Site Discussions

I live on a mountain in northern Maine and the land abutting mine was a gorgeous and rare hardwood forest with large sugar maples, managed for decades by a family that sold it two years ago.  Now it’s a barren, rocky sheep pasture.  The beautiful old trees are gone. The forest is gone. Will it recover?  Perhaps, in several hundred years.  It’s critical to find and protect whatever remains of these special ecosystems.

The photo of the boreal chickadee was wonderful, I was in Labrador the last time I saw one.  It flew right to me, landed on my finger, did a loop de loop, then flew off.  Quite a special encounter since chickadees are my favorite bird.  Or is it ravens?

Thank you for this article. I’m happy to see the advocacy for old-growth. When we hear about “healthy” forests it is referring to managed forests. It is a misnomer. The healthiest forests are late succession when you take into account soil structures, wildlife habitat, etc.
We need wood products; managed forests play their role, but to imply that “Tree Farms” are the healthiest is incorrect.
Thanks,
Don

Terrific article! Many interesting facts, and so well written. Thank you!

I read—listened to—North Woods this past year and loved it, and now my Library’s book club has been reading it and will discuss it tomorrow. I wanted to brush up and found my way to your site—a pleasure to hear/read the author’s comments. I I especially liked his reply to the first question about why he writes. The love of language and storytelling really came through, and for me was enhanced by the diverse cast of narrators. And as a resident of rural western Mass, I enjoyed witnessing the landscape emerge as its own highly compelling character, so movingly rendered and seemingly familiar. Lastly, having recently taken another look at the profound significance of apples to northeast settler culture—including a rereading of Michael Pollan’s fabulous Apple chapter in The Botany of Desire—I found the role of “Osgood’s Wonder” another compelling element of the book. Bravo!

What an interesting article about Shrews!!

Recently I’ve been drawn to reading how our wildlife adapte to survive the cold winter months. I found your article about the masked shrew fascinating. Thank you for publishing it.

Nice summary of a member of our earthly fauna!

I remember Mike playing along the creek in our backyard. So glad to see what he has been doing for the planet!

Great article. Its enjoyable reading about people that have a passion for managing and preserving ecosystems.

Came across some skinks in Ashland Mass when I was a young child. They were living in a south facing rock garden right on the Sudbury River. Must of been about 1968.

Mr. Gulpin is a hero of mine. His philosophy on wood and woodworking is wonderful. He is inspirational to me.

I accidentally came across this very pleasing article—you know, one click leads to another, and then you’re here somehow.

I had the pleasure of being a student of Dr. Roze’s several times at CUNY-Queens College back in the late 1980s. He invited me to his cabin in the Catskills in June, 1989, where I got to meet Dr. Roze’s lovely wife, and I had an interesting nocturnal outing wherein I got to hold a female porcupine (carefully) with electrician’s gloves while Dr. Roze sedated her for examination. We sat on the porch, ate dinner, and watched a skunk family cross a little bridge over a stream. It was a great time, and even now, almost 40 years later, I still remember Dr. Roze, and the impact his teaching had on me. He is someone I will never forget.

Really enjoying the information you include in these small snippets of natural history!

Thank you for writing your book and thereby making your findings accessible to those who cannot read your scientific papers.  I admire your persistence in studying porcupines.

As a forester I have a love hate relationship with porcupines and beavers.  After doing a crop tree release thinning in one of my stands the porcupines severely damaged my maple trees by feeding in the crowns over winter.  My grandfather was from Switzerland and he told me the porcupine was the woodsmens friend because if lost and starving you catch one and eat it.  Luckily I have never had to do that.  Once during the winter there was 3 feet of snow and a fisher found a porcupine. The porcupine put his nose against a tree and went around in circles as the fisher tried to kill it.  They wore that 3 feet of snow down to the dirt.  The fisher eventually one and I have pictures of him dragging the porcupine away.  When the fishers first moved in to our area they discovered turkeys.  They were much easier to grab off the roost then battling a porcupine.  I wonder if that had anything to do with the Catskill porcupines surviving predation by fishers better than in other areas.  Through natural selection the turkeys that roosted on limbs that could hold a fishers weight were eliminated.  The turkeys in my area now roost at the tops of trees on the more flimsy branches. Fishers also have eliminated chickens on my farms until the pens were made fisher proof.  I see fishers and porcupines regularly. I am going to try and find your study.  BBB

*Great* article! As a New Hampshire native in the Chicago suburbs, I miss northern New England pretty much every day. Also look forward to reading The Outside Story in the Valley News every week—it’s always interesting, and this story on Earth’s magnetic fields & its creatures was just wonderful. While I don’t believe in the Western version of the Almighty (he has too many human attributes), I also find it hard to believe that the natural world is totally random. I suspect there is some kind of intelligence behind it. Anyway—thank you for another terrific story.

I am a long time subscriber and remember reading about the closing of Maine’s paper mills, lost jobs, and piles of wood left lying around. Your last two issues have carried stories of hope for renewed forest-based industry in the northeast, particularly in Maine. How can private citizens help to support that kind of development and keep forests working for sustainable futures? I am interested in the potential of education to influence purchasing, investment, and advocacy. Your magazine continues to deliver, and even improve, with the recent changes to editorial staff, and I am grateful for Northern Woodlands.

This article on this Maine State Forester presents such a positive picture of how knowledge and cooperative efforts on ecological issues and community education and forestry commerce can all have their involvement in addressing conservation and work livelyhood educational needs.
    Thanks for such a good picture of such an important community and forest advocate she has shown that female professionals do such a good job in conservation .
    Sincerely, Richard Crafts,
Niagara County Master Gardener and long time NWF Backyard landscape for birds promoter.

Another way to tell the woodpeckers apart - Hairy/Huge… Downy/Diminutive My mother who was an amazing birder, told me this trick decades ago…