Quimby forests undergo inventory
Data on 35,000 acres of Maine wilderness list flora, fauna, geological features
BY MISTY EDGECOMB
OF THE NEWS STAFF
From Bangor Daily News, Monday, July 4, 2005
TOWNSHIP 5 RANGE 8 -- There are stereotypical soaring pines and lazy moose loping down dirt roads. Trout streams foam into gold as they tumble over 500 million-year-old rocks. The cloud of black flies and mosquitoes puts a coastal pea-soup fog to shame.
But these north woods are far more diverse than either the industrial wood basket or the "forest primeval" that come to mind -- depending upon your preconceptions.
The northwest corner of Township 5 Range 8, the block of forestland that preservationist and Burt's Bees millionaire Roxanne Quimby infamously bought from Irving in November of 2003, contains ancient coral reefs, rare sedges and a watery moonscape of carnivorous plants, called Marble Fen. Quimby's staff scientist, Bart DeWolf, spent part of last week studying what this land has to offer.
Their rubber boots squelching and smacking, DeWolf and his two student assistants picked their way across a lagg, a moat that encircles a fen. The running water that differentiates a fen from a bog gurgles in to fill their footprints each time they lift a book from the mat of sphagnum moss in the peculiar straddle-step they call "moss-hopping."
"It's like a natural trampoline," said Erika Roderick, an ecology major at Unity College, bouncing a little as she walked, suspended atop nearly 10 feet of waterlogged moss.
While previous owners of the land, including Irving, had studied its forests thoroughly, places such as Marble Fen and the wetlands along the East Branch of the Penobscot River aren't well understood, DeWolf said. Later this summer, scientists from the Maine Natural Areas Program will scrutinize the property, searching for protected plant species.
"I expect them to find the rare stuff, not us," DeWolf said.
But for now, DeWolf, Roderick and Bryon Harris, a horticulture major at Unity, are bushwhacking into bogs and thickets to record the nearly 40 different plant communities that exist on the 35,000 acres Quimby owns near the eastern border of Baxter State Park.
"It's basically a lot of ground to cover," DeWolf said.
DeWolf spent much of the past year compiling geological data, wetlands maps and forestry records to make predictions about the landscape. Now, he and his two apprentices are spending the summer "ground truthing" -- hiking to regularly spaced data points to record, in detail, the plants that make up the landscape far from roads or trails.
"Bart! Orchid!" Roderick yelled, crouching to photograph a tiny pink blossom one morning last week.
"Isn't it gorgeous," DeWolf murmured. "Definitely precious and wonderful."
The plant, called rose pogonia, isn't endangered, but it can thrive only in very special places. Many bogs are harsh, acidic environments, providing a home for little more than pitcher plants and stunted spruce trees. But Marble Fen, with limestone rocks beneath balancing the water chemistry and nutrient-rich water running in from Marble Pond, boasts an impressive list including three different orchids, marsh fern, irises, wild roses and perhaps dozens of species of moss.
Throughout T5 R8, which Quimby owns in full and has named the East Branch Sanctuary, and the middle section of T3 R7, which she calls the Three Rivers Sanctuary, unique geological features play a role in the landscape.
"You have a chronology," said Yarmouth-based geologist Walter Anderson, who has hiked the region with DeWolf. "In a very small area, you're looking at quite a bit of geologic time."
Some of the oldest rock in Maine, from the Cambrian period 570 million to 510 million years ago, cuts through the region, making up the slate riverbed of the East Branch of the Penobscot River near the Pond Pitch and Grand Pitch waterfalls. Ancient worm trails formed while the rock was still mud have been preserved as lacy fossils," Anderson said.
"There aren't many places in Maine where that kind of rock is exposed," agreed state geologist Bob Marvinney.
"Lava pillows," formed by molten rock dropping into the sea, and bands of hard volcanic rock often used by ancient people for took making dot the landscape. Just a few miles away, preserved in limestone, are ancient coral reefs deposited when T5 R8 was located at the edge of an equatorial sea during the Silurian period 438 million to 410 million years ago. A cave at one end of Marble Pond permits a "beautiful" view of the interior of the reef -- if you can stand the leeches, Anderson said.
More recently (in geologic terms, anyway), the region was shaped by the last glaciation, about 15,000 years ago. Located at the edge of a 2-mile -deep glacier; giant boulders, some composed of Canadian rock, appear in the forest where they were dropped by glacial runoff.
"There are faults and folds and a beautiful esker [a ridge of rock and soil formed while a glacier melts]," Anderson said. "You've got so many unique geologic features."
The forests on T5 R8 and T3 R7 are young, but natural in their composition, despite Irving's tendency to use herbicides to create tree plantations on some of its land. No true old-growth remains, but some large white pines and cedars shade the river and cover mountainsides in places that would have been difficult to harvest, DeWolf said.
Over time, old-growth will start to return, and the evidence of intensive logging will have disappeared. Most of the land remains in tree growth tax status, so some logging will be done, though much of it will be focused on removal of diseased trees to re-establish a native forest.
"I figure after about 20 years the forest begins to be pretty natural in its appearance and behavior," DeWolf said.
The ecological inventory work will continue through the summer with detailed descriptions of perhaps 75 locations completed by fall. Each description includes not only plant species, but also water chemistry measurements and a record of bird calls, animal tracks and wildlife encounters noted along the way.
"When you're out in the fen, dragonflies are, like, pinging off of you," Roderick said. "They're little fen-guardians."
Bears, moose, insects, raccoons, frogs, snakes and countless songbirds -- identified by sound alone -- already have been noted. A month ago, Roderick said, she could barely have named the trees in her yard. Now, she hikes along differentiating species of vireo by their call, the Latin names of countless plants and animals rolling off her tongue.
"Just being around Bart, it's impossible not to learn something," she said.
The idea, DeWolf explained, is to understand the local plant ecology and how the natural systems work. Over the next year, he'll aply that data to propose a management plan for which parts of the property might be suitable areas for camping and which areas need to be left alone. Some roads will definitely be closed, and others will be preserved as hiking trails or as roads for fishermen to reach the river.
"Right now, it's way more than we need," DeWolf said.
As with all of her land, Quimby has deemed the area a nature sanctuary, where hunting and motorized vehicles (save for a few access roads) will be banned. Last year, she negotiated to reroute a snowmobile trail off her property and shut down baited bear hunting stands. she's working with the International Appalachian Trail to reroute its hike from Baxter State Park to the Canadian border through her land. Hiking trails could be built or improved to help visitors enjoy popular parts of the property, such as the East Branch or Traveler Mountain, DeWolf said.
"It's quiet, pristine. It's the definition of what people come here to see," Roderick said. "This is it."