West Virginia officials have placed restrictions on the disposal and transport of deer carcasses in two more counties in response to a disease.
The state Division of Natural Resources says in a news release the restrictions start July 1 in Berkeley and Mineral counties. The restrictions are already in Hampshire, Hardy and Morgan counties.
The restrictions are designed to combat the spread of chronic wasting disease, which is concentrated in brains and spinal cords of infected deer. There are exceptions, including finished taxidermy mounts and meat that has been boned out.
The statement says the disease was found in two road-kill deer in Berkeley County and one sick deer in Mineral County.
The disease has been detected in nearly 350 deer since 2005, nearly all of them in Hampshire County.
West Virginia governor John Jacob died in Wheeling on November 24, 1893, at age 63. The Hampshire County native was the first governor born within the borders of what would become West Virginia and, in 1870, became the state’s first Democratic governor.
During Jacob’s first term, Democratic lawmakers rewrote the state constitution, restoring full political rights to West Virginians who had fought for the South during the Civil War. The new constitution also lengthened the gubernatorial term from two years to four and prohibited governors from serving two consecutive terms. This latter change didn’t apply to Jacob.
In 1872, he won re-election, though as an Independent rather than a Democrat. That year, the Democratic Party nominated industrialist Johnson Camden instead of Jacob. Some Democrats, however, joined forces with Republicans, who backed Jacob rather than nominate their own candidate. After a bitter campaign, voters preferred Jacob’s reputation for protecting the state’s interests over Camden’s connections to big business. Jacob’s six full years in office made him the state’s longest-serving governor until Arch Moore served eight years a century later. Jacob is also the only governor elected as an Independent.
The U.S. Department of Education has named three schools in West Virginia as 2017 National Blue Ribbon Schools.
The department announced the awards Thursday for 342 schools nationwide.
The West Virginia schools are Colliers Primary School in Brooke County, Flemington Elementary School in Taylor County and Slanesville Elementary School in Hampshire County.
The program that began in 1982 recognizes public and private elementary, middle and high schools that are either high performing or have raised student achievement to high levels.
The schools will be acknowledged at a ceremony in November in Washington, D.C.
In Hampshire County West Virginia, there is a small mountain ridge called Ice Mountain. Historical records suggest that, years ago, ice could be found here, even in the heat of summer. I recently visited Ice Mountain to find out if ice could still be spotted, and to check out the rare plant species that have existed here since the last ice age.
The hike begins at the base of Ice Mountain.
Aside from the occasional car, the town of North River Mills is quiet. An old white house, with a wooden porch, is draped in the shade of three sugar maples. Across the street is a red barn that was built in the 1700s.
I’m already dripping with sweat as I enter the forest and begin the hike.
My guides are Rodney Bartgis, who recently retired from the West Virginia Nature Conservancy, and Mike Powell, who now works as the land steward for the Nature Conservancy, a non-profit group that owns Ice Mountain and manages it as a nature preserve.
Visitors are allowed to hike here, but only if they’re accompanied by guides. Several trained volunteers take people on about 125 guided hikes a year.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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Rodney Bartgis
As we enter the forest, Bartgis points to one recent change to Ice Mountain. Small ferns and other native plants are being crowded out by an invasive species, Japanese stiltgrass.
He says stiltgrass is usually spread when visitors hike off the path, accidentally bringing the plant with them on their shoes or clothes.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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oak fern, one of the rare plants that grows on Ice Mountain
Garlic Mustard, and even tasty wine berries are also invasive.
“I always encourage visitors to Ice Mountain and other places like this to eat as many wine berries as you can,” said Powell.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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Dwarf-dogwood, or bunch berry, another one of the rare plants that grows at Ice Mountain
Powell’s job includes organizing a few events each year to help get rid of some of the invasive plants to the forest.
“They’re just spreading faster than we have the ability to control them.”
And this means the weeds are beginning to creep closer to the part of Ice Mountain where most of the rare plants live.
Deeper into the forest, the canopy of trees grows thicker. Pine trees and rhododendron crowd the edges of the trail. There’s more wildlife too.
As we hike along a creek, ferns, white pine and hemlock trees replace the invasive stiltgrass we saw earlier.
After about ten minutes, we pass our first ice vent. Actually, I feel it before I see it. Beside my leg I feel a breath of cool air, like a refrigerator door is open. Then I see dozens of ice vents that vary in size. Some are as small as my hand. Others I could stick my head into. It’s kind of like a honeycomb, with all these little holes in the hillside rocks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBUUCESehms
I go closer to one of the vents and put my face beside the cold air, and in a flash of inspiration, I put a can of seltzer water a few feet in to cool down.
These ice vents probably formed thousands of years ago, at the end of the most recent ice age. Extreme, repeated temperature fluctuations between seasons likely cracked open the sandstone rocks in this mountain, creating crevices and holes as far down as 50 feet.
Bartgis explains that water there freezes in the winter and it’s so well-insulated that the mountain creates this underground refrigeration effect year-round.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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One of the ice vents at Ice Mountain
“In the winter water can get down underneath those rocks and gets trapped. And when it’s cold it can freeze. So water is able to move down through the rocks. Cold air can also sink into those rocks.”
Today, you can’t find ice after April or May.
But years ago, it never melted, even in the summer.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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One of the larger ice vents at Ice Mountain
“So ice mountain was popular as a place for people to come make ice cream at least until the 1920s maybe until the 1930s,” said Bartgis.
As the years go by, Ice Mountain seems to lose its ice earlier and earlier each spring.
“It suggests that we’re seeing change here,” said Powell. “What that change is associated with it could be a couple of different things, but we don’t think we’re seeing ice accumulation in here as much as in the past.”
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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Mike Powell, land steward for the Nature Conservancy
Geologists haven’t decided if climate change is responsible for the declining ice, or if it has something to do with people no longer carving out openings in the ice vents.
Whatever the causes might be, the good news is that rare plants that have lived here for thousands of years are still thriving, and for now, the invasive species like garlic mustard and stiltgrass haven’t moved into this part of the forest.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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Saint John’s Wort
Just a few feet from the largest ice vent are a handful of rare plants that Bartgis points out.
“This little plant here, some people call it a dwarf dogwood, some people call it a bunch berry. This is one of those northern plants that comes south through the mountains. In West Virginia where you’d normally go to see it would be somewhere like Dolly Sods or Spruce Mountain but here it is growing fairly commonly around these ice vents.”
There’s also wild rose, partridge berry, oak fern, and a weird sounding plant called skunk currant.
But the crowning jewel of Ice Mountain is the twin flower.
“When it’s in bloom, it will have two lovely flowers that dangle. It’s a very pretty plant,” said Bartgis.
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When plants like twin flowers first appeared in this forest, ancient animals lived in these mountains.
“The other things that were living here with the twin flower were cariboo, and muskox, maybe even grizzly bears.”
Bartgis said he loves visiting places like Ice Mountain to see rare plants that mostly only grow in faraway places like Alaska, or Russia, or thousands of years ago.
“I get to see things that otherwise I would have to be 1000 of years away in time or thousands of miles away in distance to see… here in West Virginia.”
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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The hike back, through rhododendron bushes
Before we head back, I go to check on my can of seltzer water.
The temperature inside the ice vent is in the mid-40s. My water tastes amazing.
Ice Mountain is open to the public, but only by visitors accompanied by a guide. To schedule a tour of Ice Mountain, please call (304) 496-7359, or contact Steve Bailes, a trained guide with the Nature Conservancy.
On September 15-17, the community of North River Mills will host a string band jam.
This story is part of a series, called Hidden Gems of West Virginia, discovering natural wonders and exploring the outdoors. You can hear more from this series later this month on Inside Appalachia.
If you’re out-and-about West Virginia bookstores or gift shops this Christmas, you may come across a coffee-table book set titled, Panhandle Portraits: a Glimpse at the Diverse Residents of West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.
The two-volume set features 77 portraits of people and groups in the 8 Eastern Panhandle counties – Berkeley, Grant, Hampshire, Hardy, Jefferson, Mineral, Morgan, and Pendleton.
Author & Photographer Katherine Cobb is originally from California, but 25 years ago, she followed a friend out to West Virginia and never left.
Cobb lives in Jefferson County and works as a columnist for the Martinsburg Journal. Two years ago, she published her first novel, and now Panhandle Portraits.
Statement from Katherine Cobb:
“I wanted to show the breadth and depth of West Virginians. We have such an interesting population, both people who have lived here for several generations and others who arrived at various junctures but who have made a significant contribution in some way,” said Cobb. “It’s also no secret West Virginians are often negatively stereotyped, and I find that frustrating. The people here are like anyone in any other state. I enjoyed putting something positive about our citizens into print, and putting something positive into the world, period. There’s so much negativity and tension this past year — this is something that will make people feel good when they open it up.”
Panhandle Portraits is available for purchase at select bookstores and gifts shops across the state. It is also available on Amazon.
The founder of a Hampshire County company faces up to three years in prison after pleading guilty to a tax charge.Jolin Concrete Industries, Inc. founder…
The founder of a Hampshire County company faces up to three years in prison after pleading guilty to a tax charge.
Jolin Concrete Industries, Inc. founder and majority owner Joseph H. Frye admitted in federal court that he understated the company’s taxable income on an income tax return filed for the 2012 tax year.
U.S. Attorney William J. Ihlenfeld II says Frye also converted corporate profits for his own use.
The 71-year-old Augusta resident pleaded guilty on Monday to filing a false income tax return.
