Behind the Pages

Brett Amy Thelen is an ecologist, writer, owl bander, and the science director for the Harris Center for Conservation Education in southwestern New Hampshire, where she has led the celebrated Salamander Crossing Brigade program for 20 years. Since 2007, she has trained and coordinated nearly 2,500 community science volunteers, who have collectively provided safe passage for almost 100,000 spring-migrating amphibians. In recent years, the Harris Center has also partnered with the City of Keene to institute “Big Night Detours” at two crossing sites, the only places in New Hampshire (so far) to close roads for the protection of migrating amphibians. This spring, they’ll begin working with New Hampshire Fish and Game to design and install the state’s very first salamander tunnels – not unlike the story Brett reviews in Wood Lit on page 72. Photo by Anna Miller.

Dozens of people contribute to creating each issue of Northern Woodlands. Here are a few of the people whose work is featured in the Spring magazine.

From left: Bryan Pfeiffer, Doug N. Arion, Jonathan Mingle, and Hannah Fries.

Bryan Pfeiffer (cover photograph) is a writer and naturalist living in Montpelier, Vermont. After a short career in journalism, Bryan bushwhacked into work as a birdwatching guide, consulting entomologist, and faculty in University of Vermont’s Field Naturalist Program. Along the way, he’s been a bread baker, a firefighter, and a mercenary butterfly photographer. Bryan’s essays have appeared in Orion, Aeon, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Northern Woodlands, and many other places. His third act is Chasing Nature, where he writes on wildlife, wild places, and the human condition. Photo by Josh Lincoln.

Doug N. Arion, PhD (“Defending the Dark,” Knots & Bolts, page 22) created Mountains of Stars (mountainsofstars.org), which aims to enlighten people about the connectedness of the universe to promote “Environmental Awareness from a Cosmic Perspective.” An astronomer, he serves on the Committee to Protect Astronomy and Space Environments of the American Astronomical Society, is a lifetime member of DarkSky International, and received the 2020 Dark Sky Defender Award. Doug produced the PBS documentary Defending the Dark and was a lead in creating the AMC Maine Woods International Dark Sky Park. Photo by Ken Slater / The Springfield Telescope Makers.

Jonathan Mingle (“Connecticut Lakes Headwaters: Carbon vs. Cutting,” page 48) is an independent journalist. His reporting on climate, energy, and resource issues has taken him from north India to the savannahs of Brazil to the forests surrounding his home in Vermont’s Green Mountains. He has written for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Yale Environment 360, Seven Days, Slate, and a range of other outlets. He is the author of two nonfiction books on energy and climate change: Fire and Ice: Soot, Solidarity, and Survival on the Roof of the World (St. Martin’s Press, 2015) and Gaslight: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Fight for America’s Energy Future (Island Press, 2024). Photo by Liza Cochran.

Hannah Fries’ “Seeds with Wings” (A Place in Mind, page 80) is loosely adapted from her forthcoming book, A Forest Language, a collection of short essays relating to the ecology of trees and forests. She is the author of the poetry collection Little Terrarium and of Being with Trees, a curated selection of inspirational writing. As a senior editor at Storey Publishing, she has edited books including The Forest Revealed (Jada Fitch and Kateri Kosek), Tending Your Forest (Paul Catanzaro and Anthony D’Amato), and The Universe in Verse (Maria Popova). Hannah grew up in New Hampshire and currently lives in the Berkshires with her forester husband and two kids. Photo by Susan Quinn.