. “We were sitting around wondering what kind of event we

could do in the summer, and I said ‘You can pretty much paddle from Old Forge

to Saranac Lake.’ After a few coffees, it sounded like a good idea.”

Paddlers have clearly agreed: nearly 40 have completed the course more

than 20 times, and one of them, Ray Morris, has paddled all 31 years.

In 1999, Brian and Grace McDonnell assumed responsibility for the event

from the Saranac Chamber. Together, the couple runs Mac’s Canoe Livery and

the Adirondack Watershed Alliance (AWA), which promotes water sports and

stewardship on the waterways of the Adirondacks.

“In the 15 years we’ve run it, we’ve been full every year,” Grace McDonnell

said, a note of pride lacing her voice. She added that more of the larger boats

– C4s and war canoes – have increased the total number of participants.

The race follows the “canoe highway” of the Adirondacks, the same route

traveled for centuries by Native Americans, woodsmen, and settlers. Now the

route is discontinuous, with three timed legs.

“It’s doing something you love for three days in a beautiful place,” she said,

explaining the reasons the racers return year after year. “It’s a real community.”

By Katie Jickling

PHO

TO B

Y NA

NC

IE BATTA

GLIA

/ ILLUS

TRATIO

N B

Y NA

NC

Y BER

NS

TEIN


Inset: A 22-year-old hybrid larch in Maine.

Out on the water, we made our way along an inlet toward

First Lake in the Fulton Chain of Lakes. It would be the first of

11 lakes – 35 miles – to be covered that day. After a mile or so,

our rhythm steadied to about 75 strokes a minute. Every ten

or fifteen strokes, Ally would call out a short “Hut!” and we’d

switch the paddle to the opposite side of the boat. With practice,

we found the switch caused barely a hitch in our tempo; if we

timed it right, our paddles swung over the boat and dipped into

the surface of the water with mesmerizing synchrony.

The canoes thinned and some pulled out ahead, shrinking

to dark, blurred silhouettes in the fog ahead. We took our first

snack break after an hour, pausing one at a time for a rushed cup

of applesauce. Earlier that morning, we had duct-taped a battal-

ion of protein bars, bite-sized Snickers, and applesauce packets

to the sides of the boat in easily-accessible rows. We had been

advised to eat every half-hour, to ensure we’d consume at least

half the calories we’d burn.

“This isn’t so bad,” I told Ally. “Only seven more hours to go.”

We passed through First Lake and Second, then Third and

Fourth. The canoe cut through the polished surface of the water,

and, other than the gradual shifting of the landscape, our prog-

ress was hardly discernible.

The end of Fifth Lake marked our first of eight portages.

(Though Andrew Jillings, Hamilton’s director of outdoor leader-

ship and war canoe captain, had informed us that, “if you’re cool

and local, you call them carries.”)

The canoe’s keel grated against the sand, and we leapt onto

the muddy beach. We hoisted the canoe onto our shoulders

and marched off up the dirt path, stooping slightly under the

weight. The paddles and food rattled in the boat; as we moved

from the trail onto a paved road, Hamilton pit crew members

cheered us on. The canoe seemed to accumulate weight and

bulk as we walked, and we were glad to clamber back into the

boat at Sixth Lake.

Chris Woodward, who has volunteered with the Canoe

Classic for over twenty years and raced in it three times,

described the route as “the central waterway from south to

north for, oh, about 10,000 years.” Woodward, who has spent

most of his life on and near these waters, builds and repairs

Adirondack guideboats at his shop in Saranac Lake.

Before the settlers staked a claim on the rugged land, he

explained, the Native Americans were making use of the routes.

Day 1


The Mohawk hunted and fished in this area, spending summers

up on the St. Lawrence and traveling along the Adirondack

waterways to their wintering grounds on the Mohawk River.

Settlers and woodsmen made their way into the area starting

in the 1840s, and until the railroads came through the region in

the 1870s, rivers and lakes were the primary mode of transport.

“They went by water as much as possible,” Woodward said. “It’s

pretty hard going otherwise.”

We continued though the legendary Brown’s Tract, an infu-

riatingly narrow sequence of hairpin turns, where any wrong

maneuver left the canoe lodged amongst the water lilies. Perhaps

twenty canoes glided past as we thrashed in the shallows.

The Brown of Brown’s Tract, Woodward said, was a distant

relation of the namesake of Brown University in Rhode Island.

“He was given a tract of land. He was going to make a utopian

community, but it has pretty thin, acidic soils, so it didn’t go for

long,” he explained.

When we finally cleared Brown’s Tract, confident that the

end was a mere half-hour away, Ally and I envisioned the fin-

ish, rejoicing in the food, the warm clothes, the soft grass. We

didn’t catch sight of the final buoys for another two hours, how-

ever, long after our excitement had lapsed into frustration, then

weary and silent resignation. At some point, I did the math and

figured that by the end of the weekend, I would have paddled

nearly 100,000 strokes.

Day One finally ended at a grassy beach in Blue Mountain

State Park. The pit crew waded out to pull us up, and I collapsed

on shore in utter relief and fatigue.

That night, we stayed at a nearby campground, setting up a

small metropolis of tents spread across several sites. We gath-

ered at picnic tables to eat, emptying our bowls again and again.

Exhaustion and a sense of satisfied accomplishment lent an air

of joviality to the scene.

When darkness fell, Andrew, our leader, retrieved his pad-

dlers’ map and laid it out on the pine needles. The team circled

around and watched as, by headlamp, he outlined the route for

the following day with a stick, describing wind direction, land-

marks to watch for, and the terrain of each carry.

And then there was the perpetual retelling of the accumu-

lated 90-Miler folklore and stories. “You can’t say you’ve done

the 90 ’till you’ve peed in the boat,” a two-time racer informed

the group. “While still keeping pace.”

PHO

TOS

BY N

AN

CIE B

ATTAG

LIA


On Saturday morning, I awoke to an ache lodged

deeply in every muscle. Fog still lingered as we located

our boat amongst the golden, sprawling array. The start

line lay at the bottom of the aptly named Long Lake.

As we set off, the canoes seemed caught up in the

vastness of the surroundings – the forested swells that

rose from rocky black shores, the arcing swatches of

light that reflected off the wakes of other boats, the

sky that changed from pastels at the horizon to azure

overhead.

As they passed, canoers greeted or encouraged

one other, and I grew to recognize many of the boats,

though I never learned a single name.

“You girls must be experts at this!” one man called

to us from his solo canoe.

“Basically,” I replied, with a shrug and a half-smile.

“We’ve been doing this at least a week-and-a-half.”

It wasn’t much of an understatement. Ally and I had

practiced together just nine times since we had arrived

on campus in August. We had learned the short, vertical

stroke that would permit a pace of 70 strokes a minute,

lifting the blade from the water before it reached the

waist. The captains gradually learned to maneuver their

vessels, and in the bow, I learned to keep a rhythmic

pace. We learned to gauge each other’s preferences and

quirks, adjusting to the boat’s steering and balance.

After two-and-a-half hours on Long Lake, we

merged onto Raquette River. The canoes thinned to

single file, following the meandering oxbows.

After each curve stretched another curve. Cedar,

spruce, and beech crowded along the banks and arched

over the water, thick forests interspersed with reedy,

windswept marshes. Motion could hardly be detected

in the unhurried current, and the water faithfully

reflected the banks on each side.

We pulled up to the bank for the sole carry of the

day. A kayaker warned us that, at 1.25 miles, it was the

“worst part of the race.”

Ally and I hoisted the canoe up stone steps, joining

the procession of paddlers maneuvering their way up

nearly half-a-mile of steep, rocky trail. Partway up, we

heaved the canoe onto our shoulders, and the sharp

ridgeline of the hull dug into my already bruised col-

larbone. The waterbottles, food, and paddles shifted

toward the stern as we clambered and stumbled uphill,

and Ally let out a small groan. “Slow down a little.” We

descended, breathing hard, and eventually lurched our

way onto the beach, where a volunteer held out paper

cups of water and a platter of Twix bars.

It was a relief to paddle then, and we set off for the

last twelve or thirteen miles at a brisk pace.

We spent the night at Fish Creek Campground, a

few campsites away from where we would start the fol-

lowing day. We ate until we were bloated and collapsed

into our sleeping bags before 9 o’clock.

Day 2


ALEXA

ND

ER K

ERM

AN


On Day Three, we awoke early, to the same persistently bril-

liant sky. I taped my blistered fingers and shoveled down two

packets of instant oatmeal and a peanut butter sandwich, before

cleaning my bowl with green tea.

It was the shortest of the three days, 25 miles to the end of

Lower Saranac Lake. It would take, we were told, no longer than

six hours.

At the start, wave two moved en masse into the first of the

three Saranac Lakes. Soon a northeasterly wind picked up, shov-

ing the waves insolently against our canoe. Our exertions felt

fruitless; the far bank never seemed to grow closer and the canoe

paid no heed to our frantic efforts to keep it on its course.

On shore, families wrapped themselves in blankets to watch

from their camp docks. Some rang cow bells and shouted

encouragement as the canoes slipped by.

Two hours into the day, the eight-person war canoes caught

up to us, followed by a steady procession of C4s. Some passed

singing; others we’d recognize by their distinctive canoe decora-

tions, bumper stickers, or figureheads. Two paddlers, who later

claimed victory in the tandem guideboat division, wore coonskin

caps and called themselves Daniel Boone and Davy Crocket.

The guideboat, an oval-bottomed boat pointed on both ends,

evolved as the versatile and ubiquitous “pick-up truck” of the

Adirondacks in the mid-nineteenth century. Woodsmen needed

a boat sturdy enough to paddle to town or to transport supplies,

and light enough to carry between waterways. The boat typically

has overlapping slats along the sides and is rowed like a rowboat,

with space for a second paddler or passenger in back.

In the late 1800s, when tourism picked up in the Adirondacks,

wealthy families took the train up from downstate and stayed at

hotels along the lakes. The guideboats earned their name during

this period, as locals ferried hotel patrons to their lodging or

gave tours to hunting and fishing sites.

Once, on the choppy water of some interchangeable lake, I

called out to the coon-skinned pair, complimenting their head-

wear. They laughed, noting that the caps weren’t real; they had

bought them at a gas station on the drive down to Old Forge.

We struggled through three carries that day and navigated

our way up a meandering river, edged with ochre tamaracks.

Day 3Sometimes Ally and I talked – about our favorite foods, the

paddlers who passed us, or about ourselves. We learned to esti-

mate our progress by the number of snacks we had consumed

– an applesauce, two jellybeans, and a bite of Clif Bar since the

last carry.

“Look at you young whippersnappers!” a canoe of four

women called, as they paddled past in perfect uniformity.

“We’re old enough to be your grandmothers!”

We portaged over a lock, deposited the canoe back in the

water, and continued. Soon, we entered Lower Saranac Lake

and the scene spread out before us: “the best view on the route,”

Andrew had promised. Sure enough, the Adirondacks stood in

all their splendor, a collage of greens framed by the sky above

and reflected in the water below.

The final hours of the race condensed into a blur of exertion

and excitement. At last, we rounded the final corner, and as we

passed the buoys our time rang out over the speakers: 19:40:45.

I raised my paddle over my head with a broad grin.

Hands pulled me onto the boat launch, and I turned to throw

my arms around Ally. “We did it!” A flurry of awards and hap-

piness and food followed. The celebration reflected the deeply

entrenched culture of the 90-Miler: the solidarity of accom-

plishment, an over-abundance of chocolate milk, lively stories

that grew larger the more times they were told.

In the midst of the picnic blankets near the beach, I stretched

wearily out on the grass and let the sun warm my hair. Nearby

were Larry Sweeney, of Suffield, Connecticut, and canoe partner

Brian Finn, who’ve paddled this race 28 times. He and Finn live

several hours apart, and they can’t train like they used to. Still,

they have no plans to stop.

“I’m going to keep doing it until we don’t make the cut-off

time and they kick us out,” Sweeney said.

Katie Jickling is a resident of Brookfield, Vermont, and over the last five years has writ-

ten for several local and state news organizations. She is currently a senior at Hamilton

College and has signed up to paddle the 90-Miler for a second time in early September.

ALEXA

ND

ER K

ERM

AN

The author (arms raised) and paddling partner Ally Kontra celebrate the completion of

a 90-mile adventure.


A Consulting Forester can help youMarkus Bradley, Courtney Haynes, Ben Machin

Redstart Forestry

Juniper Chase, Corinth, VT 05039

(802) 439-5252

www.redstartconsulting.com

Anita Nikles Blakeman Woodland Care Forest Management P.O. Box 4, N. Sutton, NH 03260 (603) 927-4163 [email protected]

Herbert Boyce, ACF, CF Deborah Boyce, CF Northwoods Forest Consultants, LLC 13080 NYS Route 9N, Jay, NY 12941 (518) 946-7040 [email protected]

Gary Burch Burch Hill Forestry 1678 Burch Road, Granville, NY 12832 (518) 632-5436 [email protected]

Alan Calfee, Michael White Calfee Woodland Management, LLC P.O. Box 86, Dorset, VT 05251 (802) 231-2555 [email protected] www.calfeewoodland.com

Richard Cipperly, CF North Country Forestry 8 Stonehurst DrIve, Queensbury, NY 12804 (518) 793-3545 Cell: (518) 222-0421 [email protected]

Swift C. Corwin, Jr.

41 Pine Street, Peterborough, NH 03458 Swift Corwin: (603) 924-9908 John Calhoun: (603) 357-1236 Fax: (603) 924-3171 [email protected]

Daniel Cyr Bay State Forestry P.O. Box 205, Francestown, NH 03043 (603) 547-8804 baystateforestry.com

R. Kirby Ellis Ellis’ Professional Forester Services P.O. Box 71, Hudson, ME 04630 (207) 327-4674 ellisforestry.com

Charlie Hancock North Woods Forestry P.O. Box 405, Montgomery Center, VT 05471 (802) 326-2093 [email protected]

Make decisions about managing your forestland

Design a network of trails

Improve the wildlife habitat on your property

Negotiate a contract with a logger and supervise the job

Improve the quality of your timber

Paul Harwood, Leonard Miraldi Harwood Forestry Services, Inc. P.O. Box 26, Tunbridge, VT 05077 (802) 356-3079 [email protected]

Ben Hudson Hudson Forestry P.O. Box 83, Lyme, NH 03768 (603) 795-4535 [email protected]

M.D. Forestland Consulting, LLC (802) 472-6060 David McMath Cell: (802) 793-1602 [email protected] Beth Daut, NH #388 Cell: (802) 272-5547 [email protected]

Scott Moreau Greenleaf Forestry P.O. Box 39, Westford, VT 05494 (802) 343-1566 cell (802) 849-6629 [email protected]

Haven Neal Haven Neal Forestry Services 137 Cates Hill Road, Berlin, NH 03570 (603) 752-7107 [email protected]

David Senio P.O. Box 87, Passumpsic, VT 05861 (802) 748-5241 [email protected]

Jeffrey Smith Butternut Hollow Forestry 1153 Tucker Hill Road Thetford Center, Vermont 05075 (802) 785-2615

Jack Wadsworth, LPF, ME & NH Brian Reader, LPF, ME & NH Jesse Duplin, LPF, ME & NH Wadsworth Woodlands, Inc. 35 Rock Crop Way, Hiram, ME 04041 (207) 625-2468 [email protected] www.wadsworthwoodlands.com

Wayne Tripp

(315) 868-6503 [email protected]

Kenneth L. Williams Consulting Foresters, LLC 959 Co. Hwy. 33, Cooperstown, NY 13326 (607) 547-2386 Fax: (607) 547-7497

Fountain Forestry 7 Green Mountain Drive, Suite 3 Montpelier, VT 05602-2708 (802) 223-8644 ext 26 [email protected]

LandVest Timberland Management and Marketing ME, NH, NY, VT 5086 US Route 5, Suite 2, Newport, VT 05855 (802) 334-8402 www.landvest.com

Long View Forest Management Andrew Sheere

NRCS Technical Service Provider Westminster, VT 05158 (802) 428 4050 [email protected] www.longviewforest.com

Meadowsend Timberlands Ltd Jeremy G. Turner, NHLPF #318

P.O. Box 966, New London, NH 03257 (603) 526-8686 [email protected] www.mtlforests.com

New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts require foresters

to be licensed, and Connecticut requires they be certified.

Note that not all consulting foresters are licensed in each

state. If you have a question about a forester’s licensure or

certification status, contact your state’s Board of Licensure.


T H E O V E R S T O R Y

Pin Cherry Prunus pensylvanica

Once upon a time, there was a really bad native tree called pin cherry,

a species with no economic value that blanketed the forest floor fol-

lowing major disturbances, delaying the establishment of the more stately

and valuable trees that foresters love. But in recent years, this same tree’s

reputation has been redeemed and its salvation heralded. It’s even on its way

to being an ecological icon.

To identify it, start by separating cherry from not-cherry. This is easy if you

can taste a twig, for twigs of all the cherries have a bitter almond taste. And

distinguishing pin cherry from the other two

common cherries in the Northeast isn’t difficult:

chokecherry is just a shrubby shrub and its leaves are

broader, almost egg-shaped, unlike the rather slender leaves of

pin cherry and black cherry. Black cherry leaves are slender but almost

always have fuzz, ranging from white to reddish brown, on both sides of the mid-

rib on the underside of the leaf. Pin cherries are in a hurry and don’t have time for this

decorative touch. On thriving young pin cherry stems, the smooth mahogany-colored

bark almost glistens, contrasting sharply with horizontal bands of pale lenticels – it has

the best bark of the common cherries.

Following a clearcut or fire (the tree’s also called fire cherry), buried pin cherry seeds

sprout abundantly – 100,000 seedlings per acre is not unusual – even though there may

not have been a single pin cherry growing in the neighborhood for many decades. The

seeds are dispersed by birds (it’s sometimes called bird cherry, too), but it turns out

that most of the post-apocalyptic seedlings are from seeds that have been in the

soil since pin cherry last ruled the site, which might have been, believe it or not,

100 years ago. The factors that trigger this resurrection are not understood: is

it increased light, higher temperatures, a greater fluctuation in temperature,

some combination of these, or something else entirely?

In addition to being abundant, pin cherries are tough little pioneers.

At experimental plots in the White Mountain National Forest, seedlings

more than quadrupled in height over the two growing seasons of the study, and

only 2.5 percent of them died. Their rapid growth resulted in a closed canopy just a

few short years after the previous forest was removed. When this happens, rain no

longer splashes on bare soil, greatly reducing runoff because a huge amount of water

peacefully leaves the scene via evapotranspiration as the growing pin cherries take up

water from the upper layer of the soil.

Nutrients, meanwhile, are being incorporated into the leaves, wood, and roots of

these same cherries. These are money in the bank, for at the end of a pin cherry’s

30-year lifespan, these nutrients will be returned to the soil and borrowed again,

this time on a longer-term basis, by successor species such as sugar maple

and yellow birch.

Searching for a reason for the tree’s short lifespan,

researchers fertilized pin cherry stands in the White

Story by Virginia Barlow

Illustrations by Adelaide Tyrol


Mountains and found that pin cherry’s dominance could be prolonged

by applying nutrients. This suggests that this nitrogen-hungry pioneer

may die because it can’t compete for resources when species like sugar maple and

beech begin to get a foothold.

The forest has no interest in producing sugar maple sawlogs – this 30-year

delay is only noticed by us humans. But what the forest does seem to be single-

mindedly focused on is conserving resources, and here pin cherry plays its role

to perfection.

This species flowers and produces seeds beginning at age four – which is per-

haps not out of line considering that its life span is quite compressed for a tree.

Each white flower is on a single stalk, unlike the flowers of chokecherry and

black cherry, which have many flowers on each stalk. They supply pollen and nectar

to insects, especially bees. Birds also benefit from pin cherry fruits, for this little tree

fruits extravagantly. In one study, a 15-year-old stand of pin cherry ripened 1,118,000

fruits per acre. An analysis of forest soils in New Hampshire found from 140,000 to

450,000 viable buried pin cherry seeds per acre.

Pin cherry is absent in mature forests, and before Europeans settled here it was

probably quite a rare tree. Biologists think that in those times before clearcutting,

catastrophic pin cherry-producing events occurred naturally every several hundred to

a thousand years in the forests of the Northeast.

Fortunately for us and the birds, pin cherry doesn’t only crop up in large openings.

Field edges, roadsides, and the borders of yards often grow in to pin cherry, and these

trees may well have birds to thank for dispersing seeds widely and at random. More

than 25 bird species eat the fruits, including grouse, flicker, all the woodpeckers, great-

crested flycatcher, many thrushes, cedar waxwings, catbirds, and bluebirds. Moose and

deer browse the foliage.

Pin cherry does have its aesthetic downsides. It is often the target

of a fungus called black knot of cherry. Unsightly, dark, misshapen

blobs in the branches give the impression that somebody has

flung the contents of a pooper-scooper into the tree. This

disease affects the other cherry species, as well, but

doesn’t attack other trees.

Eastern tent caterpillars, the moth

larvae that make the mistake of having

very visible, woven communal dwellings, thus calling attention to

themselves, sometimes defoliate cherries. But the pesticides

that are lavished on them may affect beneficial insects as well and tent

caterpillars are early season insects: if defoliated, the trees usually have

time to put out a new set of leaves.

So, it turns out that pin cherry, even though small, weak-wooded, and insubstantial,

does get to spend some time on center stage – if only between the acts, and perhaps as

more of a character actor than in a leading role.


By Kristen Fountain

MA

INE FO

RES

T RA

NG

ERS


At first, Beverly Kaiser and her husband Phillip were pleased

when a father-and-son logging team stopped by their house in

Washington, Vermont, in late August 2008. Ken Bacon Sr. and

Jr. of Barton, Vermont, told the Kaisers they had just finished

working a job nearby. Since their equipment was in the area, the

men offered to cut down the taller trees on the couple’s property,

which partially blocked a panoramic mountain view. The next

day, the Kaisers, then retirees in their late 60s, signed a simple

handwritten contract that said nothing more than the price the

company would pay them per log removed.

For the first few weeks, the Kaisers received the money

they expected. Then the payments stopped coming. And when

the Bacons finally pulled out their equipment in late October,

Beverly Kaiser said, the woods were a muddy mess: rutted skid-

der trails, flattened culverts, ditches blocked by slash piles, and

a severely eroded brook. According to her 2010 court statement,

most of the trees planted around the Kaisers’ pond, which they

told the loggers not to touch, were gone; the rest had been cut

and left where they dropped. The Bacons also took several trees

from a neighbor’s property, an area from which she also recalled

warning them away.

“They never did cut the large group of tall trees we especially

wanted cut for the view,” Beverly Kaiser wrote. “They seemed to

choice cut what they wanted and the ones in their way.”

A small claims case against the company would subsume the

couple for the next three years. Although the verdict was in the

Kaiser’s favor, almost six years later an award has not been paid.

The Kaisers were one of at least six landowners in four

Vermont counties who filed civil or small claims complaints

against the Bacons between 2007 and 2011. Two cases were

settled out of court; one was dismissed for procedural reasons.

Of the remaining three, all were decided for the plaintiff. The

court concluded that the Kaisers were owed $4,500. For another

couple in Caledonia County, damages topped $23,000.

Meanwhile, starting in 2008, the Vermont Department of

Environmental Conservation pursued the Bacons for envi-

ronmental violations at several other logging jobs. Over the

next five years, Bacon Timber Harvesting racked up almost

$41,000 in fines stemming from judgments in three state cases,

compounded by ongoing non-payment. In early 2010, a court

ordered the Bacons to notify the agency whenever they planned

to start a new logging operation in the state. But they have

ignored that order and continue to find work from unsuspecting

landowners.

Today, Gary Kessler, chief of the Vermont department’s

enforcement division, is frustrated. The Bacons and their com-

pany hold no assets that the state can seize and there are no tax

returns to garnish, he said. He and his colleagues now believe

that their activities are in a category beyond his department’s

jurisdiction.

“Our agency doesn’t consider the Bacons loggers,” he said. “This

is a criminal enterprise that just happens to occur by logging.”

So far, Kessler has been unable to convince any state prosecu-

tor to file criminal charges. “I’ve tried to encourage cases like

this to go forward, but it’s been difficult,” he said. Because the

Bacons have the landowners’ permission to cut on their proper-

ties, the outcome is usually seen not as theft or fraud, but as a

breach of contract, a matter for the civil courts.

“If somebody kicked down the front door of your house and

took your TV and your jewelry” it would obviously be a theft,

Kessler said. “If somebody steals a whole bunch of trees, it’s

looked at as, ‘they had an agreement and did it by mistake.’”

That attitude does not surprise forester Richard Carbonetti,

head of the timberlands division of LandVest, a regional

consulting and property management company and a Northern

Woodlands board member.

Until recently, the only timber theft cases that went to crimi-

nal court in northern New England were those involving blatant

trespassing, when loggers had no business being on a property

at all. “The legal system has been very uninterested or unwilling

to deal with this as a theft in a criminal sense,” Carbonetti said.

“It is often presented by the loggers as a misunderstanding.”

In New York, as well as Vermont, this is still largely true. If

loggers have been contracted to do a job, then take more trees

than agreed upon or fail to pay full value for the logs they take,

they are difficult to prosecute, said Ken Bruno, a lieutenant

with New York’s Bureau of Environmental Crime Investigation.

“Those are very difficult and are decided on a case-by-case

scenario, based on the facts,” he said. “Most [district attorneys]

are hesitant to get involved when there is a contract.”

In those instances, landowners are left to try to seek justice

and recompense at their own expense. Unfortunately, a civil case,

even when successful, often does not yield much satisfaction,

as the Kaisers discovered.

New Laws and a New Attitude in New Hampshire and MaineAll four northern New England states have civil laws to

protect landowners against unscrupulous loggers. They allow

for recovery of at least triple the value of logs removed without

the owner’s permission, as well as reimbursement for the full

cost of repairs from damage to the property. The problem with

the laws, though, is that some loggers are able to avoid paying

for verdicts against them by putting their equipment and other

assets in a family member’s name. And as the old saying goes,

you can’t get blood from a stone.

In response, Maine and New Hampshire have enacted stricter

regulations for logging contracts and sales, making it harder

to transport and sell stolen lumber. Also, criminal prosecutors

in those states no longer hesitate to bring felony cases against

rogue loggers, particularly habitual offenders. A guilty verdict

can result in a year or more in prison, serious fines, and tens of

thousands of dollars in restitution for landowners.

“If somebody kicked down the front door of your house and took your TV and your jewelry it would obviously be a theft.

If somebody steals a whole bunch of trees, it’s looked at as, ‘they had an agreement and did it by mistake.’”


Take as an example the recent case of Andrew Pysz of

Newport, New Hampshire. Like the Bacons, he has a long paper

trail of fines stemming from environmental violations and log-

ging disputes in the civil courts. In January 2014, Pysz pleaded

guilty to two counts of deceptive forestry business practices,

which has been a felony in New Hampshire since the late 1990s.

He spent almost five months in the state prison in Concord.

Placed in a home confinement program in May, he’ll now wear

an ankle monitor for up to four years. Also, because of a 2011

law that allows a court to set “enhanced penalties,” Pysz has been

permanently banned from logging in the state.

“We have come quite a long ways in the last 10 to 15 years,”

said Brad Simpkins, chief of forest protection for the New

Hampshire Division of Forests and Lands. “We now have

county attorney’s offices that are absolutely right on board with

prosecuting a timber case.”

These changes occurred gradually. Forestry officials describe a

two-pronged approach: enactment of new laws that clarify what

counts as a logging crime and deliberate outreach and education

to lawmakers, prosecutors, and judges about the problem. At the

same time, rangers and others in the business began informing

landowners about the new legal resources and continued to advise

them on how to protect themselves from predatory logging.

“There has been a continual evolution of the law and tools in

terms of prosecution,” explained Bill Hamilton, chief ranger for

the Maine Forest Service. “The vast majority of people who work

in the timber industry are very honest. We’ve worked pretty hard

over the last decade to protect landowners from that very, very

small group out there that tries to take advantage,” he said.

Both states have an advantage over Vermont and New York

in that they employ a cadre of forest rangers who are trained

in law enforcement and focus solely on forest concerns. The

rangers act as the front lines in investigating timber theft and

bringing cases to the attention of district and county attorneys’

offices. Maine’s Forest Service employs more than 65 rangers

under Hamilton’s command. There are 16 forest rangers report-

ing to Simpkins in New Hampshire.

New York, too, has a longstanding corps of forest rangers. But

they get involved in timber theft only when it occurs on public

land. Otherwise, it falls under the purview of the 40-odd officers

with the state’s Bureau of Environmental Crime Investigation,

part of the New York Environmental Conservation Police – a

team that is also responsible for enforcing the gamut of envi-

ronmental laws in the state, from those involving endangered

species to water quality. Similarly, eight civilian investigators

handle logging irregularities in Vermont, but they also respond

to a litany of other environmental violations, including those

involving salvage yards and underground storage tanks.

In Maine and New Hampshire, changes in laws and atti-

tudes were just as important as more manpower, officials said.

According to Hamilton, “timber was treated differently than

other assets” for a long time. Changing that “has been an edu-

cational process for us.”

One important step in boosting oversight of logging activi-

ties has been the establishment of reporting requirements for

all commercial timber harvests. Vermont now requires noti-

fication and approval of large cuts – 40 acres or more. In con-

trast, Maine mandates reporting of all harvests that span more

than two acres, unless the wood is solely for the landowner’s

use, and that notification must include a cutting plan describ-

ing the type and location of trees to be removed. Since the late

1990s, all logs transported through Maine must carry a trip

ticket naming the owner of the land it came from and the log-

ger who cut it. Mills must provide timber sellers with stumpage

sheets upon delivery, and the logger must provide copies to the

landowner at the time of payment.

The next step was establishing penalties for not following the

rules. Maine law requires that loggers pay landowners within

45 days, unless a timeline is otherwise specified in a contract.

Failure to pay within that timeframe, regardless of intent, results

in fines. The third incident of nonpayment within a five-years

period is treated as a crime with up to six months of jail time

attached. State law also defines timber “theft by deception” as

a form of theft subject to the state’s criminal larceny laws. For

values over $10,000 that means up to 10 years in prison.

Simpkins describes a similar evolution in laws and attitudes

in New Hampshire. “It has taken some time, years of working

with them for the courts to start becoming familiar with the

value of wood and county attorneys to start becoming comfort-

able with how to prosecute the case,” he said.

In New Hampshire, an “intent to cut” announcement must

be signed by the logger and filed with a landowner’s municipal-

ity. The paperwork is then forwarded to the state’s Division of

Forests and Lands. The requirement is waived in a few circum-

stances: harvests of up to 10,000 board feet cut for the construc-

tion of buildings on the owner’s property; harvests of up to 20

cords of firewood for use on site by the landowner; or where the

cutting is done for the purpose of development.

New Hampshire law defines the “reckless” felling of trees as

criminal. If the trees cut are worth less than $1,000, the crime is

a misdemeanor. Over that amount, the act is treated as a lower-

level felony, with the possibility of up to seven-and-a-half years

in jail and up to five years of probation.

Under New Hampshire’s “deceptive forest practices” law,

loggers can also be found guilty of a misdemeanor if they “reck-

lessly” fail to provide a written contract to the

landowner. The contract must describe the

agreed upon amount the landowner

will be paid for a set number of logs

and when that payment is due. Other

behavior – “recklessly” taking more

logs than specified, not paying for

“There has been a continual evolution of the law and tools in terms of prosecution,” explained

Bill Hamilton, chief ranger for the Maine Forest Service. “The vast majority of people who work

in the timber industry are very honest. We’ve worked pretty hard over the last decade to protect

landowners from that very, very small group out there that tries to take advantage,” he said.


logs taken, not providing scale slips for the wood taken, or falsi-

fying scale slips – are misdemeanors if the resulting loss is worth

less than $1,000 and a lower-level felony if it’s worth more.

Recently, both state legislatures have fine-tuned their tim-

ber theft laws to target habitual offenders. A Maine law from

2013 requires all loggers with more than two civil violations of

“unlawful cutting” to seek written permission from the division

of forestry and, more importantly, to be bonded for a minimum

of $500,000 dollars before starting any new harvest. The law

gives forest rangers the authority to issue stop-work orders if

one or both requirements are not met.

In New Hampshire, a law from 2011 addresses loggers who

frequently run afoul of civil and criminal law. It allows for

enhanced civil penalties of up to $10,000 along with “any other

injunctive relief deemed necessary by the court,” including a life-

time prohibition against filing “intent to cut” notices in the state.

In both states, the odds are better for a criminal conviction

than they are in Vermont or New York. In Maine, rangers investi-

gate hundreds of cases of timber trespass and theft every year. Of

those, several dozen are prosecuted in criminal court. State law

also allows district attorneys to take weaker cases to civil court,

sparing landowners the expense. In New Hampshire, the state’s

16 forest rangers responded to 163 complaints of timber theft in

2013, according to Simpkins. Roughly half resulted in an action,

ranging in seriousness from a written warning to fines and cease-

and-desist orders. Five cases led to felony indictments.

In contrast, in New York, the conservation police receive

an average of 50 timber theft complaints in a year, though the

annual tally has been as high as 95. Vermont received six forest

resource-related complaints in 2013 and 20 in 2012. Twelve

were found to be true violations, but only eight resulted in for-

mal administrative action. Kessler said only one case in recent

memory has gone to criminal court.

Smart Steps for LandownersDespite the new laws in New Hampshire and Maine, there

are still many situations in which it is unclear if a crime

has occurred, officials said. Mistakes and miscommunication

between landowners and loggers do occur.

Landowners anywhere can take several steps to protect them-

selves, Carbonetti said. The most important is to ensure that

your boundary line is surveyed and clearly marked prior to cut-

ting in the area. A written contract that includes a cutting plan,

a payment schedule, and the expectation that loggers will follow

best management practices is also essential. Several models of

standard agreements can be found online, and most consulting

foresters will work to customize a contract for a particular job.

Finally, in most cases, it is worth the fee many times over to

engage a professional forester to assist in planning and carrying

out the harvest, Carbonetti said. Any good forester will be very

familiar with the loggers in the region and will know those with

bad reputations by name. “If you have a forester, they never get

in the door,” he said.

Kristen Fountain is a freelance writer living in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

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From the top: Gathering evidence in an illegal timber cutting case. One of the many

incidents of timber theft investigated by the Maine Forest Rangers; in this case,

summons were issued to the suspected thieves. Maine Forest Rangers check for trip

tickets, which must accompany all loads of logs in the state and name the owner of

the land the wood came from and the logger who cut it.


Soft ServeAutumn’s Unheralded Mast Species

By Susan C. Morse

he word mast is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and originally described an

abundance of acorns on the forest floor, eagerly devoured by domestic

swine. The Old German root meant “to be fat,” and Fagus, the Latin genus name

for the beeches, is from the Greek phagein, meaning “to eat.” For animals facing

food shortages and the energy-sapping hardships of a long winter’s deep snow

and cold, to be fat is crucial.

Today, when we refer to mast we mean seeds – the ripened ovules of trees,

shrubs, and woody vines. Technically, mast includes all fruit, the structures that enclose

and operate to disperse the seeds therein, including nuts, nutlets, berries, drupes, pomes,

pods, and samaras.

Anyone who spends time in the woods has witnessed the bumper mast years, when

trees across whole regions produce prodigious quantities of seeds. Ecologists in California

discovered that in a good year, a single blue oak tree may produce ten times its annual

average of acorns – over 100,000 nuts. The same tree will produce few or possibly no nuts

at all during a bust year. Measured across hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles,

interspecific synchronized masting involving millions of trees, all producing an excess of

seeds – or not – has profound effects on all that live there, affecting population dynamics,

fitness, ecosystem functions, and evolution.

Plant ecologists, zoologists, and naturalists have pondered exactly what factor (or

combination of factors) causes this. A leading theory is that climate conditions stimulate

trees to mast in synchrony across vast expanses of habitat. El Niño and its influences

upon ocean currents, wind, temperatures, and precipitation may trigger masting cycles

on geographic scales.

But why do individual trees invest such huge resources into casting multitudinous

seeds to the wind? Ecologists have acknowledged that some sort of economy of scale

is at work; presumably, periodic huge vegetative investments diverted to reproductive

output instead of growth are more efficient than smaller annual efforts. “Predation satia-

tion” is regarded as another cause. Seed-eaters are periodically swamped by a masting

season’s over-abundance of seeds, many of which escape consumption and grow new

plants instead. Conversely, years of low or nonexistent seed production keep seed-eaters

in check and cause declines in their numbers. This is a fascinating concept because it is

during these bust years that animal dispersal and colonization of new habitats takes place.

Thirty-eight years of season-to-season wildlife studies in northern Vermont’s Green

Mountain foothills has enabled me to appreciate that the sudden arrival of gray squirrels

and wild turkeys in my study area during the early 1980s corresponded with disastrously

low acorn and beechnut mast crops in the Champlain Basin lowlands. Walter Koenig and

Johannes Knops describe these masting impacts upon animal populations as “ecosystem-

wide domino effects” – effects that reverberate through countless organisms at various

levels in the food chain.

While the oaks, hickories, and beech trees get most of the press, the reproductive capac-

ity and variability of other mast-producing plants – in particular, the shrubs and woody

vines – is no less important. Across whole landscapes these diverse species contribute tons

upon tons of fruits and seeds to the forest’s cornucopia – often when the masters have quit

for the year. Here are some of the more unheralded stars of the show. Bohemian waxwings sharing a meal.


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Hawthorn Crataegus spp.

In reverting pastures throughout the Northeast and Canada, the

wide-spreading, flat-topped hawthorn trees stand in sweltering

heat waves with all the grace and grandeur of acacias on the

east African plain. Smooth, sharp-pointed thorns bristling from

zig-zagging branches keep humans away, though wildlife dive

in for the “pommettes,” which do indeed look like little apples.

I have seen sign of black bears, porcupines, and raccoons

feeding within a hawthorn’s thorny fortress, and I have no

doubt that fishers, gray foxes, and opossums partake, as well.

Numerous species of birds enjoy these marvelous little fruits.

Back in the sixties, many a mountain dirt road in Vermont

was still rural, with only occasional deer camps and tumbled-

down remains of long abandoned farmhouses and barns. I

loved walking along a certain network of such roads in the

Worcester Mountains. One autumn day, I was photograph-

ing a handsome hawthorn, resplendent with yellow and red

miniature apple-like fruits. An older gentleman (no doubt of

the vintage who could remember actually farming these now

forested hills), stopped his battered old truck beside me. “What

cha lookin’ at?” was all he said. I enthusiastically babbled on,

sharing all the virtues of this fine tree and its bounteous fruit.

“Damnable tire puncture trees!” was all he replied before he

drove away. 1

Beaked Hazelnut Corylus Spp.

Resembling an odd cross between speckled alder and yel-

low birch saplings, the multi-stemmed thickets of beaked

hazelnut proliferate along roadside and field edge habitats.

The pale green, fuzzy looking, beaked hazelnut fruits are

unique. Paired fruits are encased in bristly bracts that

completely enclose each oval nut on one end, with the

opposite end culminating in a long beak-like structure. Peel

the bracts away and you will find a filbert-like nut inside,

which is delicious, sweet, and much like the commercial

filberts we enjoy in fancy nut mixes. But who actually gets to

harvest many of these wonderful nuts in the wild? Certainly

not us. Chipmunks, squirrels, fishers, raccoons, bears, jays,

crows, hairy woodpeckers, grouse, and turkeys get there

first. 2

Red Osier Dogwood Swida sericea

(formerly Cornus stolonifera)

The crimson-colored twigs and shoots of red osier dogwood are spectacular, both in autumn and again in spring. Fruit clusters are white, off-white, or grayish-blue. Dozens of bird species and small mammals enjoy the fruit as well as this plant’s exceptional concealment cover and nesting opportunities. I have found evidence of this species’ drupes in bear and fox fecal matter and have watched wild turkeys

and crows eating the fruit, as well. 3

1

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Eastern Red Cedar Juniperus virginiana

Punctuating old field pastures with their youthful spires, or

their mature irregular crowns, the “invading” red cedars

are not cedars at all; they are our only tree form juniper.

Throughout temperate North America, eastern red cedars

and their related cousins are spread by the birds and

mammals that eat their “berries,” which are actually cones.

Nearly 30 species of birds in our region consume them, as

do numerous mammals, including red and gray squirrels,

red and gray foxes, chipmunks, coyotes, fishers, and black

bears. I once conducted an experiment and proved that scat-

scarified juniper seeds resulted in higher germination rates.

I suspect this is because mastication and digestion does

a great job of removing the waxy, resinous fruit covering

and prepares the seed to germinate. 4

Highbush-Cranberry Viburnum opulus

WinterberryIlex verticillata

Of the many colorful fruits out there, the winter appear-

ance of highbush-cranberry and winterberry excite me the

most. In his marvelous book Winter World, Bernd Heinrich

observed that the fruits of these shrubs are not of interest

in the fall and hang untouched for months – then to be

suddenly eaten to the last berry by some passing flock of

birds. Robins, waxwings, crows, and chickadees will feed on

them, especially for the late winter fuel these fruits provide.

I’ve found flat, disk-shaped seeds of Viburnum trilobum in

spring bear scats and once deciphered a curious arrange-

ment of canine rear-end and jumping-feet impressions in

the snow. A coyote had repeatedly sat and studied her prize

before springing upwards to get to the clusters of frosty

cranberrybush fruits that were tantalizing and just out of

reach. 5 6

Mountain HollyIlex mucronata

(formerly Nemopanthus mucronatus)

Nestled among dark green wetland thickets, the mountain

holly shrubs catch the eye. Clusters of pendulous berry-like

drupes look like satin ornaments and hang from equally lovely

purple-red pedicels. The beauty is fleeting, though, because

the fruits are totally gone within a week or two. I have seen five

different avian species eagerly working them over at differ-

ent times: black-capped chickadee, robin, brown thrasher,

hermit thrush, and red-eyed vireo. Bear, fox, and coyote

feces reveal undigested nutlets from the drupes. 7

5

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Staghorn Sumac Rhus hirta (formerly Rhus typhina)

The sumac’s compact clusters of red berries are a boon to

wildlife, especially in late winter. Eighteen species of birds are

known to consume the seeds within the clusters, both winter

residents and returning spring migrants alike. But no account

I have ever read lists the species that I once saw incongru-

ously perching upon staghorn sumac limbs while pecking

and probing with its long bill to get at the fruits. An April

blizzard had buried Maine’s Cliff Island in two-and-a-half-

feet of heavy wet snow, and the American woodcock that

had arrived there a week earlier suddenly found themselves

with no access to the soil for foraging. The sumacs’ berry

spikes were the only game in town and kept them busy and

apparently satisfied. 8

Black Elderberry Sambucus nigra (formerly Sambucus canadensis)

The flowers and early fruit sets of red elderberry are attrac-

tive harbingers of what is to come. For dozens of birds and

mammals, this shrub is a sure winner. For country folks,

like my grandfather, the purple fruits of black elder were

reverently used to make elderberry wine during Prohibition

and the Depression. Some 30 years later, when I was in my

teens, I remember him bringing to the dinner table his last

dusty bottle from the batch he proclaimed had been his

best. Though it was musty, with a vinegary finish, the elder-

berries’ flavor was still there, bequeathing to our family’s

celebration a deep and unspoken empathy for hard times,

frugality, and for the enduring wonder and joy that this plant

provides. 9

American Hornbeam Carpinus caroliniana

Hophornbeam Ostrya virginiana

Both of these small, unassuming understory trees are

members of the birch family and have attractive hop-like

arrangements of their fruit, but the similarity ends there.

Hophornbeam’s fruit is a tiny, flattish nut that is enclosed

within a bladder-like sac. More than a dozen seed sacs

are arranged in overlapping clusters that resemble hops.

American hornbeam’s small ribbed nut is attached to the

base of a cluster of three-lobed bracts that hang down

and partially cover each seed. The hop-like fruits of both

species’ bracts gradually weaken in the winter winds and

weather, mercifully releasing their seeds to be savored on

the snow pack by numerous small mammals and birds. Over

40 species of birds consume the seeds, including common

mergansers, wood ducks, and mallards. 10 11

8

9

10

11


Nannyberry Viburnum lentago

Supposedly named for the wet goat odor of its fruit

and flowers, nannyberry is the largest of our viburnums.

Robust plants may even appear tree-like; sturdy trunks

may rise to 30 feet or more. Its berry-like fruits mature

to be bluish-black, elliptical drupes that resemble raisins,

especially when dried and shriveled. Over a dozen species

of birds enjoy this fruit in late summer and throughout the

winter. I once admired a pair of eastern bluebirds feeding

on the drupes, and cedar waxwings will regularly flock in

for the harvest. This species, along with hobblebush and

other viburnums, feed mammals, as well, including mice,

chipmunks, squirrels, snowshoe hares, foxes, coyotes, and

black bears. 12

Black Cherry Prunus serotina

Chokecherry Prunus virginiana

Much attention is paid to the wildlife food values of nut-

meats, especially beechnuts and acorns. However, I am

convinced that the summer-to-fall fruit harvests provided

by wild cherries comprise an overlooked mainstay in the

diets of numerous birds and mammals. Given the sheer

abundance of cherry seeds one finds in all sorts of animal

droppings, the nutritional contributions of cherries must

be great indeed. In our managed forests, as well as field-

edge farm habitats, all sun-loving cherry species should be

released, and competing crowns of other trees thinned, so

that these mast producers may prosper and produce even

more fruit. 13 14

Common Juniper Juniperus communis

Grazing cows judiciously wend their way among ever-

proliferating “fairy circles,” the name old English farmers

have given this juniper, due to its habit of growing in circular

prickly clumps. Though it would seem likely that only the

charmed could penetrate to the center of these sharp-

needled fairy circles, a fair number of our wildlife neighbors

find them quite passable. Small mammals benefit from the

common juniper’s impenetrable cover, and many birds and

mammals, including cedar waxwings, jays, robins, red squir-

rels, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, and black bears enjoy the

powdery blue to blackish-blue fruits. They either eat them

whole, or meticulously remove the pulp and eat the seeds,

as does the familiar chickadee. 15

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Approximately 8,000 years ago, a period of global warming called the Hypsithermal Interval stimulated timber

rattlesnakes to move north from the vicinity of Long Island. They followed river corridors – the Delaware, the

Hudson, the Connecticut, the Housatonic, the Merrimack – and eventually reached southern Quebec and

southwestern Maine. Wherever passageways in bedrock or talus led to frost-free winter retreats, the snakes

established colonies. They had an eye for real estate. Indeed, they’re landscape connoisseurs: rising above

lakes and rivers and green sprawling valleys like so many solar panels, snake dens face the sun and hold heat

on chilly October afternoons. Today, rattlesnakes thrive where the human population is sparse – land that is

wide-open, wind-swept, and remote. And like Beethoven, who couldn’t hear the sound of the very music he

composed, timber rattlesnakes can’t see the view from where they live. They’re as myopic as Mr. Magoo.

In the Northeast, den-site fidelity is the hallmark of rattlesnake survival. Each fall, they return to their

maternal den as directly as a Bicknell’s thrush might return to a particular hillside forest in Hispaniola. When

a well-muscled rattlesnake migrates home, it doesn’t undulate in loops and curves as it does when it’s

swimming; it flows in a straight line like melting candle wax, belly scales caressing the ground, a thousand

little pseudo-feet. Slow … slower … slowest. On a windless afternoon the vague sound of scales brushing

leaves gives them away.

Lethargic and predictable and as breathtakingly beautiful as the scenery around them, timber rattlesnakes

vary in color from the blackest black to golden yellow. Some are mustard-colored, others are olive or brown

or tawny or charcoal gray. Neonates are shades of exfoliated granite. Adults and young have crossbands or

chevrons or blotches (or all three) that range in hue from black to gray, chocolate to tan or olive-yellow, and

are rimmed (or not) by overexposed yellow or white. Some snakes have a broken, rust-colored, dorsal stripe,

a feature that becomes prominent in these animals in the Southeast. Others are patternless black, as dark

as an inner tube. Coiled in a bed of October leaves, a timber rattlesnake hides in plain sight unless it rattles,

which can be electrifying.

I keep vigil at a den, counting, always counting snakes: a yellow morph, a black morph, a young-of-the-year,

a three-year-old, an adult female with a broken ten-segment, untapered rattle – that sort of thing. I note air

temperature, rock temperature, snake temperature, cloud cover, and wind speed and direction. Last year,

in late August, a few snakes returned to the threshold of the den; more arrived in September. The number

peaked in early October, when I tallied more than 80 in one day. I followed two big snakes as they progressed

through rock-studded woods to the base of a ledge and then watched them disappear down a crevice. Later

that afternoon, when I stood quietly in front of the den’s main portal, a dozen snakes glided by; others poured

over the stone rim and then braided themselves together inside the rock foyer before they vanished into the

abyss. Two weeks later, I found only three, including a newborn en route to the slumber party.

I don’t spend winters underground below the frost line and I stopped basking decades ago, but sun-

warmed rocks feel good to me, particularly when the air is cool and the day short. I go to the slopes to

watch rattlesnakes, and I stay until the rocks cool off and autumn’s last whit of heat draws the snakes

down below the surface. Like a rain of maple leaves or a flock of migrating geese, the doings of rattle-

snakes in October mark a season in transition, the subtlest of autumnal tides.

The snakes at my study site ignore me. I never touch them. I bear witness, my movements ratcheted down

to a tic. For the most part, they treat me with indifference. One crossed over my boot. Another moved

directly to the rock I stood on; deliberately and delicately, lifted its head above the far edge, flicked its

informative tongue half a dozen times, and then proceeded to the den.

Here, in the corrugated Northeast, live a few rattlesnakes born the summer the Beatles released Hey Jude; at

least one 40-year-old still bears young. Unfortunately, timber rattlesnakes remain vulnerable to vandals and col-

lectors. With the aid of a GPS followed by a website announcement, even a well-meaning hiker who stumbles

onto a pod of rattlesnakes and then broadcasts exuberance, could be the unwitting vehicle of their demise.

To paraphrase the 1950s television show Dragnet: Ladies and gentlemen, the story you have just read is

true. Only the locations have been eliminated to protect the innocent. In this case, the timber rattlesnakes.

America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake, to be published (2015) by University of

Chicago Press, explores the intersection between timber rattlesnakes and humanity.

PHOTOS BY JORDAN LEVIN


Timber RattlesnakesBy Ted Levin

In New England, timber rattlesnake colors come in yellow, black, and many shades and patterns in between.


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If John Griffin had a theme song to describe his life, it might

very well be Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.” Griffin’s busi-

ness, Old Standard Wood, is headquartered in Fulton, Missouri,

but he spends as much as five months on the road each year in

search of high-quality spruce logs that can be processed into

parts for stringed musical instruments. Over the past 30 years,

he has looked at thousands of standing spruce trees, inspected

thousands more logs, sawed and dried spruce lumber, studied

and repaired instruments, and played guitars and violins made

with spruce tops. It is just possible that Griffin knows spruce

better than anyone.

Red spruce, often referred to as “Adirondack spruce” in

the music business, is prized for its light weight, stiffness, and

excellent tonal qualities. It has been traditionally used for the

soundboards (tops) of guitars, mandolins, violins, and other

stringed instruments. Most pre-World War II American guitars

were made with red spruce tops and are still considered, by

many, to be some of the best sounding guitars ever made. After

the war, old-growth Sitka spruce from the Pacific Northwest

became more available and red spruce fell out of favor. Sitka

logs are larger, as well as easier and cheaper to process, and have

desirable creamy white wood with tight growth rings. But many

instrument makers and musicians, Griffin included, firmly

believe that a red spruce top simply sounds better.

On a recent log buying trip to an undisclosed (trade secret)

location in the Northeast, he pulled into a sawmill’s log yard with

his one-ton Dodge truck towing a trailer. He stepped out of the

truck, lit a cigarette, and began eyeballing a huge pile of spruce

logs before walking over for a closer look. An intelligent, inquisi-

tive businessman, Griffin is normally soft spoken, mellow, and

unhurried. He’s direct and speaks with an easy, slight southern

drawl. In the presence of quality spruce logs, though, he becomes

animated and intense as he carefully assesses each log.

Coming back to the truck, he grabbed a can of black spray

paint out of the toolbox, headed back for the pile, and marked

the butts of several promising logs. Griffin is a regular visitor to

this sawmill and the log yard operator, Craig, soon approached,

exchanged greetings, and fired up the log loader. He began

pulling out some of the marked logs for closer inspection. As

Craig swung out an enormous 16-foot-long butt log, Griffin was

already shaking his head. “He’s all twisted, no good.” (Griffin

refers to all spruce logs and trees as “he.”) Another was brought

out, this one a little smaller in diameter, but “straight as a gun

barrel” and clear. “He’s a bullet,” remarked Griffin excitedly. It

was set down in front of him and out came a big Stihl chainsaw

with a 32-inch bar. He cut a clean inch-thick cookie off the butt

of the log so he could more clearly see the growth rings and the

color of the wood.

FIELD work

By Ross Caron

At Work Searching for Sweet-Sounding Spruce with John Griffin


Most spruce trees of this size are 150-200 years old, with

some occasionally reaching 300 years. To the experienced eye,

the pattern of the rings on each log tells a story. Griffin pointed

out where, after many years of suppressed growth, the tree

broke through the canopy and began putting on size. He noted

the three-inch-wide sapwood and the slowing of growth, but

decided that the tree was still healthy when it was harvested. He

explained that some trees, reaching for the sun, will twist, usu-

ally to the right. A spruce growing on a steep slope would have

wider rings on the downhill side. This type of wood is abnormal

and called compression wood, making anything sawn out of

such an area unsuitable for instrument tops.

Griffin broke the cookie into pieces, held it up to his eye, and

studied the growth pattern, looking for signs of twist, discol-

oration, pitch pockets, or any other defect that might preclude

the log from being processed into quality instrument tops. He

explained that some of these defects might not adversely affect

the sound of the instrument, but that in the world of instrument

making, “appearances matter.” To some extent, buying a log

based on this fairly superficial and subjective visual inspection is

a gamble, as there is no real way to know for certain what will be

found inside. But thanks to his years of experience, Griffin seems

to possess a kind of x-ray vision when it comes to spruce logs.

What is desirable is even growth, a well-centered pith, straight

grain, white wood, and no knots. Since an instrument top is

made up of two bookmatched pieces and is quartersawn for

vertical grain, large diameter (at least 24 inches for a guitar top,

a little smaller for a mandolin) is also a requirement. In a region

John Griffin straps down a load and prepares for the journey home.

Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 67Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 67

We were soon at an active log landing. The logger, Fred, who

has worked with Griffin many times over the years, approached

the truck and greeted us. He had located a small grove of big,

straight spruce that he thought Griffin might want to look at

before they were cut. He likes going directly to the woods so

he can have the logs cut to any length without waste. If, upon

felling, it’s determined that the tree is unsuitable for instrument

wood, the logger simply sends the log to the sawmill.

We walked out through an old cutting and were soon look-

ing up at a group of 70-foot-tall red spruce with large trunks

and good-sized limbs. John’s axe is 20 inches long and he used it

to size up the trees while visibly checking for twist and hidden

knots. After selecting three that he felt were promising, Dave,

the cutter, expertly felled them and bucked them to length right

there in the woods. They looked good and were soon on their

way out to the landing in the bunks of a forwarder.

By the end of the week, Griffin had accumulated a full truck

and trailer load, plus a few extra. The loaded truck and trailer

can legally weigh 25,000 pounds, which allows him to haul

about 1,800 board feet in a load. The neatly strapped load was

impressive and he told me that he frequently has other drivers

pull up behind him on the highway or pass him slowly as they

look – “ooglers” he calls them.

After he dropped me off, I watched as he slowly rolled down

the road. I wondered how many miles he’d traveled in search of

spruce and thought about all the motel rooms and truck stop

diners he’d visited along the way. While Willie Nelson may be

a fitting soundtrack for Griffin’s lifestyle, he told me that it’s

a saying, rather than a song, that best sums up his pursuit:

“Originally in Latin, it goes like this… ‘I grew in the forest until

killed by the cruel woodsman’s axe. In life I was mute; in death I

sing sweetly.’ That says it all.”

Ross Caron lives in northern New Hampshire and works as a procurement forester.

He enjoys a variety of outdoor pursuits, reading, working with wood, and managing

his family’s woodlots.

Wagner Forest Management, Ltd. is pleased to underwrite Northern Woodlands’ series

on forest entrepreneurs. www.wagnerforest.com

where much of the forest has been cut over during the past cen-

tury, spruce meeting these qualifications can be a rare find.

After spending the better part of a day picking through log

decks, Griffin found a few full-length logs and several shorter

butt cuts that he was willing to take a chance on. He had the

logs stacked in a shaded area behind the sawmill for later pick-

up and spent some time waxing the fresh cut surfaces, as well

as any areas with bark missing, to prevent drying and checking

of the wood.

On the road again the next morning, heading for a logging

job, Griffin told me how he came into this business. He began

playing the guitar and fiddle as a kid and spent two years as

a young adult studying under veteran instrument-maker and

violin expert Robert Tipple. Later, thinking that he might want

to build a few instruments himself and finding it difficult to

locate quality tonewoods, Griffin took a trip to the Adirondacks

in a small, diesel powered Volkswagen and returned a few days

later with a couple of spruce butts in the trunk. He laughed,

remembering that “it was an interesting ride back in a car that

had a hard time doing 55 normally.”

He started Old Standard Wood in 1984, and since then

has traveled throughout the Northeast, as well as the Pacific

Northwest and Central America, prospecting for logs. Over

time, his company has grown into a large supplier of musi-

cal instrument woods for both the individual maker and for

large guitar manufacturers. Griffin figures he’s processed over

200,000 spruce soundboards in that time. He now has two

trucks with trailers, sawmill equipment, and drying and storage

facilities, and has added three full-time employees. Business is

good enough that, in recent years, he’s forgone sleeping in his

truck while on the road and started spending nights in motels. Gorgeous red spruce logs.

The Gospel of Red Spruce

We were inspired to learn more about red spruce from an instrument-making perspective, so we visited

luthier Don Wilson in Arlington, Vermont, and asked him a few questions.

Why use spruce in guitar tops?

It has the best stiffness-to-weight ratio; in this

way building a guitar is like building an airplane

or a racecar. You want light and strong.

How does red spruce compare, sound-wise,

to other spruces?

It’s said that red has the brightest, punchiest

sound of all the spruce – that’s why the blue-

grass guys love it so much. Engelmann spruce

[native to western North America] is softer and

maybe a bit more expressive – a jazz musician

or a fingerpicker might prefer this sound. Sitka

spruce [found along the West Coast, and up into

Alaska] is all things to all people. These generic

tone descriptors are accurate to a point, but wood

is never completely predictable. And guitar sound

is an incredibly complex thing. Some luthiers will

tell you that certain woods are the best; others

will say give me a pallet and I can build you a

great-sounding guitar. The argument goes on and

will never be settled.

How about aesthetics?

Northern red spruce is notoriously twisty. And has

pitch pockets. And usually has irregular grain. And

the branches don’t self-prune, so there are often

wing knots. I see these things as character, not

defects, but you have to take them into account.

Compare this with Sitka, which is so uniform you

don’t have to think about it.

So you typically have spruce tops on guitars,

but the backs and sides are made from

denser hardwood species. Give us a quick

101 introduction to how different types of

wood interact together in a guitar.

The primary sound coming out of a guitar has

to do with the strings and what you hit them

with. With an acoustic guitar, you can look at the

soundboard [top] as your amplifier and the body

[back and sides] as the speaker and the speaker

box. The soundboard imparts volume and certain

tonal properties and the back reflects the sound.

Probably if you’re a country singer singing

hardscrabble songs, you’re going to want a

guitar made from a tree that had a hardscrabble

life on a northeastern mountain, right?

You’re referring to the voodoo in the wood, and

yes, there is that. Any instrument maker will tell

you there are things you can quantify about the

process and things you can’t. I’m a firm believer in

voodoo – it’s what makes woodworking exciting.

We’re always trying to promote locally

sourced, sustainably harvested wood, and

it seems very heartening that northeastern

red spruce is coming back in vogue. Are you

seeing a surge in interest in people who want

guitars built out of local wood?

I think the Northeast Organic Farming Association,

and the locavores, and the foodies, and the artistic

community have done a great job in promoting

this idea of how place can play a role in a product,

and yes, that’s opened doors for guys like me.

The terroir concept works with wine and veggies

– why not guitars? I wouldn’t be able to do this if

the market wasn’t receptive to paying a premium

for a guitar made with local wood. And even the

big companies are taking note. Martin is using

cherry and birch for guitar bodies and has a whole

sustainable line of guitars now.

How do we keep this ball rolling?

Educate foresters and loggers on what makes

good instrument wood. The guys in the woods

need to know what it is and what the value of it is.

I got this red spruce here from a logger who was

bringing a load of spruce to a clapboard mill and

knew that I’d pay a premium for it. A lot of good

tonewood ends up in a load of pulp or a firewood

pile because people don’t recognize it.

Go to our website to see photos of Don and his

guitars.

An unfinished red spruce guitar top in Don Wilson’s

shop. Note irregular grain and discoloration; note, too,

the stray chisel mark. The Quakers called these human

imperfections “the mark of the hand.”


we nicknamed him Fat Tail, thinking he might take enough

offense at that to just quietly go away. I also took Rita’s feeder

off the crossbar and hung it from a maple limb far enough away

from my setup that not even a squirrel who had taken Olympic

gold in the broad jump could hope to leap across that gap.

I had failed to notice, though our squirrel had not, how close

a few branches of our dooryard lilac were to my feeder. So I

trimmed the lilac back to close that route off.

In the meantime, Fat Tail had been jumping down on top of

the baffle after every meal and, aided by some heavy winds, had

managed to reduce it to a hunk of easily navigable rubble. Quite

apart from that, we were now in late winter, and the snow dumped

off our roof plus the snow already on the ground was deep enough

that Fat Tail could almost walk up onto the feeder anyway.

By now it was dawning on me that a gray squirrel is no push-

over, even for an adversary whose gray matter alone outweighs

the whole squirrel by at least two to one. But what I was also

beginning to appreciate much more than I ever had before is

that the “brains” of this animal aren’t contained in its few ounces

of neural tissue but in the amazing combination of attributes

evolution has given it: those powerful haunches for leaping,

those dexterous front paws and nails for picking seeds out of my

feeder, those rotating hind feet that let squirrels descend trees

head first and eat hanging upside down, that tail that helps them

keep their balance while performing their aerial acrobatics.

Nature has equipped gray squirrels with just the right phy-

sique and the seemingly endless energy and agility they need to

thrive in the treetops and perfect the art of bird-feeder robbery.

Confronted with that perfection, I’m moved to grudging admi-

ration and even to a feeling verging on affection. Any animal

that can be as pesky as a gray squirrel yet still manage to soft-

soap me clearly has all the brain he needs. I’m glad his isn’t any

larger than it is.

Robert Kimber has written often for outdoor and environmental

magazines. He lives in Temple, Maine.

I recently learned in the course of my wide-ranging, catch-as-

catch-can reading that the average adult human brain weighs

between 1,300 and 1,400 grams. A squirrel’s brain, this same source

told me, weighs 7.6 grams. You’d think if you pitted a human being

against a squirrel in any kind of intellectual contest, the human

would win hands down, heavyweight versus featherweight.

That’s what I thought anyway, so I went up against gray squir-

rels without much doubt that I would emerge victorious. So con-

fident was I that when Rita and I needed to replace our battered

bird feeders late last fall I didn’t bother to research the many

feeders the human mind has devised to keep squirrels from gob-

bling up our black sunflower seeds. Rita, however, is a sensible

person who will always choose the most straightforward solu-

tion to any problem. She did her homework and bought a clever

feeder that allows birds, who weigh only a few ounces, access to

the seeds but blocks off that access when the weight of a squirrel

pulls a metal cage down over the feeding ports.

All well and good, I thought, but that feeder doesn’t give the

squirrels a sporting chance. Furthermore, if I can manage to

transform an otherwise simple project into a complex and chal-

lenging one, I will. So I bought a feeder that would hold a couple

of quarts of sunflower seeds and gave the birds access to them

through a flexible metal mesh reminiscent of the chain mail the

Crusaders wore and fine enough, I thought, to exclude the teeth

of hungry squirrels.

Our bird feeding station consists of a peeled cedar pole with

a cross bar bolted to it about seven feet off the ground. On one

end of that bar we hung Rita’s spring-loaded feeder; on the other

end, my Crusader’s feeder.

The next morning, when Rita looked out the win-

dow, she said, “Squirrel on your feeder.”

“I’ll show him,” I thought, and I clad the cedar pole

with some light metal sheeting.

“Let’s see him climb that,” I said to Rita, only to

watch, an hour or so later, as our uninvited guest

scampered up that armor-plated pole as if it

were one of nature’s own cedars, unadorned.

So I installed a cone-shaped aluminum

baffle above the metal sheath on the pole.

On his next visit, this squirrel contem-

plated the baffle from different angles for

a few minutes, then jumped up onto Rita’s

lower hanging feeder, using it as a ladder

to make his way onto the crossbar and

thence over to my feeder, where he again

settled in for an ample breakfast.

This squirrel was so round and well

fed that even his tail looked chubby, so

By Robert Kimber

Squirrel Brains

up COUNTRY


Deer Density Dilemma

When Maine zoned two percent of the

northern part of the state as deer win-

tering areas in the 1970s, its goal was to

provide habitat that would increase deer

density to 10 animals per square mile.

But recent analysis by a University of

Maine researcher found that strategy to

be ineffective and the goal unattainable.

After more than 35 years, the region is

thought to have just one to two deer per

square mile.

Professor Daniel Harrison and post-

doctoral researcher Erin Simons-Legaard

examined satellite data as far back as 1970

to evaluate habitat changes in the 190,000

acres of deer wintering area comprising

981 management units. “Deer require late

successional conifer forests for wintering,

but a lot of those areas have been subject

to harvesting through the years,” said

Harrison. “The perception is that loss of

deer wintering habitat may be contribut-

ing to the fact that deer don’t attain the

densities that they used to. But before we

get into more zoning, I wanted to see how

well historical zoning has performed.”

Despite zoning that prohibited the

harvesting of trees without a special vari-

ance to improve deer wintering habitat,

Harrison found that 91 percent of desig-

nated deer wintering areas contained at

least one heavily harvested area, and 23

percent of the mature forest within those

areas had been harvested between 1975

and 2007. More importantly, within a

1.25-mile buffer around the deer winter-

ing areas, mature conifer forests declined

precipitously and what remained became

fragmented. “We were investing a lot to

conserve core wintering areas, but the

landscape integrity of areas around them

was heavily impacted,” Harrison said.

He also found that, by 2007, less than

one percent of the landscape included

remnant patches of mature conifer for-

est greater than 250 acres, which is the

size deer need for wintering. To reach

the state’s goal of conserving 10 percent

of the landscape as deer wintering areas

by 2030, nearly every remaining conifer

forest larger than 12.5 acres would need

to be protected, even though much of that

land would not be useful to deer.

Harrison concluded that the goal of

10 deer per square mile is not achievable

with current habitat availability, and he

doesn’t believe that’s an appropriate goal

anyway. “Oftentimes, the public sets goals

based on what our grandfathers remem-

ber seeing, even when those targets never

really occurred on the landscape natu-

rally,” he said. “The deer densities present

in northern Maine in the 1940s and ’50s

and ’60s were an exception, something

that didn’t occur prior to the white man

arriving in the north Maine woods. They

weren’t present in 1900. Those densities

only occurred during a period of time

when we had extensive winter cover with

harvests providing areas of high quality

food, and when there were no canid

predators.” He believes that deer goals

for the region should be re-evaluated

and new goals established using a multi-

species management strategy.

Pining for Clean Air Since 2010, many white pine trees in

northern New England have become

infected with one of several fungal dis-

eases that have caused yellow and brown

discoloration of one year old needles,

particularly in wet areas and during wet

years. But the news isn’t all bad. According

to a University of New Hampshire profes-

sor, white pines throughout New England

have actually been getting healthier over

the last 20 years, and he attributes it to the

lower smog levels in the region. Ground-

level ozone (smog) levels reached their

peak in 1991, a year after passage of the

federal Clean Air Act. Since then, smog

levels have steadily decreased and tree

health has correspondingly improved.

These results are borne out by the

UNH Forest Watch program, a hands-on

science program that trained students in

grades K-12 to recognize the character-

istic symptoms of ozone damage on pine

needles. (The program began monitoring

tree health in 1991 and continued this

mission until early 2014, when a loss of

federal funding brought it to an end.)

According to Barrett Rock, founding

director of Forest Watch, white pines

are particularly sensitive to ground-level

ozone. Exposure to high levels of smog

causes browning of the ends of the nee-

dles, a symptom called tip necrosis, as

well as chlorotic mottle or yellow spots on

the needles. “There isn’t really anything

other than ozone that causes those symp-

toms on white pines,” Rock said. “And it’s

easy to train a third grader to recognize it

and measure its extent.” Students collect

pine needles, measure their length, and

measure the amount of mottle or necrosis

By Todd McLeish

D I S C O V E R I E S

Despite zoning changes, deer density levels in Maine have not risen as predicted.

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to get a percentage. Half of the needles

the students collect are sent to Rock to

verify their results with a spectrometer.

Rock said that white pines across New

England were in ill health in the early and

mid-1990s, but needle health improved

dramatically soon after the Clean Air Act.

“Ozone levels made a significant drop

from 1997 to 1999, and that’s when we also

saw the tremendous jump in the health of

pine needles,” said Rock. “Further [regula-

tory] modifications improving ambient air

quality standards have been made more

recently, and with each improvement in

air quality we see an improvement in the

state of health of pine trees.”

“The lesson here,” he added, “is that

stronger environmental policy changes

have had a dramatic, positive impact on

air quality and white pine health. And

from my perspective, this good news

story needs to be told because it comes at

a time when there are growing efforts to

trim back on EPA regulations, which are

considered to be too restrictive on busi-

ness and industry.”

Data from the Forest Watch pro-

gram covers all of New England and the

Adirondacks, as well as Long Island. Since

there are no corresponding programs

measuring white pine health in other

regions of the country, it is impossible to

know whether similar improvements are

happening elsewhere. But since most of

the smog produced by coal-fired power

plants in the Midwest flows directly to

New England, Rock said that white pines

elsewhere probably did not experience

the same smog-related declines in health.

He also speculates that other tree species

are getting healthier due to improved

air quality, but it’s harder to measure

improvements in species that are not as

sensitive to smog as white pines.

Seasons are ShiftingIt may be tough to believe after this past

year, but it appears that winters are get-

ting shorter and shorter. By studying the

growth cycle of vegetation at daily inter-

vals, a team of British researchers has

found that autumn in the northern hemi-

sphere is starting much later in the year

and spring is starting a little bit earlier.

Their research was published in the jour-

nal Remote Sensing of the Environment.

“There has been much speculation

about whether our seasons are changing

and, if so, whether this is linked to climate

change,” said lead scientist Peter Atkinson,

a geography professor at the University of

Southampton. “Our study is another sig-

nificant piece in the puzzle, which may

ultimately answer this question.”

Atkinson and colleagues Jadunandan

Dash and Jeganathan Chockalingam

studied satellite imagery of the north-

ern hemisphere from 1982 to 2006 to

identify seasonal changes in vegetation.

They measured “greenness” – which they

characterized as physical changes like leaf

cover, color, and growth – of a wide vari-

ety of vegetation types, from broad-leaved

deciduous forest and needle-leaved ever-

green forest to mosaic vegetation (grass-

land, shrubland, forest, and cropland).

They found that the most pronounced

changes occurred in the broad-leaved and

needle-leaved deciduous forest groups,

where autumn has been delayed an aver-

age of one day per year over the last 30

years. They also found evidence of a

slightly earlier spring across all vegetation

types, though signs of a delayed autumn

were more pronounced.

“Our research shows that even when we

control for land cover changes across the

globe, a changing climate is significantly

altering the vegetation growth cycles for

certain types of vegetation,” said Atkinson.

“Such changes may have consequences for

the sustainability of the plants themselves,

as well as species which depend on them

and ultimately the climate through chang-

es to the carbon cycle.”

Although their study primarily focused

on areas north of 45 degrees latitude,

which includes northern Maine, their

maps indicate that signs of an early spring

and delayed autumn occurred in much of

the northeastern U.S.

According to Dash, autumn has

become significantly delayed in broad-

leaved and needle-leaved forest groups

like those found in much of northern New

England, especially when compared to

other vegetation types. “We have not yet

found a specific reason for this, but it may

be because their photosynthesis is highly

dependent on temperature and, possibly,

carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, both of

which are increasing over time,” he said.Students have helped monitor and document the health of white pine as part of the UNH Forest Watch program.


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Allard Lumber Company

Tel: (802) 254-4939

Fax: (802) 254-8492

www.allardlumber.com

[email protected]

Main Office & Sawmill

354 Old Ferry Road

Brattleboro, VT 05301-9175

Celebrating over 40 Years

Serving VT, NH, MA, and NY with:

“Caring for your timberland like our own”

Standing Timber & Land Division

DAVE CLEMENTS Bradford, VT (802) 222-5367 (home)

STEVE PECKHAM Bennington, VT (802) 379-0395

ANDY MCGOVERN Brattleboro, VT (802) 738-8633

Family-owned and Operated by 6th Generation Vermonters

Allard Lumber Supports Many Civic, School, Forest Industry, Social and Environmental Organizations

CELEBRATING OVER 40 YEARS OF SAWMILL EXCELLENCE


Taproot: Coming Home to Prairie HillBy Martha Leb Molnar

Verdant Books, 2014

Follow-the-dream memoirs comprise a good

chunk of North Country literature – probably

because so many of us came here looking for

a better life. Taproot is one such book, and from

the first page it draws the reader in with warm

and graceful prose that places you both in the

landscape and the author’s heart. Martha Leb

Molnar followed a dream with her move from

New York City to a Vermont hilltop overlooking the

Taconics and Adirondacks; and she indeed put

down a taproot:

“I needed a new life in a place big enough,

open enough, private enough to encompass all

the old and new cravings, and future dreams too.

The concept of a big piece of green and silent land

began to grow, its taproot embedding itself in my

brain. It grew and strengthened, spreading out

multiple stems until I forgot that this was a buried

childhood dream recently brought to light of day. I

began to believe that it was the only logical direc-

tion for my life.”

We learn her story through vignettes, out of

sequence in time but clearly showing the progres-

sion from dream to reality. Each chapter captures

an experience and its associated profundity.

(“[L]ife was better lived by the rising and setting

of the sun.”)

You don’t need to be a transplanted Vermonter

to appreciate the story. Anyone who has moved

from city to country, who has built a home, who

has made the transition from family and career

mania to an empty nest, who enjoys the journey

of discovery, will find the narrative poetic and

insightful. Surely most everyone who lives in the

Northeast knows this syndrome: “By November, I

begin the countdown to the winter solstice . . .”

Unique to Molnar’s story is its historical con-

text. She grew up in a part of Hungary absorbed

The Sugar Season: A Year in the Life of Maple Syrup – and One Family’s Quest for the Sweetest HarvestBy Douglas Whynott

Da Capo Press, 2014

When I was a kid, we stopped by neighboring

sugarhouses a few times a year to pick up a gal-

lon of Grade B. I’d hold the plastic jug in my lap on

the ride home, and on a few of those lucky trips,

the gallon was still warm to the touch.

Syrup seemed very expensive in Vermont in the

mid-1970s – my Mom reminded me of it every

time I tilted the jug towards my pancakes – but

apparently the farmers weren’t able to earn a liv-

ing making it. This is the kind of thing that makes

no sense at all to a kid: how can something so

good, and so expensive, not be a sure-fire way to

earn a living?

The historical statistics tell the gloomy tale:

maple production peaked in the United States at

nearly seven million gallons in the 1860s, when

every available sugar maple north of the Mason-

Dixon Line was tapped to make table sugar. After

the Civil War, production began to fall, and it con-

tinued to fall steadily for the next century until, by

the 1980s, the total had sunk to below one million

gallons. Fewer and fewer people were making a

living in the sugarbush, with no reason to think

the trend line was headed anywhere but down.

Which is why the present state of affairs is so

surprising: sugaring is back. There’s a real chance

that the old Civil War-era record might fall, if

not next year, then likely before 2020. Canadian

production is already six-fold greater than it was

in the 1860s. The world is now producing and

consuming more maple syrup than at any time in

history. What, exactly, has happened?

“There is more to the maple industry than

people realize,” says Bruce Bascom, in one of

the more understated lines in the new book,

The Sugar Season, by Douglas Whynott. Bascom

wood LIT

into Romania, the child of Holocaust survivors.

“The world of the garden was an escape from the

adults. . . . As living proof that Hitler had failed, I

was expected to be radiantly cheerful, a chubby

package of pink cheeks and beribboned laughter.

But I was thin, serious, and thoughtful, perhaps

made so by the emotional husks with whom I

lived, whose reliving of the horrors they’d experi-

enced in words and glances, in tormented faces,

accompanied every moment.”

Building her own life and following her own

dream often brought a struggle against guilt and

ancestral ghosts, whom she tells: “For twenty

centuries you have endured so I can live free from

terror.” This gives the memoir a keen edge and

poignancy that remind the contemporary reader

of a gratitude we must never lose.

In keeping with the taproot theme, the book

itself is deeply embedded in place. The cover is by

an important Vermont artist, the content was edit-

ed by a well-known Vermont editor and published

by a local house, then printed by a Vermont indie

bookstore/press. The author herself has become

a commentator for Vermont Public Radio and a

freelance writer on Vermontiana, after a career in

public relations and newspaper reporting. Her skill

shows in every word on every page.

The paragraph that most resonated with this

reader likely will with others who have walked

parallel paths:

“Loving the little daily miracles of a place is

like loving a person. After the first flush of infatu-

ation, a maturing follows, a deepening brought

about through intimacy and understanding....

Recognizing a plant among many others and

knowing its name is like picking out a loved one

from a hundred people walking away from a

concert, knowing him by the tilt of the head, the

swing of an arm.”

You might need multiple copies of this book: a

pristine one for your library, several for gifts, and

one to dog-ear the pages and highlight the many

passages that strike your heart.

Carolyn Haley


should know: his farm in Acworth, New Hampshire

– where, among other things, he sells maple sug-

aring equipment, sets more than 60,000 taps a

year with his extended family, and engages in

international syrup arbitrage – can hold about as

much syrup in the warehouse basement as used

to be produced in all of the United States in a typi-

cal year back in the 1970s.

The Sugar Season is likely to be an eye-opener,

even for people conversant in things like vacuum

releasers, check valve spouts, and the various

other trappings of twenty-first century sugaring.

Whynott focuses less on the new technology

and more on the economic implications of that

technology as he follows Bruce Bascom and his

extended network of suppliers, associates, and

middlemen through several sugaring seasons

around the Northeast.

We meet the Harrison family in northern

Vermont, who recently built a 100,000-tap sug-

arbush primarily as an investment vehicle. We

meet David Marvin of Butternut Mountain Farm,

one of Bascom’s biggest competitors, who also

speculates on currency exchange rates and syrup

futures. And we meet Robert Poirier, Bascom’s

middleman along the Quebec-Maine border, who

buys and transports many millions of dollars

of syrup from along Maine’s Golden Road and

Quecbec’s St. Aurelie region to the Bascom cool-

ers in west-central New Hampshire.

All of this could become overly dry and techni-

cal, but Whynott, a New Hampshire-based jour-

nalist who teaches writing at Emerson College

in Boston, does a lovely job of jumping back and

forth between the arcane world of arbitrage and

the many back-woods sugarhouses he drops by

throughout the season, some with as few as a

dozen taps. The juxtaposition reveals the essential

nature of sugaring, which is that it transcends

time and technology. Whether it’s Bruce Bascom

on the phone with his international suppliers or

Peter and Deb Roades, nearby neighbors who

boil on an evaporator in continuous use since the

1930s, everyone is thinking about the same thing:

what’s the weather going to do overnight, and

what’s it looking like into next week.

Though The Sugar Season is in many ways

a celebration of sugaring’s resurgence, Whynott

doesn’t shy away from two problems looming

on the horizon, one immediate and the other

long-term. More immediately, sugaring’s resur-

gence has been powered by price-setting by the

Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers,

which controls the vast majority of the world

market and which may be creating a price bubble

and excess supply. In the longer term, the specter

of climate change hangs over nearly every page

of the book. The 2012 season, which Whynott

chronicles in the book, had the warmest March

since records started being kept, in 1895.

In the end, The Sugar Season is a great read

for anyone with an interest in maple sugaring. I

find myself thinking about it whenever I tip a quart

of our home-made syrup over my pancakes. Will

the all-time U.S. production record be broken in

the next few years? Will the Yanks break up the

Cartel Quebecois? Will Maine pass Vermont in

overall production? Or will our grandchildren be

hosting cherry-blossom festivals instead of sugar

on snow? Stay tuned.

Chuck Wooster

Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the EdgeDavid R. Foster, Editor

Yale University Press, 2014

I had never thought of eastern hemlock as a for-

est giant until I visited the mountains of western

North Carolina. In my northern New England

experience, an old-growth hemlock was a good-

sized tree, often equal in girth to eastern white

pine, but lacking the pine’s impressive height. But

that old-growth hemlock stand in the southern

Appalachians had many trees over 140 feet tall

and 400 years of age, and it changed my measure

of a species that has no ecological counterpart

in our eastern forests. But now those southern

giants are gone, killed by hemlock wooly adelgid,

and as I sit here in my office on the Maine coast,

the naked limbs of the first hemlock in our yard

to succumb to this exotic insect portend things to

come. Hemlocks grow thickly in this cool, moist,

coastal environment, and it’s hard to imagine

our woods and stream banks without their deep

shade, or spring without the songs of black-

throated green warblers and blue-headed vireos

or the brilliant orange flash of a blackburnian

warbler high in the canopy.

In Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge, editor

David Foster (director of Harvard Forest) and co-

authors explore the natural and human history of

hemlock from the end of the last ice age through

its recent and precipitous decline as the adelgid

races northward. This is not a chronological his-

tory or a depressing gloom and doom monologue.

Rather, it is a fascinating story told as the authors

explore the results of nearly a century of research

projects about what they call a “foundation spe-

cies,” one that is abundant in the ecosystems

where it is found, is at the base of the food web,

and has many species that interact with it. As they

also note, a foundation species is something that

we will miss when it’s gone.

The authors take a refreshing approach by

Raking

From a distance, you might think

I’m practicing ballroom here in my yard,

dance being the gathering of motion

into an order. The sweeping moves

pull through the arms and shoulders

and from the trunk too, the body’s core.

I’ve made a neat pile.

And then the wind, the leaves’ other partner,

comes and swirls them, making its own music

for a dance, dance being the release of order

into motion, the light touch of the hand

to the small of the back, the leaves unstacking

in turns and steps across the yard,

precise randomness, scatter’s two-steps.

MICHAEL CHITWOOD

from the book Living Wages (forthcoming:

Tupelo Press, 2014)

stepping out from behind the veil of drabness that

is the required style of technical scientific writing

these days and personalize the story by describ-

ing their own interactions with this amazing tree

and the ecosystem it shapes. You’ll learn much

about hemlocks that will make your time in the

woods richer and your knowledge of ecological

history deeper. However, the reading is all the

more interesting because the authors share their

feelings about being in a hemlock woods and

conducting objective science while the foundation

of the ecosystem is collapsing.

This book is not a reiteration of facts and

figures, but a well-written portrait of hemlock, its

role in New England’s forests, and the lives and

character of the foresters and other scientists

who have studied it. Rich, full-page black and

white photographs by the authors and from the

Harvard Forest archives illustrate the text. If you

enjoyed “The Pisgah Forest” by David Foster in

the Spring 2014 issue of Northern Woodlands,

you’ll enjoy this book.

Rob Bryan


Ad IndexA. Johnson Co. ........................................... 10

Allard Lumber Company ............................ 73

Bay State Forestry Services ....................... 39

Berry, Dunn, McNeil, & Parker ................... 76

Britton Lumber Co., Inc. ............................. 76

Cersosimo Mill .......................................... 35

Cersosimo Lumber Co., Inc. ...................... 64

Champlain Hardwoods ............................... 33

Classifieds .................................................. 34

Colligan Law, LLC ...................................... 35

Columbia Forest Products ......................... 29

Consulting Foresters .................................. 47

Econoburn, Inc. .......................................... c4

Farm Credit ................................................ 33

Fountains Forestry...................................... 76

Fountains Real Estate ................................ 72

Gagnon Lumber, Inc. .................................... 8

Garland Mill Timberframes ......................... 12

Hull Forest Products................................... 10

Innovative Natural Resource Solutions ...... 28

Itasca Greenhouse ..................................... 73

Land & Mowing Solutions, LLC ................... 8

LandVest ..................................................... 65

LandVest Realty ......................................... c3

Lang McLaughry Real Estate ..................... 33

Lie-Nielsen .................................................. 55

Lyme Green Heat ....................................... 12

Lyme Timber Company .............................. 78

MA Town Forests Event ............................. 22

Maine Forest Service.................................. 64

McNeil Generating...................................... 78

Meadowsend .............................................. 35

N.E.W.T.: Northeast Woodland Training ..... 29

NE Forestry Consultants, Inc. .................... 10

NE Wood Pellet ............................................ 8

NEFF ........................................................... 65

New England Forest Products ................... 12

Newcomb, NY ............................................ 72

Northern Timber Company ........................ c2

Northland Forest Products ........................ 65

Oesco, Inc. ................................................. 73

Sacred Heart University ............................. 55

Scotland Hardwoods.................................. 28

Sustainable Forestry Initiative .................... 78

SWOAM ...................................................... 29

Tarm USA, Inc. ........................................... 39

The Taylor-Palmer Agency, Inc. .................. 12

Thomas P. Peters II and Associates ........... 64

Timberhomes, LLC ..................................... 39

Vermont Agricultural Credit Corporation .... 28

VWA ............................................................ 73

VWACCF..................................................... 55

Watershed Fine Furniture ............................. 8

Wells River Savings Bank ........................... 64

Winterwood Timber Frames ....................... 33

Woodwise Land, Inc. .................................. 72

Find all of our advertisers easily online at:

northernwoodlands.org/issues/advertising/ advertisers


In Pursuit of the Perfect Splitting Block

Story and Photos by Brett R. McLeod

TRICKS of the trade

Wood-splitting is a rural pastime rooted in tradition and experience – experience

that’s often measured in broken axe handles and creative curses directed at knotty

chunks of cordwood. And, while the debates over preferred firewood species,

splitting technique (in-line or over-the-shoulder), and tools (maul or splitting

axe) are likely to continue, there seems to be agreement that seeking a worthy

splitting block is time well spent.

Why a splitting block? While some folks opt to split firewood directly on the

ground, placing a splitting block under your bolt of firewood provides several

benefits – first and foremost, safety. Splitting on an elevated block means that the

final resting place of the axe is further from your feet. Splitting with a block also

decreases the chances of hitting rocks, preserving the bit of your axe by ensuring

that it only ever comes into contact with wood. There’s more splitting power; if

you try to split firewood on soft ground, you’ll find that much of the force from

your swing is absorbed by the earth below. Finally, a good splitting block, when

used in conjunction with the tire method (see below), can equal more firewood

and fewer backaches.

Block Selection: The most impossible bolts of firewood (read: knotty, ugly rounds)

make the best, and longest-lasting, splitting blocks. The curly grain of elm creates

a split-resistant block that’s tough to beat. If a block of elm isn’t readily available,

look for a knotty block or a flared stump of some other species. The height of the

block should be between 12 and 16 inches; if you go much shorter than that, the

block is likely to split prematurely. In terms of diameter, your block should be

several inches wider than the wood you’re splitting for both stability and safety.

Surface Angle: Do yourself a favor and set up two splitting blocks, one with a per-

fectly flat top and the second with the top cut at a 10- to 15-degree angle. Sooner

or later, you’ll have a piece of firewood with an angled base that refuses to stand on

the flat block. By matching the angle of your firewood with the angle of the block,

you’ll be able to make even the most crooked pieces stand upright.

Semi-Permanent Blocks: If your woodshed is near an old stump, consider yourself

lucky. The twisting grain of the root flares makes for a durable, split-resistant sur-

face that can last a surprisingly long time and will never fall over.

New Life for Old Tires: If you’re tired of chasing split firewood around the yard,

consider screwing the sidewall of an old tire to the top of your block. Not only

will it keep the wood from falling off, you’ll also find that an armload of wood is

easier to pick up.

3

4

2

1. Two good splitting blocks: a Scotch pine block on the left with a whorl of knots and an aptly named knotty hard

maple block on the right. Note how the pine block is mated with the firewood angle to prevent the log from sliding

hold things in place; once the firewood is split, you’re left with an armload of wood that’s well off the ground.

1


Just what is SFI®?The Sustainable Forestry Initiative is a program

with tough stewardship objectives that are

practiced and promoted by many landowners

in the Northeast and across the country.

Performance of these objectives is certified by

an independent third party. If you have questions

or concerns about any forest practices in Maine,

New Hampshire, New York or Vermont or if you

want information about forestry tours being offered,

Please call 1-888-SFI-GOAL (1-888-734-4625)

www.sfiprogram.org

Call for entries: Send us your Outdoor Palette submissions. Contact Adelaide Tyrol at (802) 454-7841 or [email protected] for details.

Snake River Spiral, 2012, River stones, water, and light

the outdoor PALETTE

What is the definition of environmental art? The simplest, shortest explanation is that it is art

that addresses environmental or ecological concerns. Historically, environmental art grew out of

a movement that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Europe and the United States. Many

artists with a sensibility to nature were turning away from the confines of the museum show and

away from art as a commodity. Sales and formal exhibitions were seen as deterrents to expressing

a pure artistic relationship with, and responsibility to, the environment.

Vermont artist and stonemason Thea Alvin was approached two years ago by the Center of

Wonder Project to create an ephemeral and environmentally sustainable work on the Snake River

outside of Jackson, Wyoming. She was invited to conceptualize, design, and complete this work

– the only caveats were that it be completed in four days, she use only materials found on site,

and she cause no harm to the environment.

The Center of Wonder had designated a section of river that passed close by U.S. Route 89 – a

road travelled by millions of visitors to Grand Teton National Park each year. The high visibility

was an important aspect of the project. The intent was that this visual statement would reach as

many people as possible and spark ideas and discussions about our relationship with nature.

Alvin is known internationally as an innovative stonemason, an environmentally sensi-

tive practitioner, and a hard worker. Stone is her language; in fact, she often refers to her work

as “poems in stone.” This particular poem in the Snake River lasted for about six months.

Anticipated floodwaters came through, and the patterns were reconfigured by the natural forces.

Like a sand mandala, Snake River Spiral celebrates the transitory nature of life.

Thea Alvin can be reached through her website: www.myearthwork.com. She will be participating in open studio weekend October

4-5, 2014, at her studio in northern Vermont. To view a time lapse video of the creation and dissolution of the Snake River Spiral

By Adelaide Tyrol



I’ve lived in the same place for more than 45 years. My down-country friends tell me that’s some

kind of record. To be precise, but not too precise, my wife and I live in the southwest corner of

the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. We live just up the hill from the great and remote, wild and

lonely Bear Swamp. There are lots of Bear Swamps in northern New England, but this is our

Bear Swamp.

I’ve got a friend who was taking pictures from an airplane one day and shot what he called

“the wildest spot I’d ever seen in Vermont.” He sent it to me on a card and wondered where it

was. It was our Bear Swamp.

Two friends from Montreal and I have been among the few people to canoe down that stream

before the new spring growth of the alders makes it all but impassable. And even at that, you have

to portage over one beaver dam after another. The alders make it so forbidding and inaccessible

almost no one ever ventures into our Bear Swamp.

When we came here in the late 1960s, our neighbors just down the hill were Frank and Eva

Colgrove. They were true hill farmers, the real thing: both of them born and raised on this hill;

they heated with wood, milked about 15 Jersey cows, had a huge garden, raised a pig, ate the cows

as they came off the line, sugared, and Eva put everything by, two big freezers full, plus she canned

everything you can think of, including wild cranberry jelly from the plants in Bear Swamp, and

made head cheese from the meat in the pig’s skull and dandelion wine, too. When we were

barely 30, Frank and Eva were our mentors and friends. They were models of conservation, living

examples of the old New England adage: Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.

Both Frank and Eva have died, and their place, one of the most beautiful places on earth,

was put up for sale. We imagined the worst: somebody would make a killing on the farm, and

wouldn’t it be the perfect place for a bunch of condos? Luckily, the economy tanked and Jim

Ryan came along and bought the place. Three years ago, Jim and his partner, Katie, started an

organic farm: cows, pigs, chickens, two greenhouses, and every kind of vegetable you can think

of. How could we be so lucky?

We are now the old couple up the road and that feels strange. But rather than pass on old

ways, we are learning new approaches to organic gardening and preserving land, not only from

Jim and Katie but from all the other kids we have come to know.

Around harvest time Jim and Katie have a big party – they call it Swamp Fest – out back

of their house among their gardens. They invite all the carpenters and their families who have

worked on the place, patrons of the farm, all the neighbors for miles around, and everybody else

they can think of. Maybe a hundred people come, from babes in arms to eighty-five year olds.

First, supper: potluck. Tons of great food, every kind you can imagine, headlined by crock-pots

full of pulled pork and baked beans. Plus scores of desserts. And when supper is done and it’s

getting dark, Jim and Katie turn on the little white lights they’ve strung gracefully everywhere.

There are tents out in one of the fields for those spending the night. There is an enormous bon-

fire and a band that plays well into the next day, the music floating out over Bear Swamp and up

the hill to our house.

This essay began with the great and remote, wild and lonely Bear Swamp, one of the most

remote places in Vermont, but what I’ve done so far is talk about people, which says something

about northern New England. In this part of America there is, and has been for centuries,

an intimate connection between wildness and people, a shared love of place, an experience of

wilderness and human community. And that is the reason I live here.

David Budbill is a poet and playwright.

A PLACE in mind

David Budbill


Northern W

oodlands AU

TUM

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