Destination 2: Harold Parker State Forest

The best cure for the winter blues is to chase down signs of spring. We have the new-found freedom of a car, a young dog who likes a good walk, fairly young girls who need to see the countryside now and again, and an overwhelming desire to explore the area around Cambridge.  The destination for this weekend's walk was Harold Parker State Forest.

Saturday had a startlingly bright blue sky even though the ground was still snow covered. It was cold enough to need thick coats, but the hats were soon cast off and the dog decided that it was never too cold for a bit of a splash about.

It seems to me now, eighteen months into our American emigration, that New Englanders are decidedly seasonal. As with all the local national parks, tourist attractions, ferry services and many cafes, the Harold Parker state forest is staffed from Memorial Day in late May to Columbus Day in early October. The space between these two dates is the period when most New Englanders come out to hike, swim, camp and cycle. For the other half of the year, the forests and National Parks are virtually deserted. Despite Saturday's beautiful weather, we only saw one man in a bright orange hunting jacket walking two enormous orange bandana-ed dogs.

I've been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods to Iola and the walk through this forest gave us a sense of what those forests might have looked like. According to the websites, the trees are American hardwoods, hemlocks and white pines. Unfortunately, my arboreal knowledge is extremely limited and the only intelligent observation I can make is that the trees are enormous - we estimated that many of the trees are the size of at least 8 daddys standing on top of one another. For Iola, at seven, this is about as big as anything one might imagine! Iola hoped that she might see a panther (there is a very exciting bit in Ingalls Wilder when the aunt and uncle are pursued by a panther), but we had to satisfy ourselves with sightings of chipmunks. We hoped to glimpse a groundhog or two, but the winter is still cold and they're probably still hibernating and hiding from the sight of their shadows.

Despite my usual Google researching, I have been unable to find out who Harold Parker was or is, but the state forest has an interesting history. The forest is relatively new, having only grown up since the mid nineteenth century when the agricultural development of this area was abandoned. The forest was a stopping place on the Underground Railroad and many local houses apparently have secret doors and hidden chambers in which fugitive slaves were hidden on their way up to Canada. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe were regular visitors to this area. It continues to amaze me that the American Civil War only concluded in 1865 - less than one hundred and fifty years ago. This was after the first steelworks was built in Scunthorpe (okay, you might need to have grown up in North Lincolnshire to think that this is a significant historical landmark!), after Victor Hugo had written Les Miserables, after Lewis Carrol had written Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

As a family, we strongly believe that it is never too cold for a picnic. In a patch of sunshine in a snow-filled forest, we laid out our coats on a large boulder and scoffed cookies and cheese and then headed home. We'll be back again in the summer - sometime after Memorial Day - when the ponds are filled with people swimming and the campsites are packed with tents. And we'll remember when we had the forest to ourselves.