Tuesday, August 8, 2023 – 5:30 PM at the Osterville Village Library, Osterville

Photographer Scot Miller presents "Illustrating Thoreau's Cape Cod: A Photographer's Story,” a multimedia presentation documenting his experiences photographing the Cape for Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic. This illustrated volume features the complete text of Thoreau’s classic work as published in Houghton Mifflin’s 1906 edition, and Scot’s stunning photography.

Saturday, September 9, 2023 - 10:00 AM at Fuller Farm, Marstons Mills

Thoreau once wrote "The world laughs in flowers." Join Jim Ellis on an exploratory wildflower walk at Fuller Farm. Learn about local wildflowers while exploring one of BLT’s signature properties on this one mile walk through the farm’s meadows and fields. Free/Registration required.

Wednesday, September 13, 2023 - 10:00 AM at Sandy Neck Beach, West Barnstable

Thoreau was fascinated by a Cape Cod scene during his fall walks: "The little beach-birds trotted past close to the water’s edge, or paused but an instant to swallow their food, keeping time with the elements." Sandy Neck Beach is a popular resting place for many migratory species on their way south along the east coast. Join Barnstable Land Trust and Town of Barnstable/Sandy Neck Park Staff for a migration hike as we welcome fall and the migratory birds that are leaving, returning, or just passing through. Free/Registration required.

Sunday, September 17, 2023* - 10:00 AM at Fuller Farm, Marstons Mills

*Please note the date for this program has changed due to weather forecast.

On one of Thoreau's trips to Cape Cod, he described the land as follows: "Generally, the ploughed fields of the Cape look white and yellow, like a mixture of salt and Indian meal." Learn more about how land use - and its appearance - has changed over time. Join Jack Ahern, Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture at University of Massachusetts, who will lead a 90-minute walk on how to read “clues” to past land uses on the farm including former bogs, wolf trees, and traces of succession. Free/Registration required.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023 - 6:00 PM at Sturgis Library, West Barnstable

Join historian Robert Kelley, in partnership with Sturgis Library and BLT, for a special talk on Cape Cod's Saltworks, a major industry at one time. Thoreau thought the "low, turtle-like roofs, and their slighter windmills, were novel and interesting objects to an inlander." Learn about the dynamics of salt exports to America in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the development, expansion and decline of the industry in Barnstable County. Free/Open to the public.

Saturday Sept. 23, 10 AM at the Town of Concord, MA Visitor Center

Did you know that Henry David Thoreau was baptized David Henry Thoreau? Did you know that he willingly spent a night in jail in July of 1846 but had to be kicked out the next morning? Join us for a 90-minute, two-mile walk where we will visit some of the places that were significant during Thoreau’s life and discuss the principles he lived by. We will begin where Henry taught school after graduating from Harvard College and where he spent a night in jail. We will visit his gravesite on Author’s Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where you will learn about his family and his famous neighbors. If time allows, we will walk past the house where Henry lived the last 12 years of his life. We will also visit the Concord Public Library to view photographs and sculptures of Henry Thoreau. The tour will conclude with tea at Barrow Bookstore. Our guide will also suggest other sites important in Henry’s life that you can visit on your own. Please note that due to time and distant constraints this tour does not go to Walden Pond. Call 978-318-3061 or email visitors@concordma.gov to schedule your tour or click below to register.

Monday, September 25, 2023 - 3:00 PM at Fuller Farm, Marstons Mills

View Thoreau's Cape Cod through Jim Ellis's vintage slides and photographs taken along Route 6A in the 1960's. Learn fascinating historical facts about Thoreau's journey, how different it looked 100 years later, and how it looks now. Free/Registration required.

Tuesday, September 26, 6:30 pm at Fuller Farm

Brought to you by Titcomb’s Bookshop and Barnstable Land Trust

Join us for a special author event as we welcome authors John Kaag and Ben Shattuck to speak about their books about Henry David Thoreau. John Kaag will speak about his most recent book Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living (on sale June 13th 2023). Kaag will be in conversation with author Ben Shattuck, author of Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau. Free/Pre-registration is required at Titcombsbookshop.com.

Wednesday, September 27, 10:30 am at Centerville Public Library

Henry David Thoreau wrote that “A journal, is a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy, what you are grateful for.” Explore the art of Nature Journaling with the Centerville Public Library and art educator Lenore Lyons. Learn how to start keeping a nature journal, get drawing and writing tips, and look at different types and sizes of journals in this hands-on workshop for people of all ages. All supplies provided. Free/pre-registration required.

Wednesday, September 27, 2023 - 11:00 AM at the Barnstable Land Trust Conservation Center, W. Barnstable

Learn if Thoreau’s ‘devil’s-needles’ (aka dragonflies) are friend or foe: “As around the shores of a pond … I saw at the same season great devil’s-needles of a size proportionably larger, or nearly as big as my finger, incessantly coasting up and down the edge of the bank …” Join Larry Dapsis from the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension who will review common pests in addition to the fascinating natural enemy complex that helps keep them in check. Free/ Registration required.

Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 10 AM at the Town of Concord, MA Visitor Center.

Did you know that Henry David Thoreau was baptized David Henry Thoreau? Did you know that he willingly spent a night in jail in July of 1846 but had to be kicked out the next morning? Join us for a 90-minute, two-mile walk where we will visit some of the places that were significant during Thoreau’s life and discuss the principles he lived by. We will begin where Henry taught school after graduating from Harvard College and where he spent a night in jail. We will visit his gravesite on Author’s Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where you will learn about his family and his famous neighbors. If time allows, we will walk past the house where Henry lived the last 12 years of his life. We will also visit the Concord Public Library to view photographs and sculptures of Henry Thoreau. The tour will conclude with tea at Barrow Bookstore. Our guide will also suggest other sites important in Henry’s life that you can visit on your own. Please note that due to time and distant constraints this tour does not go to Walden Pond. Call 978-318-3061 or email visitors@concordma.gov to schedule your tour or click below to register.

Wednesday, October 4, 10:30 am at Centerville Public Library

Henry David Thoreau wrote that “The indescribable innocence of and beneficence of Nature, -of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter, -such health, such cheer, they afford forever!” Explore the art of Nature Journaling with the Centerville Public Library and art educator Lenore Lyons. After a brief meeting inside, the group will explore the grounds of the Centerville Library and document what they observe in this hands-on workshop for people of all ages. All supplies provided. Free/pre-registration required.

Wednesday, October 4, 2023 - 7:00 PM via Zoom

Brought to you by The Walden Woods Project and Barnstable Land Trust

Part of the Celebrating Thoreau: Concord to Cape Cod event

After three visits to Cape Cod from 1849-1855, Thoreau wrote: “I did not see why I might not make a book on Cape Cod, as well as my neighbor on ‘Human Culture.’ It is but another name for the same thing, and hardly a sandier phase of it.” Reading Circle participants will read “The Wellfleet Oysterman,” from Thoreau’s Cape Cod and come together for discussion with The Walden Woods Project Curator of Collections and resident Thoreau Scholar, Jeffrey S. Cramer. “The Wellfleet Oysterman," as well as discussion questions, will be provided upon registration. Free with registration.

Wednesday, October 5, 2023 - 7:00 PM via Zoom

Brought to you by Thoreau Farm, the Thoreau Society, and Barnstable Land Trust

Part of the Celebrating Thoreau: Concord to Cape Cod event

In WILD BY DESIGN, restoration’s past provides vital knowledge for climate change policy, grappling deepest puzzles of human care for life on earth: How to intervene in nature for nature’s own sake? Is it possible to design nature without destroying wildness? But Martin also offers something more―a meditation on what it means to be wild and a call for ecological restoration that is socially just. Free with registration, $5 suggested donation.

Day One: Saturday, October 7, 2023 - 10 AM - 3 PM

Day Two: Sunday, October 8, 2023 - 10 AM - 3 PM

at the Michael R. Kramer Center at Fuller Farm, Marstons Mills & Livestream

An estimated ninety (90) in-person readers representing different voices and perspectives who care about the Cape’s natural environment will narrate this heralded work in approximately 5-minute segments over two 5-hour days. A lottery for interested readers will be posted online in August. The public will be invited to picnic, listen to readers, and explore the meadows and woodland trails of historic farmlands similar to what Thoreau might have seen. The event will be live-streamed and shuttle buses will be available from nearby parking areas to enable more people to experience this one-of-a-kind event in celebration of Barnstable Land Trust’s 40th Anniversary.

Watch live via YouTube

Wednesday, October 11, 10:30 am at Centerville Public Library

Henry David Thoreau wrote that “We can never have enough of Nature.” Explore the art of Nature Journaling with the Centerville Public Library and art educator Lenore Lyons. After a brief meeting inside, the group will share their work and then head outside for discussion and questions in this hands-on workshop for people of all ages. All supplies provided. Free/pre-registration required.

October 11 - December 29, 2023 – Barnstable Town Hall, Hyannis and online

After Thoreau’s visits to Cape Cod, he was transformed: “Hereafter when I look on a richer rug than usual, and study its figures, I shall think, there are the huckleberry hills, and there the denser swamps of boxberry and blueberry: there the shrub-oak patches and the bayberries, there the maples and the birches and the pines. What other dyes are to be compared to these?” Painters have been equally inspired by these same colors and captivating beauty. In a unique partnership between Barnstable Land Trust, Arts Barnstable, Town of Barnstable, and the Cape Cod Art Center, original plein air works of art will be available for purchase during the exhibit which can be seen at Barnstable Town Hall as well through an online gallery. Free/Open to the public.

Friday, October 13, 2023 - 4:30 PM 6:00 PM at Barnstable Town Hall, Hyannis and online

In a unique partnership between Barnstable Land Trust, Arts Barnstable, Town of Barnstable, and the Cape Cod Art Center, plein air painters from across the Cape will spend months capturing the natural beauty of the protected lands and almost 100 miles of hiking trails within the Town of Barnstable. After Thoreau’s visits to Cape Cod, he was transformed: “Hereafter when I look on a richer rug than usual, and study its figures, I shall think, there are the huckleberry hills, and there the denser swamps of boxberry and blueberry: there the shrub-oak patches and the bayberries, there the maples and the birches and the pines. What other dyes are to be compared to these?” Painters have been equally inspired by these same colors and captivating beauty. Original works of art will be available for purchase during the three months of this special exhibit which can be seen at Barnstable Town Hall as well through an online gallery. Free!

Tuesday, October 10, 2023 at 10 AM at the Town of Concord, MA Visitor Center.

Did you know that Henry David Thoreau was baptized David Henry Thoreau? Did you know that he willingly spent a night in jail in July of 1846 but had to be kicked out the next morning? Join us for a 90-minute, two-mile walk where we will visit some of the places that were significant during Thoreau’s life and discuss the principles he lived by. We will begin where Henry taught school after graduating from Harvard College and where he spent a night in jail. We will visit his gravesite on Author’s Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where you will learn about his family and his famous neighbors. If time allows, we will walk past the house where Henry lived the last 12 years of his life. We will also visit the Concord Public Library to view photographs and sculptures of Henry Thoreau. The tour will conclude with tea at Barrow Bookstore. Our guide will also suggest other sites important in Henry’s life that you can visit on your own. Please note that due to time and distant constraints this tour does not go to Walden Pond. Call 978-318-3061 or email visitors@concordma.gov to schedule your tour or click below to register.

Sunday, October 22, 2023 at 10 AM at the Town of Concord Visitor Center

Did you know that Henry David Thoreau was baptized David Henry Thoreau? Did you know that he willingly spent a night in jail in July of 1846 but had to be kicked out the next morning? Join us for a 90-minute, two-mile walk where we will visit some of the places that were significant during Thoreau’s life and discuss the principles he lived by. We will begin where Henry taught school after graduating from Harvard College and where he spent a night in jail. We will visit his gravesite on Author’s Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where you will learn about his family and his famous neighbors. If time allows, we will walk past the house where Henry lived the last 12 years of his life. We will also visit the Concord Public Library to view photographs and sculptures of Henry Thoreau. The tour will conclude with tea at Barrow Bookstore. Our guide will also suggest other sites important in Henry’s life that you can visit on your own. Please note that due to time and distant constraints this tour does not go to Walden Pond. Call 978-318-3061 or email visitors@concordma.gov to schedule your tour or click below to register.