DUMMERSTON-For months, neighbors along Black Mountain Road have watched truck after truck haul logs from the hillside.
What’s happening in our backyard is a carefully planned forestry project led by Steve Hardy — president and owner of Green Mountain Forestry — whose four decades in the woods inform every decision made on the mountain.
Hardy has practiced forestry for close to 48 years and founded Green Mountain Forestry 35 years ago. He’s a licensed forester in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, operating primarily within a 75-mile radius of West Brattleboro.
He started with a chainsaw.
A tree’s decline and fall
A major driver of the current harvest is the condition of local red pine stands. As Hardy explains, red pines decline when their “live crown ratio” — the portion of the tree with live branches — drops too low.
“When pine trees get to a live crown ratio of 15% or so [...] they just don’t have enough leaf area, needle area, and they go into decline,” he says.
He also notes a disease that “travels around” red pine, further pushing the need for removal.
Wondering how a forester can tell when a tree is ready to be cut? A look shows broad rings in a growing, healthy tree. The outer rings have narrowed indicating the tree is no longer healthy, thus, ready to be harvested to make space for younger trees to get the light they need to prosper.
Many loads that are being seen on the roads of Dummerston are red pine and pulpwood — lower-value material that still “needs to come out of the forest” to improve health and regeneration.
You may also see exceptionally long logs; some red pine is being utilized as utility poles, “ranging anywhere from 30 feet to 67 feet long,” with shipments heading to Connecticut and beyond, Hardy says.
The wood goes to many places. Among them:
• High-value hardwoods go to regional lumber companies.
• Pine is split across multiple sawmills, including Allard Lumber and Cersosimo Lumber.
• Hemlock logs are used more locally.
• Pulpwood heads to paper mills like International Paper (Ticonderoga, New York) and Finch Paper (Glens Falls, New York).
• Firewood-grade material goes to a producer in Hartland, where it is processed as cordwood.
A significant volume of red pine flows to Canadian high-tech sawmills. Because few local mills invest in sawing red pine and hemlock, loads often “back-haul” across the border.
“They bring product down, and then they pick up logs and take it back to Canada,” Hardy says.
Doing so improves efficiency in a regional supply chain where many Canadian mills source 80% to 90% of their logs from the northeastern U.S.
How the harvest is run
Though neighbors see constant trucking, the onsite crew is small and efficient — “only three guys working at the site,” Hardy says.
The landing is organized with precision to avoid bottlenecks: “As wood goes out, wood is coming in,” he notes.
Hardy credits operator skill and planning, noting that skidder operators delicately handle long utility poles and that the whole operation “just flows smoothly” rather than “crashing and banging.”
The harvest isn’t just about moving wood; it’s about the next generation of forest. Patch cuts and carefully timed soil disturbance encourage natural regeneration — especially of white pine and red oak.
“We had an excellent seed year for red oak,” he says, noting that the logging activity “is driving [acorns] into the ground [...] that protects those acorns to germinate.”
Hardy emphasizes that the region is “cutting way below the growth rates,” which will lead to overcrowded canopies and declining crown health over time.
Timelines and ownership
Work on Erica Stahl’s property began in mid-October; by February, the cutting was complete and wood was being trucked out.
The adjacent Doubleday property is next, using the same landing by agreement, which is why activity continues even though ownership has changed.
The project operates under Vermont’s current use program with associated recordkeeping and state oversight.
A county forester has also spoken with neighbors on site to explain patch cuts and objectives, underscoring the project’s compliance with best practices and regulations. Exact volumes and destinations are tracked meticulously as part of the forester’s responsibility to the landowner.
Sustainable forestry can look like loss in the short term — logs on trucks, openings on the hillside — but it’s designed to restore balance in aging forests, reduce mortality, and establish healthier, more resilient stands.
As Hardy puts it, the goal is “the long-term health and viability of that forest,” not simply to “feed the mills.”
Cross-border grit
The logging trade that threads through New England and Quebec is built on grit, relationships, and long miles on familiar roads.
In a recent conversation at the site of the landing on Black Mountain Road among trucker Steve Galbreath and other working loggers and haulers, the crew compared routes, loads, and the day-to-day realities of moving timber across the U.S./Canada border, spanning the state north to south, from Sherbrooke down to the Massachusetts border to Connecticut and beyond.
What emerges is a portrait of a business that’s as much logistics as it is lumber.
Loads of hemlock, pallet wood, and risers shuttle back and forth in a cadence driven by mill demand, customs timing, and weather.
A typical run involves delivering a loaded trailer from Quebec from mills across the border (approximately 60 miles into Canada) stateside, swapping for an empty, and turning back north — sometimes multiple times a week when the orders are steady.
The human side is just as vivid.
Stories from the road — about tough truck yards, language barriers where French is the default, and the handful of drivers that make (or break) a long day — frame the culture of the work.
The crew recalls challenging encounters with particular drivers and the ripple effects of a single rough interaction on schedules and sanity. It’s a reminder that in trucking, people are the variable that can’t be modeled on a route plan.
The network behind each load is local and personal. Foresters like Steve Hardy in West Brattleboro connect woodlots to mills, and the truckers fill in the miles between.
On weekends, when the mill work slows, the same hands pivot to firewood processing — a separate but related hustle that keeps equipment moving and cash flowing. Prices vary by wood and cut, but demand is steady enough that a processor can justify its keep through the winter months.
Even the geography becomes a character: border crossings, the stretch down I-91, landmarks around West Brome north of the border.
These aren’t just waypoints; they’re a working map, sketched by repetition and shared experience. Ask anyone who runs the route, and they’ll tell you: Efficiency comes from knowing every bump in the road and who you’ll meet at the yard when you get there.
In a world that often celebrates high tech and instant scale, this conversation offers a grounded counterpoint — an economy of motion built on trust, timing, and a willingness to get back in the cab for one more turn.
Cross-border logging isn’t glamorous, but it is precise work, done by people who know exactly what it takes to keep wood moving and mills humming.
This News item was submitted to The Commons.