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Sketchy Scars

Jerry Milne sent along this photo taken in Connecticut. The scars, seen on the uphill side of the trees, are about 30 years old, and they all got their start at the same time. Do you know what caused…

American Mountain Ash: a Rosaceae by Any Other Name

There’s a giant living in northern Coös County, New Hampshire. It’s a 61-foot tall tree, the country’s largest known American mountain ash. At last measurement, it stood at a…

The Porcupine

I once lived in a cottage perched atop a sloping field in Western Massachusetts. It was the lone structure at the edge of undeveloped forest and sat far from the road. The cottage had a large front…

Weird Wires

What are these wire-like objects that have been exposed from beneath the bark of this dead ash tree?

November 2018

Your November images documented early winter snow, as well as artifacts of summer life, revealed now that the leaves have fallen.  Squirrels hoarded mushrooms, a bull moose peered out from a…

Using More of a Deer

I’m a big proponent of cutting up your own local venison – the local in that phrase used to distinguish between a deer someone shoots near their home and a deer they might take in a…

Animals and Alcohol

It’s the time of year when the landscape is laid bare, the ground is impenetrable with frost, and flying insects have faded into memory. As fall slides into winter, resident songbirds like…

1,000 Words

Photographer Roger Irwin spends considerable time trekking around the Northeast, in all seasons and conditions and terrain, in search of wildlife. His journey to get this photo was considerably…

Editor’s Note

People don’t like to talk about money for all sorts of sensible reasons. But since the financial details of a story are crucial to our comprehension of it, there’s a point when fiscal…

From the Center

Scene: A cold day at the Northern Woodlands office. Our heroine, a 40-something woman, sits at her desk, squinting at the computer screen. She’s reviewing printing costs. She looks grumpy. Above…

Issue 99: Winter 2018 $6.00

Esau Cant and the Gorbie by Ross Caron; Backcountry Zones: Where Skis Meet Trees by Megan McCarthy McPhaul; Horse Logging: It Took its Toll by George Bellerose; Shadows on Craft and Culture: The Loss…

The Soul of a Dead Woodsman

The sound of the gray jay (Perisoreus canadensis) evokes an image of the North Woods: dark green spruce trees, spire-like balsam fir, and bare-branched tamaracks silhouetted against a raw,…

Cobweb Conundrum

What are the thin, oval disks caught in the cobweb above the cavity of this sugar maple tree?

Planting Hope for a New American Chestnut

During the first decade of the 20th century, New York Harbor teemed with steamships delivering new arrivals from overseas. Between 1900 and 1910, the Statue of Liberty welcomed an average of nearly…

A Bird in Hand

In the winter issue (arriving in mailboxes any day now), there’s a supernatural tale about a fateful encounter between a logging camp villain and a gorby – one of the many names for what…

Flight of the Flunker Moth

In early November, I flicked on the porch light and took out the trash. In the brief time it took, a couple of late-season moths found their way to my porch light, and as I slipped through the back…

More Than a Woodlot $19.95

A Northern Woodlands Book! Many forest owners want to take a more ecological approach to managing their woods, and they feel right at home with a more natural forestry that’s focused on the…

The Wood That Keeps Us Warm

Chaloux Brothers Firewood has been providing hardwood to central Vermonters since 1979. That adds up to a lot of firewood, probably more than 30,000 cords, according to Roger Chaloux, 62, who runs the…

World Without Whitetails

Editor’s Note: What follows is the first in a series of pieces that imagines what the Northern Forest would be like if history had unfolded in a different way. Experts estimate that there were…

Uncommon Trees and Shrubs

The Northern Forest Region contains about 265 species of woody plants. About a third, the generalists, are common in much or all of the region. Another third, the ecological specialists, are common…