Last October, in Weld, Maine, I hung from a rope in the canopy of a 41-year-old American chestnut tree on the property of author and naturalist Bernd Heinrich. The tree bore the scars of a…
Magazine Series
Blue-Ribbon Decoy Carving
A note from the editors: The Autumn 2023 issue of Northern Woodlands magazine includes a profile of George Calef, whose carvings of waterfowl and other birds have won numerous regional and…
Splitting Maple Chunks
Between 85% and 95% of the dry weight of wood comes from photosynthesis, from sunlight and carbon dioxide. The first two blows bounce back as if nothing's happened but the third — if…
BDA and Beaver Dam Sites after Vermont’s July Extreme Rain Event
Just as author Allaire Diamond and the Northern Woodlands editorial team were finishing work on the Autumn 2023 feature article, “Building Beaver Dam Analogs to Restore…
From the Center
I’ve known Terry Gulick long enough that my vegetable garden, which he once admired (not for its vegetables, but its volunteer crop of purslane), has gone to grass and begotten a…
Hummingbirds & Cardinal Flowers: A Pollination Tale
The natural world holds countless examples of things intricately connected and seemingly perfectly designed. One spectacular example is the relationship between the ruby-throated hummingbird…
Trees of NYC Map
This map of MillionTreesNYC Afforestation study sites across New York City, includes the sites mentioned in Catherine Schmitt’s article, In the City, a Million Trees Take Root. The map…
In the City, a Million Trees Take Root
“There is, I think, great hope for the continued presence of nature in the metropolis.” — Elizabeth Barlow, The Forests and Wetlands of New York City, 1971 Surrounded by a…
Art Review: Joyce Kahn
“When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink,…
When Life Gives You Cranberries…
It was August in northern New York, and the leaves still shone an optimistic green. But Labor Day was closing in, and my wife Lisa and I would soon join millions of other parents as empty…