Maine Memory Network

Largest tree, Leeds, 1980

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1980-12-03 Location: Leeds Media: Photographic print

Annie Stone Stanwood, Brunswick, ca. 1900

Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: circa 1900 Location: Brunswick Media: Photographic print

A Focus on Trees

Maine has some 17 million acres of forest land. But even on a smaller, more local scale, trees have been an important part of the landscape. In many communities, tree-lined commercial and residential streets are a dominant feature of photographs of the communities.

The Establishment of the Troy Town Forest

Seavey Piper, a selectman, farmer, landowner, and leader of the Town of Troy in the 1920s through the early 1950s helped establish a town forest on abandoned farm land in Troy. The exhibit details his work over ten years.

Longfellow Garden Club

View collections, facts, and contact information for this Contributing Partner.

John Martin: Expert Observer - Dancing Fraternity, City of Bangor, 1868

"Dancing Fraternity, City of Bangor, 1868 John Martin: "Terpsichorian of the Old School" John Martin, Bangor, ca."

Finding and cooking fiddleheads with my parents
by Brian J. Theriault

My father has been picking and eating fiddleheads almost all his life, Mom prepares and stores them

Welimahskil: Sweet grass
by Suzanne Greenlaw

Weaving Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and western science around Sweetgrass

Why is Maine the Pine Tree State?

Grade Level: K-2 Content Area: Social Studies
This lesson plan will give students in early elementary grades a foundation for identifying the recognizable animals and natural resources of Maine. In this lesson, students will learn about and identify animals and plants significant to the state, and will identify what types of environments are best suited to different types of plant and animal life. Students will have the opportunity to put their own community wildlife into a large-scale perspective.

Wabanaki Studies: Out of Ash

Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 Content Area: Science & Engineering, Social Studies
This lesson plan will give middle and high school students a broad overview of the ash tree population in North America, the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) threatening it, and the importance of the ash tree to the Wabanaki people in Maine. Students will look at Wabanaki oral histories as well as the geological/glacial beginnings of the region we now know as Maine for a general understanding of how the ash tree came to be a significant part of Wabanaki cultural history and environmental history in Maine. Students will compare national measures to combat the EAB to the Wabanaki-led Ash Task Force’s approaches in Maine, will discuss the benefits and challenges of biological control of invasive species, the concept of climigration, the concepts of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and how research scientists arrive at best practices for aiding the environment.