Articles

If John Griffin had a theme song to describe his life, it might very well be Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.” Griffin’s business, Old Standard Wood, is…

We were inspired to learn more about red spruce from an instrument-making perspective, so we visited luthier Don Wilson in Arlington, Vermont, and asked him a few questions. Why use spruce in…

On the morning of September 6, 2013, 275 canoes and nearly 700 paddlers converged at Old Forge Beach in New York’s Adirondack Park. Eager anticipation lingered in the air as canoers…

Photographer Frank Kaczmarek captured this impressionistic photograph at a small pond in northern New Hampshire. “Including the lily pads in the frame, in a small way, reminded me of…

For those of you who aren’t following the battle to ban bear baiting in Maine, here’s a quick recap: Animal rights groups are pushing a ballot measure that will ask voters this…

Well, it took some practice, but I’ve finally learned to pronounce “anthocyanin.” This is the pigment that manifests as deep, glossy red in staghorn sumac – one of the…

My visit to Thom Egan’s Hardwick, Vermont, studio this early spring came at the end of a very long, gray winter. It felt like my rods and cones – the retina’s receptors for…

In the last installment of Tricks of the Trade, we examined the venerable peavey, and offered several modifications to make an already invaluable tool even handier. Now it’s time to head…

Northern Woodlands co-founder and former editor Steve Long found this design in the heartwood of a maple tree he was bucking for firewood. People in Orange County, Vermont, are justly proud of…

Nearly 40 years ago, I discovered some curious bear feeding sign on a mid-elevation ridgeline in northern Vermont. A pole-sized bigtooth aspen had been peeled to its roots like a banana.…

Donnie Hardwick Jr. is a spitting image of his father. In the picture hanging in the lobby of the family business, Donnie Sr. sports a scraggly beard, wide-rimmed glasses, and a blue crocheted…

The ice storm of 1998 provided a lesson on the resilience of the northern forest. The precipitation started falling on January 5th, and for four days the gargantuan ice storm of 1998 pounded…

One of our favorite recent pieces was Tony Donovan’s photo essay on Amos Congdon, which ran in the Spring 2013 issue. Amos was a woodsman from Lyme, Connecticut, who ran a sawmill in the…

A living jewel hangs suspended beneath the microscope. An emerald sheen shifts with its every pulsing breath over iridescent silver, gold, and bronze swirls. Aquamarine legs hang poised,…

When the calendar says it’s the first day of spring, no one is fooled in the North Country. Those first, yellowish daffodil leaves at the edge of a melting snow bank? Best to ignore…

In assaying wooded land, foresters observe, measure, describe, and map the forest, delineating it into smaller areas – or management units – known as stands. In this way, a forest…

In the 1980s, in the midst of the last spruce budworm outbreak, the pulp and paper industry in Maine and eastern Canada faced an unprecedented softwood shortfall. The insect was killing…

Retracing Reforestation on an Old Carriage Road For years, the sign “Old Carriage Road” marked an overgrown length of abandoned roadbed halfway up the road to the summit of Mount…

Even devoted birdwatchers find it tough to love the brown-headed cowbird. Black body. Fat head. Grating voice. And the female is a homely gray. Not exactly a glamor couple. But appearance is…

The theme of this issue is time passing, and I want to open things by telling you about a big story that never happened. In the late eighties, large chunks of forestland – the core of…