Have you ever wandered through the woods and wondered who had been there before you?

In Massachusetts, many parks and trails have been
carved out of historical sites. Author Alison O’Leary, an award-winning journalist and coauthor of the Appalachian Mountain Club’s new guide Best Day Hikes Near Boston, will share her favorites through this hour-long virtual program. 

Using maps and historic photos, she describes several
day trip destinations with historical significance and interesting features in Massachusetts. Special effort is made to include varying levels of difficulty (flat and easy to steep and challenging) and variety of scenery. 

These sites include:

-A former rubber factory overlooked in the
woods; 

-Contributions of the Roosevelt-era Civilian
Conservation Corps (CCC) to our favorite parks; 

-Offbeat tales of local residents;

-Sites of former grand estates (and tales of
the owners).

Best Day Hikes Near Boston (AMC Press 2017) is the second hiking/travel book O’Leary has published; her first was Inns & Adventures: A History and Explorer’s Guide to New Hampshire, Vermont, and the Berkshires, coauthored with Michael Tougias (OnCape Publishing 2015). 

Their other coauthored nonfiction book is So Close to Home: The True Story of an American Family’s Fight for Survival in WWII. In 2017 she won the Silver Charlie Award from the Florida Magazine Association for history writing. For more information see www.alisonoleary.com.

Registration is required.  Participants will be emailed Zoom login info the day before this program.

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Norfolk Public Library.