Author Archives: Gary Sanderson

A South Deerfield, Mass., native, Gary was the longtime sports editor at the Greenfield Recorder, a daily newspaper in Greenfield, Mass., where he retired in June 2018, having worked parts of five decades over 39 years. A senior-active, nearly 40-year member of the New England Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America, his Thursday column "On The Trail" ran for nearly 40 years, ostensibly focusing on fish and wildlife, conservation and issues pertaining to them in the Connecticut Valley, where his roots reach deep into its oldest burial grounds. He and wife Joanne live in a historic Greenfield Meadows tavern today known as Old Tavern Farm, which has a rich history dating back to the mid-18th century. The home, which became a National-Register-of-Historic-Places building on his watch, served as a small, seasonal bed and breakfast from 1999-2015. Gary's other interests include history, anthropology, archaeology, literature, genealogy, Americana, country auctions, and early-American architecture and landscapes, as well as hunting, fishing and especially reading. His primary focus is the Pioneer Valley, its people, places and critters.

A Good Read About Coyotes

With an active, dynamic and ever-changing reading list usually piled atop the square, snake-legged candlestand next to my La-Z-Boy reading chair, it’s unlikely I’ll jump right on a book recommended by friends or readers, no matter how much I respect their opinion. Not impossible, but definitely a long shot given the big picture. Well, it […]

Bears, Coyotes And A Little Tease

The Beldingville bears just keep on giving in this, a week that has thus far offered ideal morning weather for bottomland rambles. So, of course I took robust, refreshing walks through familiar riverside habitat each day, doubling the normal distance to extend the splendor of a cool north breeze, bright blue sky, and sparse, white, wispy clouds […]

An Unusual, Extended Bear Family?

How about that? A new twist to Beldingville bears, featured here last week after a harrowing incident that came this way from a local woodsman who, descending Ashfield’s distinctive, gumdrop-shaped Mt. Owen, ran into trouble. For anyone who missed it, that tale involved Jack Shea, a retied 68-year-old Eaglebrook School teacher and Shelburne Falls native […]

Beldingville Bear Encounter

Who hasn’t experienced vivid, realistic, twilight dawn dreams that transport them back many years to an indelible, possibly terrifying memory in the company of dear friends or hated rivals, the whole thing presented in living color and dynamic Dolby sound that seems as real as the distant day on which it happened. Then, of course, there […]

Chewier Than Saltwater Taffy

We’re standing inside a reconstructed 400-year-old trading post along the south shore of Cape Cod Canal — impressive, exposed, hand-hewn oak beams overhead — talking to a wise, trim, attractive, copper-toned Native American woman guide. Grandsons Jordie and Arie, 10 and nearly 7, are fiddling around with soft beaver and otter pelts, wampum jewelry and […]

Early Antlers?

Full moons, phone calls and velvet. Enticing indeed. So let’s go back to Sunday morning, July’s Buck Moon  in the overnight sky waxing toward its full Tuesday splendor. And, oh, how beautiful that full moon was at 3 a.m. Wednesday, casting a surreal silver light across the front yard that even fooled the cat, which […]

Observe, Ponder, Hypothesize

Strawberries have gone by, raspberries and blueberries are ripe for the picking, my roma tomato is waist-high and quickly climbing a 10-foot rebar stilt and, for a month or more, a 300-yard leg of my daily mile walk again ventures up the shallow Green River, always a refreshing summertime bonus for me and the dogs. My […]

Rock Dam Ramble

Approaching noon on a sunny Fourth of July morning — a dry, refreshing northwesterly breeze perfect for hiking — and we’re crossing Gen. Pierce Bridge from Bingville to Montague City for a quick Rock Dam tour. Having never visited the site, a dear old pal from South Deerfield had called the night before suggesting a […]

Blueback Trout Mysteries Deepen

I’ve found a new second-favorite native fish — one I’ve never touched, laid eyes upon or, for that matter, even knew existed before last week. No. 1 is still Eastern brook trout: our New England fish. No. 2? Well, that would be the native fish few know: the blueback trout. So let’s take a deeper […]

Archaeology Conference A Feather In Eaglebrook’s Cap

Arctic char in our prehistoric Connecticut Valley? Yes indeed, if you read the hidden information contained in ancient sediments (or varves) left behind by glacial Lake Hitchcock, which filled from south to north as the Wisconsin Glacier receded over approximately 4,000 years — beginning some 18,000 years ago. At its peak, the lake of various […]

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