A flannel-shirted skier gripping a rope pulled by a white horse carves around markers in the snow and flies over a series of jumps.

“That’s the time to beat, folks,” shouts a man in a cowboy hat over the loudspeakers at the Skowhegan Fairgrounds. “I don’t think we’ve seen a sub-25.”

This is skijoring.

When most racers and their horses arrive this morning, the temperature is in the single digits. Some horses are standing outside their trailers in the parking lot, getting acclimated to their surroundings. For animals that haven’t raced before, this may be the first time seeing people on skis or wearing goggles.

Hannah Novaria is riding Kazuki, a tan horse still in its trailer, and will pull her uncle, Bill Poulin. Novaria and Poulin have been racing in the Skijor Skowhegan since its inaugural year in 2019. Just a couple weeks before this race, they finished second in the Topsham Fair Association’s first skijoring event.

Novaria, who grew up and lives in Lisbon, has been riding horses her whole life, but she says nothing compares to skijoring. “I love the thrill of it, the adrenaline rush,” she says. “You get there, and there’s really no care other than to run your course as fast as you possibly can go.”

Typical equestrian events can be competitive and intense, while skijoring is just for fun, Novaria says. It also gives horse riders something to look forward to in the doldrums of winter. And unlike the structured, serious events of dressage and show jumping that Novaria participates in, competitors in skijoring can wear whatever they want—as evidenced by a racer in a red tutu and another in a get-up of metallic gold cape and briefs, tank top, white helmet, reflective ski goggles, gloves, and nothing else.

“As long as you cross the finish line, you’re good,” Novaria says.

The first recorded instance of a person being pulled on ski-like objects happened thousands of years ago in the Altai Mountains of Central Asia, according to Skijoring International, an organization founded in 2012 to promote the sport of equine skijoring. In more recent history, the Sámi people of northern Scandinavia have been harnessing reindeer and riding on Nordic skis for hundreds of years, according to the association.

Equine skijoring reached the United States in the early 1900s, and there are now around 30 racing events held in the United States and Canada each year.

When Skijor Skowhegan held its first race in 2019, it was Maine’s first and New England’s only equine skijoring event. Topsham now has the second.

At the Skowhegan event, horses pull skiers or snowboarders down the 1,000-foot groomed track at up to 30 miles per hour, and racers must navigate a series of gates and—if they’re in the pro division—jumps. Novice and junior novice racers are penalized for missing gates, and pro racers get a five-second penalty for missing a jump or gate. Teams can also earn a half-second deduction off their run time for each of two rings they can grab.

It’s part of the weeklong Somerset SnowFest, a celebration of winter activities in the Skowhegan region organized by Main Street Skowhegan and Lake George Regional Park. Along with skijoring, there is an ice-fishing derby, a kite-flying derby, a downhill kayak race, and a winter triathlon. Hight Family of Dealerships is the festival’s major sponsor, and Baxter Brewing Company sponsors the skijoring event.

The man in the cowboy hat talking over the speakers is Sam Hight, from the family-owned auto dealership group. The master of ceremonies for the event, Hight narrates the action and provides words of encouragement—“DQ, but not DQ in our hearts,” he says after a racer drops the rope on the final three jumps and is disqualified.

Along with the hat, Hight is wearing Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots with spurs. He announces locals he sees in the crowd as if they’re celebrities and then talks to them like they’ve just run into each other at the grocery store.

There are 46 teams competing today, up from 37 the year before and more than double the number of teams in the first year. By the time the pro division begins, the grandstands at the fairgrounds are starting to fill up. Kristina Cannon, executive director of Main Street Skowhegan, says the race has grown significantly since 2019, when around 500 people attended the inaugural event. About 2,000 attendees are here today, including out-of-staters and community members. “It’s something that locals can be proud of,” she says. “We hang our hats on it being one of our coolest events.”

Mary Haley had pitched the idea of the event during her interview with Main Street Skowhegan after seeing the popularity of the sport in Colorado. Haley now contracts with the town revitalization organization to run the event through her company, MXH Marketing. She also helped organize the Topsham skijoring event.

Grace Hilmer, a rider who won the Topsham race three weeks before with skier George Yodice and horse Hildi, first raced in 2021. She recruited her friend and fellow horseback rider Harry Akkerman to join the Topsham and Skowhegan races in 2022. Akkerman says he didn’t anticipate the events being so fun. “When you do that run, it’s like taking some kind of weird drug. You fly by the grandstand, and they just erupt,” he says. “For those 30 seconds, you’re one with the horse.”

2023 Skijor Skowhegan is scheduled for February 25, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Skowhegan Fairgrounds as part of the Somerset SnowFest, which runs February 18-26. | somersetsnowfest.org

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When I mention that I’m about to put on a pair of snowshoes and walk out into the winter for three days, people like to dwell on the danger. It’s true that there are plenty of ways a body can freeze, or suffer harm in the cold. Anyone who’s been in Maine in February knows the precise way the wet Northeast chill cuts through your bones, or how icicles form in your nostrils in the early morning. But what nobody talks about is the peace.

For Mark Lessard, who grew up hunting along the Golden Road with his brother, peace is coming home to a place he used to know. “I’ve forgotten the way it feels to be out here,” he says, though there’s an extra spark in his eyes today, and I can tell he’s starting to remember. For my sister Caitlin, peace comes with a suspension of routine. “The things I’m thinking about on this trip are not the things I think about in the day-to-day,” she says. And she’s right: out in the winter woods, a simplification happens. Instead of, How do I fill my time? the question becomes, How do I care for myself? The answer is kindling a fire, donning a layer, chipping a water hole in the ice, warming boot liners.

For me, it’s the walking that does it. I’ve spent three days packing and planning, second-guessing and packing again, shopping for food, running my hands over the hatchet, the shovel, the first-aid kit, the stove. Everything we need to not die is strapped to our sleds. Once the trailhead is out of sight the hum of snowmobiles along the Golden Road fades, with it goes my unanswered emails, cell phone service, and all the effort it took to get here. The six of us fall quiet. There’s only the rhythmic crunch of snowshoes, the clicking of poles. My breath, a cloud in the icy air. I’m arriving.

We slide through slender birch forests, past lichen-crusted boulders capped with ice. Here, a moose has rubbed his antlers against the bark. There, a crunched spruce branch kicks up citrus on the breeze. Temperature is a familiar struggle: I’m too cold, and then I’m too hot. Cold, hot. I sweat through my shirt, but as soon as I stop to take off a layer, my sweat freezes, and I’m cold again. The snow on the trees brings the sound in close. The world is white, green, gray. It’s the slick red bark of a sapling, the sloping blue-purple ridge of Katahdin.

The land we’re traveling on is the unceded, ancestral territory of the Wabanaki people, the first stewards of the area (who, it feels important to note, have been omitted from the Baxter State Park website). The famed 5,269-foot mountain is sacred to the Penobscot tribe, who named it “Katahdin,” which we translate “Greatest Mountain.” Though every year roughly half of the park’s 60,000 visitors attempt to reach the summit, which marks the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, there are over 40 other peaks and ridges and 215 miles of trails in the park, which were patchworked together through a number of land purchases made by former governor Percival Baxter and donated to the State of Maine in 1931 under the condition that it be kept “forever wild.”

Up until 12,000 years ago, this whole area was buried under a glacier. As the Laurentide ice sheet melted, a boreal forest of spruce and fir grew in its place. A warming climate over the next 8,000 years allowed for the Acadian forest of birch, maple, white pine, hemlock, and balsam that we see today. Back in the present, the sun is dropping behind the mountains, tinting the snow orange. We step carefully across a frozen stream. The trail pitches and rolls gently through the spruces on its way to Kidney Pond, and for one glorious moment I am exactly the right temperature.

We are walking straight toward a snowstorm, and we know it. The meteorologists have been talking about it for days. This is causing a little bit of anxiety in our group, but snow doesn’t bother me. I learned how to live outside in the winter in 2014 when my outdoor mentor, Evan Perkins from Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, asked me to guide a ten-day winter backpacking course with him in the sub-zero Adirondacks. Learning by doing—or throwing myself out of the nest and finding my wings on the way down—has always been my trademark style, but on that trip, I knew there would be less margin for error than usual. My parents, sick with worry, slept worse in their cozy home in the city than I did in the pit we dug out of snow and strung a tarp over each night. Those ten days in the frozen wilderness, the temperature often hovered around minus 14 degrees. But I learned much more than survival from Evan; I learned how to thrive, which really just meant paying attention and taking slow, careful time to attend to the little things. If I tucked my extra clothes and a Nalgene full of hot water down into my sleeping bag at night, I would sleep warm. If I kept my lighter in an inside pocket, it would never freeze. If my socks or gloves got wet, I could hike with them against my stomach to dry them out. I stashed granola bars in my pockets and ate them when I was cold or tired. I learned how to read the weather with my body—when my lips felt dry, or when short gusts of wind blew through, it meant a front was rolling in. Evan taught me how to identify trees without their leaves, and how to use the knowledge of which ones grow near water to help with navigation. I did not freeze. I did not die. I learned how to love the winter.

At Kidney Pond, the accommodations are a few notches up from Evan’s tarp in the snow. We’re staying in a rustic cabin lit by gas lamps and heated by a woodstove. Mark has made chicken tikka masala for dinner, and the sauce drips down our chins as we shovel steaming spoonfuls into our mouths, packing in extra calories in anticipation of a cold night. When we go outside to fetch water from the hole we’ve chipped in the pond, the sky has cleared and billions of stars settle over us like a curtain, glittering somehow brighter in the cold air.

After coffee the next morning, we take a Spikeball net out to the middle of the frozen pond and play, diving into the snow after a little yellow ball, until the sky fills with clouds and the storm rips in. It is, as promised, a big one: fat white snow flurries and howling wind. We strap on skis and snowshoes and walk out into the melee until the visibility drops and our cheeks are numb, then we turn and head for shelter. That night, we encounter the most unnerving task of the entire trip: finding the outhouse 40 yards away in the pitch-black during a blizzard. We have to get fully suited up just to pee. The snowdrifts are chest-high. Then we lie on our bunk beds with our eyes squeezed shut, pretending to sleep as cold, powdery snow drifts through the cracks in the log cabin and settles on our faces.

In the morning, the world looks brand-new, coated in two feet of fresh powder. We stoke the fire and make a plan. If the wind dies down, we’ll cut across the pond; if it doesn’t, we’ll stick to the trees and take the long way back to the car. It calms down just before we’re ready to leave. Sun sparkles on snow as we break trail across the frozen water.

Within every season there is an invitation. Summer in Maine is for action, for movement. It’s salty ocean air and warm lake swims, late-day picnics and a sun that doesn’t quit until nine. Fall is for transition, for soaking up the last of the light, for shedding what we no longer need. Spring stirs us, awakens us, promises us warmth again. And then there’s winter.

The wind has picked up again, but we’re across the pond, over the stream. As we reach our last mile, we pause at drama mapped out in the snow: a weasel trail abruptly interrupted by the imprint of owl wingtips. Our cheeks are flushed, and our eyes are bright. A small part of me is looking forward to a hot shower, but most of me wants to stay. I have spent plenty of cold, gray seasons just trying to muddle through, but somewhere along the way I have become a person who deeply, wildly loves the winter. Winter is an invitation to slow down, to sync up with the rhythms of quiet and dark, to go inward. I can cozy up with fellow travelers over a steaming bowl of dinner or walk out into a white, frozen landscape in search of new reserves of resilience. The challenge is always the same: to turn toward it. To open instead of close.

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The post Searching for Winter’s Gifts in Baxter State Park appeared first on The Maine Mag.

I see them in the sea fog. Just a few surfers out there, and some bundled up people walking on the gray expanse of wet sand, off-leash dogs running ahead. Everyone’s silhouetted in the silvery mist. It’s mid-March, and the marsh grass along the tidal creeks won’t be summer-green for months in the Kennebunks. Trees are bare, and the salt air is so brisk it feels sharp. Forecasts are for flurries later in the week. And I’m leaning into it all. Mud season is underway—no carpet of snow, but you still need boots and sweaters. The frozen ground is thawing, and the scenery and crowds are spare.

These end-of-winter days are also known as “fake spring,” according to a woman at the White Barn Inn, Auberge Resorts Collection, whom I meet a few minutes later, just after photographer Peter Frank Edwards and I check in. She’s right: there’s no sign of new leaves and blooms, but I swear the air smells green with the promise of what’s ahead. Besides, it’s perfectly warm by the brick hearth in the inn’s mid-1800s farmhouse, which is within a half-mile of the ocean, and even closer to Dock Square and the Kennebunk River.

I settle into a chair by the fireplace in the steel blue painted parlor where guests gather. I’m still thinking of that monochrome seascape down at the beach. A quieter scene is just what I’d hoped for on this trip, to better immerse myself in the landmark inn’s coziness, and maybe find some head-clearing peacefulness before the buzz of spring and summer.

Renewal Everywhere

The inn itself is likewise in a phase of renewal. During the pandemic, the original portions of the 150-plus-year-old property underwent a comprehensive design renovation, including the addition of Little Barn, a more casual option to the much-lauded, AAA Five Diamond, Forbes Five-Star dining at the White Barn Inn Restaurant.

Reflecting its evolving history as a saltwater farm, Civil War–era boarding house, ice creamery, and eventual inn, the rooflines of the original farmhouse, additions, and two barns meet in an L-shape set back from Beach Avenue. The tall barn was fully renovated into the White Barn Inn Restaurant by 1973, and actually is painted white on the outside (the main inn’s exterior is blue). Tall windows at the front and rear of the barn let in natural light, so you can already get a glimpse inside when walking up. Even the gray day brings light streaming onto massive vases of flowers and a baby grand piano, white-tablecloth-draped tables, and the original wooden floors, beams, and haylofts above. A large chandelier hangs above the entry beside a well-stocked bar. And because everything’s connected, it’s possible to walk from guest rooms upstairs at the inn to the spa, bar, restaurant, and Little Barn—all without going outdoors.

Shortly after we arrive, we’ve got spirit-free libations in hand and executive sous chef Wilson Suliveras stops by our fireside parlor seats with a tray of mini lobster rolls as a preview—each is a lobster bite on toasted brioche topped with caviar, truffle, and the tangy zip of rice vinegar mayonnaise. Originally from Puerto Rico, Suliveras trained at the Culinary Institute of America in New York and is known to be particularly good at pastas. Now I can’t wait for dinner. We have reservations at the restaurant for the following night. (Since our visit, Mathew Woolf has arrived to helm the kitchen at the White Barn and Little Barn. He moved to Maine from New York City, where he was the executive chef and pastry chef at the Rainbow Room, after beginning his culinary career in London.)

We continue exploring and making ourselves at home in the inn, which has 27 guest rooms, a spa, a pool, and gardens. Interior design firm Jenny Wolf Interiors of New York led the most recent design changes, including new Farrow and Ball paint colors, upholstery and curtains in soft velvets and some plaids, and throws of sheep’s wool. The style is rustic modern, European country estate meets New England. (The inn was recently acquired by Auberge Resorts Collection, which also has resorts in California wine country, the Colorado mountains, and at several Mexico beaches.) Comfort is everywhere at the White Barn, along with interesting details. I’m captivated by the art selections. Vintage and contemporary pieces include historic photographs, large seascape paintings by Frank Handlen of Kennebunkport, and a coastal forest mural on the Little Barn walls by Dean Barger, who has a studio on Mount Desert Island. The dream-like glow of the mural is familiar, and I later learn that I’d seen another of his works on visits to New York City: a Barger mural is behind the bar at the restaurant Le Coucou in SoHo.

Speaking of bars, a bartender is giving a cocktail-making lesson to a couple of guests when I walk past—a concoction with mint leaves and green-tea-infused gin that has everyone smiling and talking giddily. It looks like a good time, and is one of the optional food and drink activities guests can choose from when booking.

By now, it’s late afternoon, and Peter Frank and I have been smelling wonderful aromas from the kitchen since our arrival. We drop our bags in our room, freshen up, and both realize we’d rather stay in for dinner at Little Barn than go out. It’s a tavern-cozy room with soft light on the mural-painted walls and a fireplace at one end. We’re early, and only a few tables are filled, so when a man dining solo nearby says hello, we get to talking and fall into a conversation about travel and food. A corporate executive from Florida, he’s been staying frequently at the inn while checking on the house with guest rooms and a wine cellar that he’s building about a mile away on the oceanfront. He’s ordered the half-chicken, too, and when our orders arrive, we all remark on how perfectly roasted it is, with a bit of crisp to the skin. Peter Frank and I also share a side of turmeric-pickled cauliflower that’s tossed with feta cheese and a campanelle pasta with Bolognese sauce. It’s a terrific first meal, with the bonus of meeting a fellow guest, which makes it more like a small dinner party.

Watching Tides and Waves

Our room is not in the original farmhouse but in one of the White Barn’s newer cottages across the street, perched on a private landing along the Kennebunk River. Soft greens, blues, and sand colors are the palette of the furnishings here, and we leave the blinds open to watch the boats and the river rising and falling with the tides. The inn has stocked the room with snacks and drinks, and there’s wood stacked and ready for the fireplace, which we light after dinner. In the morning a thermos of hot coffee is delivered to the doorstep along with pastries. Breakfasts of made-to-order farm eggs, fruit-oat smoothies, and other specialties are also available in Little Barn. We could relax all morning, but we want to get out and explore.

Near the entrance of the White Barn, we see a group wearing backpacks, and they tell us they’re part of a local walking club nearing the midpoint of a six-mile coastal hike. Their lunch destination is the 60-acre grounds of the St. Anthony Franciscan Monastery on the river side of Beach Avenue, where they plan to unpack a picnic. It’s open to the public, and we’re headed there too, to wander the riverside walking paths and gardens designed by the Olmsted Brothers, landscape architects of the firm founded by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York’s Central Park. There we see tall evergreens framing the stone buildings and hear a variety of busy birdlife, including chickadees, mallard ducks, geese, and towhees.

The misting fog is setting in again, so we take a drive up Ocean Avenue along the rocky shorefront and stop for the view near the sea spout that splashes high above the rocks in a saltwater plume and again at the Walker’s Point lookout in Kennebunkport (compound of the Bush family). We don’t go far, though, and spend much of the day on a slow tour of the rolling, coast-hugging road to Cape Porpoise and back. In the afternoon, inspired by seasonal menus and the Maine outdoors we’ve been observing, we’re tempted by the “Nurture and Nourish” spa offerings at the White Barn: wraps, soaks, and massage treatments, plus special punch cocktails and treats made with ingredients such as local honey, berries, ginger, and maple syrup.

When it’s time to dine again, we’re headed for a lamplit table in the barn, to experience some of the traditions and flavors that have brought the White Barn so much acclaim. The specialness begins as soon as we sit down and get a close-up view of the rooster sculpture on the table—it’s made completely from fine silver cutlery, a work by French sculptor Gérard Bouvier. Each table is adorned with a similar custom piece. (On other tables are the glimmering forms of other roosters and wild-life, including toucans and crabs.) Chris Bayley, our table’s server, shares that it’s his twenty-ninth year at the White Barn, and he explains that the sculptures have been a guest favorite for decades. From a wine cellar of about 500 bottles, he pops open a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne as we settle into the prix fixe menu—guests choose either four courses or a six-course lobster-focused menu. We taste seared scallops arranged with slivers of radish, a creamy butternut squash soup topped with pepitas, and tender tagliatelle pasta with Maine lobster. From a tour of the wine cellar—and a wonderful glass of cabernet franc—to coffees with the S’mores Baked Alaska dessert, it’s a night of indulgence and high service, including a visit from the sous chef, checking in at each table mid-meal.

The next morning, we wake again to Kennebunk views and the sound of gulls. I sense a gentleness outside, another day when the fog rarely lifts. It’s like there’s a hush over the world. Everyone’s awaiting spring—or, like me, reveling in the peace and rejuvenation of these in-between days.

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“There’s a sense of freedom when I go up to the mountains. I always feel connected to myself,” says Zachary McCarthy, the 25-year-old founder and executive director of Inclusive Ski Touring. “To be able to go out and give someone that experience for the first time is really something special.”

In early winter of 2021, McCarthy started a casual meet-up group based around ski touring on Mt. Abram. His idea was to create a welcoming and supportive space for people to try out the sport, ask questions, get used to the gear, and meet others who shared similar interests. If someone didn’t have boots or skis, there was usually an extra pair in the community. But what started as a simple idea quickly snowballed into something bigger. That first year, over 200 participants came out to ski. The following summer McCarthy, seeing the potential for growth, organized the group as a nonprofit, bringing on a board of directors and collaborating with the Mt. Abram ski shop to make rentals available. “If someone wants to join, I want them to be able to come out and join,” he says. In the 2022 winter season, nearly 500 participants came through the program.

Ski touring—also referred to as skinning, alpine touring, splitboarding, or backcountry skiing—is a sport where people hike up a mountain and ski down. Skins attached to the waxy bottom of your skis or splitboard (a snowboard that splits into two skis for the uphill, and connects back into one board for the ride down) provide traction on the way up, and special bindings allow for heel mobility when climbing. At the top, you lock your heel into place for the ride down the mountain. The sport comes with significant barriers to entry. Ski touring gear can be expensive and confusing. Very few beginner-friendly spaces exist, and ski touring comes with an intimidating reputation; it’s often portrayed in extreme videos where athletes scale remote peaks and bomb down dramatic and consequential terrain. Misconceptions about what ski touring is—and who can do it—are common. “Skiing outside of resort settings is something attainable for anyone with some downhill skiing experience,” McCarthy writes on the Inclusive Ski Touring website. It is simply, he says, a means to have adventure and activity. And that adventure can be as easy or as aggressive as you want to make it.

A day with Inclusive Ski Touring goes something like this: you show up at Mt. Abram in the early morning. Gear is available for rent, if needed. A guide gives an overview of the day and a quick safety briefing, any questions are answered, and then you’re off. Summiting the mountain via the 1.4-mile alpine ski trail takes 90 minutes, with an elevation gain of a little over 1,000 feet. Gorgeous mountain vistas greet you at the top, and then you lock in your boots and ski back down, only to turn around and do it all again, if you choose. You’re off the beaten trail, away from the hustle of the resort. There’s an element of adventure, and wildness. Every turn is hard-earned.

McCarthy first fell in love with skiing as a child when his family, who lived in Saco, went in on a condo near Sunday River. At first, it was all about the downhill. But when McCarthy was 12 years old, his neighbor on the mountain, Paul LeBlanc, took his son and McCarthy on their first ski touring expedition, skinning up a mountain and skiing back down. “I always looked at what Paul was doing, and thought it was something so special. It was a different level of adventure than what everyone else was doing,” McCarthy says. “Uphill skiing is all about the adventure. To be able to get out, to get away from other people, to explore—it’s magical.”

More than a decade later, McCarthy still appreciates the support he had getting into ski touring. “I was very privileged to have the opportunities to go out and ski growing up, but even so, it was very hard to get into. Without someone else to show me the ropes and get me into the gear, it wouldn’t have been possible,” he says. While working at a ski shop in the winter of 2020/2021, McCarthy started casually tossing out tour invitations on social media—and people started showing up. He quickly saw the potential to pay that support forward to others. “It was halfway through the season when I realized there was something really there,” he says. “I fell in love with sharing it.”

“I haven’t seen anything else that makes it this easy to try this activity in Maine, and I would not do this on my own,” says Hayley SooHoo, who made the trek from Waterville with her partner, Ben Scharadin, to try uphill skiing with Inclusive Ski Touring for the first time in 2022. “It was unintimidating,” says Scharadin. “I came away with a good taste in my mouth. It was approachable, and I’m interested.”

Approachability is a great starting place, but as the organization’s name suggests, inclusivity is the ultimate aim. “The lack of diversity throughout the outdoor industry is a big problem,” says McCarthy. “We can’t change the industry, but we want to play what small part we can.” During the 2022 season, Inclusive Ski Touring ran six programs tailored for and guided by women, and partnered with Outdoor Afro and Mountain Shadow Adventures to support a tour for BIPOC skiers. “I’ve never seen so many people who look like me out skiing,” says Inclusive Ski Touring secretary Bryce Barnes in Ski Together, a short film created last year about the organization. “I don’t think there was one second of the day when I wasn’t smiling ear to ear.” In 2023, Inclusive Ski Touring leaders hope to create even more spaces for women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ athletes.

“This program is for everybody,” McCarthy says. Though the program is still in its infancy and runs entirely on volunteer efforts, McCarthy hopes to see it reach sustainability. “What keeps me driving right now? It’s the hope,” he says. “This is a passion project. It’s something I want to grow and share with others. If I can get 15 people on skis next year who weren’t touring before, you can’t put a price tag on that.”

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The post This Nonprofit Fosters a Supportive Space for First-Time Backcountry Skiers appeared first on The Maine Mag.

Four English cocker spaniels are running in front of us, blurs of fur and flapping ears disappearing in the woods for a few minutes before reemerging to cross our path. The dogs appear to be following an invisible thread that weaves back and forth through the brush and bare saplings.

It’s late November and barely over freezing. I move the 20-gauge over-under shotgun to my left hand so I can blow warm air on my right, trying to return feeling to my fingers and thumb. We’re about an hour northwest of Bangor, walking on an offshoot of an offshoot that spiders out from Stud Mill Road, a well-maintained gravel logging road that runs parallel to Route 9 from Milford to Washington County.

Jeff McEvoy, the owner of Weatherby’s hunting and fishing camp in Grand Lake Stream, is guiding this trip. He doesn’t have a gun, but he’s armed with a whistle around his neck that he blows to give directions to his dogs—one note to stop, two to move or change direction. McEvoy keeps his eldest dog, Molly, a chocolate cocker spaniel, close because she’s lost her hearing. She isn’t much help, but he still takes her out because this is what his dogs love most: hunting for grouse.

Known by most hunters here as a partridge (or pa’tridge), the ruffed grouse is a plump, brownish gray bird with a ruff of dark feathers around its neck, a black stripe across its tail, and feathers pointing up on its head. It’s the most widely distributed game bird in the United States, but its population has shrunk across the eastern part of the country. Maine is still a stronghold for ruffed grouse, so people travel here every fall to try their luck at shooting the elusive bird.

We’re joined by McEvoy’s son, Carson; client-turned-hunting-buddy David Swayze; and photographer Michael D. Wilson. Swayze is running his own dog, Ellie, a blond English cocker spaniel that’s the daughter of Gus and Curly Fry—McEvoy’s other dogs out with us today—and granddaughter of Molly. English cocker spaniels are flushing dogs, meaning they flush birds, or drive them from their cover. When these dogs catch the scent of a grouse, their nose will be on the ground, and they’ll stop, backtrack, and run in tight circles.

One of the dogs appears to smell something, and suddenly a whoosh of feathers and air shoots out of the brush to our left. Carson, who is walking in front, pulls his gun up and fires a shot, then another. But in a few seconds, the grouse is gone. On our drive in, McEvoy points out habitats that may contain grouse. The forest here is actively managed; trees are regularly harvested, creating early-successional habitat. We’re looking for forests around 10 to 15 years old, with trees as wide as a fist, he says, as he holds up his clenched hand.

Ruffed grouse depend on the food and cover provided by forests that have recently grown back after a disturbance like a cutting or fire. Early-successional species like aspen, birch, alder, and pin cherry tend to grow quickly in areas with a lot of sun, but over time they get taken over by shade-tolerant species like spruce and fir, McEvoy says.

McEvoy has been hunting in this area for decades. He’s seen the forest go through its lifecycles as it’s cut and grows back, all the while waiting for the sweet spots when it’s full of ruffed grouse. “In the moment, an area seems like it will be good forever, but in reality it will only be good for a few years,” he says.

Elsewhere in the eastern U.S., grouse populations have fallen precipitately—at least 50 percent over the past two decades, according to a December 2020 report from the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ Eastern Grouse Working Group. In the mid-Atlantic region, populations have declined by an average of 84 percent, according to the report, which blamed loss of young forests as the primary driver. Development has fragmented and eliminated habitat across the eastern U.S., while a reduction in forestry management, leaving only mature forest in some areas, has further reduced habitat.

Another emerging threat is the mosquito-borne West Nile virus. States like Maine that still have quality grouse habitat (especially true in Maine’s millions of acres of undeveloped North Woods) can rebound from years with high virus numbers, says Kelsey Sullivan, wildlife biologist for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Migratory and Upland Game Bird Program.

How you should shoot grouse is a matter of debate among hunters. Some believe that the only sportsmanlike way to kill a grouse is to shoot it when it’s in flight, but there’s a long tradition of driving logging roads in search of grouse and shooting them as they stand. The cultural divide extends to the nomenclature—there’s a saying that it’s “partridge” if shot on the ground and “grouse” if shot on the wing.

The stereotypes of the out-of-state wing-shooter, decked out in pricey gear with an expensive bird dog and expensive side-by-side shotgun, and of the flannel-shirted road-shooter, with an old 12-gauge and a pickup truck, are both grounded in reality, but most hunters don’t fit neatly into those boxes.

“You’re able to put your wits up against the king.”

Sullivan says the long-argued debate comes down to personal preference. He recently stopped hunting for grouse, but when he did, he would just hunt from the road. “I’m hunting for the food, so I take what’s available to me, whatever means necessary,” Sullivan says. “If you kill something on the wing it is no different than killing it on the road. To me, it’s the same—you’re killing something.”

McEvoy doesn’t have a problem with ground-shooting, but hunting for him is more about working with his dogs and being outside than killing birds. Most of the time he’s guiding—running his dogs for others—and not hunting. “Raising the dogs, living with the dogs, and sharing my passion with the dogs is what really works for me,” he says. “Now it’s rare I even carry a gun.”

Sam Day, an avid hunter who recently joined the Natural Resources Council of Maine’s board of directors, says he isn’t a purist when it comes to grouse. He’s fine with taking one off the road, but that’s not how he usually hunts. Day grew up grouse hunting but didn’t go more than a few times a year until he got his dog, a German wirehaired pointer named Hank, in spring of 2020. Since then, he’s been hunting with Hank as much as possible, 100 to 120 days a year, for a variety of game, including rabbits, ducks, and upland birds. For Day, getting a grouse is just a cherry on top of a day outside working his dog.

If driving down Millinocket logging roads and shooting “road chickens” is one end of the spectrum, hunting with pointing dogs is the other end. While flushing dogs like McEvoy and Swayze’s spaniels try to get the birds to take to the air, pointing dogs find the grouse and then freeze, or point, with one paw tucked to the side and nose aimed toward the bird. The hunter then must approach where they think the bird is and put themselves in a position to shoot once the grouse takes flight. “It is by far the most technical,” Day says. “Your dog needs to be in their greatest state of critical thinking. To have success they need to analyze their senses in a more nuanced way than anywhere else.”

One of Maine’s most prominent pointing dog experts is Jason Carter. His day job is teaching physical education for Regional School Unit 1 in Bath, but he also runs Merrymeeting Kennels in Topsham, which specializes in breeding and training German shorthaired pointers. He’s a judge for the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association and writes hunting articles for USA Today and other publications. When I told a friend I would be hunting grouse with someone who had German shorthaired pointers, he asked if it was Carter.

The ruffed grouse season runs from the end of September to December 31; most hunters will stop once deer season begins, at the end of October or beginning of November. But, for many bird dog owners like Carter, grouse hunting is a year-round commitment. The hunters are training the high-energy dogs throughout the year, starting when they’re puppies. They’re scouting possible habitats before the start of the season. And, once the season begins, they’re hunting as much as they can and for as long as they can.

“A road hunter is investing in one month,” Carter says. “We’re investing in 12 months.”

Carter’s passion for hunting is based on his love of the grouse, a passion passed down by his mother who, when he was a boy, would pull apart the feathers of birds they shot to show him how to identify the sex. Carter says grouse tend to live in a fairly small area, so they know every possible avenue to escape when you approach them. While the dog stays still as it points to where the bird was, the grouse isn’t going to do the same. You must figure out where the bird most likely is and position yourself to have an unobstructed shot when it takes flight.

“You’re able to put your wits up against the king,” Carter says. “One of the hardest birds to shoot is the grouse. They have amazing survival instincts.”

That’s why Carter feels shooting a grouse in any other way than in flight would cheapen the memory. He was raised to view shooting birds on the ground or in trees as taboo. “There is a lot of value in the process,” he says. “The product of harvesting a grouse is just icing on the cake. We’re more into the process than harvesting the game.”

Carter’s family has had a hunting camp in St. Albans for decades. On former paper company land, the property began as a deer hunting camp for his father, but once his mother and other women started visiting to hunt grouse, everyone else followed suit, and it’s been a grouse camp ever since.

In early December, Carter invited me and Wilson there to hunt with other members of North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association’s Yankee chapter, including Day, whom Carter taught how to train his wirehaired pointer, Hank.

We head out to logging roads to hunt, but before we split up, another hunter, Sarah DeVan, joins us with her one-year-old daughter, Annie, and her German shorthaired pointer, Comet. DeVan and her husband, Stuart, own the 1774 Inn in Phippsburg, and she grew up bird hunting with her parents. When she says she’ll put Annie in the stroller and then grab her gun, I think she’s joking. She’s not, and soon she’s pushing the stroller down the logging road with her gun in hand.

DeVan, who also has a three-year-old son, says Carter taught her how to hunt with her kids because he did the same. When her dog’s collar beeps that he’s on point, she’ll park the stroller and go take her shot. “Being in the woods with them, that feeling of being with your friends and family watching the dogs work, I wanted them to have that from the beginning,” DeVan says.

Carter, Wilson, and I split off to hunt with Carter’s dog, Autumn. Hunting with a pointing dog is different from hunting with a flushing dog because where the dog goes, you go. Instead of running back and forth on the edge of the road like McEvoy’s cocker spaniels, Autumn is going deep into the forest.

The only path we’re following is Autumn’s, and the thick covert of this young forest makes for a challenging hike. After an especially difficult spell of bushwhacking, Carter points out that trees grow toward the sun and create natural corridors. We turn slightly to the left, and I discover he’s right: a path appears in front of us from what was previously a dense mass of trees and brush. “The woods will tell you everything,” he says. “If you walk right, it’s easy.”

At one point, the trees open to an expansive bog. Yellow, elevated tufts of grass stick out from the frozen water and mud and spread out in front of us. “There’s an allure to being out here,” Carter says as he looks out at the landscape. “You’re all alone, and you feel like the only one who’s ever been here before.” He’s right, and as I catch my breath, I think about the journey that brought me to this untouched beauty: leaving my house in southern Maine before the sun rose, driving to Carter’s camp and down logging roads, and following Autumn’s nose through the woods.

We keep walking, and soon Carter’s control beeps. Autumn’s on point. When we move ahead, we see her facing the edge of a massive log—more than 20 feet long and a few feet wide. Carter whispers to me to take a counterclockwise circle around the log so I’ll be able to shoot when the bird flushes from behind it.

As I walk around the log, I feel my heart beating beneath my jacket. My right thumb is firmly pressed against the safety, and my index finger is extended straight against the trigger guard, the shotgun pointed slightly upward, ready to mount it against my shoulder and swing toward the bird.

My ears are alive, and I hear every piece of underbrush and twigs crunching under my Muck boots. My eyes scan the widest field possible while minding the branches and trees around me and trying to keep a clear shooting lane. Then I hear it: the explosion of flapping wings as the grouse takes flight. But it’s coming from behind my right shoulder, not the log in front of me. I spin as I raise the shotgun to my shoulder, sweep the barrel toward the flash of gray, and squeeze the trigger. It’s too late. The grouse escapes by one of its numerous exit points.

When, months later, I talk to Carter about the day, he recounts it as if it happened yesterday. He tells me that hunting is about the process, not the product. For me to have the opportunity to shoot at that grouse took years of Carter training Autumn, and Carter’s decades of experience in the woods. “Seeing that dog work that grouse so well and being able to put you in the position to shoot a ghost of the forest, that’s everything,” he says.

A week after my hunting trip with Carter, I’m walking my dog, a stocky black Lab named Moose, through a nature preserve in southern Maine. The scenery looks similar to the hunt—smallish, bare trees, a thin layer of crunchy snow beneath my feet—and there is no one but me and Moose on the trails.

I think back to that time in the bog and what Carter told me. Despite my years spent exploring Maine’s outdoors, it’s rare that I “feel like the only one who’s ever been here before”—even now, alone in the woods with my dog. No one else is around us, but there are signs of the people who have been here before me: the worn path beneath my feet, the trail markers on the trees, and the cut logs along the trail.

I miss that time cutting a path through the woods with Carter and his dog. Walking through forests where no one has made a trail, guided by an animal’s nose, following the scent of a bird. A feeling of being the first to discover a place. Except for, of course, the grouse.

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The post On the Prowl for the Elusive Ruffed Grouse appeared first on The Maine Mag.

The snow gets deep up here in Fort Kent. On a visit in early March to northern Maine’s Aroostook County, while the Can-Am mushers are still in town after the annual international sled dog race, local residents shovel snow from rooftops before the next flurries hit. A few miles from downtown and from the frozen St. John River, heaps of snow cover the yard outside of the rambling workshop and shed. This is where Brian Theriault keeps the snowshoe-making materials and tools that he and his family have collected since he was a kid in the 1960s.

Another snowstorm is forecast for the weekend. But this afternoon, Theriault is spending a couple of hours with 13-year-old Bret Babin, whose family lives nearby. Babin notes it’s his fifth visit so far to the workshop, where he learns from the master snowshoe maker about the history of snowshoes—and how to craft them of freshly cut wood and rawhide using traditional methods. It’s an apprenticeship made possible through an award from the Maine Arts Commission.

On this day, the two have brought several pairs of snowshoes to a nearby snowbank to examine them in the bright winter sunshine. Looking at them propped in the snow, Theriault talks about their lasting usefulness. “Remember when they found a 6,000-year-old snowshoe in a melting glacier in the Alps?” he asks, recalling a story reported from Italy several years ago.

In Maine it was common for families to make and use snowshoes well into the last century, and the Theriaults adapted their designs from snowshoes made in the St. John Valley by First Nations people and early French Acadian settlers—both cultures that the family descended from. Theriault notes it was snowmobiles that led to a decline in snowshoeing as the favored way of getting around when a blanket of snow covers roadways and trails. (But he still champions snowshoes as the better option: no gas is needed, and you can get to places snowmobiles can’t.)

Babin, who says he’d like to be a game warden one day, attaches a pair of snowshoes to his boots with leather straps and ventures across the untrammeled snow of the sideyard, each footfall breaking a trail. He goes slowly at first and works up to a trot, making a few loops and big figure-eights. Then, his face flushed from the exercise and chilly air, he calls over his shoulder, “It feels like I’m floating.”

That’s good. Theriault, who’s been watching, explains that a well-designed snowshoe should have “excellent flotation” on snow and shouldn’t become weighted down with clumps of snow on the webbing. “You want the snow to go right through,” he says. That way, “snowshoeing is like walking on a cloud. It’s a great feeling.”

Theriault, 65, is the third of 11 children and learned the craft more than 50 years ago working alongside his father, Edmond Theriault, who celebrated his 99th birthday this year and now lives in Scarborough. “My father and I still talk about snowshoes all the time,” says the younger Theriault. Wanting to help preserve the know-how of snowshoe making, the father and son have self-published several highly detailed books and videos about the process, including an illustrated, 278-page volume titled Brown Ash Snowshoes: A North American Tradition that they sell online.

Green, Not Steam

First, find a tree to harvest. That’s the start of snowshoe craft-ing, according to Theriault. He surmises that only about one in a hundred brown ash or white ash trees has the right characteristics: strength, a straight trunk, and the flexibility to be bent into the wooden frames of the shoes. “A good-bending tree is hard to find,” he says, “and it needs to be green wood. We don’t use steam, because if you use green wood, you can bend it.”

This is done by bending strips of the freshly milled wood around a mold and using clamps to hold the bent wood in place. Theriault shows us around the workshop and tools the business has used through the years. There are vices and hammers, drills and metal spikes, and a worktable made from a modified sewing table. Lately he’s been teaching Babin to stretch the rawhide—Theriault prefers rawhide from cattle rather than deer, moose, or beaver. It’s a thicker rawhide that, once stretched, he says is more durable for lacing and knotting around the snowshoe frames and for weaving webbing that’s open enough for snow to fall through.

Among the snowshoes arranged in the deep snow, Theriault points out the two common shapes of traditional snowshoe frames. The cross-country style (also known as the pickerel or Alaskan) is rounded in the front and finishes in a pointed tail at the back; it’s good for breaking trails in deep snow. The popular “modified bear paw” is not as long and is rounded at both ends.

Theriault is passionate about sharing his knowledge. He leads workshops, creates exhibits, and gives demonstrations. And he teaches apprentices like Babin—typically one youth or adult each year. “I want to let people know how to make snowshoes,” he says. “I’m looking to help keep this alive.”

Snowshoes & Snowbirds

Potato fields stretch out to the horizon, buried in white. After the Theriault visit, photographer Peter Frank Edwards and I drive out along Route 1, which follows the St. John River; the Canadian province of Quebec is on the opposite shore. This is one of the snowiest corners of Maine this season, and I’m ready to find a trail to try. There are ample choices. In downtown Madawaska, several men have just parked, pulling their snowmobiles in trailers. “It’s been raining in Freeport, so we made the five-hour drive here,” one man says. “We’ve found the snow.”

I’ve brought a pair of snowshoes that are the modern variety, made of lightweight aluminum and vinyl. After a cozy overnight at the Inn of Acadia in Madawaska—the building was originally built in the 1950s as a convent—photographer Peter Frank and I go for a snowshoe hike on the Four Seasons Trail Association’s property, about a half-mile up one of the town’s hillside roads. He rents a pair of well-worn snowshoes in the lodge for five dollars, and we hit the trails. It’s an extensive network with groomed trails for skiing and narrower woodland trails for snowshoeing. We see several skiers glide past, and a few others on the snowshoe trail.

In my modern, machine-made footgear, I don’t feel the sensation of floating on the snow. In fact, we both sink, deeply, whenever we step off the trail that’s been broken by other snowshoe hikers. But it’s a remarkable excursion—especially in a winter that’s been lacking in snow on the coast. Deer and rabbit tracks weave through the snowshoe trail most of the way, and we cross glades and dip into woods and follow the three-mile Middle Loop trail to higher elevations, passing under birch and spruce trees.

When I begin to hear bird chatter, it sounds almost as if spring itself is awakening. We’ve reached the Bird Feeder section of the Four Seasons Trail system. Several feeders are set up here at an intersection of ski and snowshoe trails. There’s a flurry of wings and beaks and birdsong—and several squirrels foraging the seed hulls scattered in the snow below. I see chickadees, nuthatches, and evening grosbeaks the color of a banana peel. I watch awhile, realizing what a gift it is to snowshoe recreational trails on a singular, snow-deep morning.

“What a beautiful day,” I say to a man trekking up the hill when we eventually make our way back down toward the Four Seasons lodge. He’s wearing snowshoes, too. “Yes,” he says, smiling as he steps. “It’s perfect.”

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The post A Master and His Apprentice Keep the Art of Snowshoe Making Alive appeared first on The Maine Mag.

I have always had this sense that our relationship to the forest needs to be better understood, better explored, so we develop a sense of stewardship and connection to these places,” says Steve Tatko, senior director of Maine conservation and land management at the Appalachian Mountain Club, “so people will invest themselves in keeping them whole.”

This, in a sentence, is Tatko’s life’s work.

Founded in 1876 by U.S. astronomer and physicist Edward Charles Pickering, the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) is North America’s oldest conservation group. Dedicated to the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the outdoors, the organization maintains 1,800 miles of trails from Maine to Washington, D.C. It supports conservation research, advocacy for the protection of lands and waters, a science-based approach to climate change resilience, and initiatives aimed at making nature accessible to everyone. “Our lens has always been using outdoor recreation and education as a tool to develop relationships with places,” Tatko says. In Maine the AMC owns 75,000 acres of forestland—soon to be 100,000—in the heart of the 100 Mile Wilderness. It also operates three full-service lodges connected by more than 90 miles of trails, which provide public access to fly-fishing, paddling, skiing, and hiking, among other recreational activities. Tatko oversees everything from forest management and timber harvests to road construction and from trail infrastructure to watershed restoration, fundraising, and relationship-building with community stakeholders. “If it happens on the land, I’m either out there with the tools doing it or working with the contractors who are doing the work,” he says.

Tatko is the definition of an old soul. Sure, he may be 35, but he grew up in Willimantic, a small town 14 miles as the crow flies from the 100 Mile Wilderness, listening to the stories of his elders—stories about logging and river driving and even the first electric lightbulb in town. He wears leather boots and wooden snowshoes and cooks over the campfire in a cast-iron pan when he’s working in the field. As a history major at Colby College, Tatko studied the socioeconomic history of the Northeast, which, combined with knowledge of geology and indigenous history, informs his complex and layered understanding of the land he’s working to protect. This core-deep understanding of what Maine was—and what it is becoming—makes him an important bridge connecting local communities to the AMC’s conservation efforts. Whether it’s problem solving with rural communities whose identities have been built around traditional timber harvesting or collaborating with Wabanaki tribes on river restoration and other conservation projects, Tatko believes that listening to community voices is essential to getting any real work done. “The Wabanaki have 12,000 years of forest management, and so that’s a central voice to these restoration efforts,” he says. “You’re talking about people who have experience with this place before it was a forest. They literally watched the forest grow up out of nowhere.”

Maine’s AMC takes a two-pronged approach to conservation, balancing responsible timber harvesting with land conservation, recreational opportunities, and community economic development. Since the organization purchased 37,000 acres of forest at the southern end of the 100 Mile Wilderness from International Paper in 2003, they have been working to develop a new model of landownership for the Northeast. Some wonder why a nonprofit dedicated to protecting Maine mountains, forests, and waters would be in the business of cutting down trees. Wood products have been a staple of Maine’s economy for the past 200 years and remain a main source of income for many communities, including those around the AMC’s Maine Woods property. Together with Huber Resources Corporation, a forestry consulting business based in Old Town, Tatko is working to replace the traditional industrial model of forestry, which often focuses solely on wood production at the expense of ecosystems and communities, with responsible forestry, which balances both.

“I don’t think people in Maine realize that our little Acadian forest variant is very rare,” he says. The last intact piece of a larger forest biome that used to extend like a band around this latitude through Europe, Japan, China, and Korea, the Maine woods are a transition zone between the boreal forest to the north and the northern hardwoods and southern Appalachian hardwoods to the south. For 7,000 years this land has been nothing but a forest, which means that habitat connectivity and natural resilience is still present. “This is one of the few places in the world where you can work with natural systems to address climate change,” says Tatko. “That’s what sets Maine apart.”

In AMC’s responsible forestry process—known as late-successional management—trees are cut selectively with the intention of replicating the same diffuse light of the forest that allows for a natural ecosystem to flourish, maintaining ecological diversity and promoting natural regeneration. Old trees are left to grow big and die naturally, increasing the forest’s ability to sequester carbon. Special attention is given to conserving vulnerable habitats and species, minimizing erosion from roads, protecting rivers and streams, and incorporating community concerns into management strategy. Income from forestry efforts and recreation infrastructure such as the AMC lodges supports programming and helps offset the costs of land ownership. Additionally, Tatko is concerned with encouraging the growth of climate-resilient species like sugar maple, yellow birch, and red spruce. “There’s a recognition that red spruce, in a couple lifetimes, might be gone from this forest,” he says. “White pine and oak will transition farther north as the climate warms. But there’s still value in promoting these species. The advance of climate will take time, and we don’t know what the forest will look like without them.”

In the face of a changing world, Tatko sees his role as preserving as much of the forest ecosystem as he can for future generations to enjoy. “There’s a wake-up call for all of us,” he says. “People are starting to realize that the actors have already changed on the stage. But if the stage isn’t here, the play can’t go on at all.” He envisions a future where wood products play an even more central role, one day replacing oil-based synthetics. “We’ve known since World War II that you can make almost anything out of wood that you can make out of plastics,” he says. “That’s a much better climate outcome than continuing to rely on fossil fuels for our clothing, for our insulation, and for our throwaway goods. If we’re going to go wholeheartedly into taking into consideration our material culture and where it comes from, then we need to start thinking about what we do take from the forest, and how to utilize it more efficiently.”

The critical point of AMC’s work is to help people understand why the forest is a resource worth protecting—something Tatko, who grew up nearby, has always understood. He knows every tree by name. When they’re cut, he counts their rings. Walk with him into the woods for an afternoon, and you’ll leave knowing the local history; you’ll start to feel the passion he has for the place he’s always called home. “It was inherent in how people talked to me about the forest, and how people taught me about how it works, that it’s a fragile thing,” he says. “And whether we explicitly state it or not, we have dominion over it. People have converted forest to other uses for generations. I’m just constantly reminded that that sense of dominion over a place creates a barrier, as do constructs around wilderness. Forests shouldn’t be put in a glass box. People’s ability to experience those places is central to their ability to function.”

The AMC encourages adventurers of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds to engage and connect: volunteer for a trail workday or lead a local outing; stay at an AMC campsite, cabin, lean-to, or lodge; paddle one of the wild lakes or fly-fish a running stream. And when you’re out there, take a look at the trees. Late-succession forestry takes nearly a century to reach effect, and Tatko won’t live to see the fruit of his efforts. “This is a really long-term restoration project that I’ll spend my working career on, but it’ll be my successors that will actually see the results,” he says. Yet, he understands his place in history, and how the actions we take today lay the foundation for future generations to have access to the forest and all it provides. “Everybody loves the forest, but I think we don’t realize just how amazingly unique Maine’s forests actually are,” Tatko says. “No one else has this. It’s here. This is our gift to the world.”

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The post Bridging Community and Conservation in the Acadian Forest appeared first on The Maine Mag.

It’s the 1980s in New Harbor. At least, that’s the vibe in the wooden-paneled dining room on a fishing wharf that has been operating as Shaw’s Fish and Lobster since 1988. Perched over the narrow harbor, the classic waterside restaurant has just opened for the season. On a spring Friday the kitchen crew is cooking up lunch orders: lobster rolls, steamed lobsters and clams, platters of french fries, and plates stacked with fried and broiled seafood.

Through restaurant speakers somewhere in the rafters, music from a local radio station is playing—mid-’80s songs by Guns n’ Roses and Billy Idol. Outside, I check out views from a picnic table on the dining deck. A lobsterman is stacking traps on his fishing boat, and a ferry is moored nearby, ready to take tourists to Monhegan Island for a day trip. Afternoon sunlight is barely pushing through clouds, and there’s too much fog to see out to Muscongus Bay.

Back inside, near the order counter and shelves of ocean curiosities that include huge lobster claw shells, I notice a framed Gourmet magazine article from 1984 about the particular deliciousness of Maine lobster from New Harbor. A few steps away, at a separate small cocktail bar, Shaw’s offers four or five beers on tap, including Pemaquid Ale, along with several varieties of island rum and other liquors. According to a faded sign, wine-soaked fruit sangria is a summer cocktail special.

Interrupting the music, “number 131” has just been announced over the speakers. That’s my order. From the counter I lift a tray arranged with a steaming bowl of fish chowder and a haddock Reuben sandwich topped with slaw, Swiss cheese, and Thousand Island dressing, plus a nice-sized wedge of blueberry pie with a flaky butter crust. Hello, summer.

The Lure of Pemaquid

We’re booked at the 1700s Chamberlain House in Round Pond, which, like New Harbor, is one of a handful of villages that compose the town of Bristol on the Pemaquid Peninsula, about 70 miles up the coast from Portland. I’ve wanted to return since a memorable day at Muscongus Bay Lobster two summers ago, when photographer Peter Frank Edwards and I made the drive for Pemaquid oysters and grilled halibut served in steel skillets at a table on the wharf overlooking Round Pond Harbor. It was balmy summertime—one of those long, sweet evenings—and I remember watching the snug, round bay teeming with people on stand-up paddle boards and in dinghies, sailboats, and cruising yachts.

Peter Frank says his attraction to Maine deepened when he photographed the nearby Pemaquid Point Lighthouse about 20 years ago with one of his film cameras. He’s been wanting to get back to the iconic lighthouse, and I’ve never seen it except in pictures. So, after our midday stop at Shaw’s, we continue on down the peninsula beyond New Harbor until Route 32 ends a few miles farther down at Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park, which marks the western entrance to Muscongus Bay. The fog is thicker here, mixing with the cool ocean air, and I pull on a jacket and hat before we park and explore. Beyond a few picnic tables under spruce trees, waves are splashing up in white plumes onto geologic layers of mudstone, sandstone, and granite. It’s a dramatic land-meets-sea scape, with long stretches of linear stone formations lying horizontally below the white-painted lighthouse.

I duck into the coziness of the keeper’s house, where I soon meet Kendrick Wilson, who’s answering guests’ questions at the Fishermen’s Museum housed there. Wilson’s local knowledge is immediately impressive. A former fisher who served in the navy in the 1950s, he was born and raised in Round Pond and recalls childhood stays on Monhegan, ten miles out to sea. The island sits directly southwest of Pemaquid Point across open water, “but you can’t see it today with the fog,” he says. We ask about a huge halibut being hoisted by a man in an old photograph—he knows all of the fishers by name. Wilson then encourages us to take a closer look at the beautiful and complex glass angles of a Fresnel lens that refracts and reflects a bulb’s light so that the beam can be seen by passing boats at great distances. Standing here with the cool fog around us, it’s amazing to consider that the Pemaquid Light, built in the early 1800s, is still in service as a beacon and navigational aid.

At the Chamberlain

After some more exploring, we make our way up the peninsula to our Round Pond lodging at the Chamberlain House, a historic saltwater farm that once spanned about 150 acres on a wooded rise above the harbor.

When I notice the basket of eggs owner Shari Cunningham has collected—mostly brown-hued, plus a few with beautiful pale green shells—we begin talking about the fluffy-feathered hens she keeps. I learn that all the chickens in the hen yard near the rear patio gardens have names, and now I am trying to figure out which one is Louise. Hummingbirds are buzzing about in flashes of emerald green. Later, when I’m looking out one of the windows in our second-floor room at its view of Round Pond Harbor, I notice the resident cat, Dory, slinking by.

Built in the 1700s and owned by just five families since, the Chamberlain House is a recent project for Shari and her husband, Paul Cunningham, who grew up in Round Pound in a boatbuilding family. (His father, Bruce Cunningham, founded Padebco Boatyard in the 1960s.) In 2015 the couple began a full cleanup and renovation of the farmhouse. They reduced the number of bedrooms to five, added bathrooms to each, expanded the kitchen, and disassembled an old barn that was in disrepair—salvaged pieces of barnwood have been now refashioned into shelves and tables and doors. The pressed tin ceilings in the downstairs dining rooms and parlors, each with a different design, are still in place and have been restored—I keep looking up at them as I try sitting in the various rooms, each furnished in creamy whites and natural woods, sometimes with an aqua blue or another color pop, and all with fresh-cut flowers in vases.

Shari says their latest improvements have included timbering part of the property to improve the view down the hill to the harbor. At sunup, Peter Frank and I follow a pathway to a shorefront stretch that’s part of the Chamberlain House property, and we sit in the sunshine to watch a sailboat slowly gliding along in the low-wind morning. The shoreline here wraps around the sheltered harbor in a circular curve, with lobster pounds and houses, docks and boats in almost every direction. We’d sit longer to soak in the glinting light and views, but Shari mentioned she’d have breakfast ready soon, and I don’t want to miss the farm eggs and blueberry muffins.

Land and Sea Finds

For the rest of the sunshine-filled day we follow routes around the peninsula. On Back Shore Road in Round Pond, we step into the two-story Art of Antiquing shop, freshly painted a handsome putty color with charcoal trim. Owner Margaret Brown is talking with customers about items found on winter buying trips in England and France—including jewelry, vintage British biscuit jars, plush linen and wool pillows, classic beer garden tables, and nineteenth-century portrait paintings. Next door, the Round Pond Art Gallery and Shoppe, founded by Sheala and Tony Jackovich, is not open the days we are visiting, but the building itself could qualify as a mixed-media art piece, with hand-painted signage on faded pink walls and a Dutch-style windmill tower.

We retrace our drive toward Pemaquid Point, and this time we turn to find Pemaquid Beach, a town park on a broad beach of deep white sand. Nearby is Fort William Henry, a restoration of a waterfront 1600s British fort. We stop at the Rachel Carson Salt Pond Preserve, protected by the Nature Conservancy, where, only steps away from the roadside parking, we amble around the very same New Harbor tidal pool where Carson, the famed marine biologist and conservationist, gathered some of the material for her 1955 bestseller The Edge of the Sea.

It’s a bright, warm afternoon, and I’m thinking of icy oysters. We’re in luck: the Hub Farm Market and Oysteria in Bristol is serving at outdoor tables in a small yard bordered by woods, and we order Pemaquid oysters and littleneck clams on the half shell with glasses of rosé for a late lunch. Sitting under an umbrella and sipping up the briny liquor in each shell, a song I heard the day before at Shaw’s Fish and Lobster is now playing in my head. It’s the 1980s hit “Don’t You (Forget about Me)” by Simple Minds.

Not to worry, I tell Peter Frank as we recall moments of this Pemaquid Peninsula getaway. I won’t forget these places. I’m already planning our Round Pond returns.

PENINSULAR DIP

In the height of summer, it’s possible to see several lobster pounds at once from vantage points along Round Pond Harbor—and everyone gets on or near the water somehow. Below is a beginning list for visitors to the villages, coves, and roadside stops on the Pemaquid Peninsula this summer.

FOOD + DRINK

Shaw’s Fish + Lobster Wharf
Seafood, steaks, cocktails, and beer; indoor and outdoor waterfront seating.
129 Route 32, New Harbor
shaws-wharf.com

The Hub Farm Market + Oysteria
Pemaquid oysters and other fresh-caught seafood, house-made sauces and Bloody Mary mix, summer brunch in the woodland yard.
1005 Bristol Rd., Bristol
thehubfarmmarket.com

Muscongus Bay Lobster
Dining on the wharf with seafood and ingredients from local fishers and farmers.
28 Landing Rd., Round Pond
mainefreshlobster.com

Lusty’s Catch
Lobster, clams, and a full menu for takeout or served on outdoor tables on the wharf at Broad Cove Marine; BYOB.
374 Medomak Rd., Bremen
broadcovemarine.com

STAY

The Chamberlain House
Bed-and-breakfast in a renovated 1700s farmhouse with views and a footpath to Round Pond Harbor.
1313 Route 32, Round Pond
thechamberlainhouse.com

Pemaquid Point Campground
Wooded campsites with electricity and water for tents to RVs, just a mile to the Pemaquid Point Light.
2872 Bristol Rd., New Harbor
pemaquidpointcampground.com

The Art of Antiquing
Open seasonally with antiques and art curated from forays to England and France.
4 Back Shore Rd., Round Pond
theartofantiquing.com

Granite Hall Store
Candy, toys, gifts, and ice cream in a circa-1893 store that originally featured an upstairs dance hall.
9 Back Shore Rd., Round Pond
granitehallstore.com

Pemaquid Craft Co-op
Maine-made crafts and fine art by dozens of artisans.
2565 Bristol Rd., New Harbor
pemaquidcraftcoop.com

Skipjack Nautical Wares
A wide collection of nautical items, from vintage diving gear to compass housings, maritime art, and sailboat hardware.
1172 Route 32, Round Pond
skipjackmarinegallery.com

SEE+DO

The Fishermen’s Museum + Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park
An iconic lighthouse with picnic areas, an art gallery, and the Fishermen’s Museum at the end of Route 130 (Bristol Rd.), at Pemaquid Point.
thefishermensmuseum.org

Rachel Carson Salt Pond Preserve
Tide pools and hiking trails set aside by the Nature Conservancy in 1966.
Access along Route 32, New Harbor
nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/ places-we-protect

Pemaquid Beach Park
Natural white-sand beach with parking, a dune walkover, and restrooms.
27 Pemaquid Beach Park, New Harbor
bristolmaine.org/parks -recreation/pemaquid-beach-park

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THE LAST DARK SKY IN THE EAST

Chasing Stars in AMC’s Maine Woods International Dark Sky Park

You know how it feels in your body: the deep inhale. The slack in your jaw, the melt of your shoulders. Your eyes widen. Your blood pressure drops. Something releases in you, soothed by the dark. As you gaze at the millions of stars twinkling above the horizon, you remember what you’ve forgotten: that you are actually quite small. Your ancestors stood and looked up at these same constellations. This sky is your connection to every other culture on the planet. To every other human being.

“You can look from the water to the forest to the sky, and it’s always looked like this,” says Steve Tatko, senior director of Maine Conservation and Land Management for the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). “It’s never not been dark.”

We’re standing on the shore of Second Roach Pond on AMC conservation lands. That’s the name folks use nowadays, but what we’re really standing on is an esker—a long, winding ridge of stratified gravel left by the Laurentide Ice Sheet 26,000 years ago—the dividing line between two water-sheds and one of the last places in the world that was colonized by people. This campsite is a short canoe paddle from AMC’s Medawisla Lodge—medawisla is the Wabanaki word for “loon.” As night falls across the water, the birds call out with wild bursts of song, making their presence known.

“This is a forest that has developed in the presence of the Wabanaki people. You can stand on these riverbanks and see the same sky they did 7,000 years ago,” says Tatko, reminding me that this place, considered protected wilderness, has not evolved without the influence of humans. Western society’s narrative of “untouched” and “pristine” landscapes robs First Nations people of their sovereignty and agency in shaping the place they’ve occupied for nearly 12,000 years, and creates barriers that separate us from the natural world. “Who thought we’d need to protect the vista of the sky?” says Tatko. “That just tells you how far we’ve fallen in our ability to value the world around us. But I think it’s an incredibly important step to taking ownership over our own ability to connect with who we were, and who we still are.”

In 2021 the AMC Maine Woods property became the first International Dark Sky Park in New England. Situated at the edge of the North Maine Woods—an expanse of more than 14,000 square kilometers of largely uninhabited forest land that stretches from Monson, Maine, to the border of Canada—the sky we’re standing under and the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, which was designated an International Dark Sky Sanctuary in 2020, are the only protected dark sky areas in the region. With much of the Northeast converted for urban development, this forest has been identified as an important hotspot for habitat connectivity and climate change resilience. Still, it’s at risk: much of the surrounding land is owned by timber companies. “The scariest thing you can ever do from a conservation perspective is look at the parcel data,” Tatko says. “This is the last place in the East where it’s big.”

AMC is the North America’s oldest conservation group, but it wasn’t always that way. The organization, which supports outdoor recreation and maintains 1,800 miles of trails from Maine to D.C., began as a hiking club aimed at getting people outside. Over time, the idea emerged to develop a sense of stewardship through interaction with place. From lodges with soft beds and three meals a day to rustic campsites like this one, the AMC provides access to the outdoors for people of all ages and abilities based around a simple calculation: if you love something, you will protect it.

In Maine the AMC holistically manages 75,000 acquired acres in the North Maine Woods and the 100-Mile Wilderness for biological conservation, sustainable forestry, backcountry recreation, and environmental education. Now that conservation lens is being applied to the night sky.

Founded in 2001, the International Dark Sky Places program encourages communities, parks, and protected areas around the world to be stewards of the night. Places are awarded a designation through a rigorous application process that involves a thorough inventory, responsible lighting policies, and public education. Jenny Ward, who has been stargazing in the Greenville region for over 50 years, is leading the Dark Sky certification process for AMC. “Our planet, and the evolution of species on this planet, revolves around periods of dark and light,” Ward says. “It’s how people learned to survive—cycles of the moon, navigation of the stars. We lived our lives with that cycle of day and night. It hasn’t been until the last 100 years or so that we created a society that’s built around keeping the lights on all the time.”

Consider the impacts of lighting up the night. For plants and animals, the dark supports rhythms of reproduction, food hunting, sleep, and protection. Light pollution changes the habits of nocturnal animals, leaves prey more susceptible to predators, muddles migration patterns for birds, sea turtles, and butterflies who navigate by the stars and moon, and can even affect the seasonal cycle of deciduous trees. Artificial light at nighttime poses health risks to humans, too: when our circadian rhythm is disrupted we produce less of the health-inducing hormone melatonin, leaving us at higher risk for obesity, depression, sleep disorders, diabetes, and breast cancer among other issues.

The night sky inspired our ancestors’ forays into science, literature, art, religion, and philosophy. Now, according to Ward, 80 percent of people living in the world cannot see the Milky Way, and 99 percent of the U.S. population lives somewhere impacted by light pollution—which means that our newest generations are losing touch with our common and universal heritage. “We had one group of students from New York City,” Ward says. “They didn’t realize they had stars above New York. They didn’t know they existed everywhere.”

“We get so subconsciously used to human interference in our audiovisual realities,” says Tatko. “There are people who are afraid of the absence of those things. That feels like a big injustice, that we haven’t been able to empower them to embrace that level of discomfort. It feels like a taking of a right, in a way—the right to be in the dark.”

Luckily, there’s a quick and easy fix to the problem—all we have to do to preserve the night sky is switch off the lights.

Okay, it’s not quite that simple, but it’s close. Assessing and reducing outdoor light impact at home, spreading the word, advocating for dark skies in your community, becoming an AMC or International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) member, and participating in dark sky research as a citizen scientist are all great ways to get involved. The nonprofitDark Sky Maine (darkskymaine.com) organizes seasonal “Star Parties” that connect people to the night sky, and educates communities on safe and efficient lighting. “Take a look at where you’re living, and where you’re working. Make those simple changes,” Ward says. “Dark sky lighting is beautiful light. It’s easy on your eyes. It’s still doing the task you’re asking it to do. It’s less consumptive, and less costly.” The IDA’s website (darksky.org) offers resources for assessing inefficient, poorly installed, and unnecessary outdoor lighting at your home and workplace and installing dark-sky-friendly lighting—products that keep lights pointed at the ground, light only their intended target, reduce harmful blue-rich white light, and use less energy. “It makes sense now in a way it didn’t a little bit ago,” Ward says, citing high energy costs. As part of their Dark Sky Park designation, AMC has partnered with the North Maine Woods association and the Katahdin Ironworks and Hedgehog checkpoints to install dark-sky-compliant lighting. They’ve also collaborated with the town of Greenville to change 188 streetlights, which saved the town over $10,000 in the first year. This June at their annual town meeting, Greenville voted to make changes in their signage and outdoor lighting ordinances to align with dark sky guidelines.

But why stop there? “Wouldn’t it be great to have a state that recognized the value of dark skies?” Ward says. “That would be incredibly cool, to be a dark sky state.”

Tonight, as I stand under the last exceptionally dark skies east of the Mississippi, it all feels very personal. The times I have felt most deeply connected to the world and my place within it are the times I have been sitting or walking under a starry sky. Growing up, stargazing was something my family did to come together at the end of the day. I remember dark skies and blazing shooting stars, laughter, gasps of awe. As people around us built bigger houses and developed the land, the stars became muffled by patio lights, and inside me bloomed a deep grief. We had forgotten how to sit still and watch the sky without thumbing through yesterday’s photos. How to notice the birds gone quiet, the night rushing in.

It hasn’t occurred to me until now that this is reversible.

“If we don’t have the stage, the show can’t go on,” Tatko says. “We are conserving this space, and this stage, and trying to do right by it. It feels like the best we can do is carry forward in some way, so that other people will find value in it in ways that we may not understand right now.” As he talks about future generations, I’m thinking too about what it is to be young under the night sky. How stars remind us of our own insignificance. How that can be a relief.

Last night, a couple miles south of here, at Horseshoe Pond, we watched, breathless and hopeful, as the first constellations appeared on the southern horizon. We stayed up for hours, shivering in the cold, to watch the night sky come alive with stars. It’s cloudy tonight, and warm. The black flies are biting, and my eyelids are growing heavy. But I am aware of the privilege I have in this moment, and the people who made it possible. Soon, I will crawl into my tent and sleep, as the world falls comfortably dark.

STARGAZING TIPS

Follow these suggestions from AMC’s Jenny Ward to make the most of your stargazing experience.

1. Check the weather for clear skies before you go.
   
2. Check the phases of the moon. The closer you are to a new moon, the darker the sky will be, and the brighter the stars.
   
3. Scope out the darkest areas using a light pollution map—see lightpollutionmap.info— and pick a park, hilltop, or body of water with a large horizon that will give you an unobstructed view of the sky.
   
4. Bring a blanket or a chair. A telescope or a pair of binoculars can be handy for taking a closer look.
   
5. Use a headlamp or a flashlight with a red light setting—it’ll take your eyes less time to adjust to the dark.
   
6. Download star-viewing apps that help you identify different constellations.
   
7. If you’re uncomfortable in the dark, explore your star spot during the daytime so it feels familiar. Venture out at dusk when it’s still light. Go with a friend. A lot of people are afraid of the dark, but this is something you can overcome—and it’s worth it!

BECOMING AN ASTROPHOTOGRAPHER

Getting a clear picture of the night sky is challenging, but it can be done with a well-chosen location, the right camera settings, and some patience! Here are a few pro tips from photographer Andy Gagne.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

• Digital camera with manual mode
• Wide-angle lens
• Tripod

TIP 1:

Location, location, location! Choose a stargazing spot with minimal light pollution—away from city lights and during the new moon. Scouting your location ahead of time during the day will make creating a composition in the dark much easier. Apps such as PhotoPills and SkyView are great tools for gathering information about the night sky, including the current phase of the moon, sunrise and sunset times, and where and when the Milky Way will be visible.

TIP 2:

Set up your camera for success. Here’s how to adjust your camera settings—shutter, aperture, and ISO—to allow optimal light into your camera’s sensor:

• With your camera on a tripod, set a long exposure (e.g., 15 seconds). Be careful not
to touch or move your camera during the exposure. Even the gentle press of the shutter will blur the image. To avoid this, use a remote trigger or set your camera to a 5-second timer. If you set your exposure for too long, you’ll notice star trails from the Earth’s rotation.

• Use the widest (lowest number) aperture your lens will allow (e.g., F1.4, F1.8, F2.8, F4).

• In a normal daylight setting there’s enough light for you to use a low ISO. However, at night you’ll likely need to have the ISO at a higher setting than normal (e.g., 1000–6400). Your camera’s sensor is more sensitive to light at a higher ISO, but if your ISO is too high you will notice “noise” or “grain” in your image. The lower the ISO, the better the quality. Experiment with your camera’s ISO to find the right balance.

• Set your camera to shoot in RAW format. RAW files are very large files that hold a lot of information, which will allow you to adjust and edit your photos as needed later on.

• For crisp and focused stars, set your lens in manual mode to infinity. On most lenses there is an infinity symbol at the end of your focus ring.

Depending on your camera and lens, your settings will vary. Getting it right will take some trial and error.

COMPOSITION

Think about what makes an interesting photograph. How can you frame the stars with trees, water, mountains, or other landscape features around you? Perhaps you have outdoor gear with you, such as a paddle, a boat, or a tent lit up from the inside. You can even get a friend to stand very still in the frame, and light them for a few seconds during the shot with a headlamp or flashlight.

Point your camera toward the south to catch the Milky Way, and enjoy the magic of the night sky!

7 STUNNING PLACES TO STARGAZE ACROSS MAINE

1. Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, Millinocket
2. AMC Maine Woods International Dark Sky Park, Greenville (The Dark Festival: October 16–23, 2022)
3. Acadia National Park (Night Sky Festival: September 21–25, 2022)
4. Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust, Damariscotta
5. Cobscook Bay, Dennysville
6. Aroostook County
7. Blueberry Pond Observatory, Pownal

RAINY DAYS AT THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM

Can’t see the stars because of weather? The University of Southern Maine’s Southworth Planetarium offers shows Monday through Saturday for children and adults. Tag along on the GAIA Space Mission, walk on the moon, romp with dinosaurs, or celebrate solstice at Stonehenge. If you’re curious about astronomy, you can get your questions answered by staff astronomer Edward Herrick-Gleason or sign up for the Daily Astronomer at usm.maine.edu/planet.

CELESTIAL EVENTS TO WATCH FOR

PERSEID METEOR SHOWER | AUGUST 11–12, 2022
This highly anticipated annual meteor shower lights up the sky at a rate of 50 to 100 meteors per hour. This year, you’ll need to set an alarm for 2 to 3 hours before dawn because the Perseid’s peak coincides with the full moon on August 12th—the last of three supermoons in 2022.

ORIONID METEOR SHOWER | OCTOBER 21–22, 2022
Originating from dust grains left behind by the world-famous Halley’s Comet, the Orionid occurs annually from October 2 to November 7, peaking this year on the night of October 21 and in the early morning of the 22nd. A crescent moon will leave the sky plenty dark for the show.

TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE | NOVEMBER 8, 2022
Mainers who wake up between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. EST on the morning of November 8 will be rewarded with a full eclipse from start to finish! The moon will gradually grow darker, eventually turning a reddish hue. According to NASA, this rosy color occurs because during the eclipse the only sunlight that can reach the moon has to pass through Earth’s dusty atmosphere first. The cloudier the atmosphere, the redder the moon.

GEMINID METEOR SHOWER | DECEMBER 13–14, 2022
Bundle up and head outside to gaze toward the constellation Gemini. Peak viewing hours for this meteor shower—which rivals the Perseids in meteors per hour—will be before midnight on December 13 and between 3 a.m. and dawn on December 14.

QUADRANTID METEOR SHOWER | JANUARY 3–4, 2023
Though the nearly full moon may block out most of the Quadrantid action in 2023, viewers after midnight may still catch a good show. With up to 40 meteors per hour at its peak, the Quadrantid is worth keeping an eye on.

NORTHERN LIGHTS | DECEMBER–FEBRUARY
If you don’t mind the cold and are willing to drop everything to get in the car at a moment’s notice, Maine is a good place to see the elusive aurora borealis. Be on the lookout for solar activity alerts through NOAA’s Northern Lights Forecast or SpaceWeatherLive, and when the conditions are right, head north to Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge, the AMC Maine Woods International Dark Sky Park, Sugarloaf Mountain, or Sebago, Moosehead, or Schoodic Lake. Midnight to 3 a.m. during the long, dark nights of winter is the best time to see the northern lights.

LOOKING AHEAD: MAINE’S FIRST TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE SINCE 1963 WILL OCCUR ON APRIL 8, 2024
Grab a pair of eclipse glasses, because Maine is directly in the path of totality! Hot spots for viewing the eclipse include the Rangeley Lakes region, Moosehead Lake, Baxter State Park, Jackman, Caribou, Lincoln, Millinocket, and Presque Isle. Can’t travel? No worries! You’ll be able to see a near total eclipse from most places in the state. This won’t happen again in Maine until 2079.

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The post A Guide to Maine Stargazing appeared first on The Maine Mag.

It’s in the low 40s—freezing for April—and the rain is picking up, but Hillevi Jaegerman doesn’t seem to notice. On a fishing boat in a cove on Yarmouth’s Royal River, Jaegerman is in bright orange coveralls—no coat—whipping back one of her braids and manually cranking a big slimy cage out of the water. The winch is broken, but the oysters are ready for harvesting.

Jaegerman, co-owner and manager of Wolfe Neck Oyster Company, and her co-worker Phoebe Walsh guide the cage onto the boat and start plucking out crabs and scraping sea squirts off the oyster shells.

“We used to grow all our oysters in cages like this one that sit at the bottom, but we weren’t getting to them quick enough to keep up with demand. So we started floating some of our oysters in bags on the surface. Now we can keep up with the sea squirts too,” says Jaegerman, who just finished writing her master’s thesis for the University of New England on pathways toward resilience for the Maine oyster industry. “Plus, we’re not six feet tall. We’re definitely capable, but it’s just much easier to pull the bags off the line.”

“There’s got to be a market for sea squirts,” jokes 23-year-old Alicia Gaiero, owner of Yarmouth’s Nauti Sisters Sea Farm. Gaiero and I are standing next to each other on the Carolina skiff she calls Tidal 9, a play on the federal statute banning gender discrimination in education. Jaegerman and Gaiero have tied their two boats together, and we are drifting between their neighboring farms. It’s been too busy for water cooler talk until today.

Like gardening, in this job you must be ready for whatever Mother Nature throws your way. This year it’s sea squirts (tiny invertebrates); last year it was barnacles. But the hardest part of oyster farming has got to be planning at least two years ahead—the length of time it typically takes for oysters to grow full size—while constantly adapting to the environment and to the market. “It’s like a chess game,” says Jaegerman, who has sold her oysters to Scales, Eventide, Fore Street, Maine Oyster Company, Helm Oyster Bar, and the Shop. Turning a profit is challenging, but what many farmers lack in revenue, they make up for in quality of life.

At the start of the pandemic, when everything came to a screeching halt, Jaegerman took over management of both Wolfe Neck Oyster and its sister farm, Basket Island Oyster Company, after two of her male coworkers became stay-at-home dads. She is among a growing number of young Mainers turning to oyster farming not only to make a living but also as a way to help the environment.

Over the past decade, Maine has been nationally recognized for its plump, premium oysters growing in some of the country’s coldest waterways. The number of aquaculture licenses jumped from 44 in 2007 to 769 in 2020. Between 2018 and 2021 the number of individual shellfish leases (mostly at oyster farms) increased by 29 percent, to 140. And of Maine’s 158 oyster farms, 23 are now female-owned. That’s 15 percent—not bad for a traditionally male-dominated industry.

“We have certainly seen more farmers come online in recent years. Compared to other species, oysters are very accessible,” says Heather Sadusky, a marine extension associate at Maine Sea Grant. It helps that oyster farming has fewer up-front costs than many marine industries, such as mussel farming. Prices have steadily increased by 2 percent each year, making farm-raised oysters the fourth most valuable seafood species in Maine, with aquaculture estimated at a value of $100 million.

Raw bars and shuck trucks are popping up all over: there is Helm Oyster Bar, SoPo Seafood, and the Shuck Wagon in the greater Portland area and, downeast and on the midcoast, the LOFT Raw Bar, the HUB Market and Oysteria, and Brother Shucker. Tourists can also snack on bivalves at about 80 stops along the Maine Oyster Trail, which the Maine Aquaculture Association relaunched last year and now runs with Maine Sea Grant. The trail, which recently won the Governor’s Award for Leadership and Growth, directs participants to a series of farm tours (including Wolfe Neck’s) and raw bars around the state to earn prizes and learn to shuck, slurp, and master briny, earthy, and buttery flavor profiles. In this growing blue economy, Governor Janet Mills recently announced the state will contribute millions of dollars to support our sea farms to create new jobs and diversify Maine’s resources. Even the state’s office of tourism is jump-ing on the oyster wagon, with a new promo video showcasing Maine as a leader in aquatourism.

“Oysters are by far the most popular species to farm in Maine aquaculture,” says Afton Vigue of the Maine Aquaculture Association. “They are less labor and capital intensive than other species such as mussels and salmon, and also fetch a higher per-unit market price.” In fact, oysters are in such high demand that farms have had to turn customers away.

This surge of young oyster farmers in Maine has been greeted by emerging evidence suggesting that sustain-ably farmed oysters, grown from “seed” exclusively for our consumption, help to restore devastated wild oyster populations in one of the world’s most endangered habitats. While people have been eating wild oysters for over 165,000 years, and Native Americans once managed oyster reefs, which prevent erosion, many wild populations experienced a near total collapse in 2012 from overfishing, disease caused by pollution, and climate change. And they still haven’t recovered.

Thankfully, farming caged oysters for restaurants is one of the only fishing practices that actually helps restore wild populations. The cages and the shells themselves provide habitat for and encourage the regrowth of other species of young sea creatures, like the sea squirts. They’re also home to oyster larvae, which can escape and seed wild populations on their own. Unlike most seafood, farmed oysters not only feed and “house” hundreds of species of fish, they also help to clean waterways, filtering 50 gallons of water a day from pollutants like excess nitrogen from agricultural runoff. That clears the way for more sunlight to hit the ocean floor and grow eelgrass, which provides a habitat for many species. So, by snacking on oysters at restaurants, you’re helping to enrich our waterways. As a result, scientists around the world have started encouraging oyster farming—which uses almost no greenhouse gas emissions, water, feed, fertilizer, or food—to grow back species that have begun to drop off and restore biodiversity in our oceans.

In Maine, the industry might not exist without pioneers like Barbara Scully, who 25 years ago established the gold standard of cultured oysters in Maine. She was one of the first to successfully grow oysters here, at Glidden Point, which once moved $10 million in oysters a year across the U.S. and Canada, making her instrumental in Maine’s oyster resurgence. It was Scully who recognized the Damariscotta River as a nutrient-rich hotbed for growing oysters.

“There are many newcomers to the oyster aquaculture industry—so many new operations, leases, and people that it’s hard to keep up with,” says Scully, who mentors new oyster farmers like Gaiero, one of six women to launch oyster farms in Maine over the past three years. Many of them now occupy southern Maine’s brackish bays, rivers, and estuaries.

The women untie the boats, and we make a final stop at Gaiero’s floating cages, one of which has sunk to the bottom—she’ll have to dive down and drag it up later. The good news is, her oysters have doubled in size. And, with rain slapping my face as we ride Tidal 9 back to the dock, Gaiero tells me her tips for making it on a new farm. (Oyster farms aren’t the kind of fishing operations where secrets are kept.) First, she says, take your friend up on her offer to come out and help—and take a hint when she “casually leaves a lemon and a knife at the helm.” Next, use your resources to build a few depend-able side hustles.

Gaiero’s supplemental income comes from a consulting gig she calls East Coast Aquaculture, where she helps small-scale shellfish and kelp farms navigate the thorny process of obtaining limited farm licenses and land leases, which are backlogged from COVID. Her clients have included the female-owned Islesboro Oyster Company and Cumber-land’s Grace Pointe Oysters, and the new National Science Foundation–funded marine institute at Belfast Area High School, her alma mater. She’s also using her degree in environmental policy planning as well as geographic information systems to create and sell maps to farmers and operators. And she’s just 23 years old, with no family history on the waterfront. “Aquaculture allows entry from those who haven’t grown up on the working waterfront but are just as capable of success,” she says.

If she could, Gaiero would be out here every day clinging to her oysters like the sea squirts. “I’m not in the ideal position to acquire financing without any money coming in, but I’ve been really fortunate on a small scale to have significantly more demand than product,” says Gaiero, who has sold her oysters at Highroller Lobster Company, SoPo Seafood, Maine Oyster, J’s Oyster, and Helm Oyster Bar. Like many oyster farmers, eventually she hopes to scale up and tap into the out-of-state market.

Rather than competing, this new guard of farmers is banding together to grow the Maine oyster brand, making a splash locally at shucking events and fundraisers and changing the seascape of Maine’s working—and now floating— waterfront. At Portland’s breweries and private events, you might stumble upon a new female-owned network-ing hub and mobile raw bar, Lady Shuckers, run by Libby Davis and Jacqueline Clark, a former litigation attorney who quit her job to move to Maine and help promote the oyster industry with her blog, The Briny Babe. “There are so many female farmers, and so many to look up to, like Joanna Fogg [co-owner of Bar Harbor Oyster Company] or Amanda Moeser [owner of Lanes Island Oysters],” says Gaiero. Now, even Linda Greenlaw, the best-selling maritime author once dubbed the only female swordfishing boat captain on the East Coast, just started an oyster farm in Surry.

But really, there’s no better reminder of what oyster farm-ing is all about than when I hear Jaegerman tell me that her co-owner, the founder of Wolfe Neck Oyster and Basket Island Oyster, Mark Green, is also a professor of chemical oceanography and environmental science at St. Joseph’s College. Except maybe when you consider the oysters them-selves, sitting there, selflessly pumping nutrients back into the ocean, cleaning our waterways, regrowing their own species and replenishing others, asking only that we do the same in return for our oceans. “The emphasis deserves to be placed on all the great farmers working hard to be stewards of the marine ecosystem,” says Jaegerman, “and to grow the greatest oysters out there, regardless of gender.”

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The post Want to Help Combat Climate Change? Eat More Oysters. appeared first on The Maine Mag.