INTO THE BANGOR CITY FOREST

From the parking lot, we climbed up a hill to go to the forest. The scene below was a welcome sight and promised a great time for adventure and exploration.

in early June, my husband and I had the chance to explore the Rolland F. Perry City Forest, a.k.a. Bangor City Forest. It is tucked right in the city of Bangor, Maine. According to the City Website –

“Rolland F. Perry City Forest encompasses more than 680 acres of wildlife habitat and working forest in Bangor, Maine, and features more than 4 miles of access roads and more than 9 miles of trails for running, hiking, biking, snowshoeing, and cross country skiing. It is owned by the city of Bangor and open throughout the year.”

In the forest , one can follow the narrower and rougher trails that were named after some forest animals. I honestly thought that if I followed the Moose Trail, I would see a moose, or a deer in the deer trail, or, in a grouse, in a grouse trail. Silly me. The only wild animal I saw was a skittering chipmunk under some evergreens.

My husband hails from Maine but has not heard of this place until we looked for a place to belatedly celebrate our wedding anniversary.

The forest is mostly evergreens. Maine is the Pine State after all. I am just amazed that the trees seemed to have been planted in lines and rows, instead of randomly growing in the woods. Also, the canopy was so thick that the sun hardly reached the forest floor. Because of the lack of light, the floor did not have much growth on it.

I was surprised and not too surprised.

It rained a lot during the days prior to our visit. The swamps were full and dark and buzzing with mosquitoes.

Outside of the bigger cities, Maine is wild and forested. In fact, our Maine family home was built in a place that was carved out of the woods. Everywhere I looked, I would see nothing but woods. And that may be why my deary husband did not find the need to go looking for woods elsewhere.

The City Forest is a working forest. This sign provides logging instructions.

On my part, I never expected to see a forest in the city. I just took it for granted that Bangor would naturally have plenty of trees because that is just the way all of Maine is. I guess I can say that the City Forest is hidden in plain sight.

Like any northeast woods, the forest had plenty of wildflowers, like the bunchberries in the picture, starflowers, lady slippers, among others.

We spent hours walking around this place (and the Orono Boardwalk nearby which will be the subject of a future separate post). Because we visited during a working day during working hours, not too many people were around. But there were a some mothers and children, and families who took advantage of the first sunny day in a week of rains.

One could take a walking break on one of the benches tucked on the sides of the trails.

We had so much fun walking (like a young couple), the sun was already setting when we headed out. What lucky Bangor people to have this kind of place right on their doorstep.