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“Not only learning but also helping our community”
The Twin States are among the nation’s most timbered, with roughly 80 percent forested. Professional logging training is critical in what can be a hazardous occupation and real-world experience is what trainers prefer and students crave. The Upper Valley Land Trust (UVLT) is meeting both needs through partnership with secondary students in the Hartford Area Career & Technology Center’s (HACTC) Natural Resources Program.
HACTC students have been mastering chainsawing through work on the land trust’s Ely Mountain Conservation Area in Thetford, VT. Their instructor, Dan Gibson, is a certified arborist and has also worked as a dry stone waller and landscaper, and he brings those focal points to the class. He says, “My biggest thing is, if I want to teach a student how to use a chainsaw I want them to be well practiced, and you need real trees for that.”
Students have grown their capabilities while helping their families.
“I wanted to do this because my grandparents are getting older, especially my grandfather,” says Morgan Darling of Barnard, VT. “We have an outside wood furnace and my uncle’s a logger, but he’s not getting any younger himself. So, for winter, it’d be better if there’s somebody out there to cut cordwood, stack it, and split it, just so I could do it if my grandfather didn’t want to.”
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