​Most folks know what to take on a local hike: a water bottle, a granola bar, an extra layer and a map. This last item might be the most overlooked necessity, however, because it might take a little more thought: where to find a map of local trails? Fortunately, for walkers (and paddlers) in Andover, a digital map is a few keystrokes away on the Andovertrails.org website. On the site, click on Town Trails, and on the right-hand side is a link to the “Andover Rivers and Trails Web Map,” which provides a view of the town’s roads, all the trails and parking spots at access points. 
 
A special effort is now being made to ensure that Conservation Commission properties are updated on the map, according to Jane Cairns, Andover Trails Committee member and former chair. For this work, the committee relies on professional map-maker Chris Watson, who has been involved with the long process of creating a map of Andover’s trails for several years.
 
The idea for producing such a map began with a conversation, Watson said in a recent interview. Several years ago, he and Andover Trails Committee member Steve Golden, were brainstorming a way to create a map for the “Andover Challenge” (a run, bike, swim paddle event.) They approached the town Geographic Information System (GIS) coordinator Jeffrey Carey and received access to the town’s mapping technology. Watson created the map using GIS mapping technology, customizing the map to provide two types of information.  The first component is the trails, reservation boundaries, parking, and canoe launch areas in Andover, as well as the Bay Circuit Trail and the 10- and 20-mile Andover bicycle routes. The second component is an underlying map of the town. This allows users to see where trails meet roads and how to access them.
 
Watson is a GIS specialist who got into GIS mapping when this technology first appeared in the late 1980s. He later made GIS mapping his specialty when he was getting his masters in environmental science at UMass Boston, earning also a masters GIS certificate. He continued developing his mapping skills while working as a research fellow on UMass Boston grant-funded projects related to sea-level rise and coastal storms.
 
The Andover River and Trails Web Map has several features that let a user get detailed information about trails: location, parking, and links to associated websites and printable maps. The map also shows canoe-launch areas. If the user is on a device with GPS capabilities, Watson explained, they can click on the location button to find out where they actually are.
 
It’s also possible to locate a trail by entering a reservation name or access several different types of base maps provided by the software, such as a base map that shows a bird’s eye view of a reservation’s topography. There is a feature that lets users measure an area or distance on the map. And perhaps most importantly, the user can print the map or electronically share specific trail locations. There is even a button they can click to get back to what they were looking at the last time they opened the map. (Who doesn’t get distracted when “wandering” around a map on the computer or phone?)
 
“We are trying to give as much information we can about the trails so people have it at their fingertips,” Watson said.
 
Watson continues to work on the map, consulting regularly with Dave Dargie, Andover Village Improvement Society (AVIS) land manager, who has walked every single trail in Andover. “David is the institutional knowledge,” Watson said.
 
Piece by piece, the two are correcting any errors on the map, by adding trails that were not put on it, or adjusting trails. The work was stalled for a while, Watson said, but now they are back on track and should be done with this process in a few months.
 
For Watson, the map work is very satisfying personally. “I love doing it,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun.” 

From Holt Hill in Andover, the Boston highline looms grey and mysterious in the far distance. What would it be like to walk to Boston through the seemingly vast green forest that spreads below? Not surprisingly, folks have contemplated and tried just that, according to Bruce Shick, who, along with Joy Hartwell, co-leads the Mystic Link Alliance. In 2000 or 2001, Shick said, a few open space advocates, including Alan French of Andover, a primary organizer of the well-known Bay Circuit Trail, along with members of the National Park Service, walked a route from Holt Hill, ending at Constitution Wharf in Boston.  They did it over three or four days, winding through towns including Tewksbury, Woburn and Medford, said Shick, who was not among that original group of hikers.
              
Today the Mystic Link Alliance is working on a somewhat different route than the original one proposed. Planners found that crossing I93 in Tewksbury was not a good option, and some of the original route, on Andover Village Improvement Society (AVIS) lands, does not allow bikes. The Mystic Link is not a route with specific trail markers, but more an information resource that will allow walkers to access information about open spaces all along the route, which admittedly, by necessity, incorporates road walking. Roughly, the route  is a “spoke” of the Bay Circuit Trail, and even starts out on that path in Harold Parker State Forest, connecting then with open spaces in North Reading, Reading, Wakefield (along a golf course) , the Tri-Community Greenway in Stoneham and connecting to the Mystic River Greenway.
              
“The key objective is to identify green spaces in these Merrimack Valley towns worthy of people’s time and attention for use and to protect,” Shick said.
              
The Mystic Link Alliance includes members from various land-use organizations in the towns all along the route, including Andover, Reading, North Reading, Wilmington, Woburn, Burlington. Their work, said Hartwell, entails both driving and walking a possible route to find safest connections between trails, in order to flush out a comprehensive map. But besides determining physical trail connections, the group creates connections among folks along the proposed path by giving talks at town libraries and using social media to get the word out about the Mystic Link Alliance.
              
Among the Alliance's varied goals is the plan to highlight interesting natural or historical features along the route, such as the remnant of the Middlesex Canal, Shick said.
              
Promoting use of open spaces along the route, also helps people connect to the land and care about, so it is less likely to become trash-filled and unsavory, which would deter recreation even more, Hartwell added.
              
The next meeting of Mystic Link Alliance is on December 19 at 6:30 p.m. at 1 Johnson St. in North Andover, Hartwell said. It is not a public meeting, but members of regional land preservation/open space groups are welcome to attend to find out more about Mystic Link Alliance.
              
Upcoming library presentations about the project are slated for Dec. 28, 10-11:30 a.m. at Woburn Public Library and on January 15, 2025 at 7 p.m. at the Reading Public Library.

View the Mystic Link Trail website HERE. 

Q:  When did you first get involved with the Shawsheen River and what did you do?
 
Ken:  In the early days, over twenty years ago, I was with the Shawsheen River Watershed Association (SRWA). Our focus was to try to do things for the river where you could see the results. We would take water samples, check for chemical, waste, collect trash, open navigation, and make the river better so people would want to paddle it. Back in the early days we'd use hand saws and clippers. We eventually graduated to chainsaws to get the clearing done.
 
Q:  What your main activities now as the “Riverkeeper”?
 
Ken:  The main activities are to keep the river clear for navigation and recreational use and to remove things that are major safety items. Trees fall down, trees are in the wrong places, all this needs to be addressed. In the past, we've done lots of work with picking up trash and things that have been thrown in the river. We use to get 40-yard dumpsters and fill those up. We have taken thousands of tires out of the river. Much of that work has been done. So today, most of the work involves keeping certain sections open for recreational boating.
 
Q:  How did the Shawsheen River get to be so polluted over the years?
 
Ken:  Rivers in the United States, in general, have been the dumping grounds for industrial waste since the middle 1800s or even before then. Paper mills are probably the classic of all times, but there was lots of industry on the river, and lots of the stuff just got thrown in there. But with the Clean Air and Water Act in 1972, we stopped dumping raw sewerage and chemicals. People aren't putting washing machines and trash in there. So things have gotten much better.
 
Q:  What are some of the challenges you face with clearing these sometimes massive trees?
 
Ken:  When I do the clearing, I have to make a plan. Usually, the tree is already down across the river, I start at the top and work down towards the base, taking off all the branches, and then figure out how to cut the trunk into pieces and where to put. Then it's a crew of people moving the debris. In the beginning, there's a lot of instruction, but once the team has done this once or twice, they know how to do it and where it goes. I need two to three people at least, to move all the wood as it gets cut.
 
Q:  Have you had any harrowing moments removing the debris?
 
Ken:  I did have one scary moment. It was in March many years ago. I was with Bob Rouseo, and I cut a branch that hit the canoe, we flipped and ended up in the river. The chainsaw went to the bottom of the river. We got to shore, wring out our cloths, and then paddle a mile downstream to our car. It wasn’t pretty. A week later we sent a diver in to retrieve the saw. I brought it home and got the saw running. That was an interesting time.
 
Q:  What motivates you to continue to devote so much time maintaining the river?
 
Ken:  I seem to have had the drive and skills to use the saws, but it's not about me. I'm part of a team.   It's the excitement of everybody working together. It’s a big team that includes members of SRWA, the Greenway, and Andover Trails. Now the town has the canoe launches, we have places to store boats. These are some of the things that drive me to want to go ahead and do all of this.
 
Recently, there was a double ash tree down in one of the most canoed sections. The river was impassable and, you know, the word gets out quickly! Somebody always sends me a picture and where it is on a map. So knowing that you've got it open again, and it's available for people to use, is very satisfying.
 
Q:  Are there any plans in the future to expand the paddling areas?
 
Ken:  We’ve been working with Groundworks Lawrence. We're trying to get a section of river in Lawrence and I've been scouting out where it should go. It's going downstream from the Holiday Inn on Route 114 and go down to Costello Park. This will be a little less than two miles of river, and that's the next section we're talking about for expanding paddling areas.
 
Q: Will there be a walking path along the shore?
 
Yes, there are other people that are working on a path for both the North Andover and Lawrence's side. There are more people from City of Lawrence getting involved in participating in planning activities. I went ahead and sent a proposal to Steve Golden, who is getting things written up about where it would go, why it is a good area, and what will be required for clearing of some trees.
 
Q:  Is there anything else you would like to mention about the Shawsheen River and your work there?
 
Ken:  The Shawsheen River has a lot of history that many people don't know about. It's just fascinating --everything from the Andover Canoe Club to their powerboat that went up and down the river with passengers. We use to have a number of dams and Andover is here because of the river. During the American Revolution, we had a gunpowder mill at the location of Powder Mill Square. We had the Redmond Card dam where they did carding of wool. There were dozens of mill buildings in Ballardvale that made all kinds of items, including train locomotive engines for a few years. There is a lot of local history -- and it all had to do with the river.

Q: Tell us about your background in land conservation
 
Mike: I've been involved in conservation for the past 10 years. I started by volunteering for the National Park Service doing stewardship work, particularly pulling invasive plants and learning about botany. I did invasive plant surveys on the Boston Harbor Islands. Then I started work as a natural educator with Mass Audubon. I did a lot of outreach work where I would take groups into Mass Audubon sites and tell them about the ecology and the different flora and fauna. Then I started working with Sudbury Valley Trustees as a Land Steward, where I did trail maintenance, boundary monitoring, and invasive plant control. Then most recently, before coming to this position I was working as a Land Steward for the Town of Concord.
 
Q: What drew you to take on this role for the Town of Andover?
 
Mike: When I first heard back from Andover, the first thing I did was start to explore Andover’s conservation land.  I was just taken by the diversity the beauty, the variety of conservation, as well as how active the community is, and how much the community values both conservation land and trails. So that was one of the things that really drew me to Andover. The number of partnering organizations from Andover Trails to AVIS, to the Conservation Commission, and just all working together towards this towards a common aim. And it shows in the 2200 acres of Andover conservation land and the 1200 acres of AVIS land. The Town of Andover has a tremendous amount of land and it's really quite a great thing.
 
Q:  What sets Andover apart in the region in terms of the conservation land we have?
 
Mike: Andover is in an incredibly unique position because being having both the Shawsheen River and the Merrimack River as these two incredible watersheds.  I think compared to a lot of other towns in the in this area of Massachusetts, we have an incredible amount of diversity of places -- between ponds, rivers, wetlands, uplands, grasslands, meadows. There's just this huge diversity of different kinds of habitats. And it's unusual. Most towns either have one river wandering through it or they don't have a river. And so, Andover is really we're uniquely placed for having so many different kinds of habitat and land. I think it puts us in a really, really good place.
 
Q:  What are some of your goals and what do you hope to accomplish in the next year or two?
 
Mike: My priorities are in three main areas: land maintenance, invasive species management, and outreach and education. Recently, with a lot of our downed trees, that's one of our big priorities. We are doing maintenance on some of our bridges and trails, which may need erosion control, for example. So doing trail maintenance, which has been a big part of my background, is really important because making trails accessible and the land accessible is an important priority. By making sure that citizens have access to conservation land makes it so that people want to protect the land and support conservation. They go together.
 
Invasive species management is another priority. So we're planning on doing some more volunteer work, working together with other organizations in town in doing invasive plant removal efforts, as well as work to do more education in terms of invasive plants, their effect and how we can manage them. And then I'd say the other big push that we have is outreach and education. And so having programs that pull people from the community into conservation land, like doing walks, and programs where people are doing paddling on Pomps Pond for example. We have Winterfest coming up, which is another great opportunity for people in town to get engaged with conservation land. So those are probably my top three priorities for the upcoming years.
 
Q:  What would you say to someone who’s interested in getting more involved in land conservation efforts? Where do you go to get connected to this effort?
 
Mike: I've often been approached by people who have asked that exact same question. First, I would say you can reach out to me. The first thing I ask them is how do you want to be involved in conservation land? What are you interested in doing? Because we want to give people the experience that they're looking for so that people can connect to the land in the way that feels important to them. For information on land stewardship I would have them talk to AVIS, who we work very closely with and also has an important volunteer network. Also I would offer them to become a Land Steward with the town or join the eco team with AVIS. Those are considered two places to start in terms of getting active in conservation. There are many ways to get involved, it’s just a matter of reach out to one or more organizations.

Mike Murray has been involved in conservation for the last ten years. He began by volunteering with the National Park Service on their Stewardship Saturdays. He was soon asked to conduct invasive plant surveys for the Boston Harbor Islands. He then worked as a naturalist educator with Mass Audubon and Save the Harbor/Save the Bay where he led public outreach programs. Most recently, Mike worked as a land steward with Sudbury Valley Trustees and the Town of Concord where he led invasive plant removal projects and conducted a variety of trail maintenance work. His priorities in his current role as Conservation Land Manager include invasive plant management; trail maintenance and improvement; and habitat preservation and restoration.  ​