As autumn gives way to early winter in the foothills of the Allegheny Plateau, lingering leaves break from the branches of sycamore, maple, and oak trees bordering French Creek as it winds through northwestern Pennsylvania. Thistles and weeds along the creek’s edge shed their foliage as well, arranging themselves into bouquets for a final, desiccated display before storms and deep snow bury their remains.

This part of Pennsylvania has remained largely isolated from the population growth and increasingly dense network of roads, towns, and commerce that dominate most of the eastern states. These foothills preserve a striking biodiversity of flora and fauna. The creek forms a natural boundary between eastern and midwestern states and their bioregions in this rural country, where the land flattens westward into North America’s interior plains.

This setting lies along the property’s edge of the former Riverside Inn, the last of Cambridge Springs’ Victorian-era resorts, which a 2017 fire finally destroyed. Today, the resort community has settled into a quiet, out-of-the-way place. Here, the natural landscape renews itself to its original state along the banks of this tranquil, meandering creek.