Students from North Stratford, NH and Brighton, VT meet and greet each other at the Nulhegan Basin Visitor Contact Station. - Photo Credit: Mark Maghini

North Statford teacher and student team up on the Nulhegan River headwaters. - Photo Credit: Maria Young

With the generosity of a Nature of Learning Grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, NorthWoods Stewardship Center has launched the Nulhegan Watershed Conservation and Education Initiative. This novel project will link seventh grade students from bordering Connecticut River schools in Brighton,VT and North Stratford, NH in a series of conservation-related exercises.

The Nulhegan Basin Division of the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge serves as the Initiative’s central hub. The project will use efforts to restore Atlantic salmon and their habitat as a means for students to explore and discover something even greater: their backyard, which includes a spectacular part of northern New England.

At the kick-off session in October, students learned from Refuge Manager Mark Maghini about the purpose of the National Wildlife Refuge System, the unique nature of the Conte Refuge, and the importance of the Nulhegan Basin Division to forest-dependent songbirds and coldwater fisheries, due to its abundance of wetlands and streamside habitats.

Connecting students from both sides of the watershed, common ground was explored by canoe, with Autumn’s golden-needled tamaracks as backdrop. Students began to imagine the struggles faced by salmon as the students themselves fought a stiff headwind in the headwaters of the Nulhegan River – the day’s outdoor “classroom”. Here, in the middle of the broad Nulhegan basin, looking up at the surrounding mountain ridgelines, it was much easier to imagine oneself as a part of the watershed. In the Spring, these same students will become “citizen scientists”, armed with thermographs to measure water temperature, aiding in an ongoing scientific effort to chart water temperature and determine the effects that climate change may have on the suitability of the Nulhegan River as a cold water fishery. Students will also work with fisheries biologists from the State of Vermont and Trout Unlimited to stock and monitor salmon fry. To culminate the Initiative, students will work on a riparian conservation project within the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge.