Cowanesque Valley Outdoors Festival

   Tioga County, known to the Native Americans as "where rivers branch",  is in the heart of the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania. The second biggest county in Pennsylvania, it is larger than the State of Rhode Island.  Often referred to as the Endless Mountains, this region contains a spur of the Appalachian Range.  With three distinct ridges, running east to west, rivers and streams define access northward.  Thus, Tioga County is also often called Headwaters Country.  

    Bird watching along these waterways has become a popular pastime.  Besides many kinds of ducks and geese, Kingfishers, Great Blue Herons, Osprey and Eagles can be found in Tioga County.  Beavers build lodges and dams on the smaller streams and runs.

   Pine Creek starts in the uplands, flows through Broad Meadows,  then cuts for over 40 miles into the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.  It is the longest "stream" in Pennsylvania. First used by the Native Americans as a route south as far as North Carolina and west to the Mississippi, Pine Creek became a major route for settlers.  Lumberjacks used it in flood stage to float their huge rafts of logs to Williamsport, then on to Harrisburg and even Baltimore. Now folks float the creek from Ansonia to Jersey Shore. Using the old railroad bed, you can hike, travel by horseback or bike for miles through the The Gorge, the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.

   The Tioga River is one of the few rivers in all of the U.S. that flows north.  Cutting its own valley, the Tioga flows into the Chemung and Susquehanna River System that ends up in the Chesapeake Bay.  You can still find arrowheads and pottery from the Native Americans in sites along its banks.   The Great Iroquois Nation used it as a major artery to control the tribes to the east and south. The White Man had few ways into the Northern Tier but the Tioga provided a direct route to Painted Post/Corning from Liberty. The English, the Revolutionaries and even the Civil War Northerners used the path it cut through the mountains.  Seven lakes in the region and some of the tallest mountains in the Northern Tier along the Tioga provide a scenic day drive.

   The Cowanesque River, known as "long island" to the Seneca Nation, runs almost precisely west to east and cuts the most northern valley across Tioga County.  Once considered part of the Forbidden Trial, the Cowanesque Valley is dotted with small, picturesque towns. Founded by intrepid settlers about the time of the American Revolution, these backwoods- men fended off Indian attacks, isolation and predators such as the cougar and wolves.  Now, beautiful Victorian homes remind visitors of the Great Boom of the 1890's. 

    As you drive along the byways of Tioga County now, beautiful forests cover most of the mountains with apple, cherry, walnut, maple and red and white pine trees.  But prior to lumbering in the area,  dense forests of white pine and hemlock created such a thick canopy, the region was known as the Black Forest.  Indians stayed to the open waterways and the few white men that ventured in were overwhelmed by the task of clearing trees that stood over 200 feet tall, with trunks so thick, it took three men holding hands to span their diameter.  Now these forests shelter black bear, coyotes, deer, elk, and mink.  Some of our deer are piebald, a phase of brown and white, unique to the Pennsylvania/New York area. Fishers, a large, rare, sleek cousin to the badger, have been reintroduced.

   It is not uncommon, sitting on your porch in Tioga County in the evening, to be visited by deer making their way to a water source in the valley.  Topped only by Wisconsin, Pennsylvania boasts the biggest black bears, on average of all the United States.  The environment, with its heavy mast crops,  produces a "gorilla bear".  Each season, Tioga hunters bring in a few of these super bears, weighing over 600 pounds.  With three large, designated Game Lands,  Tioga County can satisfy any hunter's dream for a trophy buck, bear or turkey.