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
$5.95
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.
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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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 3
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 5
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.
6 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 7
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.
8 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 9
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.
10 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 11
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
12 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 13
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 13
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.
14 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 15
[ 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.
16 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
K N O T S & B O L T S
[ 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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Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 17
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].
18 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
K N O T S & B O L T S
[ 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.
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 19
[ 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.
20 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
K N O T S & B O L T S
[ 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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 21
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
22 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 23
24 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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.
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 25
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.
26 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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.
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 27
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.
28 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 29
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30 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
Theology of a Quaker
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 31
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
32 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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.”
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 33
34 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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36 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
“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.
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 37
PATRICK WHITE
38 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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.”
104 inches CBH, 80 feet VH, 51 feet ACS
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.”
73 inches CBH, 75 feet VH, 30 feet ACS
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.”
179 inches CBH, 148 feet VH, 51 feet ACS
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.
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 39
40 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
Adirondack Canoe Classic
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 41
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
42 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 43
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
44 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 45
ALEXA
ND
ER K
ERM
AN
46 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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.
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 47
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.
48 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 49
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.
50 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
By Kristen Fountain
MA
INE FO
RES
T RA
NG
ERS
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 51
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.’”
52 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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.
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 53
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.
MA
INE FO
RES
T RA
NG
ERS
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.
54 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 55
56 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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.
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 57
JIM B
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58 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
2
3
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 59
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
4
6 7
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60 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 61
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
12
1413
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 63
Timber RattlesnakesBy Ted Levin
In New England, timber rattlesnake colors come in yellow, black, and many shades and patterns in between.
64 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 65
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66 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
66 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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.”
68 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 69
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.
SU
SA
N C
. MO
RS
E
70 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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.
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 71
UN
H FO
RES
T WATC
H
72 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 73
Allard Lumber Company
Tel: (802) 254-4939
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Main Office & Sawmill
354 Old Ferry Road
Brattleboro, VT 05301-9175
Celebrating over 40 Years
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DAVE CLEMENTS Bradford, VT (802) 222-5367 (home)
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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
74 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 75
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
76 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 77
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
78 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014 79
80 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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
80 Northern Woodlands / Autumn 2014
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