Tenant Swamp
October 9, 2019 by New Hampshire Garden Solutions

In 2010 Keene built a new middle school at the edge of a 500 acre wetland called Tenant Swamp and the building sits on a high terrace that overlooks the swamp. To create an “outdoor classroom” for the students a boardwalk leading into the swamp was also built. I frequently drive by tenant swamp at this time of year and note the beautiful fall foliage that can be seen from the road and I’ve always wondered what the fall foliage would look like from inside the swamp. That’s what this trip would be about on this beautiful day.

A sturdy bridge built over a seasonal stream leads into the swamp.

An 850 foot boardwalk meanders through the swamp. It’s sturdy and well-built and about a foot or two off the ground. When it was being installed 9-12 feet of peat was discovered in some places. Two feet of peat takes about a thousand years to form so this peat has been here for a very long time. I’m tempted to call this a peat bog because of these discoveries but technically because it is forested, the correct term is swamp.

I was happy to see that there was some nice fall color here inside the swamp in addition to the beautiful colors I had seen on the outer edges.

The swamp is left to itself as much as possible and when trees fall they lie where they fell.

I saw lots of New England asters in sunny spots and I’m guessing that this swamp must be full of them and many other plants that I’d love to see.

There were lots of blueberry bushes here as well, and most were wearing their beautiful fall red.

Black raspberries are also plentiful here.

I’ve never seen so many winterberries growing in a single place before and every bush was loaded with fruit. Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) is a native plant in the holly family and is toxic, but birds love the berries. This plant loves wet feet so if you find it you can almost always be sure there is water nearby. Native Americans used many parts of it medicinally but they knew how to prepare it so it would cure and not make them sick.

I saw many spruce trees here and that immediately told me something about this place was different, because I don’t see many spruce trees in the wild. Spruce trees like it cool and they prefer the boreal forests further north. There are at least two species here and I think they were probably red spruce (Picea rubens) and black spruce (Picea mariana.) Neither one minds boggy ground.

Cattails (Typha latifolia) were an important food for Native Americans. Their roots contain more starch than potatoes and more protein than rice, and native peoples made flour from them. They also ate the new shoots in spring, which must have been especially welcome after a long winter of eating dried foods. They are very beneficial to many animals and birds and even the swamps, ponds and lakes they grow in by filtering runoff water and helping reduce the amount of silt and nutrients that flow into them.

Before the new middle school could be built here an archaeological sensitivity assessment had to be done, and by the time the dig was completed it was found that Native Americans lived here at the end of the last ice age, approximately 11,000-12,000 years ago. The dig also found that the Ashuelot River once ran through here; about a half mile east of where it now flows. Since the site evolved into a swamp it was never farmed or built on so it was valuable enough archeologically to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. There are a few diagrams like the one above placed here and there on the boardwalk to help people understand exactly what went on here 12,000 years ago.

I thought this was interesting.

500 acres of swamp boggles my mind and I know that if I hopped off the boardwalk and bush whacked my way into the swamp, I’d probably be lost in under an hour. Once you get turned around and start wandering in circles it’s all over, and in November of 1890 that’s exactly what happened to George McCurdy, who died of exposure. I’ve heard stories about another man who went into the swamp and was never found. I’ll stay on the boardwalk but the swamp is very enticing and I’d love to explore it.

There are lots of birds in the swamp and benches are placed here and there along the boardwalk for people who like to sit and watch them.

It’s not hard to find evidence of woodpeckers here. This hole was made by a pileated woodpecker sometime in the past.

This hole was fresh and was probably made by one of the smaller woodpeckers, like the downy woodpecker.

There are lots of cinnamon ferns (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum) growing in the swamp. They like wet feet and I usually find them near water. The common name for this fern comes from its upright reddish brown fertile fronds which someone thought looked like cinnamon sticks. It often turns bright pumpkin orange in the fall.

There were many fallen leaves on the boardwalk.

The fallen leaves made me look up, and when I did I was surprised to see bare branches on some of the maples already. Fall must pass quickly here.

A black birch (Betula lenta) showed how beautiful it could be. This tree is also called sweet birch and its numbers were once decimated because of its use as a source of oil of wintergreen. The bark looks a lot like cherry bark but chewing a twig is the best way to identify it; if it tastes like wintergreen then it is black birch. If not then it is most likely a cherry.

Royal fern (Osmunda spectabilis) has a strong presence here and this one was very beautiful in its fall colors. Royal fern is one of the most beautiful of our native ferns in my opinion, but often fools people by not really looking very fern like. Royal fern is in the family Osmundaceae, and fossils belonging to this family have been found in rocks of the Permian age, which was about 230 million years ago. There is also a European species of royal fern called Osmunda regalis.
Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. ~Henry David Thoreau
Thanks for coming by.
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Posted in Nature, Scenery / Landscapes, Things I've Seen | Tagged Ashuelot River, Black Birch, Black Raspberry, Black Spruce, Blueberry, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Cattails, Cinnamon Fern Fall Color, Fall Color, Historic Keene, Keene, Native Plants, Nature, New England Aster, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Red Maple, Red Spruce, Royal Fern, Tenant Swamp, Winterberry, Woodpecker Holes in Tree | 21 Comments
A 500-acre swamp kind of boggles my mind, though I’ve spent plenty of time in and around swamps! Did anyone take cores from the peat to look at pollen? I’m guessing they did, since you mentioned the depth. A whole ‘nother amazing way to glimpse a past landscape 🙂
I’ve explored smaller swamps and found one of the most beautiful orchids I’ve ever seen in one of them, so it is worth doing.
I don’t know if they did study pollen deposits but I wouldn’t be surprised. It was a very in depth study that carried on for quite a while, and it’s still being written about.
What a great idea for locating a high school. I hope the students get something out of it.
I’m sure they do.
How lucky those students are! I feel sorry for many school children today because they spend so little time outdoors.
The black birch leaves are such a glorious colour!
Thank you Clare, I agree. I hope all of them want to spend even more time in the woods after school as well.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful!
Yes!
🙂
Lucky students! What a wonderful outdoor classroom and boardwalk.
Betula lenta was always a favorite tree I remember from back east. I loved to chew the twigs as a youngster, wandering around the forest.
I think they’re very lucky too!
The birches are showing some great color at the moment.
The temptation to plunge into the swamp must be strong. There are so many interesting things and creatures in there.
Yes, and all completely hidden from view. The temptation is very strong but I have been lost in the woods before so that keeps me level headed, for the most part.
Swamps can be such interesting places. Easier to traverse once everything is frozen hard. And black birch really does taste like wintergreen. My gram made winter green tea from scraped black birch twigs. It was better unsweetened, but when once I did sweeten it, the tea tasted like drinking pink (wintergreen) Canada mints.. I wondered if the candy was flavored with the birch oil.
Yes, I agree but this one is so thick with growth I’m not even sure you could find your way out in winter unless of course you could follow your own footsteps in the snow.
That’s interesting about the black birch tea!
I looked up Canada mint ingredients. The peppermint ones have peppermint oit but the wintergreen ones have artificial flavors.
It’s really nice that they built that boardwalk.
I have a swamp and a marsh on my place in Chile. Both are spring fed. The swamp has a wide variety of trees and shrubs. I’ve been working on the swamp for two years to make it passable for botanists. It has lots of plants in the Myrtaceae family.
The spring blooming season is just now starting. The first Myrtaceae will be Amomyrtus luma. It is one of the hardest and toughest woods in South America. I make my tool handles out of it and its close relative, Meli (Amomyrtus meli).
On Wed, Oct 9, 2019, 5:07 AM New Hampshire Garden Solutions New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted: ” In 2010 Keene built a new middle > school at the edge of a 500 acre wetland called Tenant Swamp and the > building sits on a high terrace that overlooks the swamp. To create an > “outdoor classroom” for the students a boardwalk leading into the swamp was > also” >
Thank you Ron. I’d love to see your swamp too. You’re lucky to have one on your property.
I see that the Amomyrtus luma has pretty flowers as well as tough wood!
Wonderful place! I hope the teachers take advantage of it and bring the students outside from time to time, for science, art, history, and storytelling. Nature can run through many disciplines.
Thank you Laurie, I’ve heard that the students spend a lot of time out there and I love hearing that!
What an interesting place to put a boardwalk with all its history too. I would love to walk there so thanks for you taking us along.
Thank you Susan. It’s one of a kind in this area.