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The ecological site conceptual framework evolved over decades of field observations by soil scientists and rangeland specialists in the western United States. Today, ecological sites are being developed for all regions of the U.S. by the Natural Resources Conservation Service-Soil Survey Division and numerous partner agencies and groups. In the eastern U.S., relatively few soil and vegetation relationships have been identified using the ecological site framework compared to the semi-arid rangelands of the west, and the feasibility of ecological sites for natural resource management in temperate regions is yet to be convincingly tested. We present initial efforts to develop ecological site concepts on a broad scale for the frigid region of New England in the northeastern U.S. As a basis for ecological site concept development, we used existing soil catena concepts-which classify related soils based on pedogenic processes, lithology, soil texture, and drainage class-to target till soils on two catenas in Maine. We analyzed soils and vegetation data collected at over 200 plots in 2015 using a combination of summary statistics, multivariate analyses, and tacit knowledge. Our results suggest that patterns between soils and vegetation are not only apparent in the catenas studied, but highly predictable. Based on this initial work, we expect that the ecological site framework will be successfully applied to the frigid till soils of New England, and that upcoming efforts by the NRCS and partners to develop ecological sites in the eastern U.S. will produce ecological information comparable in value to the ecological site descriptions of western rangelands.