Articles

About 20 years ago, when my wife, Rita, and I were still renovating our Maine farmhouse, we did much of our refurbishing with materials scrounged from old buildings that were falling to the…

Susan Sawyer is a New England naturalist who draws and paints to further her understanding of the natural world. She has taken on a lifelong project to explore and record her experience on two…

A favorite of foragers, shagbark hickory nuts can be used in recipes ranging from granola and cake to cookies and fudge – or simply, as Tami Gingrich notes, for snacking straight from…

Approximately 50 people contribute to the words and images in each issue of the magazine. Here are some of our Autumn 2023 contributors. {image2} Steven Arcone (“A Colorful Late-Fall Ice…

When our children were small, my husband began mowing paths through our field, grassy lanes that allowed little legs to maneuver more easily through the landscape of home. Although those small…

Are there any flowers more recognizable than roses? Even botanophobes recognize their fragrant blooms. Throughout history, they have represented dynasties and revolutions, worldly powers and…

Goldenrods in bloom are the Grand Central Station for insects. Some insects come in search of nectar, others for pollen, more for mates, and still others are predators for whom the diverse…

Last October, in Weld, Maine, I hung from a rope in the canopy of a 41-year-old American chestnut tree on the property of author and naturalist Bernd Heinrich. The tree bore the scars of a…

A note from the editors: The Autumn 2023 issue of Northern Woodlands magazine includes a profile of George Calef, whose carvings of waterfowl and other birds have won numerous regional and…

Between 85% and 95% of the dry weight of wood comes from photosynthesis, from sunlight and carbon dioxide. The first two blows bounce back as if nothing's happened but the third — if…

Just as author Allaire Diamond and the Northern Woodlands editorial team were finishing work on the Autumn 2023 feature article, “Building Beaver Dam Analogs to Restore…

I’ve known Terry Gulick long enough that my vegetable garden, which he once admired (not for its vegetables, but its volunteer crop of purslane), has gone to grass and begotten a…

The natural world holds countless examples of things intricately connected and seemingly perfectly designed. One spectacular example is the relationship between the ruby-throated hummingbird…

This map of MillionTreesNYC Afforestation study sites across New York City, includes the sites mentioned in Catherine Schmitt’s article, In the City, a Million Trees Take Root. The map…

“There is, I think, great hope for the continued presence of nature in the metropolis.” — Elizabeth Barlow, The Forests and Wetlands of New York City, 1971 Surrounded by a…

“When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink,…

It was August in northern New York, and the leaves still shone an optimistic green. But Labor Day was closing in, and my wife Lisa and I would soon join millions of other parents as empty…

One of the most common questions that foresters get is, “How old is this tree?” Often, the response is less than satisfactory, as the forester carries on about site…

White-tailed deer are so abundant in the eastern United States that it may be hard to believe the species was absent in many areas, including most of the Northeast, just a century ago.…

While walking in a milkweed patch at dusk, Tig Tillinghast found a flower crab spider that had just ambushed and immobilized a fly. “It was difficult to get adequate depth for this…