This completely updated edition of Paddling the Jersey Pine Barrens provides paddlers with detailed river descriptions; information on geological, social, environmental, and botanical histories; practical tips on paddling the 14 main rivers; detailed enlarged maps for each river; and information on driving directions, area campgrounds, boat rentals, and public amenities. This guide provides everything a paddler needs to know to have fun canoeing or kayaking through the unique ecosystem of the Jersey pine Barrens.
This guide provides detailed river descriptions and intriguing information about the geological, social, environmental, and botanical history of the Pine Barrens -- the coastal plain region of southern New Jersey. Several new routes are outlined in this revision, and each route features driving directions, area camp-grounds, canoe rental agencies, and a chart that lists all access points along the river.
Deep within the heart of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, the Piney people have built a vibrant culture and industry from working the natural landscape around them. Foraging skills learned from the local Lenapes were passed down through generations of Piney families who gathered many of the same wild floral products that became staples of the Philadelphia and New York dried flower markets. Important figures such as John Richardson have sought to lift the Pineys from rural poverty by recording and marketing their craftsmanship. As the state government sought to preserve the Pine Barrens and develop the region, Piney culture was frequently threatened and stigmatized. Author and advocate William J. Lewis charts the history of the Pineys, what being a Piney means today and their legacy among the beauty of the Pine Barrens.
This new edition of AMC's popular Quiet Water New Jersey is completely updated, featuring more than 50 quiet water tours of the state's most stunning paddling destinations.
Most people think of New Jersey as a suburban-industrial corridor that runs between New York and Philadelphia. Yet in the low center of the state is a near wilderness, larger than most national parks, which has been known since the seventeenth century as the Pine Barrens. The term refers to the predominant trees in the vast forests that cover the area and to the quality of the soils below, which are too sandy and acid to be good for farming. On all sides, however, developments of one kind or another have gradually moved in, so that now the central and integral forest is reduced to about a thousand square miles. Although New Jersey has the heaviest population density of any state, huge segments of the Pine Barrens remain uninhabited. The few people who dwell in the region, the "Pineys," are little known and often misunderstood. Here McPhee uses his uncanny skills as a journalist to explore the history of the region and describe the people—and their distinctive folklore—who call it home.
Text and illustrations chronicle the coming of spring to the Pine Barrens and the changes it brings to the plant and animal life of this swampy wilderness.
In Greenville, New Hampshire, a small town in the southern part of the state, Henri Vaillancourt makes birch-bark canoes in the same manner and with the same tools that the Indians used. The Survival of the Bark Canoe is the story of this ancient craft and of a 150-mile trip through the Maine woods in those graceful survivors of a prehistoric technology. It is a book squarely in the tradition of one written by the first tourist in these woods, Henry David Thoreau, whose The Maine Woods recounts similar journeys in similar vessel. As McPhee describes the expedition he made with Vaillancourt, he also traces the evolution of the bark canoe, from its beginnings through the development of the huge canoes used by the fur traders of the Canadian North Woods, where the bark canoe played the key role in opening up the wilderness. He discusses as well the differing types of bark canoes, whose construction varied from tribe to tribe, according to custom and available materials. In a style as pure and as effortless as the waters of Maine and the glide of a canoe, John McPhee has written one of his most fascinating books, one in which his talents as a journalist are on brilliant display.
This article is a description of the Pine Barrens with particular attention paid to historic villages such as Batsto and canoeing rivers such as the Mullica and the Batsto.
