“Wild and Noble Sites”: A Walk to Egg Rock
Event Details
Saturday, June 18, 2022
1:00 – 3:00pm
Simon Willard Woods
Limited to 15 participants. Register here at the 2022 Riverfest website.
This event will occur in rain or shine. Wear sturdy shoes and dress for weather conditions.
Park and meet at the trailhead at the end of Simon Willard Road.
Walk Description
Join Dr. Amity Wilczek, an evolutionary ecologist, and Richard Smith, an historian, for a walk through Simon Willard Woods and along the Assabet River to Egg Rock, where the confluence of the Assabet and Sudbury Rivers form the Concord River. Along the way they will explore the ecological and historical importance of the area and discuss the changes that have occurred over the last 400 years. The three rivers that flow through Concord have played an important role in the history of the town, from the Native Americans who once fished here up to the recreational kayakers of the present day. Henry Thoreau was a frequent visitor to the rivers. Traveling by both land and water, he was always on the lookout for “Wild and noble sites…such as they who sit in parlors never dream of.” And he usually found such sites. Join us and we may even see some ‘wild and noble’ sites, too!
Walk Guide Bios
Dr. Amity Wilczek is an evolutionary ecologist whose role as an educator and researcher has been shaped by attention to place, history, and student experience. Her teaching career started at Harvard and Brown before transitioning to Deep Springs College, where over 10 years she served as Herbert Reich Chair of Natural Sciences, Academic Dean, and Vice President. Her work on plant responses to changing environments has appeared in many journals including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ecology, American Naturalist, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Amity currently lives in Concord, Massachusetts and serves as trail steward of the Emerson-Thoreau Amble for the town.
Richard Smith has lectured on and written about antebellum United States and 19th-Century American history and literature since 1995. He has worked as a public historian in Concord, Massachusetts for almost 23 years, specializing in Henry David Thoreau, the Transcendentalists, the Anti-Slavery movement and the Civil War. As a Living History Interpreter, he has portrayed Henry Thoreau at Walden Pond and around the country since 1999. In addition, he has written six books for Applewood Books, including two about Henry Thoreau, and is the current Scholar in Residence at Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury.
