Ben's Wild Adventure: Episode 33 - The Lynx
Channel: Ben's Wild Adventure
Date: 2021-09-29

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And we're back!  Due to the pandemic, Ben wasn't able to be out adventuring like usual, so now it's time to make up for lost time! 

For this 33rd episode of Ben's Wild Adventure, Ben heads to Vaughn Woods Memorial State Park in South Berwick, Maine, to talk about THE LYNX!  

"Vaughan Woods Memorial State Park is a 165-acre forested tract along the scenic Salmon Falls River. The park includes picnic facilities and hiking trails through old-growth stands of pine and hemlock. Hiking is available on several trails that connect to make up one large loop, a system of 3+ miles. Visitors can walk shorter looping sections if they choose. 

Place names tell the story of this area. For example, as you approach the park on Oldfields Road, you will enter an area known as "oldfields" since colonial times. Here, Native Amerians used fire to manage wildlife habitat and to clear land for corn, beans, and squash. When the soil lost its fertility in 8-10 years, they cleared another area for farming and let this land grow up to berry bushes, brush, and finally trees, thus maintaining good farming, berrying, and hunting areas all close by.

About 1785, Jonathan Hamilton, a merchant, built the Hamilton House on a site with a beautiful view of the river and the surrounding countryside. In the early 1800s, this view was a patchwork of small fields of hay, pasture, and row crops. Only 3% of the land that became Vaughan Woods was forested then. However, by 1898, when Emily Tyson, a wealthy Bostonian, bought the Hamilton House and property, there was no open farmland left, just brushland, young white pines growing from old pastures, and a small pine-hemlock-hardwood forest. With great respect for nature, Mrs. Tyson and her daughter, Elizabeth Vaughan,managed the forest for its health and beauty. They also restored the house, which is now open to the public seasonally and owned and managed by Historic New England. In 1949, Elizabeth Vaughan bequeathed to the State of Maine her beautiful forest to be kept "in the natural wild state as the Vaughan Woods Memorial."

Elizabeth Vaughan was a nature lover and an accomplshed horsewoman, who enjoyed daily rides and walks through this forest. Now, we invite you to enjoy it, too."
(From https://www.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/doc/parksearch/details.pl?park_id=29) 


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Theme/Intro and additional music by UncleBibby at http://freemusicarchive.org/music/UncleBibby/
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