Ranger Dispatch Bureau of Ranger Services 251 Causeway Street y Boston, MA y (617) 626-4963 Volume 2, Number 1 Winter 2008 No Child Left Inside & The Great Park Pursuit: Reconnecting Families with Nature Table of Contents event will be held. At the events park rangers will help them participate in outdoor recreation challenges as well as No Child Left Inside 1 enjoy skill-building and nature-based First Day Festivities 2 learning activities. The first event will take place on Snowy Start to New Year 3 Saturday, May 10th at Borderland State Park. Each week is filled with new Maple Sugaring Events 4 outdoor adventures to discover and Rangers Ride Again 5 enjoy. Teams will hike along forested trails, learn to fish, pitch a tent and roast What is No Child Left Inside? Park Watch 5 s’mores, discover secrets of the coast, It’s a promise, a pledge designed to help and even ride in a horse drawn wagon! DCR SAR Managers 5 today’s children reconnect with the Teams will compete for the grand prize great outdoors, while building the next packages. Park Passport Update 6 generation of environmental stewards. The Great Park Pursuit is part of the The DCR is gearing up for this year’s Seasonal Ranger Academy 7 “No Child Left Inside” initiative, event, and we look forward to reuniting designed to encourage Massachusetts with teams from last year’s event, as 2008 Mooring Schedule 7 families and visitors to enjoy all the well as meeting new teams, as we all recreational resources and outdoor explore our state forests and parks on 2007 NEPRA Conference 7 activities that the Massachusetts state this great family adventure! parks system has to offer! Registration will begin in mid-April. W Going the Extra Mile 8 From health and fitness, to learning and Civilian Conservation Corps 10 fun, to creating great family memories – the Massachusetts Department of State House Detachment 11 Conservation and Recreation wants to introduce residents and visitors to the Chief’s Corner 12 more than 400 special places across the state to be discovered, treasured and shared. The Great Park Pursuit is a team-based adventure activity. Participating teams are challenged to visit different state forests and parks over a six-week period Register to play at as part of a fun family adventure. Teams www.greatparkpursuit.org will get clues weekly to where the next department of Conservation and Recreation 1 Ranger Dispatch Bureau of Ranger Services Vol. 2, No. 1 y Winter 2008 First Day Festivities Festoon State and Urban Parks Barbara Buls, Acting Deputy Chief; Bureau of Ranger Services, Interpretive Services What a year 2007 was for the Central Region the life and teachings of our native No Child Left Inside initiative in Blackstone River and Canal son, Henry David Thoreau, at our parks! We started off with a Heritage State Park Walden Pond. bang, hosting the Great Park Moore State Park Pursuit (GPP) in May and June, Dunn State Park Hot chocolate was distributed moved onto the Wachusett Kid’s by the Bureau, and supplemented Fest in September, and for the Western Region by other delectibles such as roasted winter, began the New Year in full DAR State Forest chestnuts and chestnut/pumpkin force with First Day Hikes. Kenneth Dubuque Memorial soup to emphasize “healthy eating” State Forest to our park visitors. Historically an Urban Parks The weather cooperated by tradition, we decided to expand State-wide, over 1200 visitors sending us various conditions; this successful program by attended the First Day Hikes, with pouring rain at Halibut Point, instituting First Day Hikes in State the Blue Hills at 700 attendees, crunchy snow underfoot at Walden Parks. These hikes have long been Breakheart with 80, and a State Pond, and fluffy New Year’s snow very popular in the Blue Hills and Parks total attendance of over 470. in many of the locations – the hike Breakheart Reservation, and GPP 2007 participants were at Dubuque was actually a snow became a great experiment for notified and many joined in the fun shoe trip! The photos below show parks outside of Rt. 128. State of winter programming. the beauty that winter creates in Parks Hikes were held in the following locations: our forests. As we go deep into the winter Staff was very cooperative in months, we can look forward to Southeast Region creating avenues to provide this the Great Park Pursuit 2008 which Waquoit Bay National programming, and themes of hikes will feature the Civilian Estuarine Research Reserve rounded out the experience – seal Conservation Corps 75th Ellisville Harbor State Park viewing in Ellisville Harbor, Anniversary. In the meantime, Massasoit State Park cardiac health and the value of visitors are encouraged to continue using our beautiful properties even Northeast Region winter exercise at Moore, in the throes of winter. Happy Walden Pond State Reservation landscape use and forest regrowth New Year! W Halibut Point State Park history at Dubuque, not to mention department of Conservation and Recreation 2 Ranger Dispatch Bureau of Ranger Services Vol. 2, No. 1 y Winter 2008 A Snowy Start to the New Year By Lieutenant Kathryn Ward, Quabbin Highlands District On January 1st, the forecast for the ‘Snow Belt’ called for heavy snow with snow accumulating in Gardner at over an inch per hour. At 11:00 am the snow began and Bill Schold, Bill Adams, Sue Sienkiewiez and I were already preparing for our First Day Hikers to arrive. Sue started and stoked a welcoming fire in the large stone fireplace in the Pond House while Bill and Bill worked to keep up with clearing the snow from the walkways. Tips on getting healthy and being ‘green’ awaited the guests along with hot chocolate. Soon people were shaking off the snow and stamping their boots entering the Pond House to meet up with the other like-minded first-dayers. At 12:00 sharp, the group gathered on the front steps for a welcome, an overview of the day’s event, and a handed out the “I hiked in a state park on New Year’s group picture. Forty-one people were on the pond loop Day” stickers. The group sat by the fire enjoying hot hike including such notables as Director Priscilla Geigis, chocolate and had conversation about what they saw on District Manager Evelyn Jimenez, a volunteer from the trail. Kids examined the route they hiked on the big AMC Cees Vaneijk, as well as a family that attended all map and showed their parents how far they went. Some of last year’s Great Park Pursuit events, and my little folks wrote on a big board what their New Year’s black Labrador, Lady. Hikers followed the large orange resolutions were or what they are doing to be ‘green’. coat and snowshoe footprints of the ranger through the falling snow. Along the 1.5 mile route we stopped a few By 2:00 pm the ice rink had a blanket of snow and times and talked about recreation at Dunn Pond, the No the hikers’ tracks were quickly disappearing. Many Child Left Inside initiative, the Great Park Pursuit, and thanks were offered for a great event and the group New Year’s parted with a renewed spirit of getting outdoors more resolutions. Kids said often in the New Year. W they felt like they were in the movie SEASONAL HIRING Narnia and a few pulled tree boughs full of snow to The flyers are now available for distribution ‘snow’ their friends wherever good candidates can be found. or the ranger. Sue They cover openings for State & Urban guided a small group Rangers, Boston Harbor Island Rangers, a on a shortcut back early, but the supervisory Ranger II for the Islands, BHI majority trekked the Ranger Kayaker and State Park Interpreter. entire 1.5 hours. Please go to the link below to view and print out the flyers. Upon their return, the staff greeted and congratulated all of the hikers and http://www.mass.gov/dcr/stewardship/ interp/interp.htm#job department of Conservation and Recreation 3 Ranger Dispatch Bureau of Ranger Services Vol. 2, No. 1 y Winter 2008 MAPLE SUGARING EVENTS March is maple sugaring time in identification, tappings, history sugaring tours at the Krug New England, and plans are of maple sugaring, wood Sugarbush for school groups, underway for this year’s maple harvesting, sap boiling, and beginning the second week in sugaring programs in the sampling of real maple syrup March. Groups can schedule Department of Conservation and on pancakes and popcorn. tours in either the morning Recreation’s (DCR) state and urban These activities are open to the (after 10 a.m.) or afternoon, but parks. The following locations public on March 15 & 16, 10 should contact D.A.R. no accept and encourage reservations a.m. – 2 p.m., suggested earlier than a week in advance for organized educational and donation is $5 per person (or $4 to allow for the best prediction nonprofit groups beginning this if you bring a canned good for of weather and sugaring month. No reservations are contribution to a local food conditions. Call 413-268-7098. necessary for individuals or bank!). Pre-registration for families who want to attend DCR’s school groups and non-profits is maple sugaring events. required and can be arranged by For more information on these phone (781-438-1388) and other events, please visit • Maple Sugar Days. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. – 4 DCR’s website at Massachusetts Audubon p.m. http://www.mass.gov/dcr/events.htm Society’s Blue Hills Trailside W Museum in Milton offers group • Blackstone River and Canal tours of maple sugaring Heritage State Park in techniques from Brookwood Uxbridge offers maple Farm in the Blue Hills sugaring demonstrations and Reservation from mid-February lessons in how to make your through March.