Magazine Series

On a Tuesday morning near the end of the school year, a half-dozen students move purposefully through the woodshop at St. Johnsbury Academy. Machines whirr, and the sweet scent of sawdust…

“Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others.” -WILSON BENTLEY,…

For Laurence and Brenda Taylor, the logging business is truly a family affair. Their company, L.E. Taylor & Sons, based in Porter, Maine, employs twelve family members from three…

There’s a lot of talk in the forest industry these days about “mechanized logging.” Some lament the passing of an era – the loss of the sounds of a revving chainsaw, a…

“Do not be afraid to go out on a limb…that’s where the fruit is.” Anonymous Here I am, going out on a very long limb, freely admitting that despite living among trees,…

I still remember my childhood excitement when my grandfather explained to me what those holes were in the deep snow. “Snow roosts,” he explained, and they’re made when a…

This image was taken last December from the summit of Mt. Mansfield, Vermont’s highest peak. “The summit had been covered in clouds all morning while I was hiking up.” says…

Castle Freeman wrote here recently [“Easy Wood,” Autumn 2017] about his prolonged tussle with a major limb that had separated from an old butternut tree in his backyard...a job…

Building a second career to follow a very successful first career is a challenge. When those two careers are as different as, say, being an accountant and operating a lumber company, well,…

A predator’s physical senses determine the manner in which it hunts. Wild canids, for instance, favor their sense of smell – you can see this as they trot along the hedgerows,…