Sometimes a pathway winds over land that wears only slight evidence of its history, cheerfully ushering us along. Good hiking. And sometimes a route will switchback down into dark and damaged territory where the uncomfortable past awaits. Joshua’s Trust’s Rankin Preserve features both landscapes. The changing characteristics of a deciduous forest indeed create – or reflect – the moods of the human psyche.
Breaking trail, I take a right on the loop, as it appears a gentler slope on the map’s contour lines. Luckily for my aggrieved feet, I am correct. The hill rises moderately after a short steep introduction. We climb soft shoulders of snow. With the leaves long gone, southern New England opens to one’s gaze as much as it ever can. Now with light, texture, and distance, a ridge on the other side of the Mt. Hope valley becomes more than a rumor. Visually, this upland is the usual winter combination of vertical umber shapes, their negative space in glaring white. Bark, not foliage, is the defining characteristic of trees. Here and there jagged ledges are exposed, their winter skin peeled away by wind.
A bare woodland can seem stark and severe if you’re only comfortable with cozy green quarters. Yet the haphazard fieldstone walls, far from disagreeable, are merely features that add character.
“a created ecosystem… a patchwork landscape of nature and culture together.”
Professor Robert Thorson
“Stone By Stone”
The hard labor of men and farm animals is now hidden beneath a blanket of snow and years, and that work was usually an amicable process of give and take. Glacial erratics of moveable size have become habitats, condos for critters. The face this hill shows is one I am familiar with. Summer or winter, I feel at home walking here.
The path plunges back toward the ponds and pines. It’s time to watch our step. Nature lost a boxing match here. TKO. We stop, look closer to discern the injuries. Scars remain; open wounds are healed. The brook’s original route is lost to history; this series of ponds is surely all unnatural, a byproduct of the industry here not too long ago. Alongside trenches and holes, jutting knees of earth remain. Geologically illogical, they bear witness to the noise and violence of gravel-mining machinery from the recent past. An abused land revealing its unhappy memories.
Ravaged, yes, but this dale has even more dynamism than the upland. A more complex ecosystem in the first place, it is recovering its former life. I see Mountain Laurel, mosses and ferns decorating the shaded shores. All the deer, fox, and coyote tracks lead through here, no matter where they came from. Bedrock outcrops reflect the bright sky. Their polished stone suggests timelessness, but who’s to know if they were open to the air a century ago? Battered, untidy shale ledges where rivulets tumble in spring suggest otherwise. They just don’t look right. Thor’s quote holds true for all of rural Connecticut. This preserve’s journey to recovery is not complete, but geological and biological evolution now proceed at a natural rate. Further harm will be inadvertent. The mysterious trail of life and change passes through here, as it does through all of us.
~ George Jacobi
Everyone should take at least one winter walk through the woods to be alone with their thoughts and get a sense of nature’s resilience, and healing power. Personally I’ve never met an old stone wall that I didn’t like. Seeing these remnants of earlier industry being overtaken by a new forest always makes me stop, recalibrate time, and feel a quiet joy. Thanks George!
“Rankin in Recovery”, I love what this title says about the Rankin Preserve and our hope for the future. Virtually all of Joshua’s Trust properties are going through some version of recovery, since most or all were at some point clear cut and used for much different purposes. The most striking preserves to me are often those that are managing to bounce back from gravel mining or some other use that altered the original landscape for the worse. The Schmidt Preserve in Coventry and the entrance to the Tinkerville Brook Preserve in Ashford are other examples. As I walk these properties I try to imagine what they used to look like, both before and after the gravel mining operation. I then marvel at the landscape’s ability to heal itself, if we just give it the chance.
As usual, George, your insights look deeper than what we usually perceive, and put words to what we are sometimes uneasy about without quite knowing the source of the uneasiness.
Always a new perspective.
Thanks, great piece of thinking and writing about it.
Great to see another writing from you, George. I enjoyed my trip through the Rankin Preserve with this writing. with the great descriptions and enlightening information. You should keep all your JT writings and write a book someday.
Thanks, George. I enjoyed so much your description of yet another Connecticut trail. It’s time to take another winter hike! I’m inspired!
Lee Terry