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- Stewardship
No hubbub here: The James and Eleanor Crider Forest / Rumrill Family Forest in Stoddard.
The Forest Society offers public access to some lovely land. There are scenic vistas to enjoy, ponds to fish, trails to hike and adventures to remember. But some properties, well, let’s just say some of them are still “in the rough.”
The history of land ownership for the Forest Society stretches back 103 years beginning with Reservation #1, Lost River. In 1913 we added the first of more than 30 parcels that today compose our Monadnock Reservation. And so it has gone until today, when the number of reservations is nearing 180 and the number of acres has surpassed 53,000.
If you were asked to name 30 of those properties you might be able to do it with the help of our online Forest Reservations Guide or a quick read of past issues of Forest Notes, but the majority of our reservations exist with almost complete anonymity. Perhaps known to a few locals and to Forest Society staff, many properties slide through the years with only occasional visits to have their boundary lines repainted or perhaps to host a small timber harvest.
Much of the land the Forest Society now owns was given to us by landowners who wanted their land protected and managed as they themselves had done. It might have been the woodlot portion of an old family farm, divided amongst the family members who had no need or time to care for it. It might have been an inaccessible hilltop with poor second growth fighting the rocks for a place on the steep slopes. It could have been “Somethin’ I bought for the boy, but he never had an interest, I guess.”
Compared to the well-known reservations like Lost River, Monadnock or our tracts on Mt. Major, most of our properties are just woods. Acres and acres of woods, usually with just a Forest Society sign to tell you where you are.
But don’t feel bad for the apparent lack of attention. There have to be places where those of us who don’t like crowds, who don’t enjoy white- water canoeing, or who feel they may be getting too old to hike all day at elevations over 4.000 feet, can go and just enjoy the woods. And for me that means quiet strolls, listening to birds calling, catching a bear or porcupine up a tree, being buzzed by an upset broad-wing hawk when you have ventured too close to the nest tree, photographing mushrooms or colorful lichens up close and undisturbed by passing day-trippers, stumbling upon an old cellar hole or other relic of past land use, finding a pre-Civil War cemetery and letting my imagination take me into the lives and trials of the folks who chose to live and die ‘so far back in the woods.
When there is no big view to see, no grand natural beauty smacking you in the face amidst the summer crowds, look closer and see the small things, and see how wonderful those small things can be. We’ve got lots of small things waiting for you if you’re willing to look around our ‘other’ reservations.
George Frame is the Senior Director of Forestry at the Forest Society.