Northern Woodlands

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Where the Great River Rises: An Atlas of the Connecticut River Watershed in Vermont and New Hampshir

The Connecticut River divides and connects the Twin States yet borders the less-populated side of both. As a result, the longest river in New England does not always receive its full due of appreciation, attention, and protection.

No organization has done more to change this than the Connecticut River Joint Commissions (CRJC), created in the late 1980s by the legislatures of New Hampshire and Vermont. So it seems fitting that this past summer – while waterskiers kicked up spray in Lake Winnipesaukee and museums commemorated 400 years of Europeans on Lake Champlain – the group wrapped up a five-year effort and published a comprehensive soft-cover atlas that takes full measure of this remarkable river.

Where the Great River Rises focuses on what the book terms the Upper Connecticut River Watershed, a 7,751-square-mile region that runs from the river’s headwaters in a series of mountain lakes near the Canadian border to the mouth of the Deerfield River in Greenfield, Massachusetts. The watershed encompasses all the land that drains into the smaller rivers and streams that flow into the Connecticut, so it cuts west and east far enough to skirt sections of both the Green and White Mountains.

With 36 chapters that document the evolution of the region and the river from the Paleozoic era to the present day, 51 maps, and hundreds of illustrations and graphics, this is the ultimate reference book for residents and visitors who already know and love the Connecticut River and for those who want to know more.

The 41 contributors include New Hampshire state geologist David Wunsch and Jon Kim of the Vermont Geological Survey. Wunsch and Kim provide such a clear and succinct overview of the tectonic history of the region that you’ll never experience the drive up Interstate 91 the same way again. A chapter on water quality in the Connecticut by Adair Mulligan, conservation director of the CRJC, paints a dramatic portrait of the river’s polluted past in the 1950s as “New England’s best landscaped sewer” and the remarkable progress that has been made since then. The river still contains some problem areas, and Mulligan imparts practical advice on where and when you should not swim.

The author of the forestry chapter, ecologist Charles Cogbill of Plainfield, Vermont, elaborates on his own study of property surveys performed during the early years of European settlement of New England. Surveyors sometimes used trees as lot markers, or “witness trees.” Today, these historical records amount to a random survey of tree species circa 1800 and provide the basis for a series of maps that show how during subsequent settlement maple replaced beech in southern forests and fir became dominant over spruce in the north.

There are interesting facts to be gleaned in every section, including tidbits about the weather, native culture, colonial history, and the current economy of the region. Here’s a quick sampling:

• River valleys are subject to extremes of temperature because there is less wind to mix hot or cold layers of air. The hottest and the coldest days on record in Vermont occurred in communities along the Connecticut River: 105°F in Vernon on August 2, 1975 and, on December 30, 1933, 50°F below zero in Bloomfield.
• The founders of Dartmouth College negotiated with female leaders of the Abenaki natives for use of the land around Mink Brook, according to the tribe’s oral history.
• Twice during the turbulent 1770s, a group of New Hampshire towns along the river tried to secede and join Vermont. Civic leaders on both sides of the river also discussed forming a third cross-river state called New Connecticut.
• The nine hydro dams along the Connecticut River represent approximately 10 percent of the installed power-generating capacity in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Like other atlases, this is not a book easily devoured in one sitting. It is better enjoyed as a resource, for resolving arguments during dinner, researching school projects, or satisfying idle curiosity. Regardless, it will provide many hours of satisfaction. And it should help restore the mighty Connecticut to its rightful place at the heart of the Twin States.

Kristen Fountain

© 2009 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author’s consent.

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Searching for Thoreau: On the Trails and Shores of Wild New England

Henry David Thoreau looms over us from the depths of history, a towering person, important we’re told, a giant of his age, yet vaguely threatening, unpleasantly Puritanical, and more than a little bit self righteous. He was a preservationist with a knack for torching the woods, a minimalist widely thought of as a slacker, a master of the aphorism whose prose, for long stretches, is incomprehensible. Yet out there he looms, and if you’re serious about the natural world, and you’re serious about New England, sooner or later you’ll have to cover some ground with Thoreau.

Which is where it’s helpful to have a guide. Tom Slayton, author, commentator, and long-time editor (now emeritus) of Vermont Life magazine, is a good man for the job. In his book Searching for Thoreau: On the Trails and Shores of Wild New England, Slayton is able to present Thoreau’s work in the context of the times, both Thoreau’s and ours. Slayton takes the ingenious tack of re-creating several of Thoreau’s now-legendary pilgrimages across New England, including canoeing on the Concord and Merrimack rivers, climbing Katahdin, Mount Washington, and Mount Monadnock, walking Cape Cod, and spending time at Walden Pond.

Slayton’s project is two-fold: first, to present Thoreau in his own words, providing some perspective on what those words mean. Here’s Thoreau, from one of the more memorable passages in Walden: “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours… If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Here’s Slayton: “Somehow during the two years he lived alongside the pond, Thoreau progressed beyond mere ranting and posturing; he grew there and matured as a writer and a human being. The pages of Walden document that growth, which is one of the reasons it is a great book, and which is why it must be read as a whole to be fully appreciated.”

The second part of Tom Slayton’s goal in Searching for Thoreau is to revisit the actual ground that Thoreau trod, both in pilgrimage and to see what’s happening there today. In one of the more ironic moments of that effort, Slayton spends two days walking the long outer beach of Cape Cod, a beach that, as part of the Cape Cod National Seashore, is protected and today appears almost identical to the way it looked in Thoreau’s day. That’s good news, but because the dunes are now closed to foot traffic to prevent erosion, Slayton is consigned to slog the soft sand at water’s edge, whereas Thoreau, walking atop the dunes, enjoyed rhapsodic views for miles on end.

Slayton also checks in with Thoreau atop Mount Washington. “Thoreau grumbled about the two mountaintop hotel buildings of 1858 and felt that mountaintops should be considered sacred places. ‘I think that the top of Mount Washington should not be private property,’ he wrote in his journal on January 3, 1861. ‘It should be left unappropriated, for modesty and reverence’s sake, or if only to suggest that earth has higher uses than we put her to.’” Slayton points out that such an uncompromising attitude was much less common in Thoreau’s time than in ours, then concludes, “Mount Washington, like most of the rest of New England, is a complex landscape of wilderness, commerce, and accommodation. It is both wild and not wild, both protected and exploited. It is the emblem of the compromised New England landscape we have created since Henry David Thoreau walked through it in the mid-1800s.

“The wonder is that he saw it coming so early on.”

I spent my formative years in a house just west of Walden Pond and rummaged many days through the woods where Thoreau spent much of his life. I’ve read Walden twice, the first as part of a required high school English class and the second out of a lingering sense of geographical piety. Neither effort brought me nearly as much insight into the man and his times as Tom Slayton’s Searching for Thoreau. Best of all, now having been guided through the territory by Slayton, I find myself ready to tackle Walden for a third time.

Chuck Wooster

© 2009 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author’s consent.

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Forest Trees of Maine

Over the past 100 years, the Maine Forest Service has published 14 editions of a book (originally a booklet) called The Forest Trees of Maine. To celebrate the centenary, the newest edition has been beautifully spruced up. Between the descriptions of 78 tree and shrub species are photos of logging in the old days

Some of days considerably more than 100 years ago. Interestingly, there is snow on the ground in almost all of the historic photos – one of the many differences between logging back then and logging practices today. Although horses consume fuel year round, they were busy at other jobs in the off season, while modern skidders, although they consume no fuel when parked, have little value without a hitch of logs rattling along behind. Photos of logging today can be taken just about year-round.

It seems that you can learn lots about how to make a very nice tree book after 14 tries. This edition has a key to trees in winter and a key to trees in summer, plus a helpful page called “How to use the keys.” There is a glossary and a couple of pages of outlines showing typical leaf shapes and leaf structures.

Most of the tree species have a two-page spread, with photos of the leaves, bark, flowers, fruits, buds, and, sometimes, the whole tree. If you are fairly familiar with trees of our region, you will still be impressed by the photographs. And if sorting out all the maples has been embarrassingly difficult, you will be emboldened by the pages that clearly describe the notable features of each species. Similar treatment is given to the pines, oaks, aspens, and the cherries and plums.

I also appreciate the occasional remarks, such as: “when cut with a knife, Eastern hemlock bark will show a purple color.”

I have so many tree books already that I initially ignored this one, leaving it semi-submerged in a dusty pile. But when I took it for a walk with some of my neighbors, it endeared itself to me in the course of an hour. Lightweight, at only about 175 pages, it is easy to carry, and the photographs are both useful and pretty.

You can obtain a copy by calling (207) 287-2791, $15 each. Not available through our online book retailers, but available in bookstores around Maine.

Virginia Barlow

© 2009 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author’s consent.