About The Bower
Where we’re located
The Bower is located within 900+ acres of privately-owned conservation forest land spanning the towns of Bethlehem and Whitefield, New Hampshire. Our forest ecotherapy trail system is managed by North Country Land Stewards LLC. Our land and trails are open to the public for free non-motorized recreational use 365 days a year, subject to New Hampshire state statutes RSA 508:14 and NH RSA 212:24.
The Bower’s outdoor venue space is located at the edge of our conservation forest land, right at the trailhead.
How to reach us
Send a message to the North Country Land Stewards team for more information about visiting The Bower.
A brief history of The Bower
The Bower’s forests and fields have had many names and many uses over the centuries—recently Pine Knob Farm; previously Camp Jack; before that the Gould family farm; and before that N’dakinna (“Our Land”), the unceded homelands of the Western Abenaki people.
Scattered agricultural artifacts, miles of old stone walls, and diverse forest stands reveal a history of homestead farming, sheep farming, dairy farming, hunting, sugaring, and timber harvesting on this land.
Today, we call this place The Bower, adopting the name of the 19th-century farmhouse whose fieldstone foundation remains at the trailhead of our ecotherapy trail system. The original Bower was the home given by the local farming community to newlywed couples to start their lives together. In summertime, the old foundation is overgrown by pink roses we like to imagine were planted there by a happy couple long ago.
The Bower was a gift from one generation to the next. That ethos infuses the history of this place, which exists through the cumulative gifts of many generations who have lived on and cared for the land across the centuries—most recently Dave and Tanya Tellman, dedicated forest stewards and outdoor educators who lived here for over fifty years and who ensured this 900+ acre working forest will remain forest in perpetuity by granting a conservation easement to the New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF). The Tellmans’ decades of stewardship protected a forest mosaic of diverse wildlife habitats, old-growth stands, wetland ecosystems, and much more.
Today, our team at North Country Land Stewards continues the Tellmans’ mission to conserve open land for the benefit of future generations. Through exemplary forest management practices, wildlife habitat management, outdoor education, and guided ecotherapy programs, we aim to promote sustainable uses of The Bower for the benefit of our North Country community and visitors to this beautiful region.
