Magazine Series

“I was following a porcupine one fall day as it ambled up a slight wooded incline,” said naturalist, writer, and photographer Mary Holland. “At one point it took a misstep…

Water gets its poetic due, and with good reason. As composer Paul Winter wrote in Marjorie Ryerson’s book Water Music, water “represents an aspect of wild nature without which we…

Technology tracks the toll road salt, phosphorus, and invasive species are taking on Lake George Ancient legends say that when a mermaid dies, her soul rises from the depths to become foam, or…

The Canada geese now honking overhead in V-formation, perhaps more than any other birds, exemplify the fall migration. Except when they’re not really migrating, and except when…

Owning just a single choker chain is a lot like having one Crescent wrench in your toolbox. Sure, you can get the job done, but it would be a lot more efficient (and enjoyable) if you had a…

Somewhere out there is a ship carrying, in one of its thousands of steel containers, a natural disaster. The ship could be an old rust bucket. Or a brand new, high-tech cargo vessel. It might…

You’d think, in our high-tech world, there’d be some sort of sensor or detector or app that could electronically evaluate and instantly confirm that a log is truly veneer-worthy.…

"The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow.” So says the psalmist, a deep…

It was the late afternoon of a long day of hauling timbers, sawing posts, and hammering hand-carved wooden pegs. Excitement ran high among the 10 workshop participants as they carried the…

Have you ever wondered why patch cuts in the North Woods become carpeted with spruce and fir seedlings within a few years of being cut, while beaver meadows in the same area stay grassy for…