By Sara Santiago

Every year – with the infamous 2020 as the exception – The Forest School at the Yale School of the Environment hosts a fall forestry field trip over the October break. In past years, this trip has often been planned by student members of the Yale Temperate Forestry group (formerly called the SAF student group) to an accessible destination in the Northeast that is of interest to the current student forestry cohort.

This year, the trip centered on agroforestry, serving as a direct offshoot from Lecturer Joe Orefice’s course “The Science and Practice of Temperate Agroforestry.” Seventeen students attended the four-day trip; however, more than twice that number applied as this was one of the first regional field trips available under updated COVID-19 protocols. Orefice planned the fall forestry field trip not only on a topic of his expertise but in a place he knows intimately – the Adirondacks – where he previously taught, lived, and farmed.

“I was excited to bring students to the Adirondacks because of the place’s rich history – and present – of human connection with the land,” Orefice says. “The climate and topography of the region ensure community and ecosystem resilience.” Orefice, Teaching Fellow Ryan Smith ’22 MF, and the 17 students called Saranac Lake, New York their gathering place for fall break. Saranac Lake – and the Adirondacks more broadly – are the traditional territory of the Six Iroquois Nations Confederacy, including the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Tuscarora Nations.^{1 2 3 4}

From Saranac Lake, students on the Fall Forestry and Agroforestry Field Trip visited numerous sites in the region to study agroforestry and forest management. For agroforestry practices, students observed tree planting for future alleycropping, forest farming, maple syrup production, and silvopastures. Regarding forest management, the group visited sites such as an educational working forest at Paul Smith’s College, an industrial maple operation on what was once industrial timberlands, and local forest types along a geologic gradient from valley floors to mountaintops. The trip was also perfectly placed and timed to observe some beautiful fall foliage.

^{Megan Giroux of Interlace Commons speaks with students about the challenges she has overcome as a woman farming with tree crops in Whallonsburg, New York in front of a new alley cropping hedgerow. Photo credit: Ryan Smith ’22 MF.}

The first stop was a visit to Interlace Commons, an example of resiliency in agroforestry. Megan Giroux grows a variety of production agroforestry systems inspired by traditional agroforestry practices and is planning to transition 5-6 acres of land to recreate a commons for her community. Later in the day, the group visited Asgaard Farm, a goat dairy farm that uses silvopasture to provide cover for their goats in winter and creates fine cheeses.

An hour north of Saranac Lake, the group visited The Forest Farmers, one of the largest maple operations in the country where students could observe the upper limits of maple production in comparison to Yale-Myers’ small maple demonstration, Teaching Fellow Smith explained.

^{Mike Farrell, CEO of The Forest Farmers, speaks to the class on the integration of maple sugar production and cultivation of wild leeks in Lyon Mountain, New York. Photo credit: Ryan Smith ’22 MF.}

At the Uihlein Forest, Cornell’s northern research station, field trip goers lent a hand to Karam Sheban ’20 MF and his research assistant Walker Cammack ’22 MF with Sheban’s forest farming research for the Northeast Forest Farmers Association. After touring Cornell’s sugar house, the group planted several understory species, including ginseng, bloodroot, black cohosh, ramps, and goldenseal, under the maple lines to see how they would perform in this multi-site research study.

The final visit was to Paul Smith’s College, where Orefice previously taught. In the past, there has a been a tradition of Yale Foresters going to Paul Smith’s for chainsaw training, but this trip focused on learning about sustainable forest management practices that can correct the legacies of past highgrading, a forest management practice that has been unfortunately common on private forest lands in the Northeast.

Orefice reflects on the people and places the group visited: “It was a highlight of my role here at Yale this fall to share Adirondack agroforestry, agritourism, and forest management with such an enthusiastic group of students.”

A Yale Forestry field trip would be incomplete without a heavy dose of community-building. Students enjoyed eating hamburgers from Orefice’s farm and venison he hunted. First- and second-year students were able to get to know one other better outside of New Haven and in the woods, where Smith remarks “it is most fun to study forestry in the field where we can see the limitations and challenges these landowners are dealing with.”

^{1 Braine, T. (2018, September 13). Adirondack museum dispels myth with Native exhibit. Indian Country Today. https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/adirondack-museum-native-history (link is external)}

^{2 Frost, R. (2019, August 21). Well-researched book says Native Americans were in Adirondacks long ago, never left. Adirondack Daily Enterprise. https://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/opinion/columns/read-in-the-bl… (link is external)}

^{3 Indigenous place names in the Adirondacks and Champlain Valley. (n.d.). The Middlebury Sites Network. https://sites.middlebury.edu/bihallview/indigenous-presence/place-names/ (link is external)}

^{4 Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center. (n.d.). https://www.6nicc.com/ (link is external)}