Land protection

Picture, if you will, a maple sugar harvest. It’s a storybook scene: a snowy New England forest, a bucket hanging on every tree catching a steady drip of sap, and a big vat simmering sweetly over a wood fire in a tumbledown barn, slowly reducing the sap into rich, amber syrup.

“Nope—mine...

Mitch Doherty is about as outdoorsy a Montanan as you can imagine. The 42-year-old conservationist and father of two actually hails from Wisconsin. But after getting a taste of Big Sky Country while working a summer job in college, he pulled up stakes and never looked back. “I fell in love with...

Paulette Epple grew up on a game farm in Minnesota where her father raised ducks, geese, and peacocks, which were then sold to adorn zoos and private estates. So it was perhaps no surprise that after moving to Montana 40 years ago, she eventually found her way back to the avian world.

“As...

Helen Paxton, a lifelong nature lover from Montclair, New Jersey, always considered herself a "pretty wimpy hiker," at least compared to her more adventurous siblings and cousins. Still, she and her husband, Art Paxton, venture into the outdoors as much as possible.

This past summer, the...