When Vickery saw for herself the hummock and hollow mounds characteristic of old growth, and later flew over the parcel when the leaves were off the trees and looked down to see the forest floor littered with layer upon layer of giant logs, “piled up just like matchsticks,” she quickly realized what an unusual place it was, even if it lacked rare plants and the old growth timber really wasn’t in great condition or “worth that much,” as a forest appraiser noted. Balsam fir were especially vulnerable. The largest tract of remnant old growth forest in New England. First, 14 wild char were removed and housed in a private hatchery near Fort Kent to use for breeding stock. I only cored 33 of them,” he said. the Beetle Mountain, ME US Topo Map quadrant. Hiding in plain sight. Clicking anywhere within a quandrant will display an info window with the map name, as By the purist metric, Big Reed constitutes 75 percent of the old-growth forest in Maine. No black cherry. Another thing we noticed traipsing around Big Reed is what’s not there. “It was a very fast-growing tree,” said Sferra, looking at the core through the hand lens. “I probably have seen more of that preserve than anyone else,” he said matter-of-factly. Naglangkob kin og 0.40 ka kilometro kwadrado. Joe Rankin writes on forests from his home in central Maine, about four hours from Big Reed Preserve.   |   Visit the Articles archive…. But the chapter was interested, no doubt about it. That purchase was completed in 1990; the price: $287,000. They would have an influence, ultimately on what was harvested or … The Big Reed Forest is north of Baxter State Park, and surrounds the pristine Big Reed Pond, a 90-acre lake. The oldest spruce he cored in Big Reed had 352 rings, the oldest white cedar 329, and the oldest sugar maple 315. Photo by Hal Morgan. “We’re now officially in old growth.”. Fishing Big Reed Pond, ME on 1/12/2021 will be best from 12:00AM through 12:00AM, and from 12:00AM to 12:00AM. It’s a much more dense and tangled experience.”. They’re slow growing and they’re in the understory. This location's average winter low temps are The fishery was endangered when someone illegally introduced rainbow smelt into the pond, but the state reclaimed the pond and reintroduced the blue-backs in 2011. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife recently restocked Big Reed Pond with Arctic charr after a years-long reclamation effort. But it is a really special place. temperature measurements is CLAYTON L which is approximately 29 miles away and has an elevation of 1,000 feet (132 feet lower than Big Reed Pond). She guided us along with GPS on her iPad, but we could occasionally catch glimpses of the pond on our right. Big downed trees. It had been a long while. A few steps had taken us from one type of forest, a young one, to a much older one. Big Reed Pond’s blue-backed trout, a fish rare in Maine, are the draw. View on Black rectangular quadrants that are printed at 22.75"x29" or Charr had survived thousands of years just to face rainbow smelt, a fish native to some waters in Maine, but illegally introduced into Big Reed Pond. Big Reed Pond has a surface area of 90 acres, maximum water depth of 53 feet, and mean depth of 21 feet, making it one of the shallowest and smallest Arctic charr waters in Maine. But a third purchase never came about. Big Reed Pond is displayed on the Beetle Mountain USGS quad topo map. “That’s surprising to people because the tree (also known as ironwood) never gets very big. Cutko, bending backward, estimated 85 or 90 feet. | Terms of Service | Privacy PolicySite by eBree Design, Big Reed Forest Reserve: A Place Out of Time. That being said, Fraver did publish tree-ring data in his dissertation. Save for the green outhouse of treated OSB. Photo by Joe Rankin. In the mid-nineteen-seventies, the log driving era came to an end. The nearest weather station for both precipitation and Like Big Reed, Wadleigh is on the small and shallow side for char water. The USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) publishes a set of the most commonly used topographic maps of the U.S. called US Topo that are separated into rectangular quadrants that are printed at 22.75"x29" or larger. Vickery believes the Big Reed project not only allowed the Conservancy to become the owner of the largest tract of old growth forest in the east, but also changed how it viewed conservation in Maine. It resembles a shiny T-shaped hand auger. Tap, tap, tap. And Vickery thought again of how it is important to have places in the natural world where we can simply observe how things play out without our interference, without our attempts to manage things and play the master puppeteer, pulling the myriad strings. Big Reed Forest Reserve. The pond has brook trout and a rare char species called a blue back trout. Photo by Joe Rankin, He concluded that Big Reed’s disturbance history was mainly one of small gaps being formed in the canopy and “every so often a pulse of disturbances that might take up to 20 to 30 percent of the canopy.”. Fraver admitted that working in Big Reed wasn’t easy, but he said he has fond memories of those years. Photo by Joe Rankin. She remembers talking with the first Conservancy staff to visit Big Reed. Big Reed Pond is located in northern Piscataquis County, about three miles north of the Pinkham Road. Discover places to visit and explore on Bing Maps, like Big Reed Pond Maine. The big beeches were felled by beech bark disease – a malady that came to North America from Europe in 1890 and by the 1930s was killing beeches in Maine. lower than 98% of other locations on record. Cutko peered through the windows of one of the cabins. Big Reed Pond was the site of an ambitious state-led “reclamation” aimed at restoring native populations of bluebacks and brook trout that had been decimated by invasive fish. After lunch we took a boat and paddled hard, bucking a stiff headwind across the pond, on the way skirting a huge dead tree lurking just beneath the water’s surface like a woody Loch Ness monster. The hike showcased for us one of the classic characteristics of a virgin forest: downed trees. The USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) publishes a set of topographic maps of the U.S. commonly Big Reed Pond is located in northern Piscataquis County, about … Two rare Arctic charr waters, Big Reed and Wadleigh ponds, were recently reclaimed to remove nonnative smelt. P.O. Through Cutko’s hand lens the core showed 226 rings, but again the heart was rotten, so we could only hypothesize as to the tree’s impressive age. The core showed 154 rings. 16 On the Common “Cedar tends to be hollow. Beech bark disease had taken its toll and the big old beeches had come down. “This would indeed allow you to get away from it all, wouldn’t it?”. “That’s pretty old for that species,” he said. “To traverse areas hit by wind or other natural disturbance, mature trees were fallen like pick-up sticks. Big Reed Pond is located in northern Piscataquis County, about … The Pingree heirs knew the tract was special because of its untouched nature, and had left it that way. We were in Big Reed Forest Reserve in northern Maine, a couple of hours by gravel road northwest of Baxter State Park. The map now contains brown squares outlining nearby US Topo Map quadrants. © 2018 by the author; this article may not be copied or reproduced without the author's consent. higher than 50% of other locations on record. It made for long, tiring days, “especially if you wanted to get to more remote parts of the preserve,” Widoff said. Big Reed Pond Big Reed Pond is a freshwater pond located in Montauk, New York on Long Island.A 128-acre site including the pond, brackish marshland and natural sand dunes was designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1973. A couple of years ago Vickery went back to Big Reed, on the same rainy trip Cutko went on. Kind of like a believed-to-be-extinct species found along the roadside in a suburban neighborhood. Big Reed Pond is in the Lakes category for Piscataquis County in the state of Maine. When it comes to old-growth forest, there’s debate about what the term actually means. The pond itself is 96 acres, unremarkable, really, and virtually indistinguishable from a zillion other ponds in Maine. may be different as well. The trees are big, but not as big or as ancient as the trees in the Pacific Northwest, where sequoias can reach 300 feet and live for 3,000 years. Related terms: backwater, lac, lagoon, laguna, pond, pool, resaca, waterhole. intended to be printed at 22.75"x29" or larger. The trek took us through several old beaver bogs, wet and, well, boggy. “I should have brought a diameter tape,” he said. Lots of them. Back to tap, tap, tapping. Big Reed Pond has a surface area of 90 acres, maximum water depth of 53 feet, and mean depth of 21 feet, making it one of the shallowest and smallest Arctic charr waters in Maine. The ponds’ outlet stream was too small to transport timber in log drives. Cutko cored a venerable cedar some 32 to 34 inches in diameter. The easement protects bogs, wetlands, rivers, streams, and other aquatic habitat as well as its wildlife and plant communities. The primary disturbance factor, he said, was wind. This location's average precipitation levels are Silvered, mossy boles scattered through the woods. Big Reed Pond has a surface area of 90 acres, maximum water depth of 53 feet, and mean depth of 21’, making it one of the shallowest and smallest Arctic charr waters in Maine. The Reed Deadwater is a wetland complex located in the southeast portion of the reserve into which both Big Reed and Little Reed drain before flowing into Reed Brook and Munsungan Lake. “The scale of some of these natural disturbances included very important lessons. That last species really stood out. There was more old growth beyond that, on the north and west sides of the new reserve. “That’s a pretty nice spruce,” someone said. The first part, for 3,800 acres, was a three-way transaction involving land swaps with the state and the Pingree family. Big Reed Pond is located in northern Piscataquis County, about three miles north of the Pinkham Road. Cutko dropped his pack and pulled out the corer again. He found no history of fire, but said that makes sense. Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the And a tall white pine back in the 1600s, say, might go 200 feet. And no big balsam firs. Frost reports that its char are already in decline. Ang Big Reed Pond nahimutang sa kondado sa Piscataquis County ug estado sa Maine, sa sidlakang bahin sa nasod, 1,100 km sa amihanan-sidlakan sa ulohang dakbayan Washington, D.C. 345 metros ibabaw sa dagat kahaboga ang nahimutangan sa Big Reed Pond. It took a few moments for the mind to grasp the differences. Tap, tap, tap. The rustic cabin is leased by The Nature Conservancy to a sporting camp operator who rents it out, mainly to fishermen who want to ply the pond for its rare blue-backed trout. Get directions, find nearby businesses and places, and much more. The researchers spent up to 10 hours a day in the woods, following transects – compass bearings across the landscape – while noting observations as they went. In the years since, the chapter has taken on projects in interior Maine that dwarf Big Reed several times over in terms of acreage and cost: as just one example, the 185,000-acre St. John River Forest was a $35 million buy. Fraver, now a professor at the University of Maine’s School of Forest Resources, spent a significant chunk of six years working at Big Reed while doing research for his doctorate on the historical disturbances that influenced the development of Big Reed’s old-growth forest. Northern Woodlands He began tapping on trees with the handle, sort of like using a knuckle to test watermelons for ripeness. Sferra needed to make a periodic inspection of the two rustic pond-side cabins the Conservancy leases to a sporting lodge; Cutko simply wanted to visit the reserve again. It’s amazing, when you think about it, that the Big Reed tract of virgin forest has been right here for centuries, but virtually no one has known of it. Most of the use was supported by a couple of guides that worked the water and managed their clients there. bosoms. We ate lunch at the pond, where the public canoes are stored. We continued around the pond, again climbing over downed trees through woodland populated by their towering, still-living relatives. Photos provided by Flickr are under the copyright of their owners. We were maybe 10 minutes down the trail when Nancy Sferra made the announcement. Sugar maples two feet in diameter, their bark deeply fissured and dotted with lichens. Big Reed Pond — one of those lakes — was under threat. I had come here because I wanted to see what a true old forest looks like. “Primarily summer thunderstorms, not winter windstorms,” he said. A semi-circular insert will then be slipped inside and used to draw out the pencil-sized core. The king of coring trees in Big Reed Pond Preserve has to be Shawn Fraver, who also has probably spent more time there than anyone else. Charr had survived thousands of years just to face rainbow smelt, a fish native to some waters in Maine, but illegally introduced into Big Reed Pond. Big Reed Pond T8 R10 WELS, Piscataquis, Maine MIDAS 2842 Fish. It wasn’t so long ago that the forests of Maine, and the entire eastern United States, looked something like this. As part of that research Fraver cored 3,300 trees. The big firs, and many big spruces, were probably lost in the 1916-1921 budworm outbreak. Maine Trail Finder is a free online resource that promotes active outdoor recreation in the state of Maine. “But there was one section here where it was slow-growing, and another here.” The spruce wasn’t particularly tall, certainly not by sequoia standards. twilight. Big Reed Pond is a lake located just 36.4 miles from Ashland, in Piscataquis County, in the state of Maine, United States, near Pine Knoll, ME. (603) 795-0660, All content © 2021 by the Center for Northern Woodlands Education. The group does thoughtfully stash a couple of aluminum canoes for public use (warning: bring your own paddles). Some people, Sferra noted, might not be all that impressed with Big Reed’s forest. “This one is pretty hollow,” Cutko said. Lanaw ang Big Reed Pond sa Tinipong Bansa. There are no aspens, for instance. topographic maps of the U.S. called US Topo that are separated into The cabins are leased to Bradford Camps on Munsungan Lake, whose pilot owner flies fishermen in and out in a floatplane for one-day or multi-day fishing trips. The work to reclaim the wild population in 90-acre Big Reed Pond was done from 2007 to 2013. The boring end will carve out a cylindrical core a quarter of an inch in diameter. There weren’t a lot of huge pine, the highest-value trees in the mid-1800s, on the site. This same-yet-different forest was a reminder that everything changes, even places that seem like they should exist out of time. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to pick out the beaver sign: the forest was studded with beaver-chewed stumps three to four feet tall, the height presumably governed by snow cover when the rodents were gnawing away. If those times won’t work for you, 12:00AM to 12:00AM looks promising , as does 12:00AM to 12:00AM Remember to adjust these times based on barometric pressure, and weather changes. Bradford Camps owner Igor Sikorsky, on his float plane, estimates that he has donated around 100 flights to the cause, which appear to have been worth it. Others argue that the term should be applied more broadly to forests with old trees and old-growth characteristics, even if they were harvested 100 or 200 years ago. Located along the Mattawamkeag River in Aroostook County, Reed Forest provides important habitat for species such as Atlantic salmon, bald eagle, northern goshawk, and Canada lynx. That’s when it hired Charles Cogbill, an ecologist and expert on the pre-settlement forest in northern New England, to look at the records and “figure out how this could be true – that thousands of acres could have gone uncut and nobody knew about it.”, Nancy Sferra watches as Andy Cutko removes a tree core. His first visit was memorable, but mainly because it had poured rain. The plight of Big Reed Pond’s blueback trout began several years ago when smelts were illegally introduced in the pond, according to biologists. He pulls the corer out of his pack. It was a privilege to work there.”, The older trees in Big Reed are ecosystems in themselves, hosting a variety of life on their trunks. The pond is located in northern Piscataquis County, about 3 miles north of the Pinkham Road. Big trees, widely spaced. A sign greets people at the end of a rough fisherman's trail that leads to the shore of Big Reed Pond. He considered coring the tree to zero in on its age, but decided it wasn’t a good candidate: “I’m not sure if our corer is big enough for that one, honestly,” he said. We left the old cabins behind, curved around Big Reed Pond and headed toward the summit of Big Reed Mountain, an unimpressive hump that Sferra said would offer us no expansive views, but that seemed as good an objective as any. In the end it was a huge, complicated deal. Find outdoor events happening around the state. There was a general recognition that use on Big Reed Pond, because it was a remote pond, was very low. In a recent article in Maine magazine, writer Darrell Hartman covers Maine’s Arctic Charr.A broad ranging piece that includes fishing for Arctic charr at recently reclaimed Big Reed Pond with nearby Sporting Camp owner Igor Sikorsky and Chase and Aimee Bartee, its another good, and timely, promotion of this rare and at-risk wild native fish. At the time, said Vickery, the chapter was focused on identifying and protecting important habitat for rare species or exemplary natural communities. Join us as we discuss the Maine Fishing License options, fishing rules and fishing regulations. Vickery championed the idea of buying that, arguing that this uncut forest needed a bigger buffer from the managed forestland around it. No sooner had that been finalized than they negotiated a second purchase of 1,013 acres that brought the total to nearly 5,000 acres, protecting the entirely of the Big Reed Pond watershed. The insects were among the worst I’ve ever seen, the black flies in particular. Big Reed feels old, and it’s not just because of the imposing, ancient trees. Click on the MAP links to view the statewide species distributions using our Species Mapper. We were hiking in on a rough fisherman’s trail – the only one in the entire reserve. You could be walking a fallen tree trunk 12 to 15 feet above the ground,” she said. It is 5,000 acres of not just old-growth forest, but virgin forest – forest that has never been logged. When big spruce became sought after later in the century, it was apparent that getting them out of the Big Reed Pond basin was just too much of a chore: the outlet stream wasn’t big enough to drive logs down. This untouched acreage eventually grew to assume a special place in the hearts of the people who owned it – the descendants and heirs of timber baron David Pingree – and they didn’t go after the wood. For some shade-tolerant species it’s hard to get an actual age, because it might take decades for them to get to breast height.”. lower than 95% of other locations on record. The other major disturbance was from spruce budworm. The fact that the forest had never been cut was itself a reason to protect it. Recently, unsanctioned releases of smelt into several ponds in Maine (Big Reed, Wadleigh, and Bald Mountain) have caused worrisome declines in char populations. “I think it surprises a lot of people, but fire is not a prime disturbance agent in northern New England’s forests. But there came a time in the 1980s when they felt like they couldn’t afford not to harvest, she said. To get the most out of the long, slender, fragile cores you have to bring them back to the laboratory, polish and sand them, and examine them under a microscope to determine growth rates, he said. Big Reed Pond is covered by Thankfully, Big Reed Forest Rereserve in Piscataquis county (Abanaki word meaning "at branch of river"), owned by The Nature Conservancy, was protected and exists in northern Maine some 38 miles away from the nearest town. But they didn’t want to. Photo by Hal Morgan. https://www.northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/big-reed-forest-reserve Today the bulk of what’s left is spruce and sugar maple with a significant amount of cedar, understory beech, and yellow birch. These maps are seperated into rectangular quadrants that are No skid trails or logging roads. The lake is home to the blueback char, … Email Us Or Call: The size of the standing trees was matched by the size of the trees on the forest floor. Northern Woodlands assumes no responsibility or liability arising from forum postings and reserves the right to edit all postings. Fraver found one balsam fir that cored out at 146 years. Lyme, NH 03768 Vickery was conservation programs director at the time. Because the nearest station and this geographic feature may have Cutko said he’s cored Big Reed spruce at 300 years, “but they’re rare.” By comparison, the average age for a red spruce in the rest of Maine today is probably around 60 years, he said. Biologists became concerned when it was realized that Big Reed Pond in T8 R10 WELS, a remote area of Penobscot County, was losing its arctic char population because of the illegal introduction of smelts in the water. A couple of log cabins sat farther up in the woods, creating a frontier scene straight out of the early 1800s. “It’s almost impossible to determine the age of a tree by coring it,” he said. No growl of chainsaws. “Our basic aim was to map and describe the area as a whole in terms of what kinds of smaller habitats existed, as well as looking for rare plant communities and assessing the overall dynamics of the place.”, In a sense it was standard field biology work, but in Big Reed there were moments where it hit home that this was a different kind of place. And so they reached out to the Conservancy. The population in Big Reed Pond is one of the few that remain in North America since the last glacier retreated more than 10,000 years ago. Search a growing database of four-season trails to find the right trail for your next adventure. While a hollow-sounding watermelon bodes well for your picnic, with trees it’s the opposite. Anyone who is interested in visiting Big Reed Pond can print the free topographic map and street map using the link above. Township 8 Range 10, Maine . Big Reed is about as remote as any place in Maine, psychically and geographically. Cogbill researched the tract’s history and spent time on site, ultimately concluding that “without evidence to the contrary, the old-growth nature of this area cannot be denied.” Once they got Cogbill’s report, Conservancy staffers “became a lot more confident” that not only was it true, but it was important, even though there were no rare habitats or rare species there, she said. It means the heart of the tree is rotten and the corer will only yield sawdust. The reserve includes the entirety of the Big Reed Pond … So the thousands of contiguous acres at Big Reed truly are unique. Box 270 The virgin forest around it and the blue-backed trout in its depths, however, make it unique. They would marvel over the little sheltered spots, microhabitats where the soils were richer trip back across the pond was literally a breeze – thanks to the brisk tailwind. It’s pretty much of a crapshoot.” He switched trees. Old-growth forests are often messy, thanks to a multitude of downed trees, and traversing the property can be difficult. It wasn’t easy bushwhacking through this forest. Yellow birches so big and old the brassy, peeling bark of youth had turned gray and furrowed.