Give a Boy a Hatchet: My Journey to Joshua’s Trust

By John Hankins, August 2023

When I was eight-years old I somehow got in my head that the government had a program that would reimburse land-owners $100 per acre for thinning their forest stands.  I don’t know where this idea came from, but my parents didn’t discourage me from believing this odd theory and from implementing my plan at our family farm in Maine.  They gave me a little hatchet with a leather handle, and sent me into the woods where I started hacking the lower limbs from a dense stand of pine and hemlock trees on a corner of our forested property.  I had a lot of energy, and they were happy to see me disappear for several hours each day, seemingly unconcerned that I might return with fewer fingers than I started with.

I worked all summer on the project, and by August I’d managed to clear off most of the branches up to a height of about six feet, creating a more open and accessible forest.  It was hard work, and I returned from the forest each afternoon with a few more scratches and bug bites than I’d started the day with.  But I loved working alone in the solitude and peacefulness of the forest and I could see the results of my efforts.  As the summer progressed, my reason for doing the project had been shifting from the $100 fantasy payout to something else.  For the first time in my eight short years I was accomplishing something big – something I was proud of.  I had created a little piece of geography that I would visit frequently, a place that would be recognized for the next generation as “John’s Little Acre”.  I didn’t know it at the time, but the pride I felt in the completion of that job was the first indication of what would become a life-long commitment to forest-related conservation activities.  As I made my way through high school, I helped my parents to build local trails in town parks and regional trails for the Connecticut Forest and Park Association.  When I moved back to Connecticut after college, I took on the stewardship of an eight-mile section of the blue-blazed Nipmuck Trail, something I’ve been doing now for nearly 30 years.

I’m not an expert in trees, or forestry, or botany, or any of the other fields of study that you’d think someone passionate about the forest might pursue.  I am, however, the world’s leading expert on how the forest makes me feel:

Tranquility – When I walk in the forest, particularly by myself, I’m keenly aware of the beauty that surrounds me, a beauty that is different with every visit – a green carpet of ferns under the tree canopy, a towering pine tree, a bubbling stream making its way over rounded rocks along the forest floor.

Awe and Humility – I observe a line of gnarled oak trees on a discontinued road next to an old stone foundation in Ashford, realizing that some of these trees may have taken root 200 years ago, a span of seven human generations or more.  I observe the large boulder teetering at the edge of a cliff at our Wolf Rock Preserve, a boulder that was transported by glacial ice 10,000 years ago, and think of the indigenous peoples that arrived in this area shortly after the ice melted back, perhaps 300 generations ago.  Kind of puts our short lives and the timeframe over which Europeans have been here in perspective.

Wonder – I’m constantly noticing things in the forest that don’t seem to make sense, but there they are. 

I look at the modest-sized maple tree growing out of narrow crack in the rock and think “Why did that tree decide to germinate in that impossibly problematic spot?”.  Then I realize that the tree didn’t make a choice – the crack in the rock was the only option for the particular seed that landed there.  It did the best it could with the difficult hand it was dealt, and found a way to thrive.  I can’t help but anthropomorphize the maple tree in the crack, and consider the human corollary.

I come across a standing dead pine, pecked to oblivion, and think about the woodpeckers who hammer their faces into the sides of trees thousands of times a day in the hopes of encountering a few insect morsels.  Seems like a hard way to make a living.

Healing – The forests have always provided me a place to go to sort out my feelings and “re-set” my emotions.  Behind the house where I lived during my formative years on Mountain Road in Mansfield there was a large maple tree.  It was quite a way into the woods – not on any trail and not in an area where people normally went.  As a pre-teen I would climb the tree and sit on a well-positioned branch to do some quiet processing of my pre-teen emotions.  It must have been effective because I remember returning to that tree frequently for several years.  I don’t climb trees much anymore, but the forest continues to be the place I go when I need a mental health break.

Realizing that I had some energy left when I retired five years ago, I knocked on the door of Joshua’s Trust and asked if they needed assistance.  They did, and after raising my hand to help a few too many times over the past five years, I now find myself in the position of President of an organization whose mission and priorities are aligned nicely with my own.  I’m delighted that our role includes providing access to our properties in the form of low-impact trail systems that allow the public into these magical healing places.  The conservation awareness we create by bringing people to our properties creates more support for organizations such as ours, which in turn allows us to increase our rate and effectiveness of land protection.

The $100 check from the government I’d been expecting since I was eight arrived a few weeks ago in the most unexpected of ways.  An older couple had inadvertently discarded some tires, a cast iron sink, and an old boat onto property for which Joshua’s Trust holds a conservation easement, and I was there to play the role of enforcer.  I quickly realized that they did not have the means to move the heavy items out of the area on their own, so JT board member Scott Matthies and I rolled up our sleeves and completed the task on their behalf.  When the couple saw how we’d helped, the wife presented us with a check to Joshua’s Trust that included not only the $100 the government still owed me but also another $100 of accrued interest.  The journey continues.