Diman students, hiking group connect to improve Fall River's Bioreserve
FALL RIVER — On Blossom Road, in a 19th-century timber-frame wagon shed, a half-dozen kids from Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School were busy building bridges connecting Fall River’s past to its future.
The carpentry students under instructor Jeff Cabral were building the frames for bog bridges — lengths of pressure-treated lumber that will be topped with planks and installed in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve to help hikers cross muddy trails.
City forester Mike Labossiere said they’ll build about 600 feet of bridge.
“We’re at a high water mark for how much Diman has been helping us out this year,” he said.
Just outside the barn, at the Water Department’s Watuppa Reservation headquarters, sat two brand-new picnic tables, also built by Diman students. Another two are at a nearby parking lot that marks the start of a series of hiking trails.
The materials for the tables were donated by the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Southeastern Massachusetts chapter, which is marking its fourth year partnering with the city to bring attention to this enormous, often under-appreciated section of Fall River. The Bioreserve is unpopulated — but lately there are quite a few people in it.
“When I grew up in Fall River, you were not only discouraged, you were prohibited from coming out here,” Labossiere said. “Now it’s different. We’re welcoming it.”
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AMC-SEM first took notice of the Bioreserve under the leadership of former chair Diane Simms, who in November 2020 was looking to expand her group and, like any good hiker, explore new territory.
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Simms saw that Fall River was “one of the few urban areas in our region.” Even though she could’ve guessed, she said, she studied Fall River’s demographics using GIS data. Diversity, equity and inclusion are important to AMC chapters, she said, and this was an opportunity to spread AMC’s message.
“There was absolutely an inverse relationship between those communities that a high DEI score ... and our membership," she said. “It was so striking.”
In March 2021, she and her group led its first hike in the Bioreserve — an easy 3- to 4-mile walk in the city’s 16,000 acres of woods. All their hikes are free and open to all, not just AMC members. She said they started with shorter, easier, "sneaker-friendly" routes to welcome Fall Riverites who’ve never been out walking in these woods what to expect. Since then, the Bioreserve has become a regular haunt for the group, with hikes of different lengths and terrain types to challenge hikers of all skill levels — up to the 20-mile Bioreserve Loop Trail.
"The 20-miler, it’s performing how we hoped,” said Labossiere, who with the AMC helped devise and mark the trail. “This is enough of a feature that it’s attracting people.”
AMC and the Bioreserve have been part of the city’s tourism puzzle — Simms said they have brought visitors from over an hour away to experience what’s going on in Fall River — “the western suburbs of Boston, like Natick,” she said "We generally get people from Rhode Island. We’ll get people from the Plymouth area. We’ve gotten people north of Boston.”
Despite the woods’ urban legends, Simms said she’s never had a problem. “I don’t see much trash there. I never run into issues there,” she said. “And I like the history of the place.”
The group’s development committee decided to mark its fruitful relationship with the Bioreserve by working with Diman to build the new picnic tables — places, Labossiere said, for picnics, rest, or for school programs and outdoor crafts.
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"We’re not just celebrating that we’re starting our fourth year, but we’re also celebrating the new picnic tables," Simms said. “Kudos to the work done at their school and their teacher.”
The AMC is leading an easy hike through the Bioreserve perfect for beginners on Saturday, April 6, starting at 9 a.m. The hike is free and open to all. For more information or to register, visit amcsem.org.
Exposing the Bioreserve to more people: 'Let's enjoy the heck out of this'
Labossiere joked that he has enough requests for help from Diman students to last until his retirement and beyond. Students from the Building and Property Maintenance shop under instructor Patrick Bowen were refinishing a bathroom in the 19th century farmhouse that serves as the Watuppa Reservation headquarters, and have conducted landscaping and demolition work at the city’s Adirondack Farm property on Blossom Road, which is being transformed into the Bioreserve Discovery Center.
A group of eight young women sat for their lunch break under a roof where timbers still show the marks of hand-hewing. Most said they had no idea the Bioreserve existed and that it's part of Fall River.
Working in the city’s woods isn’t just part of their studies — it’s fun. They spoke over one another with praise: "It’s awesome,” “I love it,” “It’s so peaceful.”
Labossiere said he's had interest in further partnerships with Mass Audubon, and that he recently gave a tour to Amy Burt, a program director with the Girls Scouts of Southeastern New England.
"She wants to start Girl Scouts programming here," Labossiere said. “She's from Dighton and her mom walked the 20-mile BLT with AMC-SEM last fall and was over the moon. You can't buy that kind of networking.”
Labossiere’s goal is to expose as many people as possible to the land — and have them understand that it’s ours to care for responsibly.
“Let's enjoy the heck out of this,” he said.
Dan Medeiros can be reached at [email protected]. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Appalachian Mountain Club, voke school team for Bioreserve project
