Archives for December 2019

Nordic skiers welcome at Nickerson Tree Farm

December 30, 2019 By Annie

By Erica Cassidy Dubois, FSM Forestland Steward
Printed in the Piscataquis Observer and Moosehead Matters

Groomed ski trails at Nickerson Tree Farm in Greenville (if you’re not skiing, please don’t crush the tracks!)

The Forest Society of Maine welcomes Nordic skiers of all ages and abilities to enjoy the trails, this winter, at Nickerson Tree Farm in Greenville. Located behind the Moosehead Lake Region Visitors’ Center—just a few miles south of town—the tree farm offers a 2.3-mile network of looping routes that will be groomed throughout winter, as conditions allow.

Anyone who has skied at Nickerson will tell you, it’s not just for beginners! The trails have hills, curves, and other features that make it fun and satisfying for skiers of almost every level.

If you make a visit to the Nickerson Tree Farm, please remember that maintaining good, groomed trails is a lot of work! Winter grooming and track-laying is made possible by NREC-Moosehead and their exceptional network of volunteers. Please respect that many hours and a lot of energy goes into making these trails excellent for everyone. Do not walk or snowshoe on groomed tracks—one person (or dog) will quickly destroy the trail surface for skiing. Bottom line: if you aren’t wearing five-foot sticks on your feet, please travel beside the tracks, or off-trail. Fat biking is not permitted.

The 80-acre Nickerson Tree Farm property was donated to the Forest Society of Maine in 2018 thanks to the generosity of Ellen Nickerson Poole. Mrs. Poole is the daughter of the late Dr. Norman Nickerson, who started his decades-long career as a physician in the Moosehead Lake region in 1920. For many years, Mrs. Poole invited the public to enjoy her property via the skiing trails that loop through the woodlot. Forest Society of Maine is proud to carry on this tradition.

A map of the Nickerson Tree Farm trails is available online, at Maine Trail Finder. You can also find out more about the tree farm and the Forest Society of Maine’s land conservation work at www.fsmaine.org.

From the E.D.

December 18, 2019 By Karin Tilberg

Maine’s forests are outstanding in so many respects – the economic opportunities they provide in the wood products and outdoor recreation sectors, the foundation for healthy fish and wildlife habitat and clean water, the cultural and historic values they hold, and their ability to refresh our lives with beauty and a sense of grandeur.

Maine’s forests are storing vast amounts of carbon.

Maine’s forests also store, or sequester, carbon and lots of it. Why should we care that Maine’s forests store large amounts of carbon? Carbon sequestration in forests helps to offset increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere such as occurs from forest conversion to other land uses, forest fires, and from other sources of human activity such as fossil fuel combustion. Trees and plants take up CO₂ from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store it as carbon in their trunks, branches, foliage, and roots. Utilizing wood for construction and other durable materials also represents an enormous contribution to carbon storage.

Maine is known as the most heavily forested state in the United States with approximately 17.5 million acres of forestland. The trees in Maine’s forests store hundreds of millions of metric tons of carbon in just the portions of the trees that are above ground. Much more carbon is stored in the stumps and roots. And lots more carbon is stored in the forest soil. To understand the significance of these numbers, it is currently estimated that 50% or more of Maine’s total CO₂ emissions are being stored by Maine’s forests each year.

The Forest Society of Maine is proud to work with forest landowners, conservation partners and, with your help, to implement permanent conservation solutions that keep Maine’s forests as forests–storing carbon in the trees, soils, and wood products far into the future.

-Karin Tilberg

Published in FSM’s biannual newsletter, Forest View, fall 2019 edition.