Articles

“While birdwatching one sunny April morning in the famed Sapsucker Woods at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, I crossed a footbridge on a trail and spied this eastern phoebe with a bill…

On winter outings in snow, we often see the minute trotting tracks of meadow voles and the bounding track-sets of white-footed mice and deer mice. Weighing just one or two ounces, the wee…

As a longtime resident of Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, Holly Hayward has an intimate knowledge of the landscape here. And she comes from a long line of foragers. She remembers gathering…

Author and Northern Woodlands contributor Jamie Sayen recently released a new book entitled You Had a Job For Life, published by University Press of New England. It’s the story of the…

“A mistake is beside the point, for once anything happens, it authentically is.” John Cage I asked Fritz Gross if he experienced angst as an artist; if he considered any of his…

I recently walked a woodlot with a landowner who had pruned his younger trees according to instructions that he found online. The problem was that those instructions didn’t differentiate…

A big-city reporter called one day wanting to know how many sugar maple trees there are in Maine – and how Maine compared to Vermont, a state virtually synonymous with syrup production.…

Just about the time that this magazine reaches your mailbox, Northern Woodlands will be hopping the Connecticut River to take up residence in Lyme, New Hampshire. Our nonprofit’s new…

A Primer on Apple Tree Release and Grafting Techniques In the early nineteenth century, John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman sallied forth from Leominster, Massachusetts, to sell and…

What do bear fur, deliquescent mushrooms, wasp nests, antlers, and stones have in common? Yes, these things can all be found in the forests of the Northeast. But more curiously, they’re…

Several years ago I was traveling through the mountains of central Mexico and was impressed with a simple rope firewood carrier that virtually every rural household used. Children had a…

On a Tuesday morning near the end of the school year, a half-dozen students move purposefully through the woodshop at St. Johnsbury Academy. Machines whirr, and the sweet scent of sawdust…

“Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others.” -WILSON BENTLEY,…

For Laurence and Brenda Taylor, the logging business is truly a family affair. Their company, L.E. Taylor & Sons, based in Porter, Maine, employs twelve family members from three…

There’s a lot of talk in the forest industry these days about “mechanized logging.” Some lament the passing of an era – the loss of the sounds of a revving chainsaw, a…

“Do not be afraid to go out on a limb…that’s where the fruit is.” Anonymous Here I am, going out on a very long limb, freely admitting that despite living among trees,…

I still remember my childhood excitement when my grandfather explained to me what those holes were in the deep snow. “Snow roosts,” he explained, and they’re made when a…

This image was taken last December from the summit of Mt. Mansfield, Vermont’s highest peak. “The summit had been covered in clouds all morning while I was hiking up.” says…

Castle Freeman wrote here recently [“Easy Wood,” Autumn 2017] about his prolonged tussle with a major limb that had separated from an old butternut tree in his backyard...a job…

Building a second career to follow a very successful first career is a challenge. When those two careers are as different as, say, being an accountant and operating a lumber company, well,…