When Andre Strongbearheart Gaines-Roberson, Jr., came to the phone, he couldn’t help sounding a bit tired, having worked around the clock over the previous ten days, catching an hour or two of sleep in his tent at various times while supervising the “burn” of a mishoon, or canoe, hollowed out from a tree, in the Nipmuc tradition.
Me and Ray are expert ferrymen, it’s true, but we’re experts with small ferries that shuttle people, animals, and the mail across the Connecticut River between Saybrook and Lyme.
Before you turn the page, give me a second. Yes, this is still “Gardening for Good,” and yes, the topic is urine—ours. But it’s also about how we can rethink the way things have always been done in favor of better alternatives for the long run.
Barred owls may look lovable, but don’t be fooled. “Don’t let their adorable puffy heads and big, dark, watery eyes fool you,” Maggie Jones said, “Barred owls are badass. They are fierce.”
Welcome Christine Woodside and her new column, Covering Ground.
On a brisk February afternoon last winter, I set out to look for animal tracks at the northern end of Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts.
This article appears in the Winter 2025 issueWilliam Earle William’s ethereal photographs transport us back in time and to another place—familiar, and yet layered with new meaning. Through a two-year residency with the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, culminating in a special exhibition there last year, and now a catalog, Their Kindred Earth, Williams explored the eastern …
News from our River Partners…
On behalf of Estuary magazine and its parent The Watershed Fund, we are pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Early Career Achievement in Environmentalism Award.
First-time novelist Michael Hutton-Woodland reached out to me about his new book, which chronicles the deliberations of an aging farmer faced with a choice between selling his farm to a developer or selling it to a conservation organization at a much lower price, but with the promise that the land would remain as farmland into perpetuity.
This is the second in a series of stories about hydrilla. For an introduction, see “Hydrilla: The Nine-Headed Serpent in our Estuary Waters,” by Judy Preston, Fall 2020, and at https://www.estuarymagazine.com/2020/11/hydrilla/.
Estuary magazine and its parent The Watershed Fund, and the Old Lyme Conservation Commission are excited to announce a seminar series
Third Annual Early Career Achievement in Environmentalism Award We are pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Early Career Achievement in Environmentalism Award. You are invited to meet the winners and learn more about their work at a reception, with thanks to our host The Rockfall Foundation, to be held: November 6, 2025 5:30 – 7 p.m. deKoven House …
ANSWERS: 1 a; 2 c; 3 a; 4 d; 5 a & b (c is found down south, and d is not a real mussel, but we think it would be a good name for a mussel); 6 a (Historically, most of the islands of the Connecticut River in CT were also named by river mile—e.g., Six Mile Island, Eight …
The Union camp and our ferry assignment—a steamboat on the Rappahannock River—was just a few hundred yards from where Ray and I jumped off the train.
Fall is the perfect time to forage for mushrooms in New England as many species thrive in the cooler, wetter weather. Forage if you must, but beware as many mushrooms are inedible or poisonous!
One of the many things we have learned over the decades working to make our rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands healthy and full of life again is that some of the smallest and least conspicuous river critters can play an outsized role in this work.
How much time does it take for people to get a dose of nature high enough to say they feel healthy and have a strong sense of well-being?
On a late spring day, I sat in a rustic cabin in northern Vermont, guest of Owen Ward, head Orvis guide for the well-known Woodstock Inn.
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.