We are happy to announce the Great Mountain Forest Work in the Working Forest podcast. Great Mountain Forest’s Work in the Working Forest Oral History Project is made possible through a grant and technical support from the Housatonic Heritage Oral History Center at Berkshire Community College.
GMF is also grateful to Main Street Moxie podcast for the use of its audio recording equipment.
Oral historian Mary B. O’Neill, Ph.D, conducted five oral histories, see link below, and hosted this podcast.
The story of the Forest and the project
Great Mountain Forest (GMF) is an over 6,000-acre working forest straddling Norfolk and Falls Village, in Northwest, Connecticut, within our Heritage Area. Its roots date back to the early 1900s on land where trees had been clear-cut to produce charcoal for the iron ore industry. The Forest has a long history of work—both on the part of humans and the natural processes of the plant, animal, and insect species that occupy it.
This GMF-centered oral history project documents the fascinating history of the working forest through the lens of the foresters who manage it. Together, the foresters in this series have spent almost 150 years laboring in GMF, training generations of foresters and wildlife managers, and creating a diverse forest that will be there long after they leave.
Podcast music: La Citadelle by Komiku
(Click the photo to go to podcasts.)
This project is a part of our Oral History of Work initiative. The GMF oral history interviews she conducted are archived with Connecticut Digital Archives (CTDA).
https://ctdigitalarchive.org/node/3798550