In this second year of Nature Times we have gotten to know snapping turtles, carnivorous plants, black squirrels, and Sammi, Trailside Museums’ 36 year old bald eagle. We’ve learned how trails are mapped, how a flock of sheep and goats have become one of State Parks’ 21st century mowing crews, and ways to explore State Parks on foot, in kayaks, on snowmobiles, and on frozen lakes. The stories have featured all kinds of work that State Parks staff and volunteers do throughout the year to help preserve and protect some of New York’s unique and exceptional places. These range from protecting sand dunes on Lake Ontario and old-growth forest at Allegany, to creating native grasslands at Ganondagan State Historic Site, and monitoring invasive species infestations and removing invasive species both on land and water.
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We mark this second birthday with 61 new followers and over 24,000 page hits! And we thank the 32 staff, interns, and partner organizations who have shared their passion for State Parks through the blogs that they have written. We also want to recognize our partnership with the New York Natural Heritage Program who helped in initiating this feature and continues to provide support.
We look forward to continuing our celebration of State Parks in the months to come in Nature Times. Hope to see you soon at one of our Parks or Historic Sites!
Civilian Conservation Corps By Unknown or not provided (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
What started in 1931 as a simple idea to put unemployed New Yorkers to work on state-funded public works projects through the New York Temporary Emergency Relief Administration grew to become the largest peace time utilization of people and equipment in US history – the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC. Many New York State Parks including Thacher State Park, Fahnestock State Park, Lake Taghkanic State Park, Selkirk Shores State Park, Thacher State Park, Green Lakes State Park, Letchworth State Park, Hamlin Beach State Park, Chenango Valley State Park, Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park and more benefited from the work that was performed by over 200,000 CCC members from 1933-1942. During these nine years, 61 camps of 200 CCC members built roads, trails, cabins, and stonewalls, planted trees, worked on early invasive species detection and removal and more. The Allegany and lower Hudson Valley regions were considered the highest environmental priority and had CCC camps each year, while other encampments would last a season or two, moving on to another location when the job was done.
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About 40 different CCC camps were spread across the state each year. The typical CCC member was between 18-25 years old, “unemployed, unmarried, healthy, not in school, from a needy family, and capable of doing work” (Thompson). Most CCC members were white males; however New York also had CCC camps for Native Americans, African Americans, WWI veterans (separate camps for white and African American veterans), and separate camps for women (known as She-She-She Camps).
State Parks honors the memory of the CCC members with a CCC Statue at Letchworth State Park.
CCC Statue at Letchworth State Park. Photo by OPRHP.
This January, New York State is reviving the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration conservation corps with the inaugural New York State Excelsior Conservation Corps (ECC) and a 10-month residential program modeled after the CCC. The program is open toNew York State students and residents aged 18-25, with an emphasis on veterans and expanding diversity. The 50 ECC members will be based at SUNY Morrisville where they will receive eight weeks of specialized trainings and certifications lead by the Student Conservation Association – Hudson Valley Corps . Then, starting in March and running through early November, ECC members will work in State Parks, Department of Environmental Conservation and other state agency lands on projects across the state focused on:
Open Space Management, maintaining and improving hundreds of miles on New York’s hiking trails
Recreation and Access Mapping, monitoring and mapping over 10,000 acres of public land for safe recreational use
Natural Resource Stewardship, invasive species removal and protection of native species and ecosystems
Environmental Education and Outreach, educating New Yorkers on conservation and stewardship of public lands
Infrastructure and Sustainability, helping to cut New York’s energy consumption and energy costs through the construction of renewable energy projects.
During the 10-months, ECC members will get a chance to work on their education plans and develop career skills. At the end of their service they will be given a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award.
Building on their hands-on experiences and training, ECC members will be poised to become New York’s next generation of conservation leaders. Learn more about the ECC in future blogs.
Post by Susan Carver, OPRHP. Slideshow photos courtesy of OPRHP.
Thompson, Craig; 75 Years Later: The Legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corp; Conservationist, New York State Department of 85 Environmental Conservation, February 2008; http://www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/42768.html.
Have you ever gone hiking and wondered where the trail came from, who built it, and when? Many of the oldest trails in New York began as Native American hunting paths, eventually becoming established trade and migratory routes. Until the Industrial Revolution, trails mostly served a functional purpose, but trail building boomed as a new ‘leisure class’ emerged and became interested in outdoor recreation. Today, 16,000 miles of trail run through New York, accommodating hiking, mountain biking, cross-country skiing, horseback riding, snowmobiling, and more.
In 1891, the New York State Legislature assigned funding to build a trail network across the state, which turned into the greenway system we know today. To promote and advocate for these trails, groups like the Appalachian Mountain Club, New York-New Jersey Trail Conference (NY-NJTC), and the Adirondack Mountain Club were founded. They provided the volunteers and training necessary to build enough trails to satisfy the demand. Many of these groups exist today and continue to train volunteers in trail construction and maintenance.
The first long distance hiking trail, the Appalachian Trail, was built by The NY-NJTC in Bear Mountain and Harriman State Parks in 1923. Conceived in 1921 by Benton MacKaye, the original idea combined recreation, conservation and economic socialism, with wilderness camping. It was seen as an opportunity for people to get away from the city and renew themselves. While MacKaye’s vision of interconnected mountain resorts was never fully realized, the trail was completed in 1937. Today, the Appalachian Trail stretches 2,175 miles from Maine to Georgia.
Adirondack Mountain Club hikers atop Mt. VanHoevenberg. Source: WikiCommons.
The Great Depression was a time of enormous parks and trails growth. As part of the New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt founded the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), based on a similar program he started while serving as governor of New York. This program, in operation between 1933 and 1942, provided unskilled laborers with jobs in the conservation and natural resources fields. During the nine years it ran, three million men participated (220,000 of which were in New York). They planted over three billion trees, and they built more than 800 parks nationwide.
As bicycles increased in popularity, cyclists began advocating for paved surfaces. Paved roads allowed cars to go more places and drive faster than they had been able to previously, thereby making road biking more dangerous for cyclists. In the 1960s, the government began converting unused rail corridors into rail trails to provide a safe space for biking. In the 1970s, rail trails also allowed inline skaters to venture outside of roller rinks and provided ideal corridors for the first recreational snowmobilers.
Following a funding slump in the 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s saw renewed interest in trail building. In 1987, New York City began planning a greenway system; the project was amended in 1993 with a proposal to develop 350 miles of bike and pedestrian trails throughout the city. As of 2010, 140 miles of trail were open to the public.
Black Diamond Trail volunteer work day. The Black Diamond Trail connects Taughannock State Park, Allan H. Treman Marine Park, Buttermilk Falls State Park and Robert Treman State Park. Photo by OPRHP.
These days, most trails are built by volunteers through programs like the NY-NJTC, the Student Conservation Association, Park Friends groups and other organizations. Anyone can get involved to help build or maintain a pathway and contribute to the legacy of trails in New York.
Enjoy this short video about safety and preparedness tips for hiking in New York!
The Ganondagan State Historic Site located in Victor, NY boasts a historically accurate 17th century longhouse and will be opening a new Seneca Art and Culture Center this fall. However, there is a hidden gem at this historic site that not many realize exists! It is the Grassland Management Area at the corner of Boughton Hill Road and School Road which covers around 80 acres (over 60 football fields!) and is one of the most intriguing interpretive areas at the site!
South facing panoramic view of one halve of the grassland management area. Warm season grasses dominate and give off the blue/red hue, while goldenrod provides a yellow color in the lower height range. Line of goldenrod helps to indicate one of the areas not originally seeded for the project, this area is overrun with beautiful purple lupine blooms in the spring and early summer! Photo by Whitney Carleton.
Southwest facing photo of eye-level view of the grassland management area. Big bluestem grass showing dominance in this area, reaching heights of 7 feet or more. Photo by Whitney Carleton.
In 2009 OPRHP restored 67.4 acres of the Grassland Management Area to represent oak opening communities in both plant composition and spatial arrangement. The Grassland Management Area has since spread to fill around 80 acres with the native plants seeded back in 2009.
The idea behind creating an oak opening came from Ganondagan’s past. Journal entries from French and English visitors to the site in the mid to late 1600’s described the landscape they saw when visiting the flourishing Seneca town of Ganondagan. Their descriptions of oak openings were used to create a scene that can transport the viewer back in time to when the Seneca were living at Ganondagan 400 years ago!
Oak openings are fire-dependent savannahs (grasslands) dominated by oak trees and are rare ecological areas, especially in upstate New York. The oak opening created at Ganondagan consists of warm-season grasses (grasses that thrive in the heat of the summer), wildflowers and large oak trees along the surrounding wood edge. Spring fire management promotes lush growth of warm-season grasses and oak trees. Controlled fires also suppress grassland succession (gradual changes in plant species in an ecosystem), provide fertilizer in the form of plant ash, reducing plant height to allow sunlight to reach new (young) plants and hinder the development of invasive species. The fire management of oak openings such as the Grassland Management Area have historically maintained their species composition mainly due to wildfires, to utilize this historic management technique OPRHP will be conducting a prescribed burn. A prescribed burn is a well-planned fire managed by trained firefighting professionals with specific plans in place to keep smoke high and away from the public.
Proper permits and permissions have been received for OPRHP staff to conduct a prescribed burn at the Grassland Management Area in spring of 2016. The burn will cover 20 acres in the first year and help maintain the plant communities of the Grassland Management Area that are representative of the Town of Ganondagan in the 17th century.
When you visit Ganondagan’s oak opening, look for native plants include big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), tall white beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis), smooth blue aster (Aster laevis), New England aster (Aster novae-angliae), zigzag aster (Aster prenanthoides), and Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum).
Seed heads of Indian grass (left) and big bluestem grass (right). It is easy to tell the different species apart in these tall warm-season grasses! Photo by Whitney Carleton.
Throughout the year, the grassland at Ganondagan are a delight to visit. In spring, it is a lush open area of low, green grasses where chirps and buzzes can be heard above anything else. In the late summer it transforms itself into a beautiful 8-foot tall wonderland of wildflowers and golden brown grasses with different seed head patterns, where you can watch even the slightest of breezes wave through all 80 acres!
Post by Whitney Carleton, OPRHP. Photos by Whitney Carleton and Alexis Van Winkle, OPRHP.
In 1836 Balthasar Kreischer emigrated from Bavaria to New York City with plans to help rebuild the city after the devastating fire the previous year. The Great Fire of 1835 burned across 50 acres and destroyed 674 buildings. Kreischer and his partner, Charles Mumpeton established the Kreischer Brick Manufactory, a firebrick businesses with locations in Manhattan, Staten Island, and New Jersey. In the neighborhood now known as Charleston on Staten Island, he began mining for clay that would then be shipped to brickwork factories in Manhattan. The business flourished until Kreischer’s death in 1886. A few years after his death, the factory burned down, and although it was rebuilt, the business never recovered.
The remnants of the clay mining are still visible today from the hiking trails of the park. Some of the clay pits have filled with water and provided habitat to new flora and fauna, while others remain dry and are home to flourishing skunk cabbage. There are areas along the trails where you can still find signs of the former inhabitants of the area, untouched glimpses into the lives of those who once lived in this beautiful area. Outside of the Interpretation Center are some of the historic Kreischer bricks in the walkway, guiding you away from the rush of city life and into the quiet serene that is Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve.
Balthasar Kreischer. Image courtesy of the Staten Island Museum Collection.
Kreischer bricks at Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve.
Post by Clare Carney, OPRHP, Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve.
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New York State Parks and Historic Sites Blog 
