Cox Reservation

At the winter soltice of 2018, I set a goal to visit every Greenbelt property. I went with my children, my mother and our dogs to the Cox Reservation, the Greenbelt’s headquarters in Essex. We were greated warmly, but I was told clearly that my goal was unrealistic. The Greenbelt had published an interactive map that included all its properties, even the smallest. Most Greenbelt properties are not accessible by foot, nor intended to be visited. Many are wetlands. Others are so small they are easily missed. I was not deterred. I bought rubber boots, and later hip waders, a kayak, and finally a drone for the most inaccessible places.

This video captures my naiveté at the beginning. It’s poor quality and my exuberance reveal how much I had to learn. For the next seven years, I stomped through forests, meadows and wetlands with a GoPro strapped to my cap collecting countless hours of unusable video. I slowly came to realize that I knew almost nothing about shooting video, ecology, or the history of this land. I enjoyed every minute of these wanderings, but my growing awareness of the myths that have distorted my perceptions of this land, its ecology, and its original inhabitants — as well as my unusable video — called for a new beginning with this Outsider blog.