DCC holds over 7,400 acres of some of the most beautiful and ecologically-significant landscapes I’ve experienced, and I am privileged to have had the ability to manage them. Over the past three and a half years, I have done my best to ensure all the properties owned by DCC are stewarded to the best of my abilities. The organization’s properties and the amazing people that I’ve met while managing them are irreplaceable. Building bridges miles into the wilderness with only a chainsaw and hand tools, scouting out and constructing DCC’s water access campsites deep in the woods, acquiring new properties to be conserved in perpetuity, clearing blowdowns from the organization’s 30 miles of trails, and working with some of the most inspiring and positive-minded individuals I’ve met will always stand out when I look back at the time I spent working at DCC.
If you volunteered your time to assist me in any way (clearing trails, attending bog bridging workshops, managing invasive species, working on habitat projects, chief stewarding, attending stewardship events, cleaning islands, or being a part of the Stewardship Committee), I would sincerely like to thank you. I will never forget the time we spent working together and would not have been able to do it without you. It’s been a pleasure to both teach and learn from the volunteers, interns, and assistant stewards I’ve managed over the years. There is probably nothing more meaningful to me than seeing someone with very little experience in the conservation field get something out of working or volunteering with DCC. I am so extremely proud of all my previous interns who have now moved on to succeed in this field; many had no experience operating equipment or conducting trail maintenance prior to working here. You have all done such an excellent job conserving these landscapes with me.
Before I conclude, I’d like to reflect on one of my favorite work projects at DCC. On a property deep in the wilderness called Gilman Dam on the edge of the Dennys River, the canoe pull-out (which was a very steep and loamy riverbank) was eroding away. It was decided that a staircase-style canoe launch should be constructed to alleviate this issue. On the first day, I cut down a large tree to use as the stringers. After it was bucked and limbed, David Dowley (a long time, hard-working volunteer) and Colin Brown (DCC’s Executive Director, which I believe was only his first month) helped tie the logs to my trailer hitch with a tow rope. We rolled out the logs about 150 feet from the cut site and then pounded them into the ground at the riverbank. I then spent the next few days completely alone in the wilderness. I used only a chainsaw, level, and hand tools to cut notches in the stringers, cut boards to length, level out the boards and notches, construct the handrail, and pound extra rebar into the sides of the structure. All the wood used for this project (and many, many others) was either cut by me on site or purchased from Pembroke Lumber. As you can see by the photo, improving the access was a rewarding result.
Thank you for all your support over the past few years. In the near future, I’ll be going back to fight wildfire with my Helitack crew based out of Southern Idaho. I need to do this as fire danger continues to grow rapidly across North America. I’m so excited to be back fighting fire with my crew, but I will always miss DCC and take many of the lessons I’ve learned here with me wherever I go. It’s been a huge honor stewarding these lands for the wildlife and marine life, in addition to the recreationists, sportsmen, wildlife observers, hunters, and fishermen like me!