A Few Words from the Creators

“Alice and I have been learning and working closely together this past year to complete the Maine Master Naturalist Program. As our Capstone Projects for this program, we both developed nature trails for local conservancies. During the winter, I helped Alice by making wooden sign posts with engraved numbers from 1 to 10 to indicate the stops on her trail. She used her design skills to develop interpretive materials for each of her 10 observation stops. When my Capstone project at Great Pond Mountain Conservation Trust needed graphic design help to complete the ten interpretive signs, she volunteered her expertise with Microsoft Publisher. She worked with the team to turn the sign drafts together with content changes and text edits from our working sessions to create our amazing finished signs.For me, as the original author, it has been humbling and amazing to see each sign transformed from a rough Microsoft Word document into a truly polished interpretive sign with large lettering, nicely blended color schemes, and content reflecting the creative energy, thoughts and skills of multiple experts. I need to give credit to all of the experts participating in this project and offering their time,energy and expertise in nature, education, geology, forestry, and natural resource management.”  – Nicholas Nodes

“Working with Nick Noyes, Landon Fake, and Emily Carvalho on refining the Interpretive Signs for the Valley Road that Nick created for his Capstone Project has been a terrific project where we have learned, shared knowledge, blended expertise, and had lots of good laughs on many morning Zoom meetings through the COVID 19 pandemic. It has not only been a great way to apply Nick’s and my Maine Master Naturalist learnings, but to use skills from our previous careers. It is very rewarding to see the signs come together showing the talents of all of us, and offering the public a rich learning experience.” – Alice Noyes