November is a great time to really see the woods. The undulations of the land and the forms of the forest suddenly become apparent. There are still some leaves, creating beautiful interludes of green and yellow, with lower reaches of the canopy more obvious with their clinging leaves and small trunks and branches. Distant fascinations such as large, mysterious trees invite a detour into the woods to explore these hidden treasures.

So it was late fall when Buck O’Herin and I decided to explore the old forest along the Hills to Sea Trail at Sandy Stream as part of our work to assess the amazing stretch of woods there. As part of an effort to create protections for this rare old forest, we wanted to get a sense of its extent, and to describe large trees and other features we found.

You can see this forest as you walk the trail after crossing Sandy Stream (or after entering the forest from the old Elwell farm on the west). One soon becomes aware that this stretch of the trail is passing through a beautiful, long undisturbed forest, utterly different than most of the frequently logged woods around here. Twisted, ancient looking sugar maples reach up into the canopy, their trunks a magical world of hollows, bent huge branches high up, and beds of moss, lichen and liverworts. Huge hemlocks create a dark, enchanting forest that feels like a cathedral.

Upon probing further into this woods, we found trees that dwarf even the trees along the trail…the kind that have grown on this slope to the stream for hundreds of years. We came upon hemlock after hemlock that were larger than either of us had seen in Maine. These trees had likely been here when Europeans first entered these lands, and indigenous hunters still stalked the stream valley. We had GPS units with us to delineate the extent of the old stand, and we marked the location of the trees. The woods revealed more huge maples, and even old beech trees with large, smooth gray trunks free of beech bark disease.

This photo really gives you a sense of the size of the old hemlocks.

We’ll be coming back soon, to measure the trees and create more documentation of the forest’s age. Such places are exceedingly rare in Maine, with old growth forest making up far less than one percent of the landscape. The old forest is a refuge for species not found in younger or more disturbed forests, creating a place where these species can hold on and perhaps repopulate a recovering landscape in the future. Such levels of diversity are essential to creating forests that are resilient enough to survive the onslaught of pests, land disturbance and climate change that is happening. But beyond that, they are also places where we can remember what we’ve lost, and what we might have again if we start caring deeply and well for the forested landscape that is our home here.

-Aleta McKeage