Glimpsing Ecology Around Walden
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To join the Walden scene, enjoy the ringAndromeda Pond around-the-pond trail. Ever changing close-up views of the pond, its engineered pondside, and the hillside include periodic large stone steps welcoming walkers to lapping water. But to discover nature’s ecology, explore the diverse woodland trails and special places. Here I highlight the intriguing land beyond the pond. Don’t miss interesting species. Take an oval leaf of wintergreen groundcover, rip it in two, and smell the familiar aroma. Crow-sized pileated woodpeckers hammering tree trunks. Whitish-green pin cushion moss. Scarlet oaks color extensive areas here. To Henry Thoreau, a pre-ecology ecodetective, the scarlet oak leaf looked like a tropical Lake Walden, as depicted in an 1866 photo isle. Large concave coves from the American Antiquarian Society and bays with beaches for repose, alternate with rocky points and crashing waves - suitable for Vikings, buccaneers, and our sense of adventure. The big picture changing. A glacier, some 12,000 years ago, left sandy soil across the area, leading to a low water table and dry conditions for most plants. Also, insulating rock debris buried “icebergs” that later melted by geo-heat, leaving depressions where water and wet places often appear. Extensive forest encompassed Walden through 1819. Hourglass-like, the Walden woodland shrank to a minimum by 1850 when deforestation reached the pond shore, and then forest cover expanded through 1896 and onward. Today double-trunk oaks thrive that sprouted from “mothers” of a preceding forest. The three crowds. After two centuries of rural Walden, a thousand Irish workers with their families arrived in 1843 to construct a 40
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railway past the pond. Temporary abodes and cellar holes were dug into the hills and coves from south of the pond to today’s Route 2. The railway truncated Walden’s southwest cove and steam engines spread noise and soot particles widely. The second crowd arrived in trainloads from Boston for a day at Lake Walden. During 1866-1902 an amusement park dominated the northwest cove, with a pavilion, oval racetrack, train station, boating area, and swimming area. In the mid-1900s, the third crowd poured in for swimming, especially after
| 2021 Guide to the Great Outdoors
©R.T.T. Forman
BY RICHARD T. T. FORMAN
truckloads of imported sand expanded the beach in 1957. Walden recreationists today revel in purportedly greater Boston’s best freshwater beach. All three crowds degraded the pond water by causing eroded banks and sedimentation, nutrient and other pollutant inputs, and near elimination of the species-rich littoral zone of emergent, floating, and submerged edge vegetation. Added phosphorus, a major problem in freshwater, often catalyzes a cascade — algae blooms, green water, dead cells filtering downward, exponential growth of decay bacteria, loss of oxygen, loss of fish — leading to few fish-eating birds and anglers. To the E, S, W, and N. Eastward. Goose Pond with its peninsula trail. Busy Route 126 and its ecological impacts. Environmentally friendly visitor center area. Southward. Excavation pit at boat launch, showing the innards of hills. Vernal pool that dries in summer — no fish predators mean amphibians may thrive. Trails atop
