Articles

Halfway up the mountain, along a trace of a road long gone back to woods, there was a village that is no longer there. More than a century ago, some two dozen rough-hewn homesteads were…

I was recently in a big-box farm-supply store and saw a large sign that read, “Wood Chopping Headquarters.” What they meant, of course, was not chopping, but splitting.…

In frigid woods this winter, find yourself a glint of springtime – a spark from the head of a golden crowned kinglet. Smaller than a chickadee but seemingly greater in kinetic energy,…

I was hiking with friends up a rutted, washed-out logging road in northern New Hampshire when we saw a curious cabin through the trees. A faint footpath led toward the camp, so we wandered…

It’s late February, and a tom bobcat is eagerly sauntering along – something is in the air! Lengthening daylight and warming temperatures signal the arrival of courting and…

In the middle of a frozen New Hampshire night in January 2015, Geoff Schwaner was in Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, standing on the back of a UTV and spraying water 100 feet up into the…

A revisionist theory about the fox has been circulating for a while that challenges the animal’s legendary cunning, suggesting instead that the Reynard of fable doesn’t actually…

Josh Simpson creates planets that are midway between the micro and the macro. They have some of the mystery of the atomic level and much of the complexity of the cosmic. - Neil Armststrong,…

Owl snow angels can appear at the end of a line of paw prints. But more often I see them without context, on an otherwise unblemished blanket of white. The narrative is implied: one day, a…

The ability to detect the passage of the most elusive wild animals without relying on fresh tracks is a skill that amazes novices. They sometimes assume that such a tracker, like a legendary…

The spectacular American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore is the official national art and education center for intuitive, self-taught art. It opened in 1995 with a mission to highlight…

“I was following a porcupine one fall day as it ambled up a slight wooded incline,” said naturalist, writer, and photographer Mary Holland. “At one point it took a misstep…

Water gets its poetic due, and with good reason. As composer Paul Winter wrote in Marjorie Ryerson’s book Water Music, water “represents an aspect of wild nature without which we…

Technology tracks the toll road salt, phosphorus, and invasive species are taking on Lake George Ancient legends say that when a mermaid dies, her soul rises from the depths to become foam, or…

The Canada geese now honking overhead in V-formation, perhaps more than any other birds, exemplify the fall migration. Except when they’re not really migrating, and except when…

Owning just a single choker chain is a lot like having one Crescent wrench in your toolbox. Sure, you can get the job done, but it would be a lot more efficient (and enjoyable) if you had a…

Somewhere out there is a ship carrying, in one of its thousands of steel containers, a natural disaster. The ship could be an old rust bucket. Or a brand new, high-tech cargo vessel. It might…

You’d think, in our high-tech world, there’d be some sort of sensor or detector or app that could electronically evaluate and instantly confirm that a log is truly veneer-worthy.…

"The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow.” So says the psalmist, a deep…

It was the late afternoon of a long day of hauling timbers, sawing posts, and hammering hand-carved wooden pegs. Excitement ran high among the 10 workshop participants as they carried the…