Those Who've Passed This Way Before Us

 

Saw in a maple tree

Sometimes when I walk in the woods and it's so quiet that I can hear the leaves fall it can be easy to feel like I'm on ground never walked by another person. The animals carry on with their business and run around through the trees and the brooks babble gently along. It's so calm that when my cell phone goes off it sounds so loud that people from miles away could hear it.

Places like this are a treasure in today's world. It's one of the reasons I love my job. I also love the little forgotten tidbits left behind to remind me that I'm not the first or only person to pass this way. Yesterday I snapped this picture of an old bow saw grown into a maple tree on a state owned piece of land in New Hampshire. When I see things such as this I love to try and figure out how it got there or how long it's been there. Was the sawyer trying to cut or prune the tree and the saw became pinched and he gave up on it and left? Unlikely... Perhaps someone hung the saw on the branch of this maple long ago while they stopped for a drink at the stream less than ten feet away and then forgot the saw when they left. Who knows? That's the wonder of it. It seemed that the blade had rusted away as the tree continued to grow around the saw which might mean it's been there for quite some time. Knowing that this land used to be owned by one of the paper companies and was cut relatively hard, combined with the size of the tree, it is easy to assume that the saw hasn't been there for too many decades, but it's a fun find either way.

Treasures and artifacts left as junk by those who have been here already can be so interesting and often lead to others. This saw for instance, was not far from an old campy-looking site that is now only a few bricks and some metal pipes. If somebody knows what to look for they could also notice the smooth, flat strip running by it that was likely an old road, long abandoned and overgrown.

It's funny how land changes overtime. Areas once bustling can feel utterly untouched in just 30 years or so. Some uncharted woodlots transform into sub-divided suburbia while others grow wild where they were once carefully managed and traveled often. I hope that as our population grows we will always have forgotten areas to discover clues about those who have passed this way before us.