Hans Carlson (hansmcarlson.com) is Blue Hill Heritage Trust’s second Executive Director. A forest and environmental historian, he holds an MA from the University of Vermont, and a PhD from the University of Maine. He has taught at the University of Minnesota and the State University of New York, and is the author of Home Is The Hunter: The James Bay Cree and Their Land, as well as other articles about the Cree. Hans has also recently published Walking Toward Moosalamoo: A Natural History of Terra Nullius. He has traveled extensively in northern Quebec and Labrador, since the early 1980s, and in addition to carrying out research on the north, he has led wilderness canoe trips and experiential-learning trips for undergrads and adults. While at the University of Maine, he helped author parts of the Historical Atlas of Maine, carrying out research on the environmental history and historical geography of this state. He was most recently the Director of Great Mountain Forest, a 6300-acre working and research forest in northwestern Connecticut, which has been under conservation for over a century. In addition to his professional work, he is an avid outdoors-man, a woodworker, and boat-builder.
“I have lived all but a few years of my life in rural New England, where I have engaged with issues of land use and the environment. These have been lifelong concerns, brought into sharp focus by my research and my work in conservation. My work in the north, and with Native peoples, has also given me a perspective on this landscape that I bring to my current position. People have been working this landscape, with their hands and their ideas, for thousands of years, and we will continue to do that into the future. In doing that, I believe that we have a responsibility to pass the land on to future generations in as good or better shape than we took it over. I believe too that we have a responsibility to pass along an appreciation for the land, and the lessons we have learned, and both these responsibilities define the stewardship work done by organizations like Blue Hill Heritage Trust. Both too are the service that we can provide the communities which support us, and help tie people to the land upon which we all rely.”