Students and teachers are invited to KLT’s Forestry Education Program in October at the Curtis Homestead Conservation Area. KLT staff are joined by a professional logger, foresters, and community volunteers.

Students will:

· Observe a timber harvest;

· Learn about KLT’s forest management plan, including goals for, habitat improvement, income, education, and recreation;

· Understand how loggers can protect soil, water, and wildlife;

· See a demonstration of a portable sawmill;

· Participate in hands-on forestry and Maine wildlife activities

· Explore careers related to forestry and the forest products industry (recent reports show that there are 33,538 direct and indirect jobs in this Maine industry);

· Be active on our 360-acre Conservation Area.

Reservations are now open for this half-day program in October. We are offering the following options:  October 3, 5, 10 or 12, 2023

We are flexible if you have schedule or date constraints, or have specific activities or learning objectives you would like to achieve.

Please contact, Marie Ring, Director of Membership and Programming to register your class or for more information.

207-377-2848, mring@tklt.org First Come, First Served.

Theresa Kerchner, Executive Director

Since 2009, more than a thousand central Maine students, parents, and teachers have learned about sustainable forestry at the Kennebec Land Trust’s annual educational program at the 360-acre Curtis Homestead Conservation Area in Leeds.  Field presentations focus on forest stewardship, sustainable forestry, careers in forestry, and wildlife habitat. KLT staff and volunteers, Leeds logger Nat Bell, Maine Forest Service District Foresters Julie Davenport and Shane Duigan, and retired Maine Forest Service Biometrician, Ken Laustsen lead the day’s activities.

KLT’s Curtis Homestead twenty-acre demonstration forest is ideal for a stand improvement education program, since this area was hayland until at least the 1940’s. After the Curtis family fields were abandoned, this land reverted to white pine, white and grey birch, cherry, and red maple. Many of the trees that grew in the former farm fields, especially the white pines, became crowded, diseased, and crooked.

Meet Nat Bell, our logger:

 History: Farm to Forest

The Curtis Homestead was settled in the early 1800’s and remained in the Curtis family until 2000 when former Maine Governor Kenneth Curtis and his sister, Rebecca, donated 360 acres to the Kennebec Land Trust.  The last of a long line of Curtis farmers,  Ken’s parents raised a few dairy and beef cows and chickens, grew corn and beans for the Leeds cannery, and selectively harvested wood from their woodlot.

 Soon after the Trust acquired this property, Harold Burnett of Two Trees Forestry wrote a forest management plan for the Homestead, which highlighted current timber harvesting opportunities as well as historical land use practices.  Several years later, neighbor and logger Nat Bell asked KLT if they would consider a community demonstration forestry program for school children and their parents.