A
hurricane will never surprise us again.
But that’s what happened to the people
of New England on September 21, 1938.
Without any warning, the most
destructive weather event ever to hit
the Northeast pummeled the coast and
blasted its way to Vermont and New
Hampshire with torrential rain,
flooding, and sustained winds of 100
miles per hour.
In his book, Thirty-Eight: The
Hurricane that Transformed New England,
Stephen Long tells the story of New
England’s Katrina. A journalist and
co-founder of Northern Woodlands
magazine, Long focuses on the
devastation to the region’s forests and
the daunting challenge facing New
Englanders still in the throes of the
Great Depression. His presentation is
richly illustrated with archival photos
of storm damage and the unprecedented
recovery operation.
Long’s presentation brings us back to a
time before chainsaws and skidders, when
New Hampshire’s ponds were full of logs
waiting to be sawn on portable mills.
Eighty years later, New Hampshire’s
current forest mix springs largely from
this hurricane that uprooted a billion
board feet of its white pine forests.
Stephen Long is the former editor
and publisher of Northern Woodlands
magazine and has been a Charles Bullard
Fellow at Harvard Forest. Originally
trained as a journalist and writer, he
developed expertise in forestry,
silviculture, conservation policy, and
the natural history of New England after
moving to Vermont in 1989. He founded
the magazine Vermont Woodlands
in 1994, which quickly grew and became
Northern Woodlands, covering New
York and New England. Long served as
both an editor and contributor for
seventeen years, before leaving to
pursue his own research and writing. He
is the author of More Than a
Woodlot: Getting the Most from Your
Family Forest. He lives in Corinth,
VT.
Tuesday,
May 31, 2022
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Topic:
"Annual
Membership Reception and Memorial
Walkway Remembrance"
Location:
Wigwam Museum