VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT
Two “Cornish Stones” of Conservation By Ryan Smith
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ince the early 1970s, Dan and Rickey Poor of Cornish, N.H., have poured their hearts and souls into educating youth about science and stewardship and helping to protect land in their small Upper Valley town of nearly 2,000 people. It wasn’t long after Dan took a job as school principal in Cornish in 1973 that he and Rickey became Forest Society members and enrolled in the conservation camps led by then Education Director Les Clark. At camp, Dan and Rickey were introduced to Dave Allen, former state wildlife biologist, among many other natural resource professionals. The couple invited Dave to town to walk what is now the Cornish Recreation and Education Area, a property they helped to conserve, to discuss the ways Dan could incorporate nature studies into his school’s science curriculum. When Dan left his job to become a math and science teacher, he employed this curriculum in his teachings as well. Rickey would incorporate her camp course work into her curriculum as an elementary classroom teacher for nearly 30 years. For Rickey, the course reinforced the importance of hands-on learning and the need to get students, both youth and adults, outside and in the field. In 1976, she was appointed to the Cornish Conservation Commission where she served as chair, in addition to many other positions, and currently serves as monitoring coordinator for the seven properties the town holds easements on. Now, almost 50 years later, with countless hours of volunteering for many nonprofits under their belts, the Poors are still active. “For most of our years of membership, the Forest Society has been a resource and inspiration for us, but it has only been since our retirement ten years ago that we thought about volunteering,” Dan says. In 2017, the couple brought their volunteer commitment to a higher 16 | FOREST NOTES Summer 2021
From left, Yatsevitch Forest land stewards Dan and Rickey Poor pose beside the reservation’s road sign during a visit to monitor the property. level when they signed up to become land stewards for the 1,090-acre Yatsevitch Forest in Cornish and Plainfield. They took their passion for volunteering one step further in 2019 by enrolling as sugar maple research citizen scientists. With little time to spare as they jump from one volunteer project to the next, in addition to traveling and celebrating their 54th wedding anniversary this year, the Poors carved out some time to reflect on their decades-long connection to conservation and discuss what’s next for this dynamic duo. What are the responsibilities of a land steward? Dan Poor: There is no such thing as a typical day as a land steward at the Yatsevitch Forest. The property is a bit off the beaten track and it includes a significant portion designated as an ecological reserve due to the presence of unusual and rare plants. Since there are no formal trailheads, kiosks, parking areas, or maps, it does not get a lot of visits from out of the
area. That said, there is a snowmobile trail that runs through it, and some logging roads and old town roads also run through it or near its borders. And some residents have constructed trails on their own property that meet up with the logging roads and snowmobile trail. Each year we drive the roads that border the forest looking for any obvious inappropriate activity, checking signage, and clearing brush when required. We usually check in with the current resident of the Yatsevitch house, too. We are expected to walk boundary lines to check on blazes and corner markers, but I doubt that we will ever walk the entire boundary during our tenure as land stewards. During the pandemic, I discovered that I could walk to a corner of the Yatsevitch Forest that was much closer to our house than I realized. I have since visited that area several times in the last 18 months or so and have walked a modest amount of the property border there. Although the boundaries I have seen are clearly blazed
