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…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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…

The natural world holds countless examples of things intricately connected and seemingly perfectly designed. One spectacular example is the relationship between the ruby-throated hummingbird…

“There is, I think, great hope for the continued presence of nature in the metropolis.” — Elizabeth Barlow, The Forests and Wetlands of New York City, 1971 Surrounded by a…