Nearly 40 years ago, I discovered some curious bear feeding sign on a mid-elevation ridgeline in northern Vermont. A pole-sized bigtooth aspen had been peeled to its roots like a banana.…
Magazine Series
July 30th 2014
Field Work: At Work Chipping Trees with the Hardwick Family
Donnie Hardwick Jr. is a spitting image of his father. In the picture hanging in the lobby of the family business, Donnie Sr. sports a scraggly beard, wide-rimmed glasses, and a blue crocheted…
July 29th 2014
Frozen in Time
The ice storm of 1998 provided a lesson on the resilience of the northern forest. The precipitation started falling on January 5th, and for four days the gargantuan ice storm of 1998 pounded…
July 16th 2014
An Industrial Place Turned Green
One of our favorite recent pieces was Tony Donovan’s photo essay on Amos Congdon, which ran in the Spring 2013 issue. Amos was a woodsman from Lyme, Connecticut, who ran a sawmill in the…
July 10th 2014
Predators with Personality
A living jewel hangs suspended beneath the microscope. An emerald sheen shifts with its every pulsing breath over iridescent silver, gold, and bronze swirls. Aquamarine legs hang poised,…
July 3rd 2014
The Nulhegan We Knew: Recounting the Last Years of a Working Forest
When the calendar says it’s the first day of spring, no one is fooled in the North Country. Those first, yellowish daffodil leaves at the edge of a melting snow bank? Best to ignore…
July 2nd 2014
What is a Forest Stand (and Why do Foresters Seem so Stuck on Them)?
In assaying wooded land, foresters observe, measure, describe, and map the forest, delineating it into smaller areas – or management units – known as stands. In this way, a forest…
June 27th 2014
Exotic Larch: Not Your Grandfather’s Hackmatack
In the 1980s, in the midst of the last spruce budworm outbreak, the pulp and paper industry in Maine and eastern Canada faced an unprecedented softwood shortfall. The insect was killing…
June 3rd 2014
When the Trees Took Over
Retracing Reforestation on an Old Carriage Road For years, the sign “Old Carriage Road” marked an overgrown length of abandoned roadbed halfway up the road to the summit of Mount…
May 26th 2014
Birds in Focus: Pawning off Parenting
Even devoted birdwatchers find it tough to love the brown-headed cowbird. Black body. Fat head. Grating voice. And the female is a homely gray. Not exactly a glamor couple. But appearance is…