VERMONT—Heritage staff on the Green Mountain National Forest collaborated with a CorpsTHAT crew to preserve cultural resources within the national forest. 

For the past four years, CorpsTHAT has recruited a crew of young adults to participate in conservation work in the outdoors, thanks to a collaboration through the Forest Service Urban Connections program. This is the organization’s third year hosting a crew in the national forest in Vermont. Crew members come from across the county and all of the members are deaf or hard of hearing. Their mission is to connect the Deaf Community and the outdoors through education, recreation and careers. 

A CorpsTHAT crew has joined Green Mountain & Finger Lakes National Forest staff in the field the last few summers. They stay for about a month, getting hands-on land management experience. Many program areas vie for the crew’s time including the Heritage Program, which jumped at the chance show the national forest to the crew through an archeological lens.

“We want all of our coworkers thinking about cultural resources while they are in the field,” says Karen Bucher, heritage program manager. “The landscape is dotted with evidence of the people who have lived here and there’s patterns that can tell us of who they might have been and how they’ve used the landscape.”

Management of natural resources, such as silviculture and ecology, is what most people think of when they think about the Forest Service. However, the agency’s Heritage Program focuses on protecting cultural resources found on the landscape. Federal land management agencies have a duty to not only manage for the future through conservation efforts, but to also preserve the past. There are stories that can be told through investigating the remnants of early homesteads, past industries or traditional use landscapes that need our attention to ensure their continued preservation. 

“The trickiest part of meeting our cultural preservation goals is that it can be hard for many Forest Service staff to recognize significant cultural resources on the landscape,” says Bucher. “Which is why I appreciate anytime I get to take young land stewards to a heritage site. They will become familiar with recognizing these types of resources on the landscape and be able to build a habit of looking for signs of human modification of the landscape. We hope what they take out of this is an ability to apply their knowledge and unique perspectives to their future conservation endeavors.

During their two days working with the Heritage Staff, the CorpsTHAT crew cleared vegetation around a 1937 stone box culvert along Forest Road 10. Historically, this was the first forest highway on the Green Mountain National Forest reconstructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps; it contains over one hundred stone culverts. Afterwards, they traveled further north to clear vegetation at the Pier’s Tavern site, which contains the ruins of the first framed building in the town of Ripton, dating back to 1819. The site is an important part of the history of the town of Ripton, highlighted as a stop along the Robert Frost Wayside Connector trail. Clearing the vegetation was needed for the public to actually see the features on the ground and protect the foundations from erosion and root displacement. The crew also received a bit of classroom time to learn about archaeology.

Reflecting on her time working with the CorpsTHAT crew, Bucher said, “We truly enjoyed our time working with the CorpsTHAT crew, they were engaged with learning about archaeology and the protection/preservation of the cultural resources, plus they are extremely hard workers. We look forward to partnering with them next year.”