Societal divisions in America get a lot of press: left vs. right, coastal vs. flyover, religious vs. secular. Another division has day-to-day impacts on people’s lives but receives…
Features
Payments for Forest Carbon
This article is the last in a four-part series that focuses on forest carbon. A companion series, beginning this spring, will focus on climate change impacts and adaptation in forests.…
Creating a Hand-Hewn Dough Bowl
Surrounded by hardwood forest in northern Vermont, I process five cords of firewood annually for my family’s use. As gratifying as this work can be, I’ve often found myself wanting…
Lessons in Wood
An Innovative Program Prepares a New Generation of Loggers
It has been raining all summer in northern Maine, the 10th wettest summer on record, and this Wednesday in August dawns overcast, the low gray clouds plump and threatening to overspill at any…
Bark Beetle Galleries
Have you ever wondered what makes the meandering paths etched into fallen trees and logs, just beneath the bark? Although many insects tunnel through wood, bark beetles create some of the most…
A Bird in Hand: The Art of Woodcarver George Calef
Woodcarver George Calef has fond memories of sitting at his grandmother’s knee, almost 80 years ago, as she looked out the window at the birds flitting around her birdfeeder.…
A Colorful Late-Fall Ice Show on a New Hampshire Pond
A note from the editors: An abridged version of this photo essay appears in the Autumn 2023 print issue of Northern Woodlands magazine. We were fascinated by Steven Arcone’s detailed…
Building Beaver Dam Analogs to Restore Watersheds
Open a hydrology map of a northeastern watershed, and you’ll see networks of blue lines: delicate threads of headwater streams starting high in the mountains, crossing contours to merge…
The One That Got Away
About 20 years ago, when my wife, Rita, and I were still renovating our Maine farmhouse, we did much of our refurbishing with materials scrounged from old buildings that were falling to the…
A Chestnut Harvest
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…