Category: Outdoors

Monarch Festival studies migration to Mexico

This year’s New Hampshire Monarch Festival will be a treat for butterfly enthusiasts.

“We’ll have science stations,” said festival coordinator Amira Provost, “and we will be doing a butterfly release and some tagging, including Monarch Watch sticker tags as well as the latest nanotags from Cellular Tracking Technologies, which they officially released last year. I’m super-excited about the data [we are collecting from these tags]! Then we have two other tags that we will feature at the festival, where we will tag the butterflies. They are Bluetooth-capable and solar-powered, so they can actually last longer than the life of the butterfly. And the information that is uploaded into the app is uploaded in real time, so you can actually track every ping on a map, where this individual butterfly is going. It is just phenomenal, the stuff scientists are learning from just these little, bitty, new nanotags. I’m working with New Hampshire Audubon to do a test tag a couple of days before the festival.”

Because all monarch butterflies migrate to the same location in Mexico each year, this data will be invaluable, Provost said. After years of population decline, Provost said, the numbers of monarchs have gotten stronger in recent years.

“In the 1980s and ’90s the monarch population had peaked. It was really, really high, then suddenly in the late 1990s and early 2000s, all of a sudden, we saw this huge drop in population. Between illegal logging [in Mexico], pesticide use and the loss of habitat, there was a triple whammy of stuff that happened to the monarchs.” One of the most serious threats to the butterflies though, Provost said, was the loss of milkweed across North America.

“Milkweed is the only host plant for monarchs,” Provost said. “So, they lay their eggs on milkweed exclusively — any species of milkweed — and the caterpillars only eat that. There’s an international effort to create more fueling stations with nectaring flowers and milkweed. We’re going to be giving away free milkweed seeds at the festival and just bringing attention to conservation efforts and research that is going into the monarchs to help stabilize and bring up their populations.”

The Festival will have activities for kids including a craft station and a “pollinator passport,” Provost said, “so they can go around and add stickers from the different science stations and some of the vendors. And once they fill up their passports, they can go get a prize. We will also have more than 25 vendors and artisans, and we’ll have food and beverages.”

“The festival was started years ago at Petals in the Pines in Canterbury,” Provost said. “And for the last few years I had been helping them with a science station. I would talk about community science and test butterflies and take measurements of their wings and do little demonstrations. In 2024, at the end of the season, [Petals in the Pines owners] Jim and Donna Miller said that they were retiring and they asked me if I wanted to take over. So last year was the first year I ran the festival.”

Windy weather at the new location prevented many butterflies from attending, Provost said. At the Monarch Festival’s new location in Belmont, that should be less of a problem.

Butterfly fans can be exuberant in their enthusiasm, and the Monarch Festival will encourage that.

“Any attendee, of any age,” Provost said, “if they are dressed in a butterfly costume or dressed as an appropriate pollinator, will get in free.”

The 14th New Hampshire Monarch Festival
When: Saturday, Aug. 22, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Tioga Pavilion in Belmont Village, 18 Mill St., Belmont
More: Adult tickets are $9.31 and children’s tickets are $6.11 through the festival’s website at nhmonarchfestival.com.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Battles and more reenacted at History Alive 2026 in Hillsborough

“We give people a chance to experience history, first hand,” said Traci Blain, one of the organizers of Hillsborough’s History Alive event happening Saturday, Aug. 15, and Sunday Aug. 16. “It’s like walking through a time-line.” This includes history from the Roman Empire to World War II, she said. “We [stage] different battle scenarios as well as open field cooking — how that worked during the French and Indian Wars. There are demonstrations of apple cider making, and gold panning. We have two authors coming. Marek Bennett is a comic book author who writes books about the Civil War. And we have another Civil War author coming, who writes … novels about the Civil War.”

History Alive is a yearly two-day event put on by the Hillsborough Historical Society. Re-enactors present different periods in American and European history, and guests can walk through and experience some of what life was like in those time periods.

“It’s a sort of total immersion in times that have passed us,” Blain said. “You can see the full sort of setup of a settler, what a settler might look like, who are the folks that sold to the guys on the field. The Vikings will show you how they make chain mail, and they will show you how they engaged in the battle. The company in the back, Black Spear, will show you how to shoot an arrow and what that looks like, with a bow and arrow, from medieval times. In the Civil War, they’ll show you a full battle out on the field, and we have a cannon that goes off, which is very loud across the valley. That’s pretty amazing. And this year we actually have both sides of World War II, and they’ll be doing a battle as well.”

Historical re-enactors have a reputation for meticulous attention to detail, Blain said. “It’s folks from all over the world and they’re very dedicated to each of their ‘realms,’ if you will, and they’re very accurate. They all live for the weekends when they are part of that year they’re portraying. My son and I are actually part of a Civil War unit as one of the organizers. We got involved helping to organize History Alive about three years ago when it was sort of losing steam because it had lost some volunteers. We got involved to help out, organize, and got hooked. My son fell in love with the event when we started helping with it. And it’s been great ever since. We’re part of the Third Maine [Civil War infantry unit]. They don’t generally join us this weekend, but we will be in full dress. My son is 16. He started as a drummer boy and has moved up to the infantry.”

History Alive will take place in two locations, Blain said, in Kemp Park and on Jones Road. “Our Kemp Park event will also be open on Saturday. And that is about Hillsborough history, by the river. And that’s only on Saturday. But Saturday and Sunday is the event. The $10 charge to get in — for adults only; kids are free — lasts all weekend. So you only have to pay once. And you can see all the events.”

Blain said History Alive’s immersive quality makes it different from many other historical festivals.

“It’s really fun to learn all about the different eras and that you can sort of walk through time and see things change, from tent structure to equipment, to fighting with swords to fighting with guns. You can see that progression as you walk through the event itself, which is one of the few places you can do that. The big demonstrations are mostly conflict scenarios — they are what folks like to watch. It’s a crowd-pleaser. But it’s also the smaller demonstrations about cider press and how to cook a whole chicken over a fire. It’s also really interesting to learn because there are all sorts of skills that have gone by that these folks have picked up and learned to do.”

History Alive 2026
Where: In Hillsborough, on Jones Road and in Kemp Park
When: Saturday, Aug. 15, and Sunday, Aug. 16.
More: Admission is $10 for adults, free for children. See historyalivenh.org for a schedule.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The annual New Hampshire Antiques Show returns

This weekend’s Antiques Show is the highlight of the year for the New Hampshire Antiques Dealers Association. According to spokesperson Laura McBrien, this annual event presents a unique opportunity for antiques dealers to connect with buyers and with each other.

“There are more than 60 exhibitors who come from all over the country to present their wares, anything from folk art to fine porcelain to paintings and prints,” McBrien said. “It’s all from the 1800s — Americana, glassware, metalware, pottery, all kinds of stuff. And each of these exhibitors have unique collectors who tend to follow them.”

With antiques, McBrien said, the story behind an object is often as important as the object itself.

“It’s a piece of history when you’re at this show,” she said. “It’s almost like a history lesson — when you walk past the dealers’ booths you can hear the exhibitors talking to the collectors, telling them about the piece that they’re interested in. It’s fascinating”

Almost all the antiques at the show are American in origin, McBrien said, and date largely from the 19th century, but beyond that, most dealers have a particular area of specialization. “They have certain collections or types of things that they tend to buy. They buy specifically with the show and certain customers in mind. They do restock throughout the show, so throughout the four days you could see different pieces. You get a free readmittance when you purchase a ticket, so you could literally come back and see different things each day.”

McBrien said there are particular dealers whose antiques she looks forward to seeing each year. “There are certain booths that I always love to go and look at. Thomas Longacre Antiques have a lot of Christmas ornaments. That’s something that they specialize in. It’s really fascinating to see all these ornaments from the 19th century. I really love weathervanes and a lot of glassware. There’s jewelry. Everything is just so well-made, nothing you see now.”

The New Hampshire Antiques Show can be prestigious for dealers, McBrien said. “It’s iconic to be able to have a booth there. They don’t come up very often. Obviously, we only have so many and you have to be a member [of the New Hampshire Antiques Dealers Association]. You can see the list of all the members on their site. It’s pretty impressive. … If you’re under 30, you get in the show for free. because they’re trying to appeal to a generation that isn’t used to investing in furniture.”

The 69th Annual New Hampshire Antiques Show
When: Thursday, Aug. 6, and Friday, Aug. 7, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday, Aug. 8, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Doubletree Expo Center, 700 Elm St., Manchester, 625-1000
More: Admission is $15 on Thursday, $10 on Friday and Saturday. Visitors under age 30 receive free admission with a valid ID. All paid admissions include complimentary return visits throughout the weekend. Visit nhada.org.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.