Roger Merchant, University of Maine Forestry, Class of 1965
When my boots landed on the ground in the Maine Woods in ’65, I went to work for Dead River Timberlands. Back then it was common knowledge in logging circles that sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas the growing cold would freeze the wet soils, allowing loggers to build ‘winter roads’ without gravel. ‘Winter roads’ would pack and stay frozen until about mid-March, the onset of spring breakup.
Indeed, climate times have warmed since the 60s. When the December 2023 wind storm came through our land in Glenburn, we had eight large white pines tip over and crash down on our house. I went out afterwards and photographed the results of the mayhem. There was no frozen ground holding these trees up. As you can see in the second photo, the micro pool at the base of the stump has no frost or frozen soil in and around the roots.
You could say that old Thanksgiving-Christmas “freeze down cycle” is gone…
