Well over a century after the establishment of national forests across the Appalachian Mountains, their origin story has faded from common memory. Trees now blanket the mountains far into the blue distance. But as William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The devastating past of our forests shapes them today and will for centuries to come. This talk illustrates the stories that the woods still tell about that past.  

The arrow in this first slide (below) from my presentation points to my wooded home. Most of what you see is in the George Washington National Forest, at 1.1 million acres the largest national forest in the East. This was one of the best audiences ever! Deeply focused, laughed at all the right places, asked good questions, and gave me interesting ideas to follow up on. 

You can view the full video here. Note that my talk begins after 5 minutes and 32 seconds of announcements about the Wayne Theatre: https://www.facebook.com/WayneTheatreAlliance/videos/2461082141014546/