The Northern Forest Canoe Trail is a roiling, serene, deep, shallow, narrow, and broad “trail” that follows a tortuous (some would say “torturous”) route across five…

In August 1, 1991, Hurricane Bob swept into southeastern New England with sustained winds of over 105 miles per hour. In its aftermath, we found that many large oaks in our family woodlot in…

Chokolokaloka. There are so many bird sounds in a spring forest, it can be hard to pick out just one. Chokolokaloka. But he’s there – hear him? A male (“tom”) turkey.…

The scene opens with six women standing in a forest clearing. Chainsaws rest on the ground at their feet. Some of the women wear helmets. Some of them wear chaps. One of them (me) is staring…

Ah, mushrooms. For the wild mushroom hunter, making a fungi foray into a forest erupting with golden chanterelles, bursting with radiant oyster mushrooms, and scattered with black trumpets is…

On a crisp, early morning in October, a small group of naturalists made their way down a winding trail through an isolated state forest in Derry, New Hampshire, to visit a lone American…

John Sullivan didn’t set out to have his forest certified. He just wanted to take good care of the woods. His 300 acres near Chestertown, New York, have been in the family since 1875,…

Cold. The low-angled winter sun burning dully through a nickel-colored sky. Cold. The kind that bores into you, a stinging insect as it breaches the skin, then tingly as it fords your blood,…

Coarse woody debris. To most people, two of the three words in that phrase have negative connotations. Debris is the worst offender, suggesting random junk strewn about. When the debris is…

My third-floor office window overlooks a hillside a quarter-mile south that rises steeply into Montpelier’s Hubbard Park. The slope, steep enough to discourage buildings but not trees,…