LongWoods Preserve

While this preserve was enchanting before the sculpture show, it has since become a wonderland for art. You can wander short, easy, flat trails through forest, fern carpets, and fields to encounter the twenty-three sculptures in the show “One Less Traveled.” The 54-acre gallery includes playful, beautiful, abstract evocative, colorful pieces, each reflecting the environment in its own way. The “biennial exhibition highlights artists using a wide range of mediums whose work embodies whimsy, wonder, positive energy, fantasy, and exploration.”

You’ll find one of the two trailheads behind the restaurant and wedding venue Wander, where it first crosses a meadow before entering a mixed forest that brightens up as you head toward the East Branch of the Piscataqua River. The forest was filled with the song of chestnut-sided and black-and-white warblers on a spring day. A short stretch of trail brings you along a high bank where you can see the winding river and its muddy waters.

The Chebeague & Cumberland Land Trust says this protected area includes a six-acre floodplain with many species adapted to grow in occasionally flooded areas, like American elm, green ash, and red osier dogwood.

Directions: The preserve is at 76 Longwoods Road (Route 9), approximately two miles south of the main intersection in Cumberland Center. Drive down the driveway and park either at the first trailhead kiosk you’ll encounter on the right, by the side of the road, or continue to the large parking lot for the restaurant. Look for the trail kiosk to the side of the building; the trail heads out across a field.