Moose in Pittsburg bog
— — the long head lifted out of the wet grass.
Not only on a wall.
“Pittsburg is the northernmost town in New Hampshire, the largest township in the state by area, a wide piece of forest and water that holds the four Connecticut Lakes and the headwaters of the river. The bogs off Route 3 are where moose feed at dawn and dusk in May and June, knee-deep in sodden grass. Locals call the highway through Moose Alley. The bull stands still until he doesn't. — from the studio
Moose in Pittsburg bog, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Pittsburg sits at the top of New Hampshire's Coös County, covering 291 square miles, the largest township by area in the state. The Connecticut River rises from the Fourth Connecticut Lake at the Quebec border and runs south through Third, Second, and First Connecticut Lakes. U.S. Route 3 is the only state highway through town and ends at the customs station at the international boundary. Connecticut Lakes State Forest, established in 2003 through a state and federal conservation purchase, holds more than 25,000 acres along the corridor.
The bog mats along Moose Alley sit in shallow basins carved by the last glaciation and filled by slow seepage from the surrounding spruce-fir uplands. Sphagnum moss and sedge grow thick on the surface; pickerelweed and aquatic grasses grow under it. Moose feed here for the sodium dissolved in the water, a mineral they cannot get from winter browse on twigs and bark. A cow can eat forty pounds of wet vegetation in a single morning. Beavers maintain many of the bog edges by damming the small inlet streams.
Moose are most reliably visible in late May and June, when cows lead calves to the bogs and bulls feed heavily after winter weight loss. Dawn and the hour before dusk are the best viewing windows. The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department reports a town population of moose well into the hundreds, the densest concentration in the state. Pittsburg lodges run guided moose tours in spring and early summer. By August the animals retreat into the spruce woods, and by November the rut has passed and snow begins to close the back roads.