Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Recreation for Blog”
Dating back to the 1800s, it’s been an image tied to the Connecticut River: rowers in shells—long, impossibly slim boats—cutting through the water, powered by four or eight students, each hauling on an oar and steered by an ever-encouraging coxswain.
The Hartford portion of the Audubon Christmas bird count is unlike any other in the Connecticut River Watershed.
Fall is for walking, and among the many attractions in the lower Connecticut River Valley are the numerous and varied trails in the 1,000-acre Preserve, which one
can enter from the north via Ingham Hill Road in Essex, where there is public parking.
With a largely undeveloped watershed stretching from the Green Mountains of Vermont to the Berkshire Hills and Pioneer Valley in western Massachusetts, the Deerfield River is one of New England’s most picturesque and historically significant waterways.
The Fort River Birding and Nature Trail is a well-engineered, universally accessible trail that opened in 2014. It allows visitors of all abilities and ages to experience the diverse habitats and wildlife.
You walk into a dark grove of trees, chanting the rhymes of a poem. You note the bundles of five needles and long cones that mark these as white pines. And then it is on to the next clue, and the next.
Diverse rail trails help preserve the central Connecticut River watershed’s rich railroad heritage. After many of the region’s railways, including the extensive Boston and Maine Railroad network, discontinued during the twentieth century, conservation and community organizations created trails on the abandoned corridors.
Among my favorite memories is when my sailing camp got the whole day to race against each other in different sailboats.
“Maybe better that we die because then we won’t be embarrassed.” So muttered I to my duck hunting partner as the outgoing tide took our eight-foot pram and us, shivering and soaked to the skin, out from the mouth of the Connecticut River towards the grim waves of Long Island Sound on a freezing winter day many years ago.
In March 2019, a flock of 20 tundra swans made an unexpected overnight visit to a historic canal at Turners Falls, Massachusetts, one of the Connecticut River watershed’s finest winter birding destinations. The swans, which breed in the Arctic and overwinter on the mid-Atlantic coast and other regions, delighted fortunate observers before departing the next morning.
The best time to row is early in the morning when the water is quiet and the only people on the river are morning fishermen and crabbers.
When I go there now, two or three times every week, I walk to the end of one road and trudge up a broken old
woods road into the state forest.
The first thing that hit me was the
smell—a damp, woodsy, uplifting
aroma that can only be described
as the scent of Christmas. After
several hours in the stale air of my
car, the pungent aroma of balsam
fir was invigorating
Everyone has a favorite place in nature. Ours is a rocky outcrop rising 300 feet above our village on the Connecticut River. Native Americans called these ledges above the stream valley Tomheganompakut, meaning “at the Tomahawk Rocks.” The hard, granitic schist was the source of their stone axes, or “Tomhegan.”
When I was nineteen, I moved from Texas to Massachusetts to attend Hampshire College. I had lived my whole life up to that point in a hot, flat landscape, so when I moved North, I wanted to get to know the landscape as intimately as I could.
Step-by-Step Instructions
The Connecticut River meanders for almost 200 miles from north to south along the entire border between Vermont and New Hampshire. It’s a gentle river, beloved by paddlers of all abilities for its unspoiled shoreline, abundant wildlife, and ample public access points.
There’s good reason that magazines such as Outside and National Geographic have repeatedly recognized Northampton, Massachusetts, and the small communities surrounding it, as one of the best places in America for outdoor activities. The three counties hugging the banks of the Connecticut River in Western Massachusetts boast easy access to dozens of state forests and parks, a national scenic trail, dramatic views and, of course, the ever-present river, threading through the center of the Valley.
Can you take me fishing?” If you are a parent who fishes, that request from your child may prompt the proverbial happy dance. Most anglers pray that their kids will follow in their waders. However, if you can’t tell an improved clinch knot from a Windsor, or a yellow perch from a bullhead, you probably would rather be asked where babies originate.
There is perhaps no better way to enjoy the outdoors—particularly the parts of it inaccessible by roads—than by canoeing or kayaking our rivers and creeks.