In her 1905 book, Our Native Trees and How to Identify Them: A Popular Study of Their Habits and Their Peculiarities, Harriet Keeler extols the unexpected qualities of the inner bark of slippery elm:…

It’s not unusual for landowners in this part of the world to find themselves on one side of a wet area with a need to get to the other side. This can be a vexing problem. Boggy areas often…

The black-capped chickadee may be the perfect songbird. It is vocal and approachable, inquisitive and dependable. Even the casual birdwatcher finds in the chickadee a neighbor, a friend, an…

Melissa Fierke’s journey to becoming assistant professor of forest entomology at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, began when the former loan officer…

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there and I am prepared to expect wonders. —Henry David…

Silk-spinning spiders have been around for roughly 400 million years, and they’ve made good use of their time. Today, they occupy just about every habitable region of the Earth. Scientists have…

“There is but one tree in the pasture,and [the cows] are all collected and now reposing in its shade… It shows the importance of leaving trees for shade in the pastures as well as for…

In southern Appalachia, they still call brook trout the “hemlock trout” because they’re mainly found in the cold water and deep shade of the hemlock forest. These spectacularly…

Sugarmakers begin drilling holes and hammering spouts into their maple trees at their own discretion, and each has particular schedules and reasons for tapping when they do. Still, the traditional…

Photographer Frank Kaczmarek photographed this female lo moth in North Woodstock, New Hampshire. These giant silkworm moths never feed in their adult form, which lasts 3 to 6 days on average. Their…

Judged by the contents of its clutter, my desk is not a particularly happy place. You can picture my computer monitor gasping for air amidst a pile of papers that amount to a sea of bad news. Rummage…

Northern Woodlands received many generous contributions in 2010, but one in particular stands out. One of the members of our board of advisors (who wishes to remain anonymous) provided a challenge…

Day 2 Life accelerates as we get older, a phenomenon that most of us first notice as school kids, when summer vacations go from endless in elementary school to blink-your-eyes-and-it’s-done in…

Reader Ben Haubrich was X-C skiing recently in Francestown, New Hampshire, off trail, when he came across this odd mound in the snow. A closer look revealed . . . we'll tell you, but you have to guess…

There are few things on this pulsing planet that appear less alive, and more adverse to life, than snow. It falls from the sky in sharp-edged crystals. It blankets the earth in white, silent and…

The Hope Issue Bobcats on the Comeback Rebuilding a Trout Stream A Place for Wolf Trees Student Scientists, Slippery Elm, Success with Shiitakes, and much more

Scientists from Colorado State University have produced a first of- its-kind map of the height of the world’s forests by combining data from three NASA satellites. The map reveals that the…

In news that will come as no surprise to readers of Northern Woodlands, a team of psychologists has concluded that spending time in nature makes people feel more alive. A series of five studies…

Good news stories about the environment can seem hard to find these days, which makes it nice to report that power plants across the country have collectively decreased emissions of acid-rain-causing…

A few summers ago, I saw a red squirrel skittering along the top of a stonewall with something in its mouth. I snuck in closer and discovered the headless body of a chipmunk dangling from its jaws.…