By David Thomas Train and Peter Hartwell
We are Peter and David, student and teacher, teacher and student. There are lots of years between our ages, and we’ve been learning from each other since January 2011, as we’ve explored the Champlain Area Trails along shoreline, streams, wetlands, and woods near Westport. We’ve traveled weekly, in several modes, investigating animal tracks and habits and plant patterns in this unique eco-neighborhood. We’ve been out and about in all sorts of weather: steamy summer afternoons; frigid, ice-clad dusks when the open lake also steamed; and most everything in-between. Along with our here-and-now wildlife discoveries in the field, we’ve begun to see habitats connected with nearby human history of shipwrecks and granite mines. It’s been a recipe for opening our eyes to the twinned natural and human heritage along the west shore of Lake Champlain.
Westport is soon to be linked to neighboring villages north and south, via the web of CATS trails. On the outskirts and in the midst of this peopled community, is a huge gathering of wildlife. At the lakeshore, just east of downtown, we’ve seen lots of creatures or their signs: mink, red fox, snapping turtles, blue heron, otter, bald eagle, coyote, raccoon, beaver, fisher; all kinds of fish, amphibians, and shorebirds. Of course, they all live in bigger numbers further out, just up or down one of the trails. Plant life, from micro- to macro-, is rampant in and beyond town. We’ve put tiny duckweed under the microscope, and checked out the seeds of our biggest Adirondack tree, the eastern white pine. In-between sized bushes, trees, and reed colonies fill the shore and woods, each hosting its particular creatures. Above a landlocked wetland, we heard some pecking, turned our heads, and saw a family of four pileateds hopping and flapping about in a butternut grove.
Just on the northern edge of the village, we tramped the Stonysides Trail, turning over logs for hard-to-see decomposers like millipedes, fungi, and earthworms. They were everywhere, turning old trees back into potent soil. As we returned to the truck, we thought we spied a passing gray fox in sun-dappled underbrush. A mile further north, on a damp dark day at Coon Mountain, we counted 77 red efts near the trail. Coming home to number-crunch, we extrapolated a possible 43,560 of them in one acre, 10,454,000 at the Coon Mountain Preserve, and perhaps (with 50 percent attrition from nature and unsuitable habitat) a quarter of a billion in the Adirondack Park. Gadzooks!
Some Of Our 77 Coon Mountain Red Efts, For Study And Release
So, how do we get about? Most of the time we’ve ambled, but also have snow-shoed and canoed, and connected our further-flung trails by car. The nearby path that goes up Hoisington Brook in a middle-of-town oasis. This park connects to the shore, and was given to the town by a long-time resident. Fisher, fox, mink, and coyote are able to travel here without detection—from the woods above town, down to the lakeshore. Who would have thunk it—a wildlife corridor right through a downtown?!?
We waddled down on snowshoes. “I’d rarely been on snowshoes before, but it worked out better than I expected,” says Peter. “At some times of year, the snow is way too deep for walking, and so we have to use them. Without snowshoes, we wouldn’t have seen otter slides, frozen waterfalls, or the tops of beaver lodges. To monitor the lodges over the winter, we had to use the ‘shoes.” If one of us tried to go without, he got stuck! We found that a fox had been using the beaver lodge as a lookout. We could tell by the tracks in the snow leading up, its scent marker on top, and the tracks back down.”
Otter Slides At Hoisington Brook
On warmer days we paddled out the mouth of the brook, along the lakeshore and into a cattail marsh. That allowed us to see swimming beavers, several kinds of turtles, and different waterfowl, like mallards, grebes, herons, loons, and buffleheads. For farther destinations, we would drive: a north shore pond with bait traps in it, the CATS trails leading to Coon and Split Rock Mountains, and the Stacy Brook marsh near the family orchard. Peter adds, “I'd have to say that, even though I was unsure about it at first, canoeing became my favorite mode; I look forward to paddling along the shore of Lake Champlain again in the spring.”
Along with all the creature signs we’ve come across, we’ve learned something of the lives and deaths of earlier people, who farmed, mined, traversed, and protected this land. Along the Split Rock Trail northeast of Coon, lies an abandoned granite mine that supplied stone for big buildings along the East Coast. It went bust in 1890 after some of its cables snapped and killed a worker. Huge rock blocks from the mine’s last days are still heaped along the trail. Timber rattlers likely ply these piles, and we keep our distance. Ferries and play boats still crisscross the lake, and commercial navigation was common here not too many years back. They carried the mined granite, and farm animals, equipment, and fuel. Quite a few sank in the 1800s, including the Champlain II, and the Diamond Island Stone Boat, not far north of Westport. Their hulks are now protected, so maybe we’ll next learn to travel by scuba gear and explore these wrecks!
Nowadays, Peter’s family grows apples south of town. Other farmers, who are friends or family, continue to till the famously rich Champlain Valley soil. Several CSAs, working models of “community supported agriculture,” have put down roots in the valley, to supply the neighborhood with organic meat and dairy products, veggies, and fruit of highly scrumptious quality.
Some 80 years ago, the Lees of Boston and Westport fended for and donated the lands of Lee Park, in the middle of Westport, for all of us to traverse its waters and woods on the way to the lake. This was a start to protecting the wildlife byways in our front and back yards.
“Waddling Down” Along Hoisington Brook
The animals have traveled and worked this land for ages; human newcomers continue to do so. Peter and David keep exploring the CATS neighborhood every week, and we hope to keep at it a long time. It’s a lively neighborhood for all who walk, hop, paddle, fly, crawl, swim, bound, run, waddle, slither, or put out seeds, in and out of town, here on the west side of Lake Champlain!
Tags: Westport, wildlife, Stonysides Trail, Coon Mountain, Hoisington Brook, Split Rock Trail
