This is an article that my brother wrote for the NH Audubon Magazine (May-June 1999 issue) as a memorial to our father who had died from a heart attack the previous year. He built the cabin that Forbes lived in during the 70's and referred to below. It had no electricity, running water or plumbing. We all loved staying there, basking in the wild simplicity and peace of this special place... Note: ASNH = Audubon Society of New Hampshire *******************************************************************
The Gift of a Lifetime: A Remembrance of S. Tudor Leland By Forbes Leland
"Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron string.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Trust thyself" were not the words that came to mind as I was slogging in knee-deep drifts, the wind-whipped snow stinging my face, the below-zero February night having long since stolen the last bit of warmth from my toes.
The date, forever etched in my brain, was February, 1953, and I was 12 years old. My father and I had gotten off to a late start for the “Sanctuary," as it was known before it became the NH Audubon dePierrefeu Willard Pond Wildlife Sanctuary. Snow had been falling since early morning and was mounting up as we started our two-hour drive to Antrim. Two hours had lengthened into four by the time we turned into the Sanctuary road, which, in those days, was not plowed. "It shouldn't be a problem," my father shrugged, as our old Chevy truck plowed its way through the two-foot drifts. We almost made it, but not quite. A mile from the small, three room cabin overlooking Willard Pond, the old Chevy engine heaved a sigh of relief as it quit its overheated toil through the snow drifts.
"Let's get the stuff out of the back and we'll hoof it the rest of the way." And hoof it we did! How my father knew where he was going in that white-out of swirling snow was beyond me and still is. From my perspective of urban/suburban life outside Boston, "roughing it" was something you read about, not necessarily experience personally. My father, on the other hand, grew up in this environment. As a young boy, he hiked, and, later, hunted in the hills of the Monadnock region, learning the lessons about the outdoors that only experience can teach.
The dark outline of the cabin took shape as we approached; today for me, not a moment too soon. Exhausted, I stumbled into the cabin that seemed, if possible, even colder than outside. "Come on, get the lead out!" my father said. "Can't dilly-dally. We have a lot to do." First, we started roaring fires in the field stone fireplace and the old black top cookstove to take the chill off the cabin. I marveled at the ease with which my father started both fires, a skill I am still trying to master to this day. I watched him move quickly, but not hurriedly, about the cabin, putting things in order: lighting the kerosene lamps, breaking out the Hudson Bay blankets, and starting to prepare what was to be a delicious dinner. He seemed unperturbed that 1) our truck was stuck a mile down the road, 2) the blizzard gave no evidence that it would soon let up, and 3) the nearest phone was over a mile away.
Over the years, I came to realize that it was not indifference to our predicament, but a confidence; a confidence born of experience and an intuitive sense that things can and do work out. It was this quality to resonate to his own "iron string" that lead my father, in 1933, to not only try flying an airplane but also to solo at 16 and qualify as an instructor at 19. At a time when flying was little more than a hobby for daredevils, he recognized the potential of commercial aviation. He ultimately became chief pilot for TWA, retiring, 36 years later, with 30, 000 hours flying time.
New challenges were in store for my father. He traded in his airline captain's hat for that of a deep-sea fishing charter captain. He designed and built his 38 foot sport fishing boat, Flying Sorceress, started and owned a boat yard, and had a successful charter business, culminating in the honor as the "high liner" (most tuna caught in a year) out of Gloucester. However, by the early 1970s, he had become concerned with the decreasing population of bluefin tuna. The impact of commercial and sport fishing on North Atlantic stock alarmed my father to the extent that he was one of the first to tag and release all tuna caught. For years, he was one of the few voices demanding and getting restrictions on the annual harvest of bluefin tuna.
His concern for the environment and the conservation of marine life led him to promote the protection of whales: in particular, the humpback whales that congregate off the New England coast during the summer months. He was one of the first to begin identifying humpbacks by their flukes and developed a photographic album of individual whales. He worked in association with conservationists, including Steve Catona, now president of the College of the Atlantic; Dr. Roger Payne, who has been instrumental in stopping the slaughter of whales worldwide; and with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Also, he was among the first deep-sea charter captains to recognize the importance of marine conservation education by taking people on whale watch trips.
During those years as an airline pilot and charter captain, he would "get away" to the Sanctuary, a place to which he was deeply connected all his life. In 1979, my father donated his cabin and land on Willard pond to a ASNH. By donating his land, he hoped that, in time, all the family land around Willard pond would be donated to ASNH. Since 1979, the gifts of land donations and easements by family and friends of the dePierrefeu-Willard Pond Sanctuary has expanded the original 650 acres, originally donated to ASNH by his mother, Elsa to Tudor dePierrefeu, to over 2000 acres of protected, pristine land, forever wild and scenic. In 1997, my father dedicated a memorial to his mother for her foresight in preserving a unique wildlife habitat. The memorial is chiseled into a granite boulder near the Sanctuary barn and reads:
“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” — Isaiah, Chapter 11
I visit the sanctuary when I can and, as I walk by the now empty cabin, I remember back to that February night years ago, when my father and I sat in front of the warm fireplace and began our conversation, a conversation that still continues. By the way, we did get out two days later. The snow shimmered and sparkled in the morning sun. An occasional puff of wind started miniature cascades of snow from the trees. It was all but unnoticed as my father and I toiled five grueling hours shoveling snow to clear the road for the old Chevy truck.
finis