FSM Blog and News

Vernal Pools – A Sign of Spring!

May 23, 2019 By Annie

-by Kristin Peet, FSM Forestland Conservation Specialist

Yellow-spotted salamander. Photo by Pamela Wells

One of my favorite spring activities is to head out after dark on a warm, rainy night in April, flashlight and camera in tow, to look for frogs and salamanders heading to vernal pools to breed. I consider it a success if I see a spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum)–my all-time favorite!

Vernal pools are defined as “seasonal, semi-permanent or permanent bodies of water that are essential breeding habitat for certain amphibians and invertebrates and do not support fish” (Hunter, Calhoun, & McCollough, 1999). Vernal pools generally hold water for several months in the spring and early summer and are often dry by fall. They are essential habitats because several of Maine’s amphibian species breed in them almost exclusively, including the wood frog, spotted salamander, and blue-spotted salamander. Fairy shrimp are also considered an indicator species as they breed only in these vernal pools.

Forest managers and land stewards have the vital role of being the first in line to protect these sensitive habitats, which can be easily overlooked in other seasons. Maintaining canopy cover and shade is an important component of the habitat structure of vernal pools. You can find more information on how to manage vernal pools and other conservation resources at www.maineaudubon.org/resources.

This article was originally published in the Spring 2019 edition of Forest View, FSM’s biannual newsletter.

Prong Pond Trail: from Flagging to (Almost!) Finished

May 23, 2019 By Erica

By Erica Cassidy Dubois
May 22, 2019

Last Saturday my husband and I woke up early to load our packs and our trusty trail dog, Arwen, into our 4-runner and head north. Outside of Greenville we met up with other volunteers from Moosehead Trails and state Bureau of Parks & Lands staff to put near-finishing touches on the new Prong Pond Trail.

The trip was exciting for me because, as a forestland steward for the Forest Society of Maine, I walked the “draft” route to Prong Pond years ago, back when it was just an idea and a trail of pink flagging hung in the branches of trees. Last summer, a professional Maine Conservation Corps crew roughed out the corridor and on Saturday volunteers cleared back winter debris and helped smooth out the footbed. It’s amazing the difference that a couple of leaf blowers, loppers, grubbing tools, and a half-dozen volunteers can make in less than a day!

The trail, once completed, will be just under one mile in length and run from the Prong Pond Road to the pond’s northeast shore. It’s a moderate hike, by Maine standards—no climbing over granite boulders, required—but it has enough elevation gain to reward hikers with an unexpected but outstanding view of Burnt Jacket, Big Moose, and Little Moose Mountains. It passes through a pleasant and relatively open forest of mature hemlock, yellow birch, and beech. The beech—like most in Maine—are suffering from the incurable and fatal Beech Bark Disease. Still, when the sun strikes last-year’s leaves, the whole golden understory glows. Sprinkled with interesting, glacial erratic boulders, the path to Prong Pond is going to be an especially great place for families to let nature-loving kids run wild and explore.

Construction of the trail came about as part of a years-long process to build or improve several non-motorized trails on the 359,000-acre Moosehead Region Conservation Easement (MRCE). The Prong Pond Trail is located on Weyerhaeuser (private) land, which the MRCE permanently conserved in 2012. The corridor is overlaid with a trail and access easement that was transferred from Weyerhaeuser to the state’s Bureau of Parks and Lands. In short: it’s complicated. But here’s the important bit. Once all the ‘i’s are dotted and the ‘t’s crossed, Weyerhaeuser will transfer small parcels on either end of the trail corridor, to the state, to be managed as a trail head parking area and a shorefront campsite, respectively. That means that, by this time next year, we’ll be able to launch canoes and kayaks from the Prong Pond boat landing, paddle over to the campsite area, and hike up the trail to the viewpoint.

Pretty sweet.

A note on wildlife: deer browse—where trees and other vegetation have been chomped back by hungry ungulates—is heavy through the trail corridor as it is located quite near to a Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife designated Deer Wintering Area. To minimize stress and impact on wildlife, BPL will promote the Prong Pond Trail as a three-season hike, and not a snowshoeing destination. Thanks for respecting wildlife and the good work of our state wildlife managers and biologists!

Arwen, for her part, had a wonderful time sniffing deer trails, accepting kind words and pats from fellow volunteers, and at one point even helping to chew off a stubborn root I was attempting to clip out of the trail bed. (We’re lucky that Arwen, who has herding DNA, is more intent on keeping her pack of humans together than chasing after wildlife, otherwise Prong Pond might not be the best trail for her.) She spent the day running up and down a freshly-blazed trail, and slept a deep, satisfied sleep on the way home.

Erica Cassidy Dubois grew up in Dover-Foxcroft and works as forestland steward for the Forest Society of Maine.

Timber Frame Buildings Span the Past and the Future

April 24, 2019 By Annie

For this article Anna Mercier spoke with Erin Connolly, owner of Connolly & Co. Timber Frame Homes and the Maine Barn Company, a longtime FSM business supporter.

Have you ever wandered through a timber frame home or barn, the timbers stretching gracefully upward like tree trunks, the exposed wood arching like branches far above your head? These structures are part of the New England landscape in a region where wood is a popular building material and several Maine businesses cater solely to their construction. One of the first to be established was Connolly & Company Timber Frame Homes & Barns.

Erin as a young girl with her father, John, inspecting a job up-close. Photo courtesy of Erin Connolly.

In the 1970s John Connolly, fascinated by the elegance of old joinery found in Maine’s barns, started a business building new timber frames. It was a new market back then, but over the years he has trained countless other timber framers in Maine—previous employees that have gone out on their own.

Generally, Connolly & Co. builds in New England and the East Coast but they have put up structures as far away as Colorado, Texas, and New Brunswick, Canada. They rely on Maine’s forests for Eastern white pine and hemlock, and much of their dimensional lumber comes from western Maine suppliers.

The inside of a timber frame building under construction. Photo by Erin Connolly.

Today John is retired and his daughter, Erin, who says she has been balancing on timbers since she could walk, is the owner. She has been working in the business for a little more than a decade and bought it four years ago. Under her leadership the business is quickly approaching the milestone of 300 frames built. It helps that they have a lot of repeat business from happy customers, and whose word-of-mouth referrals result in orders from friends or relatives. “I love the atmosphere,” Erin says, “the design aspect and the constant difference—some people come with a complete set of architectural drawings, others just have an idea in their head.” Before officially taking over in 2015, she spent about six years working both with her father who ran the business, and the framers down in the shop. One of her favorite always-evolving skills has been learning to design buildings and use Auto CAD (computer-aided design) software as well as SketchUp. She now does most of the designing herself and gets joinery help from her foreman who learned timber framing from her father.

Maine’s timber frame structures have spanned generations and this company, under Erin’s guidance, is doing the same. Perhaps decades from now future generations will be admiring some of these handsome, sturdy structures as much as they admire the people and forests that made them possible.

A completed timber frame building located on a Maine island. Photo by Erin Connolly.

Greenville Memories: Cutting Ice

April 9, 2019 By Annie

One of FSM’s friends spent much of her childhood in Greenville, Maine as a young girl in the 1940s. Our friend was kind enough to share some stories with us. Here is an excerpt from a letter she wrote about a winter trip to Moosehead Lake. The first part of the trip was featured in the spring 2018 newsletter. If you missed it read the first part here.

Dear Mary,

Earlier I told you of our ride to Lily Bay in the mail truck with food for the logging camp and spilling eggs in the snow. Here is the rest of the story. We spent the night at a nice camp on the shore of Lily Bay on Moosehead Lake. We were glad to stay inside and play games after exploring everything in the camp. That next day was bitterly cold but the sun was bright. We had been told that there was to be ice cutting in the bay after breakfast. We didn’t want to miss out on that! The ice would be shipped to New York City by train later that day. We looked out the window and could already see the sleigh, horses, and men. I had been given new skates for Christmas—figure skating skates. I could hardly wait to use them! I had seen others skating and knew I could do it, too! We bundled up in our heavy woolen pants and jackets and walked on the snow-covered ice to the sleigh to sit as the men laced our skates.

The ice where they were cutting in the windy bay was crystal clear, the snow having been blown away, and we could see fish swimming below the ice. I had never seen it like that as usually it freezes in bumpy waves. The men cut the ice using very long saws with a handle at one end. They would use an ax to chop a place to begin using the saw for the first block of ice which was three feet thick and cut a straight line towards them for three feet. Then they began another cut at a right angle for the second side for three feet, turned at a right angle to cut three more feet, and turned again to meet the first cut. There was a 3×3 foot ice block floating. After making several cuts like this there was a line of 3×3 foot cubes, and they began loading the cubes onto the sleigh. How did they do this?

The men used tongs to pull the blocks onto safe ice, being careful not to slide into the open water. Ice tongs are like most tongs but have very sharp long points to grasp the slippery blocks. It was piled onto the sleigh. The horses would pull the sleigh all the long, cold, windy way down the lake to the train station while the driver sat bundled up in buffalo robes to stay warm. There the ice would be moved into boxcars with sawdust packed all around each block to keep it from melting on its trip to New York, Boston, or some other distant place. We had an ice house at home so I knew all about this—I just wanted to skate!

Confidently I pushed off with the toe of my skate and smooth as could be landed hard, face first, nose-down on that cold, hard ice! It hurt and I was stunned. My nose was bleeding and I was crying and the ice was blood red. Someone helped me up and told me I had broken my nose. Their sympathy made me cry—and bleed—harder. My injured nose would not sell well in the city, so my face had to be washed clean, and my friends returned to camp with me. They made sure I held chunks of ice in my mitten to keep me from swelling and turning black and blue. I lay down, wanting to rest and cry, but they told me I had to sit up and keep my head up. I had been told to keep using the ice and no one would let me sleep. Later I was given something for the pain so I could sleep and I was taken home the next morning. I was black and blue for weeks and it hurt to laugh.

It is a trip I clearly remember, mostly with pleasure and good memories, but I learned not to try to be a showoff, too. One lesson like that was enough!

This story first appeared in the spring edition of Forest View, FSM’s biannual newsletter.

Granite peaks and golden eagles:

March 27, 2019 By Erica

Maine’s northern forests are important to the biodiversity of the world

by Erica Kaufmann, Forestland Steward

Big Spencer over Lazy Tom Bog — Big Spencer Mountain over Lazy Tom Bog

The first summer I worked as a Forest Society of Maine (FSM) steward, I took a monitoring trip up Big Spencer Mountain. It was early July; the weather was sticky and hot, and my colleague and I spent the day picking our way over rocks, ladders, and the half-brittle tree crowns that fierce winter winds had broken off and scattered along the trail.

It was mid-afternoon and we were headed home, bouncing down the Sias Hill Road when it happened: a massive bird swooped low and crossed the road about 30 feet in front of our truck. The huge raptor hung in the air and snatched at some small animal rustling in the grass. It missed. Then it changed direction, fast, long brown flight feathers slipping through air like fingers moving through water. As it sailed off, we twisted our necks to gape back through the cloud of dust, blinking and trying to get a last look.

I’d heard people claim, before, that they’d seen a golden eagle and always assumed that they’d misidentified a juvenile Bald. But the bird I saw that day was far bigger than any adolescent bald eagle I’d ever seen, so I consulted an ornithological expert: my boss at the time, the late Alan Hutchinson, who spent many years working with raptors. Alan assured me that it is not uncommon for golden eagles to use Maine’s remote mountains as hunting grounds.

I was recently reminded of my avian encounter while reading a 2016 paper by Janet McMahon, M.S., Diversity, Continuity, and Resilience—The Ecological Values of the Western Maine Mountains. McMahon’s paper catalogs a number of ways in which the habitats of northern and western Maine are significant on a continental and even global level.

McMahon defines the Western Maine Mountains as the “broad band from the summits of the Katahdin group… to Boundary Bald Mountain and the Mahoosuc Range on Maine’s western border,” an area that encompasses more than 5,000,000 acres. In addition to being “the only region in the eastern United States with year round activity by golden eagles, Maine’s rarest breeding bird,” the Western Maine Mountains are home to all of the state’s tallest mountains; tundra and boreal communities that occur in few places around the world, and 139 species of rare plants and animals.

Diversity, Continuity, and Resilience does an excellent job highlighting how “the timber value and resilience of [the region’s] vast forests, most of which have been in private ownership and actively managed for more than two centuries,” have been key to retaining large blocks of undeveloped, road-less land—“…the only place,” McMahon writes, “in the eastern United States where such a large area has remained continuously forested since pre-settlement times.”

Moosehead Lake, of course, is at the heart of these ecologically rich forestlands. As we take stock of the region’s many assets, we can celebrate being at the core of what the National Audubon Society has identified as our country’s largest globally important area for birds. We can boast that the woods around Nahmakanta Lake contain “the highest concentration of pristine, remote ponds in New England.”

McMahon’s paper, which includes many more facts and superlatives than I can echo in this article, is available for download at ‘mainemountaincollaborative.org/resources/.’ It’s an accessible read about some of the many gifts that Maine’s vast forests give to us residents, our visitors, and to the world.

The Forest Society of Maine is a non-profit land trust that has helped to conserve more than 1,000,000 acres of Maine’s North Woods for their ecological, economic, recreational, and cultural values. Learn more at fsmaine.org.

Originally published in Moosehead Matters, March 20, 2019