Rediscovering the Magic Laura Kenefic I recently found something I didn’t know I had lost: the reason I got into forestry in the first place. O ne thing that all foresters have in common is our love of the outdoors. For most of us, this stems from childhood experiences; remembrances of camping trips, hunting, or nature walks with family and friends are held dear in our hearts. Memories range from remote wood- lands and rare animal sightings to the backyard climbing tree or tree house. Whether wildland, suburban, or urban, the natural world was a part of our formative years. My own inclination to forestry grew from my girl- hood home in upstate New York in an area where dairy farms and gravel quarries abound in a matrix of second- growth forest on former agricultural land. Our house was a circa-1800s homestead nestled in a valley clearing; the manicured lawn eased into forest on all sides. My sister and I spent many happy hours in a woodland stream on the property, floating leaf boats and trying to hold back the water with rock dams, only to have the leaves hang up on the blackened logs and the water spill through the spaces between the rocks. We walked the stone walls left by some long-ago farmer and climbed pine trees with low-forking branches. In my chaotic teenage years, I spent many a sol- itary afternoon resting against my favorite tree (conve- niently sprouted next to a big rock just right for sitting), contemplating the trials of being misunderstood. It made sense that I went on to study environmental science in college, and later focused on forestry in graduate school. I started out with a passion to “save the forests,” though I did not know from whom I was saving them or how one would go about doing so. I later sensibly turned my interest to silviculture with a focus on maintaining forest ecosystem structure and function while producing wood for human consumption. I had not forgotten that the house I loved as a child was wood-framed, heated by a wood-burning furnace and a drafty fireplace. My sister and I earned a fair amount of our allowance by stacking fire- wood and passing my father logs for his gasoline-powered wood splitter. I loved the smell of freshly cut wood, and the feel of woodchips and sawdust in the truck bed. I vividly remember my first home visit after starting my forestry training in college. My father and I went for a walk on our woods trail as we had so many times before. But instead of the beautiful woodland of my childhood, I saw through my educated eyes a degraded hardwood stand. I was disappointed by the realization that this special place had been nothing more than a poor quality second-growth forest, long ago high-graded for valuable trees. Badly formed stems of undesirable species were abundant, sprout clumps and wolf trees abounded. Many of the old stone walls had collapsed into unsightly heaps, and rusted barbed wire was strung between the trees. Why had I not noticed these things before? The woods trail where we had walked in all seasons, jumping over puddles in the chill of spring and stretching to step in my father’s footprints in the snow of winter, was an old skid trail rutted by tractor tires and badly eroded. That was the day I lost the magic, and I went a long time without finding it again. I did not find it as a dedicated forestry student, or when I moved to Maine— the most forested state in the nation—and threw myself into silvicultural research. I clinically appraised every stand I visited: diameter distribution, basal area, species compo- sition, tree quality, and stocking. Each stand was cubby- holed as productive or unproductive, high site or low site, with potential or without. I knew many of the plants by scientific name only. I didn’t miss the magic I had lost until I signed up, on impulse, for a writing class at a local nature center. A group of would-be writers gathered on a snowy April afternoon to walk the grounds, observe, and write. The naturalist spoke glowing of the beauty of the landscape; she pointed out the lichens feathering across a tree stem, the tiny city in a clump of moss, and the snowflakes seen rushing down the bole of a sugar maple when you stand close and look straight up. The group gathered around a tree, feeling the bark with cold-stiffened fingers and exclaiming over the intricacy of the branching. I stood back, cynical. I saw the woods for what it was: a young old-field stand on a wet site, with shrubby trees of little value. To my forester’s eyes, it was neither beautiful nor special. But as our walk progressed, I started to feel the excite- ment of the group. I was impressed with the way that they scrutinized everything, high and low. We watched birch seeds blowing across the surface of the crusted snow and an early beetle skittering on a patch of bare ground beneath a hemlock. I felt the rush of the wind, heard the stream gurgling under the ice like applause from afar. I put my hand on the rough bark of an old hemlock and found, quite unexpectedly, the magic again. I’m still a scientist, and I still see stand structure and tree quality. But now I also see that all woods places can be special, and remember how much, as a child, I loved a cutover hardwood stand in upstate New York. I hope you all feel that magic. It just takes a change in perspective, and hope for the future. Laura Kenefic (lkenefic@fs.fed.us) is research forester with the US Forest Service, Northern Research Station, and recently began a study investigating opportunities for management of degraded mixedwood stands. PERSPECTIVE 426 Journal of Forestry • December 2007