Berkshire Links

Parks and recreation

Hancock Shaker Village, Sept. 2024

By Dave Read, Lenox, MA, Sept. 5, 2024 visit – Hancock Shaker Village stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Tanglewood in the first rank of places that must be visited on a rare trip to the Berkshires, and no less than annually if you live within a couple hour’s drive. Here’s hoping these casual phonesnaps pique your curiosity enough to make a visit.

There are docents and curators who blend right in; ask a question of two and you will learn marvelous things about the Shakers and their mode of living. A few years ago, the place hosted a fiddler’s convention – a perfect fit.

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Four hours on the Housatonic River

Four hours in a kayak paddling (and drifting!) on the celebrated Housatonic River in the Berkshires, between the Decker boat launch on New Lenox Rd. and Wood’s Pond, is as good a way to spend four hours on the Fourth of July. Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with coining the exclamation, There’s no tonic like the Housatonic. Our marvelously meandering stream also won the affection of the great Charles Ives, who composed a piece titled, The housatonic at Stockbridge. And today I learned that some Lily Pods are pink!

Kayaker views of the Housatonic River, between New Lenox Rd. and Wood's Pond, by Dave Read.
Pink lily pods in the Housatonic River, between New Lenox Rd. and Wood’s Pond, by Dave Read.

Parks in the Berkshires

The Berkshires are a place of such pervasive natural beauty that to call it a park requires no stretch of the imagination – but it would get tangled up in the courts, so we acquiesce in parceling it out into dozens of local and state parks, each under the dominion of the majestic Mount Greylock, lord of a 1,200 acre state park under its 3,489 foot summit. The Appalachian Trail, itself a national treasure of the first rank, runs across Greylock as it weaves its way from Georgia to New Hampshire.

Parks and recreation in the Berkshires

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