AMC Outdoors, December 2007
Imagine a place where the most persistent noise might be the creak of your skis on the wooded trail or the dry rattle of frozen branches in the wind. Imagine ruddy cheeks warming by a fire as the smells of a home-cooked meal waft from the kitchen. Imagine solitude where bright starlight glitters off the snow. Imagine all this just a half-day’s drive from Boston.
We were cross-country skiing the seven-mile trail between West Branch Pond Camps and AMC’s Little Lyford Pond Camps in Maine on a blue-sky January afternoon last winter. The temperature had soared to somewhere near zero, but was dropping, headed for 30 below that night. Brisk even for Maine.
I was out ahead of my companions, skiing fast, eager to see around the next turn in the trail. Truth be told, I was also trying to burn off a few extra calories before tucking into the sumptuous dinner that I knew would be awaiting us at Little Lyford. I’d eaten Rose’s roast pork on a fly fishing trip the previous summer and was hoping that was on the menu. (It was!)
After a mile or so of letting the skis really sing on the packed snow, I stopped at the top of a slight rise to wait for my friends. Though other sections of this trail open up to glimpses of the Pleasant River and gorgeous views across frozen marshes to snow-covered hills, here I was completely surrounded by dense black spruce and white birch trees that almost knitted closed the blue sky above. As the echoes of my skis on the squeaky-crisp snow faded away, my heartbeat slowed, and my breathing quieted.
Then, I heard it, probably one of the rarest sounds in the modern world: Stillness.
Not the blood-rushing-in-your-ears silence of sensory deprivation, nor yet the quiet of a summer woodland with insects humming and a breeze rustling leaves on the trees. But the true stillness of a windless winter world as the feeble sun lowers itself toward the long night. No breeze, no bird calls, no babbling brooks, and, above all, no babbling people, no music, and no internal combustion engines.
I hadn’t heard—and felt—this much pure stillness since standing alone on a frozen lake watching the northern lights on a winter trip to northern Labrador. So I stood, listening, savoring every moment.
It didn’t last long, of course. Stillness rarely does. As the cold started to seep through my gloves and nibble at my fingertips, my companions’ quiet conversation and occasional laughter reached out to tickle my ears through my cap. A moment later, they appeared, and we all skied on happily together through the fading afternoon toward the waiting welcome (and welcome warmth) at Little Lyford.
Preserving a way of life
Ever since a flatlander named Thoreau went gawking about the neighborhood as the prototypical eco-tourist, the wilder reaches of Maine have welcomed visitors from away. (Tourist wallets are, after all, a staple of the local economy.) In the days when seekers of remote places arrived on spur routes of the great Bangor and Aroostook Railroad, the Moosehead Region of central Maine was about as remote as it got.
Not much has changed. You can now drive up in a few hours in your 10 percent ethanol-powered hybrid, and much of the countryside is crisscrossed with logging roads and recreational trails. But, thankfully, there are still spots where you can be out all day and never hear an engine, never see another person.
Perhaps the biggest change is in winter. Tourist season once started when ice-out brought trout and salmon anglers, and ended when deer hunting season closed. Summer tourists were sandwiched between. Winter belonged to the pulp and timber industry. Now, winter is prime playtime. Huge destination ski resorts like Sugarloaf and rapidly growing Saddleback, and a vast network of interconnected snowmobile trails, have brought the hum and buzz of civilization (and cash) to much of the North Country in winter.
Except in the vast woodlands of central Maine (between Greenville and Millinocket, east of Moosehead Lake, south-west of Baxter State Park). Here, AMC’s Maine Woods Initiative protects and manages more than 37,000 acres of wild land, enhancing outdoor recreation opportunities and the local economy while still allowing traditional land uses. Though only a few years old, the strategy is succeeding, and AMC has the opportunity to acquire and manage another 28,000 acres to the north of its current property as part of a proposed “conservation framework” agreement with giant landowner Plum Creek, The Nature Conservancy, and the Forest Society of Maine.
Within this larger picture, more than 10,000 acres around the headwaters of the West Branch of the Pleasant River are already an AMC-managed ecological reserve where human impact will be kept to a carefully monitored minimum and sensitive species such as wild brook trout can be preserved. Special Management Zones will preserve other river corridors and unique natural areas such as Caribou Bog from logging or development.
AMC manages two camps in the area: Medawisla Wilderness Camps and Little Lyford Pond Camps. A third AMC sporting camp, the Leon and Lisa Gorman Camps at Chair-back Mountain, is currently being refurbished (a few organized groups will get a sneak preview this winter). These three, plus the Moose Point Cabin on nearby Long Pond and partner West Branch Pond Camps, are traditional havens in the wilderness where tourists are welcome but quiet still reigns. Each boasts a central lodge for eating and socializing around the fireplace and private individual, heated cabins for sleeping and quiet time. Except for a few modern comforts (Lyford has a brand new bathhouse with showers, composting toilets, and a sauna; Medawisla has a heated shower) the experience today is one your great-grandparents may have enjoyed.
These camps and the recreational opportunities they provide are a key component of the Maine Woods Initiative, which also involves building community partnerships, practicing sustainable forestry, and conserving land in the 100-Mile Wilderness region.
AMC has worked with local snowmobile clubs to provide access through AMC’s property to important club trails and is committed to keeping the major connector between Greenville and Brownville open. But the sled traffic is usually well away from the ski trail network, so snowshoers and cross-country skiers can savor areas where the buzz of engines is beyond hearing.
It's a balancing act, but it’s working. Land protected for people to enjoy. Jobs created and maintained. Sources of winter income diversified for local businesses. Everyone wins.
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