How was a body to exercise and get fresh air when confined to home? Gyms were closed, exercise classes were canceled, the track was off limits. Well, walk the conservation trails!
At the height of the lockdown, parking lots at the trailheads of popular conservation lands were full of cars and, indeed, the trails saw a lot of traffic, more than the regular dog walkers, birders, and nature lovers. Little painted rocks with cheerful messages appeared. A stand of beautifully painted walking sticks beside the trail at Holy Hill encouraged passersby to take one. It was great to see people outside enjoying one of Harvard’s finest assets.
But during mud season, walkers and bikers created even bigger puddles as they went off-trail to avoid the mud. With the increase in traffic, stones got dislodged. The roots of trees were being exposed, like the veins on the backs of our hands. Some sensitive habitats were invaded.
In addition to increased human activity, plants, some of them opportunistic invasives, continued their intrusions. Storms caused trees to fall or broken branches to hang dangerously over trails. Heavy rains caused erosion on routes with particularly delicate geographic features, such as glacial till.
But in spite of heavier traffic and nature’s desire to take over, the Harvard trails are enduring the pandemic fairly well. Not entirely on their own, however. The Land Stewardship Subcommittee of the Conservation Commission takes on the housekeeping chores of managing and caring for the conservation lands and trails. The chainsaw group deals with big downed trees. Other stewards clear branches from trails or cut brush away from their edges. They nail yellow and blue blazes on trees so we don’t get lost or wander onto private property. They are perpetually hacking away at invasive plants. Sometimes trails need to be rerouted due to wet areas or trail degradation; they do that. That last topic came up at the subcommittee’s Sept. 22 meeting, regarding the rerouting of trails on the Old Mill Road property, one of two pine barrens in Harvard. And if they can’t do it themselves, they know who to hire and how to direct them.
While stewardship of the forest, fields, and wetlands entails a lot of just plain old hard labor, it also demands knowledge and, according to Henry David Thoreau in his essay “Walking,” “sympathy with Intelligence” to the changing seasons, animal and plant habitats and needs, natural and human history, life and death. For instance, when is the right time to mow a field? How does one pull an invasive plant so that it doesn’t reseed itself? How close to houses should a trail be rerouted? Nowadays, an additional challenge to stewardship of the land is global climate change and how plants and animals are affected by it.
Maintaining a garden, a yard, a field or forest is perennial work measured in small details. For instance, at the meeting, it was reported that some of the chestnut tree seedlings on the Powell land were now over 5 feet tall, but two had died and will be replaced, and they had been watered six times, in doses of 16 to 20 ounces. (For more information about the chestnut trees, see the Press article “From sapling to forest,” April 3, 2020. Two adorable calves living on the Haskell Land are receiving a lot of attention. And another thing, the shoots of the clonal black locust trees in Shaker Village need reining in.
All of this behind-the-scenes work allows us citizens to have the trail experience that we desire or need, whether it be for meditative, aesthetic, healthful, educational, or psychological purposes. The trails, like the land, will take care of us, if we serve them well.
Harvard trails: Maintained through public, private effort
The Conservation Commission is an official town entity, and the stewardship group is one of its subcommittees. The Land Stewardship Subcommittee’s mission, membership, structure, and activities are described on the Town of Harvard website under the Conservation Commission. The subcommittee’s meetings take place, via Zoom, every fourth Tuesday at 7:15 p.m.
The Harvard Conservation Trust, on the other hand, is a private, nonprofit organization “empowered to buy, sell, or hold property and is able to assist the Conservation Commission and complement its work,” according to its guide, “Harvard Trails.”
