Introducing Mount Owen Forest Sanctuary: 268+ Refuge For People, Plants and Wildlife

In November, I wrote Stewarding a Living Land, a post about 268+ acres 1 in Western Massachusetts my partner and I have been hiking, exploring and falling in love with since May 2022. Today, I am writing to introduce you to that land, Mount Owen Forest Sanctuary.

Red oak and red maple populate the living landscape along with black birch, paper birch and yellow birch, shagbark hickory, hemlock, white pine, and beautiful old sugar maples. We’ve found understory plants include native, endangered medicinals like trillium, bloodroot, blue cohosh, Solomon’s Seal and wild leek. Spicebush grows around the vernal pool while goldenrod and mugwort flourish around the forest edge. Reishi, oyster, turkey tail and chaga mushrooms flourish throughout the woods amidst dramatic moss covered ledges, often cascading with seasonal streams. You may hear songbirds like the veery, hermit thrush, black-throated blue warbler and scarlet tanager and find evidence of red fox, porcupine, white-tailed deer, red-tailed hawks, bobcats, and black bear.

Sanctuary is defined as “a place of refuge or safety.” For wildlife, plants and fungi, this may mean, among other things, safety from habitat destruction and overharvesting. A botanical sanctuary — something we plan to create — is an area pledged to promote plant biodiversity and ecosystemic conditions that help plants and their communities thrive. We will be focusing on at-risk native plants with a focus on woodland medicinals such as goldenseal, Solomon’s Seal, ginseng. Already, we have planted endangered goldenseal and ginseng (thanks to United Plant Savers) and inoculated logs with edible and medicinal mushrooms.

We just launched our website, a culmination of ideas we have been talking about since we began hiking Mount Owen last spring, and have been dreaming about long before we met each other and the mountain. Those dreams include restoring the land where needed while making it habitable (we’re researching compostable, low-impact building materials) and edible (using permaculture systems). We plan to create an outdoor classroom, inviting ecology, permaculture, herbalism and mycology teachers to share as we nurture the living landscape and create a botanical sanctuary. We want to live off the land and rather than being ‘no impact’ we want to impact the land in a positive way, bringing more balance to the ecosystem where we can, nurturing more life.

To say I am both excited and overwhelmed is an understatement. This is a dream come true and now that the dream has materialized it comes with a lot of responsibility and work. The forest, though beautiful, needs attention and care where areas are depleted due to logging, erosion, damage from invasive species 2 and overall neglect.

`If you’d like to help this initiative by becoming a paid subscriber to this Substack, I would be so grateful. I’ll be sharing videos about ethical harvesting of wild plants for paid subscribers soon.

1 Over 1,500 feet in height, Mount Owen is located on the traditional homeland of the Nipmuc Tribal Nation, the original stewards for over 12,000 years. Before this region was forcibly colonized, the Nipmuc homeland stretched over 2000 square miles, encompassing central Massachusetts, Northern Connecticut, Northern Rhode Island, and southern New Hampshire. Part of the Algonquin language group; there are roughly 3000 family clan members living in southern New England today. You can learn more about the Nipmuc Tribal Nation as well as actions you can take on their behalf through The Ohketeau Cultural Center. Ohketeau is the Nipmuc word for a place to plant and grow. 

2 Invasive species are a complicated topic and many of the ways we deal with them cause more harm. I recommend Beyond the War On Invasive Species, by Tao Orion, a book that explores invasive species management within a holistic, permaculture-inspired framework.