Just as the Abenaki stewarded the mountains, streams, ponds, and foothills of this region for thousands of years, Proctor now carries that stewardship responsibility for 2,500 acres of land in the Blackwater River Valley. We take this responsibility seriously, and have worked to develop multiple use land management plans that encourage public access to trail networks, allow hunting in select areas of Proctor’s Woodlands, and encourage on-going research and learning within the forests.
The land Proctor stewards stretches from the top of the Proctor Ski Area across the Blackwater River valley up the southern slopes of Ragged Mountain and beyond to Hopkins Pond and Elbow Pond to the east. The ever-growing network of trails connects the likes of Balanced Rock, the swinging bridge, the Proctor Cabin, and Mud Pond shelter, while countless old wolf pines and broken down stone walls remind us of the farms that speckled these acres in generations past.
This land has served as the ultimate classroom for Proctor students for generations; its biodiversity a perfect laboratory for the natural sciences, its serenity a retreat for the humanities, its terrain a mountain biker's dream. Since Proctor’s earliest years, the school has fostered a deep commitment to providing students access to and meaningful engagement with the land. Whether it was Roland Burbank launching the Cabin Club in the early 1930s and Outing Clubs throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Bob Wilson pioneering a woodland management plan and trail construction throughout the 1960s and 1970s, David Pilla serving as the school’s first Woodlands Manager for four decades from the 1980s through the 2010s, former Woodlands Manager Laura Ostrowsky working alongside science department colleague Alan McIntyre to help turn Proctor’s land into a research forest, and Lynne Bartlett ensuring her Wildlife Ecology students immerse themselves in the wonders of the woodlands, we believe we have an institutional responsibility to teach our students to become stewards of the land they call home.
Perhaps the most powerful lesson courses like Wildlife Ecology teach our students is that we are part of a greater whole. In a society driven by a focus on the individual, we must actively work to understand and accept our responsibility to work for the greater good of those around us and to utilize this remarkable resource in a multi-use way.
For nearly two decades, Jack Bronnenberg has been central to helping Proctor understand this concept of multiple use management from a sustainable harvesting perspective. On Thursday, Jack met with Lynne’s Wildlife Ecology class to discuss Proctor’s woodland harvesting plan and the active management of the forest for hunters, recreators, students, and wildlife.
Jack shares of the Proctor Woodlands, "Proctor has been given a unique and wonderful gift: to be the long time steward of the woodlands. They are and have been managed for multiple uses over the years. To protect and enhance wildlife and habitat, conducting sustainable forestry for timber products, which includes harvesting low grade wood to be used in Proctor’s biomass plant, protecting water quality and unique areas, recreation and for an educational resource. It’s rare to have one large block of land in central NH that has so many diverse areas, including a large part of it being mostly unfragmented that has critical wildlife habitat in it. I truly hope it will remain that way. I feel honored to have had the opportunity to be the Woodlands Manager and I strive to do it at the high standard the previous managers, like Dave Pilla, have done in the past. I hope the Proctor Woodlands will always be treated this way! It truly is a special place!"
Lynne adds, “Our classes can access the Proctor woodlot in every season. We can step out of the woodlands classroom building and be encapsulated in the forest in minutes. Students are not only measuring tree diameters and looking for animal habitats, students are learning about the history of the school from the perspective of the woods.”
As these beautiful fall days transition to full blown stick season, and then winter, our goal is to continue to immerse ourselves and our students in the healing, inspiring, energizing surroundings of the woodlands. Whether we are learning or reflecting or simply being, we all are better off when we spend time in the woods.
Most of us spend far more time indoors than out. The problem for me is this: I cannot remember a single indoor moment of my life when I have felt gobsmacked by a realization of my place in the universe. Yes, I have many times sat reading in a comfortable chair and been engaged in intellectual curiosity regarding life as I know it. But here’s the thing: I know with certainty that the same book read around a campfire, on a hilltop, or beside a river would transport me emotionally and spiritually to the far reaches of my known universe - and beyond; an experience I referred to as being gobsmacked.
And those spirit-forming moments have come to me even more powerfully when I was just sitting wrapped in the hugeness and intimacy of solitude - on a hill, in a canyon, or beside a fire. I have collected a boatload of data that suggests that many of us, if not most, have felt that same awesome power in encountering the universe outside the walls we have built to separate us from all that. We humans are inspired and transported to better places - and are healed - by time spent beyond our walls.
Trustee, past parent, and former Mountain Classroom instructor Tim Miner P’09
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- Environmental Stewardship
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