Magazine Series

Community engagement in nature and art takes many forms. A two-decade effort to restore a healthy meadow to an urban forest in Worcester, Massachusetts, also brought a college campus and a…

“I am a passionate painter focused on representing both seen and unseen elements of the environment.” — Bunny Harvey Bunny Harvey knows her environment intimately; she knows…

The sky islands of Appalachia – that phrase from a place miles away captured my imagination as I read Sonia DeYoung’s story on page 52. Her research with the University of Vermont…

After this issue of the magazine goes to print, I’m looking forward to some quiet time outdoors. I suspect many people feel as I do right now – weary of news of any kind, and eager…

A hundred years ago the black cherry tree in the gully behind our house on Cliff Street sprouted in a hillside pasture. It hasn’t moved, but the village has crept up the hill and the…

At some point Great Blue Herons learn to fly. It must be interesting to see them jump off a 50’ perch for the first time. There are no pilot instructors or safety nets below. You just…

Rumbles of thunder have grown distant, and the pea-size raindrops that were slamming my face a short time ago have dwindled to a mist. With the rain easing, I notice trickles of water running…

During mating season, between March and May, mature male wild turkeys, also called toms and gobblers (for the loud, gurgling sound they make), strut in an effort to entice nearby hens into…

Forty minutes before sunrise on a cold April morning, I turn onto a rural road in northwest Rhode Island, get out of my car, and listen for four minutes. I hear distant traffic noise, an…

It is often a fluke, some twist of fate, that changes history. In the case of Dartmouth’s Second College Grant, it was a timber theft that initiated nearly 200 years of logging activity…