Each year, NorthWoods partners with the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge on conservation efforts throughout the Connecticut River watershed. Together, we field five Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) crews on refuge lands at Conte’s Nulhegan Basin Division in Brunswick, VT; Pondicherry Division in Whitefield, NH; Fort River Division in Hadley MA; Stewart B. McKinney NWR in Westbrook, CT; and new this year, the Fannie Stebbins Unit in Springfield, MA.
In July, all five crews gathered for the 10th annual YCC Spike Camp at the Fort River Division in Hadley, Massachusetts. In this annual tradition, crews made up of local youth ages 15–18 hailing from communities around the various refuge lands come together to work, learn, and bond as crews. Together, these 36 young people 
accomplished an impressive amount of conservation work, specifically universal access trails and water chestnut control efforts. Trail work included: 3,205 feet of trail covered with stone dust; 600 feet of gravel spread; 72-foot section of elevated boardwalk constructed; and 64 feet of hand railing installed. Three sites were surveyed as part of efforts to control invasive water chestnut—Hatfield Great Pond, Oxbow Bay, and Cove Island Cove—and 1,582 gallons of water chestnut were collected.
The real value of the experience, however, is exposing these young people to vastly different environments—both natural and human—and meeting a wide diversity of individuals. YCC members from the rural communities of Northern Vermont and New Hampshire might never have had the opportunity to see the islands of Long Island Sound and the mansions of Greenwich, or even the broad meandering Connecticut River in Hadley, Massachusetts, where it’s much larger than in Bloomfield, Vermont! Members of this season’s newest crew, from urban Springfield, MA had never been camping or canoeing—which they did while pulling water chestnut—and were amazed by the brightness of the stars at night.
A second Spike Camp will be held later this summer with Southern YCC crews coming north to work at the Nulhegan Division—giving the more urban youth the chance to see a moose, active logging operations and a remote, wilderness feel.