By Nate Lennard
2025 Stewardship Intern
I think that working for the NFCT this summer was a really great decision for me for a myriad of reasons. It’s one thing to see and think about a trail crew or stewardship job on a job board and an entirely different thing to actually go do it, and being put right in the action was a very valuable experience for me and something that I would recommend to everyone who’s interested.
I learned a few very important things about myself this summer: I love knots, I love whittling, I love the j-stroke, and I love tofu. Gaining a new, highly versatile plant based protein in my cooking repertoire was not an outcome that I was expecting, but thanks to my two vegetarian crewmates, I quickly learned about my love for the fermented soybean. I found it very easy to alter my lifestyle when put in such an alien environment, and being adaptable to food choices was probably the most important one. When you cook for yourself it can be very easy to stick to routines, but cooking with and for other people opens you up creatively and allows you to unlock more culinary skills and treasures than you had before. And while sometimes I didn’t want to cook dinner, I very much appreciated and enjoyed group meals with everyone.
We also encountered so many interesting and lovely people over the course of the summer. Some of the encounters felt a little bit uncanny or synchronous (in the Jungian sense), like the Buddhist karate practitioner we met at the Lower Locks project in Saranac Lake. I also do karate, practice meditation, and have been reading an amazing book about three zen masters recently. Such encounters as that one were the highlights of my summer, as they helped me see the various paths of life that are available to us if we wish to pursue and cultivate them. It was a beautiful thing to build community so organically, with so many people from all different paths coming together for the common good of the trail.
My favorite part of the summer was definitely hanging out with my fellow interns. Being on the roving crew I think that we partly bonded due to the sheer amount of time we spent in the car together listening to music. Sharing music with other people is a glimpse into their inner world, and finding common ground is very meaningful to me. We went on a lot of side adventures on our days off, including paddling to and hiking Whiteface, biking 100 miles around Vermont, and brewing a failed batch of kombucha. Kombucha was a surprisingly prominent theme for the summer, and I have since dialed down my consumption of the fermented tea, seeing it more as a treat rather than a daily consumptive.
Another very cool thing about the summer for me was the arrangement of tents on the campsites. Encountering varied terrain and campsite regulations guided the ways in which we could occupy campsites and I think that it produced very interesting organic settlement arrangements. Each campsite was like a small city, and our final campsite at Gravel Beach in the Allagash exemplified that, with different pockets of occupancy, various pathways, and a large central node that we gathered around for cooking and socializing. Being interested in urban design, I thought that the ways in which we organized our tents on campsites was endlessly cool. Some of my favorite campsites included Kate’s Camp on the Connecticut River and Valcour Island on Lake Champlain. Both of these sites had such close access to the water, allowing for easy paddling and swimming opportunities. I loved seeing boats go by and looking out at the water in the morning. It was especially cool to see the high winds create choppy waves and storm-like conditions on Valcour Island. The varied atmospheres of each campsite were charming and beautiful in their own ways, influencing my routines and moods which were as temporary and fluid over the course of the summer as waves breaking on a rocky shore.
Overall, I can attest that my experience with the NFCT was not only a great professional experience, but also a great way to understand myself better. And for that, I am very grateful.
Wishing everyone the best on their continued journeys.
