fbpx

Archive for category: In the News

BTLT in the News, “Spring inspiration at Midcoast land trusts from Brunswick to Lincoln County”

“Spring inspiration at Midcoast land trusts from Brunswick to Lincoln County“

April 26, 2018

Local land trusts, including the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust, are featured in the Coastal Journal for some exciting spring happenings. Read on to see how you can get involved this season!

There is no shortage of areas to explore along the Midcoast this spring, but local land trusts offer more than just trails. Each organization has its own focus and schedule of events coming up. Some are out on the trails while others are workshops focused on preparations for spring, like how to start your garden.

You may know the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust from its role in the outdoor farmers market at Crystal Springs Farm in the summer and on the town green in the spring and fall. I am eagerly waiting for the first spring market day on May 5.

Following on the gardening theme, BTLT also puts on the impressive Taking Root Plant Sale on May 26, where you can simultaneously provision your garden with lovely native plants and support the land trust’s efforts.

And, if you don’t have your own garden to tend, but love digging in the dirt, one of the many volunteer opportunities possible with BTLT is to help at the Tom Settlemire Community Garden. The garden is used for educational programs and also provides produce for local food banks, in addition to having private plots for those interested in having their own patch. You can find out more at www.btlt.org/volunteer.

To read the complete article, click here.

 

 

BTLT in the News, “Trusts closer to conserving Woodward Point in Brunswick”

“Trusts closer to conserving Woodward Point in Brunswick“

April 25, 2018

The Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust was featured in The Forecaster recently, regarding the current project to preserve land at Woodward Point.

Two land trusts have raised nearly half the funds needed to preserve land at Woodward Point.

On April 16, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, announced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Coast Wetlands Conservation Program would provide $570,000 to preserve 96 acres at the site. The conservation effort was launched last summer by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust in collaboration with the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust.

So far, the Maine Coast Heritage Trust and the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust have raised $1.62 million of the $3.5 million necessary to buy and conserve the property. Their deadline is April 1, 2019.

The land has 10,000 feet of shoreline, open fields and trail systems, with the capacity to support outdoor activities such as hiking, hunting and picnicking. The area also cradles “two commercially significant shellfish beds,” according to a press release from Pingree’s office.

Working with the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust, the Maine Coast Heritage Trust applied for a $1 million grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in June 2017.

“We ranked well, but it was very competitive,” Keith Fletcher, Maine Coast Heritage Trust program manager assigned to the project, said. “They gave us a partial award, and of course we are very happy with this result; it’s essential to completing this project.”

To read the complete article, click here.

Maine Land Trusts News Coverage

Read more

BTLT in the News, “Maine Voices: Maine Land Trust Network helps support ‘the way life should be'”

“Maine Voices: Maine Land Trust Network helps support ‘the way life should be’“

February 9, 2018

Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust is featured in the Portland Press Herald today! Angela Twitchell, BTLT Executive Director, and Nick Ullo, Boothbay Region Land Trust Executive Director, wrote this informative article on the many benefits of Land Trusts in Maine.

“The Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee has been studying Maine land trusts since October. As leaders of the Maine Land Trust Network, we welcome the study and the chance to highlight the many ways we make Maine “the way life should be.”

Last summer, the Maine Land Trust Network surveyed our members and published the findings in a report titled “Land Trusts Work for Maine.” This report highlights the most important benefits that land trusts contribute to our local communities and to the state. For example, hikers can explore more than 1,250 miles of trails that wind through land trust properties in every corner of Maine. These range from family-friendly nature paths in communities like Freeport, to more challenging routes ending atop bald summits in rural corners of Oxford County, and everything in between. Motorized recreational enthusiasts also benefit from Maine’s statewide collection of land trust conserved lands, which are home to over 345 miles of ATV trails and 570 miles of snowmobile trails.”

To read more of the article, click here.

Portland Press Herald: Canoeing in Maine: Finish the season with a local paddle

A trip along the Androscoggin in Brunswick provided plenty of highlights.

BY MICHAEL PERRY
Visit  http://www.pressherald.com/2017/11/19/canoeing-in-maine-finish-the-season-with-a-local-paddle/

We are wrapping up our 2017 canoeing columns with the theme of getting out there one last time before the snow flies, and exploring someplace close to home. In our case that means an outing on the nearby Androscoggin River in Brunswick. The big windstorm of a few weeks ago has created extra yard work for many of us, so getting away for a daylong outing is not as likely right now. A few hours on the water in a pretty setting provides a much-needed therapeutic interlude.

We often bike on the 2.6-mile Androscoggin River Bike Path and have talked about canoeing along that same stretch of the river. November is a great time to be on the water – crisp blue skies and that wonderful invigorating glow on the face. We finally made it happen. Launching at the Brunswick Public Boat Launch on Water Street we headed down river with the current, planning an easy hour down, and a little extra time for the return by paddling tight along the shoreline to mitigate the current.

A series of islands fills the bend in the river as it starts to turn north and head away from Route 1. Fifty-eight-acre Cow Island, managed by the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust, provides a secluded barrier from the highway traffic sounds. We were surprised how sandy the bottom was, and enjoyed the rippled designs of the sand only inches under our canoe. A couple of kingfishers leapfrogged ahead of us, chattering away. Mallards drifted along the shoreline. A heron gracefully lifted up from the brown marsh grasses ahead of us.

Cow Island features a dense grove of silver maples. With the leaves off the trees their shadowed trunks looked like gangly pipe cleaner figures all dancing together. Incidentally, the Androscoggin River in Leeds once provided soils and sands to support a silver maple 390 years old and with a girth of 26 feet. It succumbed to age and the seasons in 2012.

The oaks along the northern shoreline still tenaciously held on to their golden brown leaves, but a freshening southerly breeze began to pluck many from their perches. It was raining leaves. Wispy cirrus clouds drifted eastward, a portent of the strong cold front expected to race across the region overnight.

After a rainstorm, and during the ebbing tide the current in the river increases. The islands are clustered close together and create swirls and eddies that require paddlers to be confident and capable in moving-water situations. The islands are an interesting mix of sandbars and rocky ledges, some isles low and others elevated with thick stands of evergreens. It is a fascinating mix providing an array of channels to explore. Suddenly the islands open into a broad open bay with green meadows on the left and farmhouses scattered up along the Foreside Road in Topsham.

My wife did a great job figuring out our route back to the boat launch, minimizing the effect of the current. We paddled around the Route One side of Cow Island on the return, spotting two red-shouldered hawks flying low through the trees looking for prey. A cormorant lifted off to our left. The low early-afternoon sun warmed our faces, and we basked in the fact we had found a perfect mid-November day to sneak in that last paddle of the year.

Passing under the two bridges just east of the boat launch we decided to paddle the half-mile down to the Pejepscot mill to take a few pictures. We found a quiet eddy below a large ledge and rested for a few minutes enjoying the flow of water around us and the view up to the Frank J. Wood bridge and ahead to the mill. The yellow portion that now houses the Sea Dog Brewery was once part of the Pejepscot paper mill. Built in 1868 it remains the oldest paper mill structure still standing in Maine.

Consult the DeLorme Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (map No. 6) for help in getting to the boat launch on Water Street. Pass the stuffing, then load up the canoe, or put another way; act gobblely, paddle locally.

Michael Perry is the former director of the L.L.Bean Outdoor Discovery Schools, and founder of Dreams Unlimited, specializing in inspiring outdoor slide programs for civic groups, businesses, and schools. Contact:

michaelj_perry@comcast.net

Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust Connects Kids and Carrots

Land Trust works to engage youth at Community Garden 

BY LIZ PIERSON
2017-08-25

“Mine’s got dirt on it!”

“Mine has two legs, like a funny little man!”

The first-time carrot harvesters — two nine-year-old boys — squealed with laughter. They beamed, held their carrots high, and knelt down to pull a few more.

It was a beautiful August day at Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust’s Tom Settlemire Community Garden at Crystal Spring Farm. The carrot harvesters were 14 children and a few parents from Perryman Village Family Housing in Brunswick. Earlier this summer, with a grant from the Senter Fund, the Land Trust donated the lumber and soil for raised beds in front yards at the village. Land Trust staff and volunteers built the beds, and families helped fill and plant them with seedlings donated by several local farms.

Now, a group of these novice gardeners were touring the Land Trust’s own Community Garden. The group also picked peas, made their own wraps from local vegetables, and escaped the heat with a shady walk on a nearby Land Trust trail. Another group of Perryman kids had come to the garden in July.

Well-tended raised bed at Perryman Village

For most of the kids, it was their first visit, but for a few, they proudly explained, it was old hat. In June, all of the first-graders at Brunswick’s Coffin Elementary School visited the garden to transplant 240 squash, pumpkins, and sunflowers they had started in their classrooms earlier in the spring. The squash harvest will be donated to Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program, and the sunflowers and pumpkins will be harvested this fall by Coffin students.

The new raised beds at Perryman Village are also producing food.

“They look amazing. And the kids are doing the bulk of the work in them,” the Land Trust’s Outreach and Education Coordinator Lee Cataldo said recently. “It’s so wonderful to see the kids so engaged and drawing their parents in with their excitement and pride.”

The project, now in its second year, resulted from a partnership between the Land Trust and Art- Van, a local nonprofit that promotes the arts in low-income communities.

“We started by doing some environmental art at Perryman, and the gardening idea grew from that,” Cataldo said. She sees the project as an opportunity to open new doors and share ideas about what can be done with a garden, by anyone. “Growing your own food is empowering. Every kids deserves to have that experience.”

The project also reflects the expanding role of the Land Trust’s garden as a community-wide resource. In addition to its 80 plots for community members, the garden includes a large plot where food is grown for MCHPP primarily by volunteers. This summer, Curtis Memorial Library is hosting a series of gardening workshops in their demonstration plots at the garden. One of the newest partners is Brunswick High School, which also has a large plot for the summer farm program it runs for at-risk students. With every new activity and workshop offered, the Land Trust believes the garden strengthens its ties in the community.

Cataldo expects the satellite project at Perryman Village to expand next year.

“There’s demand,” she said. “In the two days we were there installing the beds, a lot more families said they’d like one.” She also hopes to add more field trips, including to local farms and the Land Trust’s farmers market.

Now in its fourth decade, Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust strives to provide a diverse array of programs that serve the needs of as many segments of the community as possible. As for those young carrot harvesters? Cataldo smiled broadly.

“They’re great,” she said. “Some may become gardeners and some won’t. But all of our work with kids is an investment in the next generation of land stewards and a healthy community.”

For more information on the Land Trust’s Tom Settlemire Community Garden, visit www.btlt.org/community-garden.

Community Conservation on MPBN

Mark Ireland filming the fog lifting above Rangeley Lakes at sunrise

May 25th at 10:00 pm, and May 27th at 11:00 am MPBN will be showing “Community Conservation, finding the balance between nature and culture” a new film created by Mark Ireland of MI Media.

This documentary, shot throughout four seasons, profiles four active land trusts in different regions of Maine, demonstrating their efforts in making conserved lands available to all members of their community.

Practitioners of community conservation look deeply at the traditions and needs of their own community members to forge access to preserved lands and create projects that address those needs.  The four land trusts filmed provide great examples of community conservation:

Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust (BTLT) works with gardeners, both local and from away (Africa!)  BTLT projects also range from supporting shellfish harvesters to supporting the faith community.

At Downeast Lakes Land Trust, community members served include school children, local crafts people, hunters and fishermen.

The Androscoggin Land Trust partners with various organizations to create access and programs for the immigrant community.

The Rangeley Lakes Heritage Trust runs an Eco Camp which helps fund the cost for struggling local families with tourist dollars and the trust also runs a local campground.

The beauty of Maine, from coast to mountains, farmland to deep forests is captured in this documentary featuring hikers, kayakers, kids fishing, farmers, balsam tree-tippers, canoe-builders and many more, captured in all four seasons.

Land Trust Partnership with Bowdoin Student Highlighted

Bowdoin Course Explores How To Make Communities More Resilient

We were excited to see this project by Mikayla Kifer highlighted on the Bowdoin website. We worked closely with Mikayla in the fall of 2016 on her interactive GIS “story map” called Invasive Species Management for the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust. 

We love partnering with Bowdoin students in all of the diverse ways that we do. This project was particularly rewarding because this map is so useful to us and the community, and the connection we made with Mikayla is continuing to grow.

Thank you to Mikayla and Eileen Johnson, Program Manager of the Bowdoin Environmental Studies Program.

Overview of the Story Map:

“In order to understand the current data collection and invasive management capabilities of the BTLT and make recommendations for improvements to data collection methods, this study uses data on invasive species made available by the BTLT and iMap Invasives, a data collection and management system, and visualizes and analyzes it to determine its capabilities and weaknesses.

This study primarily addresses two questions: (1) What is the range and extent of invasive species on BTLT properties? (2) How should the BTLT move forward in collecting data on invasive species on their properties?”

FEED THE SOIL, NOT THE PLANT!! Learning from January 15th Winter Gardening Workshop

By Emily Swan, BTLT Board Secretary and Community Engagement and Programs Committee Chair.

Emily Swan

“Feed the soil, not the plant. If there’s one thing you take away from this lecture, this is it!” Master Gardener Linton Studdiford told the capacity crowd gathered to hear his talk about organic soil management in the St. Paul’s Church parish hall on a chilly January afternoon.

This may have been the most important message of the inaugural workshop in BTLT’s 2017 Winter Gardening Workshop series, but it was far from the only thing the 80 or so assembled gardeners learned about soils.

I came away with this practical trilogy of garden principles:
1. Feed the soil, not the plant.
2. To nourish soil, add organic matter.
3. Before you do anything, get a soil test!
And this amazing fact about the biological richness of healthy soil: there are more bacteria in one tablespoon of soil than there are people in Africa, China, and India!

And this fact sure to dampen the arrogance of any soil know-it-alls that may have been lurking in the hall: We only know 10% of the animal and plant species living in soil!

Linton’s knowledge of all aspects of gardening is encyclopedic, and we all came away with a much clearer understanding of the science of soil. But his practical knowledge of gardening is equally vast, based both on study and on decades of gardening experience, and I left with a long to-do list to improve my extremely humble garden and compost pile. I’ve just scrawled on my October calendar – “Don’t forget to use the mower bag to collect chopped leaves to add to the compost pile next winter!” For November – “Dig leaves into garden,” and for May – “Apply compost but don’t overtill!!” For April/May – “The time to add nitrogen is in late spring to stimulate plant growth when the soil is still cold.” And the list goes on and on.

What better time than the depths of winter to expand your gardening knowledge? Now I’m just chomping at the bit to get into the garden and put it all into practice!

The next Winter Gardening Workshop is Sunday, January 29, and will be an opportunity to learn about Permaculture from one of the region’s leading experts, Jesse Watson. Learn more at:www.btlt.org/wgw-permaculture

Portland Press Herald: It’s Worth the Trip: Cathance River Preserve provides the perfect getaway

pph-logo200x30
OUTDOORS
Posted
http://www.pressherald.com/2016/10/23/its-worth-the-trip-cathance-river-preserve-provides-the-perfect-getaway/

It’s Worth the Trip: Cathance River Preserve provides the perfect getaway

A hike in Topsham is a splendid way to spend time in the fall.

BY JOSH CHRISTIE

In his forthcoming book “The Stranger in the Woods,” Michael Finkel tells the story of Christopher Knight, the hermit who lived undetected in the woods near North Pond for nearly three decades. Reading the book, I was struck most by how Knight managed to disappear so completely while living only yards from the cabins that ring the pond. He was so close to others, Finkel writes, that he couldn’t even sneeze for fear of drawing attention.

The book reminded me how easy it is to separate yourself from the hustle and bustle of other people in Maine, where thick wilderness is often only yards from well-traveled roads and populated areas. I got the same reminder this week while hiking in the Cathance River Nature Preserve in Topsham.

The 230-acre preserve, tucked between Interstate 295 and a retirement community, is a wonderful escape in a fairly developed stretch of the Midcoast.

Access is possible via two trailheads on Topsham’s Evergreen Circle, as well as a connector trail on the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust’s Cathance River Trail. To reach the main trailhead, enter the Highland Green development (marked by a large sign and white fencing) from Route 196 in Topsham. Follow the main road through the development for a mile and a half, passing the suburban retirement homes of the community, as well as a few holes on the nine-hole Highland Green Golf Club. Just beyond Junco Drive, you’ll see a wooden staircase and signs marking the entrance to the Cathance River Nature Preserve. Beside it are nine angled parking spaces for hikers.

The trails cover nearly six miles, winding through mixed hardwood forest alongside the Cathance River. Two longer main trails – the riverfront Cathance River Trail and upland Highland Trail – run in rough parallel for much of the length of the preserve, with a number of shorter yellow-blazed trails connecting the two. These short spurs mean that hikers can go from less than a mile to nearly six.

From the staircase alongside Evergreen Circle, it’s a short hike along a well-trod road to reach the Cathance River Education Alliance Ecology Center, the center of the preserve. Completed a decade ago, the center is described by the alliance as a “building that teaches,” with over a dozen green, sustainable features. It’s open every Sunday from noon to 2 p.m.

Turning left at the building, the development of Highland Green quickly fades away. After passing a large vernal pool just south of the ecology center, the Highland Trail slopes gently downward toward the northwest corner of the preserve. Here it meets the head of the Cathance River Trail. A sharp right puts hikers beside the Cathance River, which churns east toward the Androscoggin.

During spring runoff, there are challenging rapids for kayakers wishing to run the Cathance (and you can see these adventurers from the trail). But in this relatively dry fall, the river is but a picturesque trickle.

The trail runs alongside the river for about a mile, gently rising to scenic rock outcrops before falling back toward the riverbed. On the right, the Barnes Leap, Beaver and Rapids trails spurs connect back to the Highland Trail, giving weary hikers a chance to cut short their loop and head back toward the ecology center. Beyond the turn to the Rapids Trail, the Cathance River Trail leaves the riverside and reconnects with the Highland Trail.

From the trail junction, a right brings hikers back toward the trailhead, completing a loop. Following the white blazes to the left connects to the half-mile Ravine Trail. At the Clay Brook Bridge, the Preserve ends, though hikers can continue along a Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust trail, ending after two miles at a trailhead on Cathance Road.

In addition to this large network of trails, the Heath Trail (also part of the Cathance River Nature Preserve) circles the 30-acre Heath Sanctuary within Highland Green. The trailhead is on Evergreen Circle, opposite the hiker parking spaces.

Foliage is passing peak but vibrant colors still line the sides of the trail. Many of these colorful leaves have started to fall from the trees, so keep your eyes open for the many trail blazes – a carpet of fallen foliage can make spotting the rutted trails a challenge.

Don’t let the development at the Topsham Mall and Highland Green deceive you – there’s great fall hiking to be found nearby. With just a little effort, you can disappear into the calm and beauty of the Maine woods.

Josh Christie is a freelance writer living in Portland. Along with his brother, Jake, he writes about great Maine destinations for outdoors enthusiasts. Josh can be reached at:

joshua.j.christie@gmail.com

Translate »