The Changing Views from the Mountains 

Fresh air. Mountain views. History in everything you touch. That is what I love about the cabin. Generations of Yorks have lived in the walls of Ferncliff and every generation has added their own story to this place. The things of the cabin seem to hold memories: the dusty books with rugged edges and yellow pages, letters stored in drawers, laminated placemats made from postcards of the adventures of friends and family, and games with bent and missing pieces. Chairs which are partially stained, torn, or broken, hold the memories of gazing at the sunrise and watching the vibrant sunsets. No amount of manual labour to keep the water running and the road clear will undermine how much this cabin means to me and everyone who came before me. 

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Turning the pages of a dusty journal, the history of the cabin unfolds. In the summer of 1958, Lauren David York and Grace E. York travelled from Long Island, New York, to Woodstock, New Hampshire. At the time, the cabin was owned by two headstrong sisters named Bessie and Frances Cable. They had been spending their summers there for 35 years and had finally decided they could no longer put in all the work that was required. After seeing the beauty of the cabin, my grandparents knew that it would become a perfect home away from home for generations to come.  

Ferncliff is a little forest-green cabin on the side of a small mountain in Woodstock, New Hampshire. It was affectionately named Ferncliff as it is surrounded by tall clusters of ferns stretching down the hill in front of it. When it was first purchased by the York family, you could see all the way down the hill, past the Bradley farm below, and even parts of the town in the valley. But the trees have grown taller, and the only sense of the farm now is the crow of the roosters every morning.  

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Nestled up in the woods, the cabin feels like home. Standing on the wraparound wooden porch gives a panoramic view of the trees and mountains in the distance. The picturesque New England view combined with the smell of fresh mountain air and the sound of wind in the trees and birds chirping, makes everything feel perfect. The stress and chaos of daily life fades away and is replaced with serenity.  

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To get up the winding road to Ferncliff, the cabin has a Jeep from 1946, and is one of the first civilian vehicles made after the war. There are no doors or seatbelts, and the back is just a metal frame with metal box seats on the side. It is a bumpy ride, but everyone laughs and has a good time. Walking inside the cabin, there is always a puzzle in progress on a table by the window – a York family tradition. Boxes of puzzles collected over the years are stacked in the center of the cabin next to a dusty piano. Bookcases on the walls hold books, magazines, and almanacs from over a hundred years. 

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While the cabin is beautiful, fun, and relaxing, there is a lot of hard work. Even though Ferncliff was first bought by the York family with the intent of being a vacation place, my great-grandfather wrote in his journal that the first summer there felt nothing like a vacation at all. There are always trees to be cut down, holes in the walls or roof, culverts to dig out, or piping from the well to be replaced. There is a never-ending to-do list, but it is done out of love. 

Despite the work that goes into cabin upkeep, it is not the same place it was for my great-grandparents. The landscape and the towns have changed through the generations. One Tuesday morning in November, I decided to call my grandparents, Dave and Sue York, to hear their experiences. My grandfather played around the cabin as a child, until he grew up and brought his own family there during the summers. My grandfather told me that there used to be a drive-in theater right below the hill that they could see clearly from the cabin. Now the trees block it all. As people age, so do the trees. And with every new change, something else is lost in the process. According to my grandmother, “there used to be a lovely historic covered bridge right nearby, but someone allegedly burned it down on purpose so that a company could build Interstate 93 through the area.” Now the large highway cuts across the mountains and through the Franconia Notch. In autumn, cars, trucks, and buses will be parked along the sides of the highway with crowds of people from out of state – “leaf peepers” – as they are referred to by the locals. They stand in clusters along the highway, photographing every fiery leaf, almost like an ode to the dying leaves.   

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Next, I called up my father, Dan York. My father told me how when he was a little boy, we would spend most of his summers at the cabin. During that time, “the Bradley farm was very active, and I would ride my 20-inch bike down the hill to help the farmers with milking the cows and other farm chores – a pretty cool experience for a kid from suburban Connecticut” In university he would bring his friends there. They would stay up into the night playing board games and rise at the crack of dawn to summit a new mountain. More summers passed and eventually he too brought his family there. My sister and I became the new children running through the woods and huddled around the puzzle table.  

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My father told me all about the socioeconomic changes in the region – many of which were out of people’s control. The biggest change was around land use. The farms scattered all around the valleys vanished. The fields of cows, sheep, and chickens running across the roads disappeared. The view from the cabin out across the valley started to shrink. He told me how “you used to see all the way down to the farm because the farming and logging had removed all the trees and vegetation that had been there before. The Bradley’s used to run cows in that area so it had all been cleared” Large sections of New Hampshire were logged and turned into cow and sheep fields. But this all changed during my dad’s childhood. People became concerned around the environmental impacts of large-scale clearcutting. They started wondering sustainable it was to the forests and rivers. After the White Mountain National Forest was established, everything changed. Farming ceased and the trees shot up quickly. Farmland was sold into parcels for summer homes and logging of smaller areas diminished. The agricultural economy shifted. Now, the area is tourism service based. Lincoln, New Hampshire, used to be a small town that just had Clark’s Trading Post and the Whales Tale has now been turned into a massive destination for skiing and summer resorts. Driving through the towns, you see elegant log cabins and upscale condos. The “Live Free or Die” license plates have become outnumbered by plates that do not depict the familiar Old Man of the Mountain in the background. Things are different now.   

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The fancy resorts and new highways draw your eyes away from a more ominous change in the region. These luxuries cannot cover up the real dangers approaching in the future. Those nice, new ski resorts – how well will they function without snow? Recent studies have found that the rising global temperatures have dramatically reduced the naturally produced snow in the region. Fake snow is now required to fulfill the ski season demand as no one wants to ski on dirt and rocks. But this manufactured snow requires vast amounts of water – another resource at risk. In August of 2022, my grandparents had to cut their trip to the cabin short. Post-it notes around the cabin remind guests to watch their water use – to take shorter showers or not leave the water on while brushing their teeth. But this summer was different. Both reservoirs dried up. The dirt became dry and cracking on the surface. Not even their store-bought water jugs would cover the water required to wash the dishes and flush the toilet. So, they had to pack up and say goodbye to the cabin a couple days earlier than planned. Climate change has made valued moments even more precious.  

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When I am not at the cabin, a part of me is missing. At night when I cannot silence my mind and fall asleep, I picture myself there. I imagine I am standing on the porch, soaking in the cabin through every sense, trying to fill the void until I can return the next summer. While the value of the cabin may remain the same, it serves as a reminder of how quickly the world changes. In order to enjoy the places we love dearly, we must care for our environment. We are all connected. Change is inevitable, and we decide how we want that change to look for future generations. 

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View from the cabin in autumn, 2019.