A Chapel in the Woods

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/21/opinion/chapel-woods-maine/

We stow all our gear in fanny packs and day bags and head into the woods. I am 8 years old and my brother is 11. It is summer break, and we are headed out once again into the sprawling woods that is our backyard in New Gloucester, Maine. 

The forest starts in a dense grove of hemlocks with dappled sunlight creeping through the overstory. A stream cuts through the stand, opening up the canopy and allowing the sun to dance on the pools of water waylaid in eddies and the foamy bases of gentle waterfalls. The floor is soft and rich from fallen needles. 

The dogs lead the way, their muted blond coats weaving between coppices, scrambling over rock walls, and occasionally pausing at the sound of a cracking branch or the whiff of a distant four-legged neighbor. My dad bounds through the brush, his long strides aided by his smooth, worn dogwood walking stick, bracing him and propelling him on. He huffs along but does not slow, and we race to keep up. He stops abruptly, and my brother and I absent-mindedly almost trip over him at the unexpected halt. He arches his back, his hand grasping his walking stick, and a wide and mischievous grin forms across his face. We are standing next to a glacial boulder that towers over my 4-foot 2-inch frame and is carpeted with plush emerald moss and an array of Pleistocene-looking lichen. 

“This is Snowshoe Hare Rock,” he declares enthusiastically. We know this already and have heard its origin story a hundred times, but we humor him because we secretly never tire of his tales. There are countless markers throughout these woods, named only by my father, which are accompanied by a sentimental anecdote or meandering story: Swallows Cliffs, Ernie’s Orchard, Big Rear Stream, Canter Hill, Birthday Pine. 

“Stuart and I were walking on this trail after a fresh snowfall,” he says. “Everything was blanketed in a coat of white powder. Suddenly, when we came upon this boulder, out of the corner of my eye I saw something move. It blended in almost imperceptibly with the snow, but I could just make out a snowshoe hare perched on top of the rock. She was quiet and still, just enjoying the fresh snow, watching out for any predator from her roost. So that is why this is Snowshoe Hare Rock.” 

I smile and roll my eyes, feigning annoyance. He swivels and bounds down the path, paralleling the meandering twists of the stream to our right. Soon enough, though, he makes another sudden stop. He points emphatically at the rough, flaky brown bark of the tree with thick alternating branches trimmed with delicate needles forming a canopy above us. 

“Okay, pop quiz, what is this?” He grins with mischief again. 

“Hemlock!” my brother chirps eagerly. 

“Yes! Tsuga canadensis. And that one?”

“White pine!” I state proudly. 

“You got it! Pinus strobus. You can tell by the five long needles for white — W-H-I-T-E,” he spells out on his fingers. In another life, he studied natural resources, and while he never pursued a career in it, he has made it his life’s mission to make sure not only that we can identify the trees in our woods but also that we know their Latin names. At one point, much to my embarrassment, the license plate on our car was PINUS. 

“Here,” he declares, “here is a good place for a new trail.” Now it is my brother's and my time to shine. We have come out here to clear new trails on our land, and we are ready to feel useful and important. He leads the way through dense thickets of silvery beech and bright birch groves. Our job is to follow along, flag trees as we go with neon green tape, and chop off any pesky branches with clippers or a hand saw. My dad or a friend will come through later with a chainsaw and clear a wider berth, but for now, we are intrepid trailblazers. My dad charts the course with a compass and sometimes questionable instincts, but in our minds, we are explorers and pioneers, clearing the way for the masses. 

My parents bought the original hundred acres of this land in 1978 for $125 an acre, drawn to the allure of country living and these enchanting forests. At the time, it was completely wooded, with two quaint streams running through it and several waterfalls. My dad dubbed one of the unnamed streams “Talking Brook” because the water cascading over boulders sounded like distant babbling voices. Eventually, they staked out a home. They clear-cut a patch and built a house by hand, sleeping in tents and tepees in the meantime. Now that they have built a home and family, my dad has set his sights on the woods. They have gradually acquired surrounding plots and tripled their acreage. His mission is to draw others in to appreciate this hidden wonderland and share in its beauty. So here we are, clearing trails in the hopes that neighbors near and far will find them and see what we see in these majestic forests. 

Over the years, we will end up clearing six miles of trails across the 300 acres, building two bridges to connect the trails on the two sides of Talking Brook. My dad will have the area professionally surveyed and will print maps with our lovingly laid-out trails. We will laminate the maps and leave them at the trailhead. We will tell everyone we know about the trails and welcome them to bring their dogs or horses to use them. We will see people we know over and over and many people we don’t yet know walking on the land, and they will marvel at its beauty and the generosity of its stewards. 

When I am 10, my family will live in Bavaria, Germany, for a year, where a winding, complex network of trails connects villages, beer gardens, and inns. We will be in awe of such a comprehensive system that feels integral to the daily lives of its neighbors. We will discover a small, unassuming chapel hidden in the forest — a shrine, perhaps, to trees or souls long departed. When we return, my dad will be reinvigorated and build a simple chapel with a bowed roof and a round stained glass window depicting a sailboat. Several years after it is built, both of his parents will die and request that their ashes be kept in this chapel. Many years after that, my parents will build a new house on different land and will no longer be able to maintain the trails after winter storms or keep the perennial new growth at bay. 

They will go through a long process of selling the land to the Maine Bureau of Public Lands to make one of the few public lands in southern Maine that is close to our two largest metropolitan areas. Talking Brook Public Land will forever be accessible to the public, fulfilling my parents’ lifelong mission to protect its magic and share it with the community.   

Not long after this, my father will become suddenly ill and pass away, and his ashes will be held in an urn I made well before I would ever admit that my father would someday no longer be here. He will rest forever in the land that captured so much of his heart, surrounded by the landmarks that he christened with his stories, keen observations, and compulsion to name and remember them like dear old friends nestled among his beloved, stoic trees.