Phenology of Place: Centennial Brook

Centennial Woods has had a broad and rocky human history, and has been no stranger to human use. Back before white settlers even came to Vermont, the Abenaki indigenous people used this space to hunt and live. The space used to much more vast and forested, but it almost became completely deforested once the white settlers began to colonize the area. There was an effort to reforest the area in the early to mid 1900s and it became the size that it is today. From here, it has had a variety of uses from a ski resort to an area for ROTC training, and there is much evidence of these uses within the forest today. Pieces of the ski lift and chunks of machinery can still be found along the forest floor, and the concrete ROTC bunker stands unused within the woods. Eventually, UVM bought up the land and preserved it, making it the Centennial Woods we know today. Today, Centennial Woods is used as a place of recreation and research by the community and the university alike.