August 26, 2024
By Cathy Lookabaugh, MCHT’s Washington County Community Outreach Manager What makes a landscape? Is it the wind of a river, the wildlife that calls it home, or the sometimes-unseen connections between water, soil, and life? This August, a group of curious young explorers set out to find the answers at Watershed Camp, hosted by Maine […]
August 21, 2024
By Kat O’Connor American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was once the foundation of many eastern United States forests, shaping the structure and function of the entire ecological community it was a part of. It was among the largest, tallest, and fastest growing trees in forests from the Mississippi River, through the Appalachian Mountains, to the coast […]
August 13, 2024
By MCHT Nature Bum and Steward Kirk Gentalen Insects we trust So, it turns out that checking out bugs is a year-round activity here in Maine. Let’s be honest, seeing tiny cold blooded critters scurry across ice in the heart of a Maine winter is a wonderful thrill (miss you ice, see you soon!). That […]
July 2, 2024
By MCHT Land Steward Kirk Gentalen It all started with coffee Like many of my stories, this one starts with coffee. Me and my neighbor, let’s call him “Pasta R” (pronounced “Pah-stah Arrr” with a heavy nasal accent) have been enjoying morning cups of coffee every so often for a couple of years now. Those […]
April 10, 2024
By MCHT Land Steward Kirk Gentalen Spring transitions But first, a poem. Covid Brain by Kirk Gentalen Spring is official today. Or so does the earth’s tilt say. One thing’s for sure, the last few days have been a blur. Okay – Legendary transitions (NB PART I) 3/20: And so, today things are officially spring. […]
December 4, 2023
Hey, fall is here and now almost over as I type. You may have been tipped off by the shortening of daylight and the dropping of temperatures (both Fahrenheit and Celsius!). Or maybe it was the leaves turning and all of those slow drivers on the road—you know, the ones who brake to marvel at […]
November 1, 2023
Jane Arbuckle and Amanda Devine For nearly three decades, Jane Arbuckle guided Maine Coast Heritage Trust’s stewardship efforts and a team that grew as the amount of conserved land in our care grew year after year—exceeding 45,000 acres as she wrapped her tenure with MCHT earlier this year. Jane’s love of land and easy laughter […]
October 5, 2023
By MCHT Nature Bum Steward Kirk Gentalen written November 2022 The right to “wool” bears. So, this post was originally purported to focus on woolly bear caterpillars. You know woolly bears, those black and orangey-reddish banded caterpillars that are fuzzy and whose coloration pattern is purported to predict winter severity. A “poor-(hu)man’s Punxsutawney Phil” if […]
September 11, 2023
Written by Ciona Ulbrich, Bailey Bowden, and Hans Carlson For much of his life, Bailey Bowden has waded in, fished, hunted, dug clams, or boated on the Bagaduce River that runs through his hometown of Penobscot. Over that time, he has seen a lot of change: in fish and wildlife populations, in how streams flow, […]
August 3, 2023
By MCHT steward Caitlin Gerber When we go down to the low-tide line, we enter a world that is as old as the earth itself—the primeval meeting place of the elements of earth and water, a place of compromise and conflict and eternal change. — Rachel Carson, Edge of the Sea When Maine Coast Heritage […]
