- Up next on "Borealis," (slow rock music) the challenges and joys of hiking and camping with young kids.

- It's a lot of just adventure and, like, you know, make believe.

- [Aislinn] Find out how the Maine Forest Service tracks and measures Maine's tallest trees.

- [Jan] It's a great way to connect people to the nature of Maine.

- And visit author and naturalist Bernd Heinrich at his off the grid cabin in Western Maine.

Stay with us.

- [Announcer] Production support for "Borealis" is provided by.

(slow music) (bicycles whizzing) (slow music continues) - [Announcer] At Poland Spring, we've called Maine home since 1845, and are proud to be part of the community, over the past two decades investing over 14 and a half million dollars in the place that we call home.

Poland Spring, Maine's spring water.

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Learn more at nature.org/joinmaine.

- [Announcer] And by viewers like you, thank you.

- You guys ready to hike?

(laughs) (slow rock music) ♪ Want to get lost in the wilderness ♪ ♪ With you, darling ♪ ♪ Want to get lost in the rivers and the roads ♪ ♪ Get you up on the mountainside ♪ ♪ And we can just climb ♪ - Welcome to "Borealis."

I'm Aislinn Sarnacki, and I'm standing in an heirloom apple orchard at Viles Arboretum, a 224 acre botanical garden in Augusta.

This place is full of miles of family friendly hiking trails, and you might think that it's challenging to hike or camp or paddle with young kids, but some families say the younger you get outside, the better.

(slow music) - [Speaker] Is that better?

- There.

- Yeah.

- [Aislinn] Willy Yamartino is only a year old, but she's already, in many ways, an experienced outdoors person.

- [Ray] All right, guys, you lead the way.

(group quietly chattering) - [Aislinn] Today, she's as Cobscook Bay State Park with her family and friends, the Rubys.

These two families camp and hike together regularly.

- We love the outdoors, but I feel like when we're at home, whole Saturdays can just be wasted inside doing other things.

- You slow down when you're outside and camping.

- Yeah, and it's like you get this uninterrupted time with your kids.

There's always so many distractions at home.

- [Aislinn] Introducing children to outdoor activities like camping and hiking can seem daunting, but maybe it's not so difficult.

To share tips with parents, the Rubys created a blog.

To date, they estimate they've taken their two daughters, Eloise and Adeline, on over 50 camping trips, and have visited every single Maine state park.

- They said, like, "Your kids won't remember, why are you doing this?"

And, first of all, selfishly it's for us, too, but secondly, who knows what it does to their personality.

- I think just if you want to start out, just start small, you know?

Find a campsite that's 30 minutes from home and do a night, one night, see how it goes.

- I just say don't camp in your backyard.

Don't pitch a tent back, you know why?

Because your house is right there, and a kid, at some point, or you at some point will be like, "You know what, let's go inside."

- Let's go in.

- Make it 15 minutes down the road.

If you do it in your backyard, you're gonna be like, "Oh, that didn't work out," and now we can't go.

Friends, come on up for lunch real quick.

(children quietly chattering) Last one up the hill's a rotten egg.

No, oh, no, no.

I'm stinky.

(children quietly chattering) Come on, pal, let's go eat lunch.

(slow guitar music) (group quietly chattering) (slow guitar music continues) Unfortunately, we live in a world where everyone wants to do everything perfectly, you know, and that's never anything.

And especially when you take kids outdoors or when adults are outdoors, it's not gonna go perfect.

The weather might not be perfect, somebody might bump their head or whatever.

You just have to lower those expectations, and when you do that, the stress goes away.

- [Aislinn] Both families have found that when their kids are outside, they don't need many toys.

Instead, they find things to play with in nature.

- Oh, that's scary.

- [Danielle] What do you think made that?

- Dad, Daddy- - Like, it's still- - Dad, you have an apple.

- Oh, thank you.

- Eat it.

- It's amazing.

(group laughs) Thank you, did you pick it off the tree or off the ground, though, that's the only- - Off the ground.

- [Ray] Oh, interesting.

(group laughs) - We've fallen into the same things that everybody else has with screens and stuff, and so getting out of that and coming back to this does kind of feel like it's getting back to our childhood at the same time.

(group quietly chattering) (slow guitar music continues) Stay low, stay low.

- [Ray] Good job.

- It's a lot of just adventure and, like, you know, make believe- - Playing in the dirt.

- This morning they woke up and spent a good hour just trying to find paw prints.

They had heard coyotes the night before, and they got out little cards and were trying to find, you know, see what was going on.

I mean, they just, they explore.

- What do you look for with these binoculars of yours?

Can I look through them?

- [Ray] To the bathroom, that's what I said.

- Whoa, have you looked at birds with them?

So when's a good time to start camping and exploring the outdoors with your children?

According to both families, the earlier, the better.

- [Ray] If we had waited, all those memories wouldn't have happened.

- They know how to set up a campsite now.

They know how to start a fire, you know, and they're seven and five.

They'll judge your tarp if you don't set it up properly.

- [Ray] And that confidence, like, who knows what it'll transfer to?

- [Danielle] Yeah.

- School starts in a couple days, and Adeline's going to kindergarten for her first time, and she's done a few things, (laughs) and, like, does that give her extra confidence?

Maybe, I don't know.

- And they remember things, even if they're little, like, Adeline will remember things when she was, like, three, she'll bring up things we did at a different campsite.

I'm like, "How do you remember that?

I don't remember that."

(laughs) It's really surprising what they do retain.

Where did we go recently?

What was your favorite camping trip this summer?

- Toothaker Island.

- Toothaker Island, yeah.

- Adeline had to swim at Toothaker Island.

- Yeah, you did.

- [Ray] She took off her floatie and learned how to swim.

- [Speaker] Wow.

- [Aislinn] It's only natural for children to sometimes feel uncomfortable when trying something new or traveling somewhere new.

Ray says that one way to help is to offer them choices and control.

- Ask your kids, you know, "What do you want?"

Even on this trip, we're like, "We've been gone all week for a whole week-long road trip.

Guys, what do you want for dinner at the campsite?"

And we'll cook it.

- [Aislinn] Sometimes it's the small things that makes outdoor adventures with children easier.

- For me, it was like, I was really nervous about fires, just having when we started little kids, and still little kids now, and what really saved me was a fire gate.

We have, like, the little gate that we put around our fire so that nobody falls in, and that just gives me peace of mind, and I can actually, like, sit by the fire and chill and not have to worry (laughs) about someone falling in.

- [Aislinn] Over the years, both families have become more ambitious with their adventures.

Last year, the Rubys paddled the Allagash Waterway, one of the most remote areas in the state.

And on a father daughter trip, Ray hiked the Bigelow Mountains with Adeline, tackling their first 4,000 footer together.

- We are not reinventing the wheel here.

We're copying what people have been doing for a very long time, and I think if people can steal some ideas from us, then great.

We've stolen ideas from others.

But you're around a lot of like-minded people.

There's young families all over here doing exactly what we're doing.

- [Aislinn] With each trip, these children gain outdoor skills and confidence.

Before long, they'll be leaving their parents in the dust.

(slow guitar music continues) - Have you ever wondered what oak tree is the tallest in Maine, or what butternut tree has the widest spread?

Well, Maine's registry of big trees is out, and we headed to Brooklin to check out a current champion.

(slow guitar music) - The Maine Forest Service in the 1960s jumped on the bandwagon with an organization called American Forest who was instituting a national Champion Tree Registry.

(slow guitar music continues) Then State Forest Commissioner Austin Wilkins thought that this would be a really great way to promote the care of trees, but also an appreciation for the vast forests that we have here in Maine.

So in 1968, Austin Wilkins, with the help of the Forestry Department in Maine, produced the first Champion Tree Registry.

Landowners can nominate their own trees or trees in their neighborhood, trees that they appreciate.

Foresters, arborists, other folks who are out working in the woods who recognize large trees can work with landowners to nominate trees to the state tree register.

- I am the owner of this property, and the proud representative of this champion black spruce.

I do keep an eye on it to make sure everything is going well, people are aware of it, and look forward to other people enjoying it.

- It's really heartwarming to connect with the people who are the stewards of these trees, who care for them in making sure that they're healthy, but also just really appreciate and want to see those trees carry on.

We'll say 39 feet in that direction.

We try to go out and remeasure the trees that are on the list every five years and update the list as we move forward.

Four and a half feet off the ground is where we try to take that measurement, try to just stay even and then come around to the base here, which is where the start of that measurement actually takes place.

So that's 6.9 feet around.

So there are three measurements that go into calculating the total point value of a champion tree.

The first is the circumference of the main stem of the tree four and a half feet off the ground.

The second measurement is the total height of the tree, and then the third, it's the crown spread of the tree.

What we do for that one is if you can envision the tree as an umbrella, from one edge of that umbrella to the other, and we take that measurement in two different directions and take an average of those two numbers.

When we do this, we want to get out at the very furthest reaches of those branches.

So I'm gonna, right about in there.

I'm gonna walk through the brush and, you know, as close to the main stem, again, and look up to where I have that drip edge on this side.

So I've got a measurement here of roughly 46 feet.

We add those numbers up, the circumference of the tree in inches, the height of the tree in feet, and then the average crown spread, again, in feet to come up with a total point value.

That way we compare trees that might be short and squat against a tree that might be very tall and slender so that we're more fairly attributing those measurements.

(gently chiming music) Most people would think that the biggest trees in Maine are probably in the North Woods in really remote places, and in some cases that is true, but oftentimes our biggest trees are in fact in places that we are great stewards of, which are places like cemeteries and parks in our cities and towns.

(gently chiming music continues) - Portland is the forest city, and so it's pretty unique that even here in the state of Maine, you don't always need to be out in the middle of the woods to find some of the oldest, largest champion trees.

We're right here in Deering Oaks, our duck pond is right behind us.

The rose garden's right behind me, and within sight, we have one of our champion oak trees right there by the rose garden.

Off to my right here, we have one of our champion ash trees, so, I mean, right here, this is a walkable distance for most of the residents of Portland to come see two of the state champion trees.

- After having managed the state's big tree registry for the last 20 plus years, I have become personally attached to a number of the trees on the list.

It really is special when you get to encounter a tree that is the largest of its species, in this case, a national champion, and to see how they've endured, how their strength has overcome any number of things that could have befallen that tree.

Whether it was the ax or storms or invasive species, it's just really incredible to see some of these trees stand the test of time.

We have one tree on the list particularly that's been on the list since 1968.

It's been a champion that entire time.

It is massive, it's lost huge stems, but yet it still maintains its core structure and maintains its status as a champion.

The big tree registry is really special for a landowner to know that they are a steward of a big tree.

It also is a really great way to connect the public with the value of our forests for the whole range of values that they provide, not just monetary in the form of timber, but ecological values in the form of habitat and ecosystem services, water diversion, cleaning our air.

It's a great way to connect people to the nature of Maine.

- [Richard] Yeah, we always come out and give it a hug.

Yep, she'll say, "Let's go give Grandfather Spruce a hug."

(laughs) (slow electronic music) - If you think you have a champion tree, or you'd just like to check out the latest list, visit the Maine Forest Service website, and remember, a lot of these big trees are on private property, so do your research before going to check them out.

(slow guitar music) When you do visit Viles Arboretum, be sure to check out this stand of white pines.

They may look like your typical evergreens, but they're actually space pines.

Seeds from these trees traveled on the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1991.

When they returned to Earth, they were planted in a greenhouse, and now they're thriving.

Pretty out of this world.

- Maine is home to dozens of tree species, and some are easier to identify than others.

This right here, for example, is an American beech.

If you'd like to learn more about how to identify trees, Tom Doak of Maine Woodland Owners is going to give us a quick lesson.

(birds squawking) - Hi, I'm Tom Doak.

I am the executive director of Maine Wood Landowners and a professional forester in Maine, and I'm here on one of the properties that my organization owns talking about tree ID and how to identify trees.

There are more than 60 trees that are native to the woods and forests of Maine, and it's pretty easy to identify most of the common trees in Maine.

Well, there are only a couple trees that you'll see in the forests that have needles, and this white pine tree, the way to know it's a white pine tree is each of these clumps of needles has five actual individual needles.

White has five letters, and white pine has five needles per clump.

That's an easy way to remember.

On a younger tree, it'll be a smoother bark, but on an older tree like this, it's that very rough bark.

It's often the tallest and biggest tree in the forest, and this is the iconic tree of the state of Maine.

So this is a balsam fir.

This is the Christmas tree.

One of the identifying characteristics is you can run your hand along it and it's very soft.

Fir tree has grayish bark, relatively smooth, and may have pitch pockets, and you put your finger into the pitch pocket and pitch will come out.

This is a spruce tree.

Unlike a fir tree which has that kind of more grayish kind of mottled bark, this is more of a darker bark, and often this one, see, you can see a little bit of reddish tinge to it.

One of the real easy ways to identify a spruce tree, spruce needles are very sharp and pointed on the end, so when you run your hand across it, you'll get, like, little needles.

So they call it spiky spruce and friendly fir as a way to remember it, so.

This is a hemlock right here, and you can see the difference between the spruce, the hemlock, and the balsam fir.

The needles you can see on a hemlock are really, really much, much shorter than on a fir tree.

Hemlock, the bark is much rougher, quite grooved when it's an older tree, and a dark color.

As this tree ages, it'll get more of these kind of grooves in it, but the bark is also very flaky.

You can kind of just pick off some of it.

That's a good example of a way to identify a hemlock.

So there are many different species of oak in the state of Maine, but by far the most common one is this one, is red oak.

This one is just showing a little bit of tinge here.

This is a reddish color, and on an older red oak, you'll see in between the grooves here, you'll see it'll be red.

The ground is scattered with leaves here.

This is a red oak leaf.

It may be familiar to folks.

It's very typical of what a red oak leaf looks like.

You see kind of the deep lobes in it, very pointed ends to it.

This is very, very typical of a red oak leaf, and in my hand here are a bunch of acorns that came from this tree.

You see a big pile of acorns under the tree and it looks like this, it's an oak tree.

So the trees that give most people fits in trying to figure out what they are are the difference between a sugar maple and a red maple tree, and even experts and foresters sometimes argue about, is that a sugar maple or red maple?

So this is a sugar maple leaf.

It has five main points, there are five main points to it, and kind of deep lobes that are U-shaped.

Now, this is a red maple leaf.

It's almost V-shaped into these lobes, and the other thing is along the margins of the leaf, there are a number of different points.

You won't see that in the sugar maple leaf because the sugar maple leaf is much smoother along this edge.

(bird squawks) When you're identifying trees, you only need to identify two or three characteristics to tell one tree from another.

Enjoy yourself walking in the woods.

Take a little time, check out the trees, and learn a little bit more about the individual trees that make the Maine forests such a special place.

- When it comes to nature writing, one of my all-time favorite authors is Bernd Heinrich, so you can imagine just how excited I was when he welcomed us into his home in Western Maine.

(slow guitar music) (slow music) (birds chirping) Living in an off the grid cabin on a hill in Western Maine, author and biologist Bernd Heinrich is surrounded by the things he loves.

- Then I'll come out and go over there.

- [Aislinn] Birds and bees, wildflowers, and wood frogs.

Now in his 80s, he's just as curious about the natural world as he was when he was a child.

- I have never seen them out of this web.

See, they've eaten all of this.

I think they feed at night.

- [Aislinn] Heinrich is the author of more than 20 books about nature, with topics ranging from the intelligence of ravens to the lives of trees.

Many of the observations and studies that fill their pages occur right at his home, in his own backyard in the surrounding forest.

(water splashes) - Instances when I was really young when I was totally enamored by something, and it was always the things that I couldn't understand, and there's always something that we don't understand, and they keep showing up all the time.

I get excited, I get excited when I see something new.

I want to know more about it because I kind of think I know a lot, but what is really exciting is what I don't know.

I mean, if I really look close a lot of times, I look at the tiny little flowers, and I see tiny little insects there that I'd never even thought about.

So I have to have the affinity for it before I look really, really close.

You know, I've seen some insects this year, you know, on the flowers that I hadn't seen before, just because I like them.

- Well, let's walk around then and see this property that I've heard so much about in the books.

- Okay.

(slow music continues) (birds chirping) - [Aislinn] Visiting his home is like stepping into one of his books.

Pieces of the natural world are sprinkled on windowsills and bookshelves.

Tell me a little bit about this table here with all these names.

- Yeah, well, see the benches here, this is a study table, meal table, and I told them to go ahead and leave their marks.

So they carve in their initials.

- [Aislinn] You've had a lot of students here.

- Yeah, but if you want to, go ahead.

You can put yours in.

(Aislinn laughs) - [Aislinn] He built the first log cabin on the property in 1980, hauling in materials with a team of oxen.

He says it was a natural progression of things he used to do as a child, building tree houses and other types of primitive shelters in the woods.

Years later, he had a second cabin built on the foundations of a farm house that used to stand there.

Now, the first cabin is for students and guests, while he lives and works in the second.

Heinrich has been interested in nature since he was a little boy growing up in Northern Germany, helping his father capture mice and birds to sell as museum specimens.

He remembers walking to school one day and becoming enchanted by a willow tree that was covered in bumblebees.

His first book, "Bumblebee Economics," remains one of his favorites.

He's always working on several writing pieces at once.

One of his next books will be a collection of his watercolor paintings and illustrations, with a concentration on the beauty of the natural world.

While Heinrich is well known for his nature writing, that's not the only thing he's famous for.

In the running world, he's known for breaking several long distance records while in his 40s.

He set an American record for 50 kilometers, 100 kilometers, and 100 miles.

He also set the American record for 24 hours on a track, running over 156 miles in the course of a day.

- Okay.

These are my running shoes.

All my distance races I used them.

After the first one, I knew these were the lucky shoes, so I wore every one of them, and I, you can see how they're worn out.

- They're just a little bit.

- A little bit, yeah.

(Aislinn laughs) I mean, there's nothing left.

- [Aislinn] Your feet didn't ever hurt in them?

- No, no.

(slow music continues) Not that I remember, I mean, everything else hurt, but not, (laughs) not- - I bet.

- Not my feet.

- [Aislinn] Heinrich wrote two books about running in which he explores how different animals run and why.

These days, he continues to run for exercise, plus stays active chopping firewood for the wood stove, gardening, observing nature, and conducting experiments around his property.

- Look at this.

(slow music continues) (birds chirping) I start the day, I have usually not the slightest idea what I'm gonna do, and I go out, and pretty soon I see something.

- [Aislinn] He's currently studying wood frogs that are living in a pond by his house, as well as a beetle that buries carcasses of small animals, such as mice.

- It should be down here.

- [Aislinn] So the beetle buried it?

- [Bernd] Yes, a beetle buried, if it's still here, we'll see.

Ah, there it is.

- [Aislinn] Right there.

- There it is, there's a tail, see it?

(Aislinn laughs) Can you believe a beetle, this is hard stuff, can you believe it, burying it?

And so it should be there, unless it just laid eggs and then left.

So that's something actually I'd like to know.

There's a beetle, look at the beetle.

See it, there's two of them.

- [Aislinn] Two of them.

- A pair, a pair.

(slow music continues) So that's a mated pair, and they're gonna lay eggs in there.

Okay, and I'm gonna put this over there, so something else won't get them.

- [Aislinn] For people looking to learn more about the natural world, Heinrich said to start with whatever sparks your interest, then look closer, admire it in detail, ask questions.

In his book, "One Man's Owl," he wrote, "I feel a strong identity with the world of living things.

I was born into it, we all are, but we may not feel the ties unless we gain intimacy by seeing, feeling, smelling, touching, and studying the natural world.

Trying to live in harmony with the dictates of nature is probably as inspirational as living in harmony with the Koran or the Bible.

Perhaps it is also a timely undertaking."

- Before leaving Bernd's peaceful home, I of course had to ask him to autograph one of the books that I brought, and we took a selfie.

If you miss an episode of "Borealis," or just want to rewatch one of your favorite segments, head on over to our YouTube page.

You'll find full episodes, individual stories, and bonus content that you won't find anywhere else.

Watch "Borealis" anytime, anywhere on YouTube.

On the next episode of "Borealis," (slow guitar music) we'll learn traditional canoe camping skills while paddling and tenting in the Grand Lake Stream area.

We'll dig deep to uncover the colorful gems of Maine, and we'll meet the group of people that find them, rock hounders.

And a group of intrepid volunteers work hand in hand with the Maine Island Trail Association to clean up islands in the Deer Isle Stonington area.

Thanks for watching, and until next time, enjoy the outdoors.

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