photo of pine trees

About the headwaters

The Taghkanic Headwaters has numerous large, forested areas that provide many benefits to the community. Forests help maintain water quality and quantity in the Taghkanic Creek, which in turn supports clean drinking water in Taghkanic, Hillsdale, Claverack, and Copake, as well as the City of Hudson.

Within the Taghkanic Headwaters, there are currently some larger forested areas that support varied wildlife habitats, including healthy forested wetlands and habitat for rare species.

Taghkanic Headwaters’ forests are part of a larger corridor that extend across multiple states, playing an important role in maintaining regional forest connectivity, as part of a crucial wildlife linkage that connects the Hudson Highlands, the Catskill Mountains, the Green Mountains in Vermont, and beyond. This corridor will only become more important as the climate changes.

The lands and waters described in this plan are located on the ancestral homelands of the Mohican people, who are the Indigenous peoples of this land. Despite tremendous hardship in being forced from here, today their community resides in Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We acknowledge all Indigenous peoples who inhabit the Upper Hudson Valley in the past and present, including the Mohican, Munsee, Schaghticoke, and other Algonquin-speaking people, generations of whom stewarded the lands and waterways of this region. We pay honor and respect to their ancestors past and present as we commit to building a more inclusive and equitable space for all.

Language provided in part by the Stockbridge-Munsee Cultural Affairs Department.