Gerry Hawkes is a man who has dedicated his life to the land from which he came. Hawkes’ roots trace back to Bridgewater, Pomfret, and Woodstock. He now resides on 60 acres of land in North Bridgewater that once belonged to his ancestors, and this Saturday, Sept. 27, he and his family will be honored by the Vermont Woodlands Association with the 2025 Vermont Tree Farmers of the Year award.
“It has taken 55 years to develop this property, I’m just eager for people to see what dedication and care can do to the trees that belong here, to the land,” Hawkes told the Standard.
While Hawkes did not always envision himself as a tree farmer, forestry and a love for the wilderness in which he grew up shaped his life. “I always wanted to be a forester,” Hawkes said. “I grew up on a farm and spent hours working a sawmill on my uncle’s land. Eventually, I went on to study forestry at the University of Maine.” After being awarded the St. Regis Scholarship — an award bestowed upon the student who shows the most promise in the field and who is expected to contribute the most to the future of forestry — Hawkes was able to save up enough money to begin buying back acres of his family’s land.
Unfortunately, national factors deterred Hawkes’ plans for a few years.
“When I finished my degree, the Vietnam War was raging. I said to myself, ‘This is totally wrong. We are being lied to. We should not be spraying napalm, killing trees or people.’ I said, ‘Shoot me right here; I’m not going to go.’ Though in the end, being murdered for my stance against the war or being imprisoned for trying to flee to Canada seemed like a waste, so I decided instead to join the Peace Corps,” Hawkes explained. This choice would end up taking Hawkes on dangerous adventures through Africa. “They sent me to French West Africa — I was going to be a forester in the Sahara Desert!”
There were a surprising number of shrubs in that part of the world, Hawkes said, as he worked to plant drought-resistant trees so people could have firewood to cook with. “These plants never took, and so eventually I set out on my own course, trying to convince the locals to plant native vegetation that grew slower but had thorns to protect some of the Oasis area.” Hawkes continued, “I pretty much set my own agenda. I had a black stallion, a turban, and a sword. Each morning, I’d go out and speak the tribal language, live with the nomads.”
Hawkes told the Standard tales of recruiting Nigerian wrestlers to teach them logging in the hopes of clearing dead brush from the Oasis land; and he recounted his time sleeping in hyena territory with only his machete to protect him, and how he would give as much of his money away as possible to the natives of the land, in the hopes of helping fight against the starvation and poverty that ravaged the area. “Eventually, though, the famine and environmental destruction I bore witness to became too much for me, and I slowly made my way back to Vermont, to the forests and the land that I knew so well,” Hawkes said.
Back in the Green Mountain State, Hawkes could not find much work as a forester and instead dedicated 70-80 hours a week working to cut and sell firewood. “I was earning $1,500 a year, living at first with my parents, and then in a trailer on the property. But everything changed when I met my wife,” he said.
Hawkes met his wife, Karen, abroad while working with the School for International Training. “One night I volunteered to build a bonfire and wound up sitting next to my wife — a French teacher who agreed to follow me back to Vermont.”
The pair have been together for 48 years and now reside on the North Bridgewater land of Hawkes’ ancestors, in a house made from the very trees that once stood tall on their 60 acres.
While Hawkes has spent decades maintaining and growing the collection of trees on his land, the years have not been without hardship and environmental strain. As someone deeply in-tune with his land, Hawkes has sensed periods of environmental catastrophe radiating from his own trees over the decades. “When I was 19 years old, I drove through Sudbury, Ontario, on a way to a job out west and saw total devastation from air pollution,” Hawkes said. “That was the first time I realized how serious air pollution could be. We then began experiencing acid rain here in Vermont, and this was the first time I witnessed its environmental effects on my own land. I began speaking out, trying to convince people that something must change. I wasn’t thinking so much about climate change at the time as I was about toxic air pollution, and the 3,000 toxic chemicals routinely admitted into our atmosphere.
“Meanwhile, I was building up my forestry clients,” Hawkes continued. “I had 30,000 acres of land to manage, and each day felt like more and more air pollution was damaging the forests around me. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 helped reduce the effects of acid rain, but personally and professionally, I felt like I had to do something to help combat the effects of climate change. That is when I began inventing.”
For the next several decades, along with being a forester and building up his own property, Hawkes dedicated his time to inventing safer alternatives for controlling invasive woody vegetation, a modular bicycle, a pedestrian path system that could be installed with little disruption to the environment, and a bicycle parking structure. “I fear that nothing I do will ever be enough, but in all my years tending to this land, I have come to realize that we cannot do it alone. Together we must all make a change, and decide to prioritize and save this environment, this home that we all share,” Hawkes said.
All are welcome to come celebrate the beauty and magic of Hawkes’ tree farm with the Vermont Woodlands Association on Saturday, Sept. 27, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., as Gerry and Karen Hawkes are awarded this special honor. Space is limited.
For more on this, please see our September 25 edition of the Vermont Standard.
