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Wondrous BarrensThe Pinelands treasures are uniqueBy Jill
Schensul They say the Jersey Devil was born in the Pine Barrens. I believe it. Standing in a piney forest, eye level with the tops of tiny pine trees, it's easy to see how the unimaginable could become real. Life is just a little different in the Pine Barrens. Rivers run with tawny-colored water. Roads are made of sugary sand, ready to swallow even tow trucks whole. Pine trees grow only five feet tall. The soil and water are different here -- uniquely acidic. Many plants and animals indigenous to other parts of New Jersey cannot live in it.
So unique is the Pine Barrens -- or Pinelands, the more recent moniker used to dispel the connotation of wasteland -- that in 1979, the United Nations designated it an international Biosphere Reserve, an area especially valuable for worldwide scientific study. After plans to build a 49-square-mile airport surfaced in the 1960s, and after the fringes of the area had been built up with housing developments, Congress in 1978 designated it the nation's first reserve, in effect providing a way to manage and protect the land. The region -- taking in part of the Delaware River, greater Atlantic City, and the Jersey shore -- is the largest tract of forested open space in the Richmond, Va.-to-Boston corridor. In 1979, the state Legislature passed the Pinelands Protection Act, setting up the Pinelands Commission, which oversees development in an area a little smaller than the federal reserve. And developing -- or not developing -- continues to provide for heated debate over all that acreage. The Pinelands' uniqueness springs from its water. The sandy soil may be maddening at times, but it allows water to pass through quickly and be stored in the aquifer below. The Pinelands hold 17 trillion gallons of water, some of the purest in the country. Although the aquifer may be as deep as 70 feet, it frequently meets ground level and percolates up as a swamp, a bog, a river, a rivulet, a ''cripple'' (a low, wet area where Atlantic white cedars grow), or a ''spong,'' where no cedars grow. Rain that falls in the Barrens takes on acid from the pine needles on the trees and the detritus on the forest floor; the acidic water then leaches the iron from the sand, eventually forming bog iron. Bog iron was big business in the Barrens. During the American Revolution, workers who made cannons and cannonballs here were excused from active duty. Sand, the other abundant resource, was used for glassworks. Paper mills also flourished for a while. If you look hard, you can find traces of the area's history. The sand roads were once stagecoach routes, pulpwood and lumber roads, or roads leading to charcoal pits. A great deal of contraband was driven along these roads in the dead of night; people were finding illegal stills way into the Seventies. Other telltale signs are the names of the towns -- some of which remain in name only. Ongs Hat, for instance, was named after Jacob Ong, who had an argument with a girl at a dance. She took his hat and threw it on the ground; he picked it up and tossed it in the air, and it landed in a tree. There it hung for months. The surrounding community became known as Ongs Hat. You won't find the hat or the community, but you'll find the name on all the maps. In the real heart of the Barrens, maps mean little. Much of the territory is still confusing, still wild and undeveloped. You can truly feel like a pioneer out here, paddling the tea-colored rivers, hiking along the Batona Trail, camping among the more than half-million acres of parkland. Billboards have been outlawed. Hotels and other tourist amenities are still slow in coming. The Barrens include numerous state parks and forests, the largest of which is Wharton State Forest, in the midst of it all, encompassing more than 110,000 acres. Other parks are Bass River State Forest, Penn State Forest, Double Trouble State Park, Lebanon State Forest, and Belleplain State Forest. In Wharton State Forest is Batsto Village, a restored town started in 1766 around a bog iron furnace. Batsto's business boomed during the Revolution, when the factory made ammunition for the war. When iron became less profitable, the village, numbering more than a thousand people, turned to making glass from the abundance of Pinelands sand. There's a self-guided, 1.5-mile nature walk around the lake at Batsto. The Batona Trail also crosses Wharton State Forest.
The rivers here aren't known for their rapids. The ride is a calm one, although the switchback curves may provide some challenge to the novice paddler. On summer weekends, the rivers can get extremely congested with canoeists; best to either start out early or try for a midweek paddle. One way to learn about the flora and fauna of the Barrens is at a nature center. Waretown, one of the major oases of civilization in the Pine Barrens, offers the Wells Mills Nature Center, (609) 971-3085; in Toms River is the Cattus Island Nature Center, (908) 270-6960. While the Pine Barrens are no tourist trap, there are a variety of popular attractions in the region. Among them is the Renault Winery, the oldest continuously operated winery in America, in Egg Harbor City. The winery also has a gourmet restaurant, open weekends only. For information call (609) 965-2111. Right on the Mullica River is the popular Sweetwater Casino in Mullica Township, (609) 965-3285; waiting for a table can be as enjoyable as the meal. The Settler's Inn in Medford Lakes, (609) 654-4034, is notable for the building itself. Built in 1931, it is one of America's largest two-story all-log cabins. The ceilings are more than 50 feet high, and the central fireplace is made of 232 tons of stone. Your understanding of the Pine Barrens will be rounded out by a Saturday night ''Sounds of the Pine Barrens'' shindig at Albert's Hall. Local musicians -- just about anybody might show up -- have been pickin' and singin' in this organized get-together since 1974. Here, from 8 to 11:30 p.m., you will indeed hear the Barrens, in nasal harmonies, twangy banjos, and old-time stories. The music is bluegrass, country, old-time, and folk -- some of it they just call ''Pinelands music'' -- and it is truly homespun -- some terrific, some barely listenable. It's almost as much fun watching the twinkle in the old folks' eyes as listening to the tunes. The old warehouse-cum-concert hall burned down a few years ago, and now the shows are at Priff Elementary School on Route 532 in Waretown. To hear recorded information, call (609) 971-1593. There's not much in the way of hotels and motels in the Barrens, but camping is popular. You can camp, for example, in designated areas along the Batona Trail; permits are available from the ranger offices at Lebanon and Wharton state forests. For a brochure listing private campgrounds, contact the New Jersey Campground Owners Association at (800) 222-6765. Two annual festivals celebrate the Pinelands' natural history, drawing thousands of visitors. Blueberries grow wild in the Barrens; you can usually feast on them in summer along many hiking trails (if the deer and birds haven't gotten there first). The Blueberry Festival is held in Whitesbog Village in July. Cranberries are big business: New Jersey is the third biggest producer of cranberries in the country. Every October, during harvest time, the town of Chatsworth celebrates with a Cranberry Festival, which includes tours of cranberry bogs, Piney music, and every imaginable edible made with cranberries. Various groups and longtime residents offer tours of the area. Bill Leap, a history junkie who has spent more than 30 years investigating the Barrens, conducts colorful car caravan tours through the Pinelands he's visited since childhood. He'll relay the stories about Jersey Devil -- well, he may not call it that, ''but something's going on out there'' -- and he'll explain about the kneiskern's beaked-rush -- ''it don't look like much, but it's only found in New Jersey, in and around the Pine Barrens.'' He is scheduled to conduct two ''Ghost Town'' tours for the Camden County Historical Society in October; call (609) 964-3333 for information. The state Audubon Society is conducting several trips this year, focusing on the plants as well as the animals; call (609) 261-2495. Karl Anderson, director of the society's Rancocas Nature Center, said that while the Pine Barrens are quite well known in natural history circles, ''I've had people call me from [nearby] Medford wanting to know where the Barrens are.'' Signs, and a central interpretive center, are still lacking in the area, although progress is being made. Many of the interesting features are still somewhat inaccessible to visitors. Which may be a blessing. ''Many of them are ecologically fragile. If you have an area that can't stand trampling -- like some Pine Barrens bog that's full of orchids -- how do you have people visit and learn to appreciate it without destroying it? You need a boardwalk, interpretive facility, whatever is needed to see and read about it as they need to. That's the big question that surrounds ecotourism in general: How do you visit something -- be it a cultural or ecological resource -- without somehow a) destroying the resource, and b) cheapening the experience for other people? ''It's one experience when you're at the Grand Canyon alone, watching the sunset; it's not the same experience when there are 50,000 people there with you.'' Copyright © 1996 Bergen
Record Corp.
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Indeed, the first settlers in the region
called it the Pine Barrens because none of the usual
agricultural crops grew there. Yet it is anything but
barren. This vast tract -- 1.1 million acres, nearly a
fifth of the state -- is rich with flora and fauna. In
fact, it is home to nearly 100 threatened or endangered
species, including the Pine Barrens tree frog and the
curly grass fern. And, oh, yes, it's got three species of
carnivorous plants. 
One of the best ways to experience the Pine
Barrens is by canoe. More than a dozen companies in the
region offer canoe rentals. Among the waterways you can
travel are the Batsto, Mullica, Oswego, Great Egg Harbor,
and Wading rivers, and Cedar Creek. The water itself is
unique: The tea color comes from the tannin leached out
of the soil after a rain. Oddly, the rivers may be clear
blue -- like ''normal'' rivers -- after a rain. Soon they
return to their characteristic brown. 
Deer Hunting
Forsythe Wildlife Refuge
Natural
& Cultural Sites: