NJ: Bass River and Wharton State Forests, Pine Barrens

Camping for Easter weekend with two teens in the New Jersey Pine Barrens held special significance for us as we continue to work through the loss of a beloved family member back in September. As we tick off first holidays without their Poppy, the kids seemed excited to find new ways to think about loss. Spending time in nature can certainly help.  On our Easter campout, it seemed fitting to reflect on themes of death and resurrection, loss and rebirth, while hiking through last year's big burn area in Wharton State Forest. 

Last year's wildfire season was already in full swing when in June, 2022, Father's Day Weekend, an illegal campfire - unattended and whipped up by afternoon winds - caused the  biggest blaze in 15 years, the 17th largest since fire history of the Pinelands has been kept. It spread across portions of several townships, through the Wharton State Forest, and along the Mullica River. Backpackers and campers were evacuated from the Batona Trails, surrounding recreation areas, and backcountry campsites. The fire cost nearly one million dollars to fight. Certainly not a prescribed burn, these are the kinds of fires the Pinelands see more of as fire season expands to nearly year-round. 

                                        . 

We walked through a blackened forest carpeted in thick layers of crispy needles of Pitch Pine, yet everywhere - on charred trunks and from the ground - sprung fresh needles of saplings and shoots. The teens, never having witnessed a recent burn like this, were speechless as, mile after mile, it seemed a new forest was emerging from the old. Pine cones lay open, some eaten by squirrels, others having lost their seeds to the forest char and duff. Pitch Pines are fire dependent and this is just what those closed up cones needed to force their opening. But we were aware of the intensity of this fire that nearly captured the crown and spread so fast that people just escaped with their lives. 

Up from the duff and ashes sprang Low Bush and High Bush blueberries alongside fresh green shoots of Sheep Laurel and Leatherleaf. We gawked and giggled past impossibly green mats of new Bearberry with their blossoms of pink and white tended to by Bumble Bees and Miner Bees. We watched ground nesting Miner Bees emerging and returning to exposed sand beds. "Whoa!!" they laughed as a parade of tiny bees flew in and out of a hundred sand tunnel entrances. 

Sand myrtle, Kalmia buxifolium

Trailing arbutus, Epigaea repens

Leatherleaf, Chamaedaphne calyculata

The trail turned towards the Mullica River and soon we saw an Osprey, another Rite of Spring. (Thank you, Rachel)  Every log was crowded with Eastern Painted Turtles and a big American Snapper hung motionless with her mossy green shell just breaking the water, her head and snout pointed at us, looking. A Yellow Warbler flitted from the branches of a White Cedar while a flock of Pine Warblers chatted it up in the tops of the highest pines. Even with the black ash and charred trees all around us, spring seemed unusually colorful and surprisingly joyful in the pines. How could we not giggle? 

An unburnt section near the river

Admiring the Mullica and its many turtles

In the Pine Barrens 

The pines here are incendiaries: not

      content to wait for conflagration,

they brim themselves with pitch,

        living torches spoiling to be lit, 

dry needles kindling on the sandy soil,

        cones hard, uncrackable except

by fire, seeds dormant till released by flames,

        to fall unchallenged on the flame-cleared

ground. The trees don’t mind being scorched,

        as long as the barrens can be swiftly

re-sown by their progeny, hardy, reckless, fully

        as combustible as themselves.

From the collection Nine-Bend Bridge (2018)

Winifred Hughes

Sand road (and fire break)

Fireproof Pitch Pine

New forest beneath the old, Pitch Pine, Pinus rigida

We found a patch of freshly emerged Bayberry and picked one leaf to crush and breathe in its intoxicating scent, an important medicinal plant for Lenni Lenape and pinewoods doctors like James Sill, brother of Underground Railroad Founder, William Sill. I found a remedy of Dr. Sill's, who described the oils of Bayberry as a curative for sore feet and legs, "when bathed in warm water with ashes added to aid in circulation. It has an astonishing effect."  Off they went, almost at a jog to finish our hike, revived by the Bayberry and the promise of a food truck at Batsto Village that offered real Italian ice. 

Northern Bayberry, Morella pennsyvanicus

Notes: 

James Sill ( 1877) Early Recollections and Life of Dr. James Still. Forgotten Books, Middletown, Delaware. 

Wharton State Forest https://nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/parks/whartonstateforest.html