ARTICLES

In late May, in my role as GMF Newsletter Editor, I had the opportunity to spend the night at the Meekertown Cabin, a rustic but cozy outpost on the site of a onetime homestead at the southwestern extremity of this 6,300 acre forest. The objective was to produce the article you now read; whatever [Read More...]

As New England experiences increasingly extreme weather, including hotter and wetter summers, keeping forests healthy and resilient to pests and disease is an ongoing challenge. Work has begun implementing Connecticut Land Conservation Council’s (CLCC) Climate Smart Land Stewardship Grant at GMF! Great Mountain Forest recently began a pre-commercial thinning project, which is a forest [Read More...]

Ren Cattafe Hello! My name is Ren Cattafe, and I am an undergraduate student at UMass Amherst studying forest ecology and conservation. I grew up in eastern Massachusetts, spending a lot of time in forests, which fostered my love of nature early on and influenced my decision to pursue a career in natural resources. [Read More...]

Peeking around the berry bushes into the Tobey Bog’s central clearing The oft-maligned swamp, despite holding a persistent legacy in the cultural imagination as a place of decay with little utility or aesthetic appeal to humans, has garnered several famous fans over the years. The animated ogre Shrek, famed for his protectiveness [Read More...]

The hills are alive in Northwest Connecticut, but it’s not all birdsong and snowdrops: the blacklegged tick has shaken off its winter torpor, and now crawls in droves through the understory, spreading disease and myths in equal measure. Dr. Scott Williams, Chief Scientist and Head of the Department of Environmental Science and Forestry at [Read More...]

Winters in the Ice Box of Connecticut have been getting warmer, and this one is no exception. While the mercury did drop at times, data from the GMF weather station through February this year reveals a familiar trend: above-average temperatures and below-average snowfall. GMF Property Manager and Head Weather Observer Russell Russ said that [Read More...]

The Winter of Our Lives Our animal relatives have much to teach us about winter as a season of rest and renewal. Some of us might associate hibernation as a retreat from reality and torpor as a state of apathy and laziness. However, in her memoir Wintering, Katherine May likens difficult times in our lives [Read More...]

The forest holds its secrets. Trees grow, leaves and other detritus accumulate, and they draw a curtain over even the most industrious, permanent seeming human activities. Memory is fragile, and places like the Brown Brook sawmill might be lost forever if not for old maps. Even so, casual visitors still might not find it without [Read More...]