When long-time journalist John Kostrzewa left the Providence Journal in 2017 after decades on the job, he planned to retire. But he found himself feeling like there was more to do. John is an avid hiker, and a few years after leaving the Journal he came back to write a column called Walking Rhode Island. Then he published a book by the same name featuring forty of what he calls “the most scenic, natural, and historic trails in the state.” Morning host Luis Hernandez talked with Kostrzewa about the book, and a few of his favorite hikes for the fall.
TRANSCRIPT:
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Luis Hernandez: How do you describe this book to anybody who hasn’t read it? How’d you put it together?
John Kostrzewa: Yeah, it’s a basic guide to hiking in Rhode Island. So, after I left the Providence Journal in 2017, I started to hike for exercise, both physical and mental after all those long years at the journal. And I enjoyed it so much. I continued to hike two or three times a week. After a while, during the COVID winter of 2020, When I was out hiking in the woods, I realized there were many first-time hikers out there. If you remember, our governor told us, “take it outside,” and we did. And I looked at all those first-time hikers and said, you know, they look and ask questions just like I did when I started hiking. Wouldn’t there be some value in writing a book to lay out some basic hikes, explain what you need to take with you, give you some trail maps to hike, to help all those first time hikers? So that’s the origins of the book.
Hernandez: So you leave the Journal after all those decades, and as you said you were tired, but I’m wondering what did you want to see for your life moving forward after you left?
Kostrzewa: As I say, as I got out there and started to do the research of the places where I hiked. I was fascinated by what you could learn about Rhode Island just from the trails, just from looking to the right, looking to the left. You can really see how we lived 200, 300 years ago, this great history. You see these great wildlife. You see natural features. You see how the geology changes. And I enjoyed doing the research on all the places where I hiked. And once I did the research, and then did the walk, trying to put that all into words to help the next generation of hikers take the same hikes I did, and really enjoy them as much as I did, and really sort of, explore Rhode Island and see all the best things the state has to offer.
Hernandez: I love how you divided up the book into sections. The categories are family walks, nature walks, urban walks, coastal hikes, and then of course, challenging hikes. You’ve got it set up by length and level. What went into choosing these 40 trails? Cause you’ve been hiking for a while and there’s a lot to see.
Kostrzewa: I decided, as you said, to make sure there was something for everybody. So easy family walks, you know, mile, mile and a half. They’re relatively flat. Then nature walks, a little bit tougher. You’re going to go deeper into the woods, maybe a little bit more up and down over ridges. Then, of course, in Rhode Island, you can’t do a book on hiking without going to the seashore, the coast. There are five or six coastal hikes which will take you along the wonderful shore we have in Rhode Island. Then I wanted to do some urban hikes, and there are some really good urban hikes. Neutaconkanut Hill in Providence is wonderful. The West Warwick Greenway, right through the middle of downtown industrial West Warwick, is a wonderful urban hike. And then there are some tougher hikes you can do in Rhode Island, which gives you some real good, solid exercise.
Hernandez: What is it you really love most about hiking as you’re going out there? You know, is it just the exercise or is it some other connection, something deeper for you that you’re experiencing?
Kostrzewa: Well, that’s a good question. Yeah. I love the physical exercise. It makes me feel better. But equally important is the mental exercise. Again, I’m a little bit older now, and I want to keep sharp. And when you go in the woods, there’s an old idea, you know, you don’t want to be a destination hiker just to get on the trail to get where you want to go, to get there as fast as you can. When you get on the trails, you really want to slow down. You want to stop periodically and look to your left, look to your right, and see what you see. And it’s amazing what you see. If you’re interested in history, you’ll see the old farms, the old foundations, the old sluiceways that the farmers built to quicken the water to run their gristmills and their lumber mills. You’ll see the old cemeteries. By one count, we have 3,500 historic cemeteries there right off the trail. So to me, all that’s fascinating. and you can do it right from the trail, only if you spend a little bit of time to look. And when you see something, write it down, then I come home, do some research, and figure out all these wonderful things about the state’s history.
Hernandez: One of the other things I enjoyed about the book, obviously, it’s the wildlife that you’re going to run into. And, that’s one of the things I’ve been wanting to understand, about what wildlife is here in Rhode Island. And there’s a lot of instances where you talk about birds. I loved one of them in particular, the Great Swamp trek, and you had this encounter, lovely encounter with ospreys.
Kostrzewa: Well, you’re right. So, Great Swamp in South Kingstown State Preserve. It’s a man-made sort of a swamp here with a huge berm that goes all the way around it. And as you walk along the berm, you look up, where there’s some telephone poles that cut across the swamp. And right at the top of the telephone poles are these huge, giant nests. And they’re osprey nests. They’re about five feet wide, huge. And if you look closely at the nests, you’ll see two heads. There’s the adult and then there’s the baby. And again, if you stop, if you pause, if you look and you wait a few minutes, sooner or later, the adult will open its wings, soar from the nest, and fly up into the heavens.
It is absolutely magic, soaring high above you, to the right, to the left, and you can follow them. But then, Luis, after a while, you realize that osprey, which is a fishhawk, is hunting. And as soon as the osprey spots a fish down in the swamp below him, he will turn his whole body and dive straight down towards the water. And just before the osprey hits the water, it’ll turn its whole body around, take out its talons, grab the fish, splash its wings, fly out of that swamp, and carry that fish back to the nest to feed the baby. Again, if you stop, look, listen, take your time, you’ll see all kinds of things like that in the woods, which to me are fascinating.
Hernandez: What are a few of your favorite hikes for the fall?
Kostrzewa: Fall is a great time to hike in Rhode Island. Arcadia, the state management area in South County, 12,000 acres, is a great place for fall hikes. Off 165, you can take the John B. Hudson Trail about a mile, mile and a half to Breakheart Brook and Pond. And you can walk a loop trail all the way around Breakheart Pond, and when the leaves turn color, it is absolutely gorgeous. As you walk along the rim of the pond, you’ll see the rivulets and the streams which feed the pond. There’s little waterfalls there. You’ll get to the northern part of the pond. You’ll cross a wooden bridge where Breakheart Brook comes in to feed the pond. You’ll come back down the other side and you’ll see an old dam that was built, which actually created the pond in the 1930s. There’s a fish ladder there. It is a lovely, beautiful, wooded, colorful fall hike. Absolutely gorgeous. One of many in Arcadia, which is really one of the jewels, one of the gems in Rhode Island. It’s really a wonderful place to be in the outdoors, to be in the woods.
Hernandez: John Kostrzewa, author of the book “Walking Rhode Island,” also the writer behind the Providence Journal column of the same name. John, it’s such a pleasure. I learned a lot today. Thank you so much.
Kostrzewa: Well, Luis, thank you very much. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you, sir.
You can learn more about “Walking Rhode Island” here.
