![]() The Black Oaks of Ryland Creek. It’s not there now. But once, a sapling grew outside the Science building when I first attended Corning Community College in the early 1980s. That sapling had a bronze plaque next to it that read, “Black Oak.” Oftentimes in the Ryland Creek saga, red and white oaks are mentioned as raccoon often climb these trees, particularly in the fall. (In winter, the ringtails, following the feed pattern as well as getting some protection from icy winds, switch to climbing eastern hemlocks and white pines, also common in these forests.) These hills are home to these oak species as well as the chestnut oak (also known as “rock oak”). While not as common, black oaks grow in the Land of the Three Rivers, although their foliage is often confused with the pointy, multi-lobed leaves of its kin—the formerly mentioned red oak. Admittedly, the legend of the Black Oaks of Ryland Creek (one of the first “stories within a story” in the saga)--trees that hold and torment the souls of evil people who die in the forests of Painted Post--is fictionalized. By contrast, there are legends throughout the world of trees harboring “good spirits,” and one of the purported sources of the phrase “knock on wood” (Alvarez). Several years ago, during early fall while walking on our land with my hound Seth, we came across an oak leaf on the ground. In the middle of grove of hemlock and white pine, to see a sole oak leaf on the forest floor wasn’t necessarily unusual as there were sporadic oaks growing amongst the conifers, and the wind could have easily deposited the leaf there after traveling some distance, too. That leaf looked like it belonged to a red oak, yet something about it seemed a bit off. Further, where Seth and I stood at that moment was the knoll where I’d always imagined the fictional Black Oaks of Ryland Creek would have been. Something told me, “Pick it up.” And so I did. Taking the leaf back to my parents’ house and thumbing through my father’s old dendrology books, Dad and I determined the leaf had come from a black oak. Since then, I’ve searched for the tree from which that leaf had come from, but to this day, that particular oak eludes me. So where did that sole black oak leaf come from? Hard sayin’. But then again, it is Painted Post, after all. ![]() The Eastern Cougar. From the onset, the Ryland Creek saga oftentimes plays into the spooky and sometimes outright strange legends that haunt the forests of Upstate New York. There’s certainly no shortage of such vivid tales to draw from in this regard. One of those legends that persists till this day truly wasn’t a legend ~150 years ago— the Eastern Cougar, which makes a cameo appearance in the Ryland Creek saga. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) notes the Eastern Cougar has been absent the forests of New York since the late 1800s. The DEC goes on to say that while cougar sightings have been verified in New York, these animals were either pets that had escaped, or in one case around 2011, a western cougar passing through. (“Eastern Cougar Sightings”). Note: that particular western mountain lion, per DNA tests by wildlife officials, came from the Black Hills of South Dakota and ended up dying in a car collision in Connecticut (“Connecticut Mountain Lion”). Toward the end of his 35+ year career with the State of New York—most of that time as a NYS Forest Ranger—my father would receive several calls a year from citizens who swore they’d spotted an Eastern Cougar. At the time, Dad was convinced those well-meaning folks were seeing bobcats (which I can attest seem much larger than some might expect, particularly at night), or a relatively new returnee to these forests, the fishercat (or just “fisher”), whose nearly non-existent population in Pennsylvania was bolstered when re-introduced by Pennsylvania wildlife officials into their forests in the early 1990s (Brown), with fishers eventually making their way north into New York. I saw my first fishercat jogging one gray, foggy morning soon after retiring from the U.S. Air Force. If I hadn’t known about fishers, with their very long tails relative to their body, I could’ve easily believed that ghostly outline belonged to the long-lost Eastern Cougar. Since that time, I’ve seen dozens of fishercats—one not far from my home less than a week before writing this article. Further, Dad being a coon hunter since the age of fourteen, and both of us spending thousands of hours in the woods at night during winter, Dad goes on to note you’d think we (or someone else) would’ve come across cougar tracks in the snow at one point. But we haven’t. So, we can’t point to definitive proof the Eastern Cougar exists in the forests of Upstate New York. That said, every year it seems, somewhere in the world, a species long thought extinct ends up rediscovered in some remote location. Who knows? Perhaps some dark night in these woods, a loud, feline scream might break the silence and make you wonder if the Eastern Cougar yet roams these hills. Works Cited Alvarez, Bianca, “Where Did the Phrase ‘Knock on Wood’ Come From?” Readers Digest.com.. www.rd.com/article/knock-on-wood-meaning. Feb 15, 2023. Web. Accessed July 3, 2024. Brown, Stacy M. “Fishercats return to Pocono Forests” Pocono Record. www.poconorecord.com/story/news/2016/06/10/fishercats-return-to-pocono-forests/27959116007/#:~:text=They%20were%20reintroduced%20to%20 Pennsylvania%20in%201994%20after,the%20north%20central%20region%20in%20the%20United%20States. June 10, 2016. Web. Accessed July 3, 2024. “Connecticut mountain lion 'crossed US' before death” BBC.com. www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-14303496. July 27, 2011. Web. Accessed Jul 3, 2024. “Eastern Cougar Sightings” New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. www.dec.ny.gov/nature/animals-fish-plants/eastern-cougar/sightings. Web. Accessed July 2, 2024.
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