Articles

Pop quiz: Describe a blue jay. Blue with a crest? Okay, but where exactly is the blue on a blue jay? What’s white on a blue jay? What’s black on a blue jay? And what’s…

One August morning while hiking a trail in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire, I came upon a small cluster of the shiny cinnamon polypore mushroom (Coltricia cinnamomea). Upon closer examination I…

A subscriber from southeastern Vermont, Katie Bowen, contacted us in the spring to ask advice about the problems she and her husband, Mark, were having with neighbors who were complaining…

Northern Woodlands was founded more than 20 years ago, and the idea back then, as I understand it, was to focus on the forests and forest culture of Vermont. In time, the state boundaries…

“Perhaps the passage of time is a kind of healing, or a kind of salvation granted equally to all people.”—Mizuki Nomura Inari, Finland, is the cultural center of the Sami…

The history of agriculture is written all over the woods of southern and central New England. Old stone walls grid the landscape and seem to tie disparate stands of second-growth forest…

John Adler happens to be a logger, but more inherently he’s a thinker. Spend a little time with him and you quickly realize that whether he had chosen to be a banker, a builder,…

In 1936, the United States was still struggling to escape the Great Depression. And things were especially bad in Groveton, New Hampshire – a paper mill town. Groveton’s mill fell…

How New England's Forests Arrived, Where They Came From, and What it Means for The Future Sometime around 12,000 years ago, the first human beings arrived in New England. We don’t…

Nineteenth century author Henry David Thoreau marveled at the huge beast he saw deep in the Maine woods. Hoof to withers, the bull stood nearly seven feet tall – taller than the biggest…

It’s spring, and the snowpack is retreating. But it’s not just coltsfoot and trout lily that are emerging from beneath the melting snow. Over the years I’ve found plastic oil…

Life can be rough for the bobolink, a charismatic grassland bird whose population is declining. Halting that decline is a challenge for North American ornithologists. After all, bobolinks…

How Long Is Forever? And Can Anything Be Done in the Meantime? My wife and I own a 100-acre farm in eastern Vermont, where we raise and sell lambs, chickens, vegetables, honey, maple syrup,…

It’s important for a boy to have older male role models who aren’t their father. When I was growing up, Ed Colvin was one of those men in my life. Ed was my neighbor and my best…

A simple shot of a black bear nursing her cubs, right? Photographer Roger Irwin explains there’s more to the story. “I had put a dead cow out for the coyotes, bobcats, and fishers…

I’m interested in learning more about how trees self-prune. How does a tree “decide” that a branch is no longer useful? Think of it as nature’s cost-benefit analysis.…

Someone left a plastic zip bag full of soggy pink something, labeled “bobcat,” in the office sink. Naturally, I asked Dave Mance for an explanation. He pushed back from his…

"The closer the connection we feel to nature, the more we're likely to stand up and defend it." - Charles Johnson How do hundreds of sawn discs hanging from a ceiling evoke a…

After bucking this year’s firewood, I found myself with a collection of odd-shaped ends and crotches, perfect for charcoal-making. Charcoal is essentially wood that’s been…

Looking closely at plants, we can learn a lot – about local habitat, climate, hydrology, wildlife, and soils. For example, succulent leaves indicate that a plant may thrive in sandy soil…