DURHAM – Two men who share a passion for conservation accepted the Granite State Award for their outstanding contributions to the state at the University of New Hampshire’s graduation ceremony on Saturday.
Friends agree longtime journalist John Harrigan and Jameson French, president and CEO of Northland Forest Products, deserve to be lauded for their many decades of service.
Jameson French, president and CEO of Northland Forest Products.
Harrigan’s friend Peter Burrows turned the tables on him and penned a column about a trip to Harrigan’s camp, the North Country hideaway his readers have come to know so well.
“John knew just where the brookies would be rising, just when the iron skillet was hot enough, and just when to pull those magnificent steaks onto our plates,” Burrows wrote to celebrate Harrigan’s award. (see below for Burrows’ column)
Harrigan formerly owned the Coos County Democrat and The News and Sentinel in Colebrook. He was first finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news reporting in 1998.
He wrote an outdoor column for the New Hampshire Sunday News for many years and continues writing for Salmon Press and the nonprofit InDepthNH.org, the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism’s statewide online news outlet.
In 2010, Harrigan received the Profile Award for his work on the conservation and preservation of the state’s natural resources. He was a volunteer on the Northern Forest Lands Council and the Connecticut Lakes Partnership Task Force.
Jack Savage, spokesman for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, called Harrigan “the voice of the North Country” adding that moniker fails to capture his full value to the state.
“As a consummate old-school newspaperman, he has long dedicated himself to giving a voice to the common man, to common sense, and to common decency,” Savage said. “It’s for that reason he’s revered, and occasionally reviled, which comes with the territory.”
Jane Difley, president/forester at the Forest Society, praised French’s commitment to conservation and nonprofit organizations.
“Jamey is the guy every nonprofit wants on their board,” Difley said. “He’s savvy, generous, experienced, connected and he cares deeply about New Hampshire and its future.”
Difley went on about French’s community service: “Whether it’s the Forest Society, New Hampshire Audubon, the Music Hall, Friends Forever or any one of a number of other organizations, Jamey has left his imprint on their DNA.”
Harrigan was quick to point out after the ceremony that it was French who truly deserved the award for conservation.
“It was great to share the stage with Jameson,” Harrigan said. “He’s really been the linchpin of conservation work in New Hampshire.”
French served as chairman of many forestry industry-related boards. The immediate past president of The Hardwood Foundation, French served on the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation board for 17 years and as board chairman of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
French, who led the campaign to restore the North Church steeple in Market Square, serves as the vice chairman of the Land Trust Alliance and is a trustee of New Hampshire’s chapter of The Nature Conservancy.
The longtime Portsmouth resident chaired the boards for Strawbery Banke Museum and is an ex officio member of the board of trustees for The Music Hall.
Karen Ladd photo
John Harrigan at the University of New Hampshire graduation ceremony.
Harrigan’s family watched as he donned cap and gown to march in the graduation procession. Daughter Karen Ladd said:
“His long career in journalism, and his passion for conservation and the outdoors that is so evident in his many years as a well-loved columnist make the Granite State Award a well-deserved honor.”
Harrigan particularly enjoyed the ceremony and the “class act graduation” festivities that included trampling the back yard of UNH president Mark Huddleston at a reception the night before.
As a young man, Harrigan dropped out of college after four months, but did make it through the “school of hard knocks.”
“It’s kind of nice,” Harrigan said of the award. “Not bad for a first-year (college) dropout.”
Harrigan’s friend Peter Burrows penned the following column at the request of InDepthNH.org.
Harrigan’s Way
By Peter Burrows
It was a bright, sunny day when we headed out on the trek to camp. I was suffering from the effects of COPD and sure as his word, John would stop periodically for me to catch my breath, assuring me earlier that there was never a hurry to get in to camp and start fishing; there’d be plenty of time to breathe.
These little rest stops being used for his many anecdotes and observations, Harrigan never being one to act solicitous of my health, but rather making the stop to point out how the animal trails followed a learned logic or to point out the effects glaciation had on the local topography.
We trudged over a variety of terrain, including what John referred to as “the fetid swamp.” It seemed almost a primordial soup and elicited shudders just imagining what horrific creatures were born in similar goo. I was using my fly rod as a walking stick and delighted in the sucking sounds as I pulled it from the black muck.
I hadn’t realized at the time what this camp was to John Harrigan. It was his therapy, his sanctus sanctorum, his escape. I also hadn’t realized what an honor it was to be invited into the Camp at Carr (Carp) Pond. But as we trudged, it became clear what the entire area was. It was an homage´ to Rudy Shatney, John’s ersatz father with whom he’d spent many a summer working at “Rudy’s Cabins” on Clarksville Pond.
But even more, it was the bonding device for the gang of thugs with whom John built and shared the cabin. His close friends of many years, with a wide variety of backgrounds, shared hunting and fishing, drinking and making music, cooking and doing an abbreviated hermitage together on Carr (Carp) Pond.
I finally understood how important this place, this camp, this attitude was not only to John but to an army of readers of his many articles about life in the North Country and especially life at the Camp on Carp Pond. They talked back and forth, John and his readers, about the brookies rising from the little inlets to the pond, about John’s nemesis in the woods, his field mice infestations.
Oh, the letters, emails, phone calls that topic always brought from his fans all over the globe, not just here in New Hampshire.
True to his word, John had carried a wonderful collection of groceries, especially the steaks, for our dinner. He was a splendid camp cook as well as THE guide on the pond, even tying on a new fly when I’d lost mine to a rambunctious brookie. John knew just where the brookies would be rising, just when the iron skillet was hot enough, and just when to pull those magnificent steaks onto our plates.
As we enjoyed our camp dinner, it sank in how very much this camp is intertwined in the life, work, and philosophy of the great John Harrigan. More to follow, I hope.