Inspired by artists and writers such as Thomas Cole and Timothy Dwight, many tourists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came to the Connecticut River valley to visit the region’s mountain houses atop peaks such as Mount Tom, Mount Holyoke, and Mount Sugarloaf. Visitors enjoyed the panoramic views and amenities such as restaurants, observatories, theaters, concerts, and inclined railroads.
Looking for inspiration for an environmentally friendly lawn? I suggest you take a break and go for a walk in a local cemetery.
Major policy changes affecting the irreplaceable network of public lands, which the federal government is charged with protecting unimpaired for future generations, have been implemented by the second Trump administration.
News from our River Partners…
How did a man who left high school at the age of fifteen have a major impact on the development of some of our nation’s premier institutions of higher education, including the flagship universities of Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts? That would be a person with a core understanding of self and an uncompromising work ethic. That man was Justin Smith Morrill.
Anglers who fish Chatfield Hollow State Park in Killingworth, Connecticut, swear that cormorants have figured out when trout stocking is due. They may be on to something.
Great blue heron’s rookeries can be hard to reach for a good reason. These big birds don’t like intruders, especially during their nesting season.
Some folks go on an annual religious pilgrimage. My annual journey is to see mountain laurel which blooms from late May to early June.
Two species of sturgeon are found in the Connecticut River—the Atlantic and the shortnose. Both are anadromous, at least to a degree, and both are listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
It seemed like such a good idea. Just coat seeds with insecticide so that the plants sprout with the insecticide systemically already in their leaves, ready to repel and kill the pests.
We often lament that the carefree days of exploring outdoors with only a dinner bell to call you home are unfamiliar to today’s children. But early learning about the natural world is important.
The Emancipation Proclamation became official January of this year, 1863.
News from our River Partners…
Project partners from three different organizations wander across fields of goldenrod and burnweed under a perfect September sky. From a boardwalk just a few inches above the wetland soils we inspect alders and cattails, wool grass and smartweed.
Some birds are unshakably consistent in their nesting ways, and good for them, I say. It’s heartening to know that some lives can sustain such constancy, and thrive.
In summer 2021, my neighbor sent me a text with a picture of an unusual bird wading in the marsh below his deck. You had to take note, as there are just no big pink birds local to Connecticut. Indeed, that bird—a roseate spoonbill—is typically a resident of Florida and tropics further south. Likely sent off course from a storm that blew it up the coast, it is somehow appropriate to elicit that recollection in a conversation about how our climate is changing in New England.
One could walk the length of the Connecticut River and never think of Wallace Stevens.
Mudpuppies gushing out of fire hydrants onto the streets of Albany, New York.
In March 1835 Amherst College professor Edward Hitchcock received a letter about a mysterious discovery in Greenfield, Massachusetts. The writer, a doctor named James Deane, described bird-like tracks embedded in a slab of sandstone rock.
In the Connecticut River, the scientific community recognizes ten species of migratory fish that include American shad, alewife, American eel, Atlantic salmon, striped bass, blueback herring, sea lamprey, hickory shad, Atlantic sturgeon, and shortnose sturgeon. They travel thousands of ocean miles and annually swim up the Connecticut River, some a few miles and some over two hundred miles.