I grew up in Western Massachusetts and went to school in the Lower Midwest. Some of my friends from the Midwest had been hiking in The White Mountains but somehow I had never even driven by them. If I needed to ski or hike there were hills, or mountains, depending on who you ask, all around and if I wanted more elevation there was Vermont. When I first arrived in New Hampshire, I was struck by how similar it was to Western and especially Central Massachusetts. Were one to drive that far north in Vermont, things would look rather different. A glance at a geological map makes one think that geology might play a role in determining vegetative cover after all.
The first week or so that I was here, in Tamworth, I stayed at a community member’s house. The sheets smelled like my grandparents’ sheets, her bookshelf was populated with the books I grew up on, their food was familiar, and their decorating uncannily nostalgic. It was during this return to New England, but not to precisely my New England, that I thought perhaps there is a culture to which I belong. What is that culture though? It seems to be a mesh of the old New Englanders that arrived on this continent seeking religious freedom and financial opportunity, and the more recent immigrants that became New Englanders when they moved out of the cities to escape into the woods during the 60’s and 70’s, seeking their own freedom from the establishment.
In many ways, my time in New Hampshire has been getting to know the familiar unknown — the novel nostalgic. In short, a bit disconcerting and yet comforting. The people I have met here have analogues in my childhood and the forests bring me back to my earliest memories of the woods.
However, the work has certainly been different from what I have done up until now. Almost every day is different and the unexpected has become the expected. In some ways I feel like I still haven’t gotten into a rhythm as one usually does with a job, but I realize that that itself is the rhythm of service at a very small land trust. That variety was part of why I first developed an interest in serving for a land trust and that aspect has certainly lived up to my expectations.
One day I might be spending time with a summer camp group by the lake and hanging out afterwards with the kids to participate in the chaos of a group of 7 to 12-year-olds eating lunch. The next day I would be assisting with a prescribed burn at the Ossipee Pine Barrens, and the next hiking Mt. Chocorua with some volunteers to clear a trail. And, ever so occasionally, plunking away on the keyboard as I am now.
As I look forward to what is to come, I hope that whatever it is can come close to offering as many opportunities to connect with the community and individuals, have a variety as vast, and coworkers as genial as I have found during my time with LRCC and Chocorua Lake Conservancy.
Harper is serving as the Outreach and Access Steward at Chocorua Lake Conservancy. He grew up in Western Massachusetts and got a degree in forestry in Southern Illinois — a lovely place contrary to what New Englanders might be predisposed to think. Although he has developed a deep love for all the places he has lived, he has come to realize that there is no place like home, and is excited to be using what he has learned back in New England. Learn more about him here.