We Interrupt This Regularly-Scheduled President's Blog!
Howdy and good day. Hope you all are doing well. My name is Kirk Gentalen and even though I haven’t held the title of “president” since my Jersey high school days I’ve been asked to step up and write something about MCHT’s walks, talks and other outings for President Paul.
Anyway, I make my home on Vinalhaven and my main niche at MCHT is stewarding our forty-plus preserves and conservation easements in the Fox Islands. My extended niche has been to help organize MCHT’s assorted outings, and lead a bunch of them here on Vinalhaven - which is the reason I’ve been asked to pontificate in this forum. So here’s an update on how these trips are going and what’s still in store, a little more than ½ way through the 2009 summer time outreach season…
…. We’ve been offering quite the variety of natural history based hikes on our preserves so far. Bird Walks and Vernal Pool Explorations, Seal Pup watches, Night Hikes and more. Over 200 people have joined to share these great experiences at this point and this summer’s hefty rains - this is officially the “Summer of the Slime Mold”- haven’t kept the stewards or the participants from getting out there and exploring some of the most beautiful places along our incredible coast.
We’ve also teamed up with 4 local land trusts to help sponsor outings on lands that MCHT helped them acquire. The hikes with Boothbay Regional Land Trust, Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association, North Haven Conservation Partnership and the Vinalhaven Land Trust have not only been rousing successes, but have encouraged a further evolution of MCHT’s connection with these valued partners in conservation. And we’re already in the process of setting up trips for next summer - it’ll be fun to see where this new facet of our relationship to these great organizations takes us!
And you may have read the article on our website about the Castine Vernal Pool Walk and the 3rd grader who wrote about the day for a local newspaper. This outing has now inspired a partnership with the Adams School in Castine and we are working with the school to set field trips with their students to some of our local preserves throughout the school year. The prospect of getting the local kids (and chaperones) out and exploring our lands is very exciting to say the least!
And let’s be honest - there have been some bumps for sure, especially the unfortunate cancellation of several trips due to soggy conditions and weather. All in all, this season’s field trips have been a learning experience for us and we’ve come a long way for sure. We, the stewardship team, look forward to developing this process and offering the best outings possible, year in and year out. If you have any ideas for outings on our properties or other trips you’d like to see offered, feel free to contact me
and we’ll see what we can put together.
And of course there’s a bunch of outings still to come this summer - and there will be more offered throughout the year as well. We’d love have you join us sometime - so come on out and meet a steward or two - and if it’s a bald, bearded one please be patient. He normally works with 5th graders.
See you out there and thanks for your time.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.
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It’s Paul here again. I hope you get a chance to meet Kirk and his fellow field trippers as the year progresses. We can’t think of a better way for you to get to know MCHT and see all the new conservation projects you’re helping to support.
Enjoy!
Paul Gallay
President, Maine Coast Heritage Trust
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