Articles

By mid-June, green covers the mountainside, paints it a thousand verdant shades, leaf upon leaf upon leaf. Mountain laurel blossoms. Blackcap raspberries ripen. Hidden in the dense woods, a…

For environmental historian Brian Donahue and his wife Faith Rand, building a home from wood harvested on their Massachusetts farm represented a small step in mending the broken relationship…

Deer browse is having a major impact on my forest’s ability to regenerate. Is there anything that I, as a forest landowner, can do about it? You are not alone! White-tailed deer…

Many beetles are slow fliers and runners, but six-spotted tiger beetles (Cicindela sexguttata) are masters of speed. A metallic flash of green or sometimes blue may be your only glimpse of…

“I watched this red-tailed hawk land in a giant oak with a freshly caught rabbit, and the next thing I knew a red-winged blackbird began mobbing it,” said Lee Toomey, who captured…

“Painting realistically is like a golf game. You know where you have to go, and you hit the ball in a straight line to reach your goal. Abstraction is more like a tennis game. You hit…

The route traveled on a legendary backpacking trip. Grandma and Grandpa’s woodlot. The lake where two lovebirds first met. Where our most cherished moments happen, their physical…

Dawna Blackstone might be forgiven for feeling a little – well, intimidated – after driving nearly two hours to Orono for the first meeting of the 2024 Maine Master Naturalist…

This past summer, University of Vermont Extension Assistant Professor Alexandra Kosiba collaborated with the NorthWoods Stewardship Center to establish climate resilience monitoring plots at a…

In Massachusetts Classrooms, Students and Turtles Help Each Other The school year has just begun, and Emilie Wilder, a field biologist and associate director of conservation engagement at the…

In March, I left my apartment in the city and returned to my childhood home eight states away. Mom had to sell the house in a rush, the deal closing just before the stay-at-home orders went…

I tend to think of our woodlot as a private Home Depot, each stand its own aisle. The species and successional stage dictate both the wood’s future use and harvest schedule: a stand of…

Your morning legs slip over the side of the bed easy and feel like cool green shoots, spring bitter. You taste the innocence—one that revisits you late in life after all the swimming,…

Burdock (Arctium spp.) produces the annoying round burs that get stuck to your socks in the fall. (The fellow who invented Velcro™, George de Mestral from Switzerland, got the idea from…

People often tell us that they read each issue of Northern Woodlands cover-to-cover. I can relate. I was a cover-to-cover reader from the very first issue a friend placed in my hands, back in…

Because I’ve lately been considering intentionality and taking the long view in the context of the Center for Northern Woodlands Education’s work, it feels appropriate to have…

Approximately 50 people contribute to the words and images in each issue of the magazine, and still more provide support for the publication process. Here are some of our Spring 2025…

Anton Prikazchikov credits his interest in woodcarving to a documentary he saw many years ago, of a child using a knife to transform a branch into a detailed model of a fish. And to a moment…

Most days, Jesup Memorial Library Director Matt DeLaney toils in a tiny Harry Potter-esque office tucked beneath the stairs leading to the 114-year-old building’s second-floor balcony.…

This article is the last in a four-part series that focuses on climate change impacts and adaptation in forests, supported by the Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation. A companion series…