 November 2021
Andy Cutko on the Great Circle Trail of Nahmakanta Public Land.
Truth be told, November is my least favorite month. November days in Maine are short and raw, and our once leafy landscape has turned bare and sullen. Yet for many on our staff, November is a time to take a deep breath, exhale, and reflect on another successful summer season. As part of that reflection, and in recognition of this month’s signature holiday, I offer appreciation for some of the fine things that surround me:
- Colleagues on our staff and in partner organizations who love Maine’s outdoors as much as I do. I know those colleagues are fully committed to enabling fun, safe, and memorable outside experiences for the full diversity of Mainers and our visitors.
- Volunteers (especially Campground Hosts) who play a vital role in keeping our State Parks clean, safe, and running smoothly.
- A natural landscape that is growing, resilient, and changing with the seasons. It provides us with food from the land, clean water from our lakes and streams, clean air filtered by our trees, and a bountiful spectrum of native plants, animals, and functioning ecosystems.
- Some of the best outdoor destinations in the country. In recent months I’ve been fortunate to go boating on the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, biking on the Downeast Sunrise Rail Trail, backpacking on Nahmakanta’s new Great Circle Trail, camping at Cobscook Bay State Park, and strolling with friends on Popham Beach. Exploring Maine’s outdoors with family and friends is truly the best remedy for living in this pandemic world.
- Programs such as the Land for Maine’s Future, Forest Legacy, and Land and Water Conservation Fund that support conserved land as a fundamental piece of Maine’s economy, environment, and climate strategy.
- And lastly…. a loving family and dog that support my addictions to work, exercise, and to Maine’s great outdoors.
~ Andy Cutko, Director, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands
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Eric Feldbaum of New Hampshire State Parks and Doug Beck of the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands each receive the Service to NASORLO Award.
BPL Outdoor Recreation Supervisor Doug Beck has been elected by his peers to serve a two-year term as President of the National Association of State Outdoor Recreation Liaison Officers. NASORLO provides a critical link between state agencies and the National Park Service, working to enhance the administration of the Land and Water Conservation Fund in supporting outdoor recreation at the state and local levels. The LWCF facilitates investments in the protection and maintenance of recreation resources across the U.S. NASORLO plays an important role in advocating for the efficient and equitable use of LWCF funds, and we’re thrilled to have Doug in this leadership role!
In addition, Doug and Eric Feldbaum, his colleague from New Hampshire and NASORLO Vice President, were presented with the Service to NASORLO Award for being “Advocates and Partners in improving LWCF Training and Administration.”
~ Andy Cutko, Director, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands
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For the last two years the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands has hosted a visiting artist at the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Last summer Marty (Martha) Kotter, primarily a fiber artist, spent two weeks immersed in the beauty of the Allagash at the Waterway's Lock Dam Cabin and made treks on and along the river so that she could interpret and share her experience through her art. Since her visit, she has continued to work on pieces inspired by the Allagash. In a recent conversation with Natural Resources Council of Maine’s Forests & Wildlife Director Melanie Sturm, Marty shares why she became an artist and how she works to capture the essence of an object or place and how she promotes a conservation ethic through her works.
Learn more about the AWW Visiting Artist Program and watch for the next application announcement in Spring 2022.
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The Four Seasons Adventure Trail between Newport and Dover will be closed for the remainder of the season starting November 1, 2021 in order to complete much needed repairs along the trail. Please obey all signed closures.
- For additional trail updates check with your local ATV club.
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Maine ATV Trails - Find an ATV trail and get info on multi-use rail trails.
- Get ATV Trail Alerts - Text DACF ATV to 468311
- All Bureau Text-to-Subscribe options.
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The Bureau is seeking comments on the final draft plan for the Tumbledown/Mt. Blue Region with a virtual Public Meeting. This plan will guide the Bureau’s management of the 10,000-acre Tumbledown Public Reserved Land, 8,000-acre Mt. Blue State Park, as well as the smaller Bald Mtn. Public Lot for the next 15 years. All of these lands are managed for multiple uses including recreation, wildlife habitat, scenic and natural areas, and (excluding the state park lands) timber production.
Public Meeting:
Wednesday, December 1
6:00-7:30 p.m.
Virtual meeting to be held using Microsoft Teams videoconference application.
Click here to join the meeting
Or call in (audio only) +1 207-209-4724
United States, Portland
Phone Conference ID: 331 913 750#
Find a local number | Reset PIN
Work on this plan began with a public scoping meeting held in Farmington in January of 2020. Since that time, the Bureau has worked on the plan with the assistance of the Tumbledown/Mt. Blue Region Plan Advisory Committee. The committee reviewed a draft of the plan in July 2021.
View the Tumbledown/Mount Blue Management Plan webpage. Along with the final draft plan, you will find background documents and maps of the public lands addressed in the plan, and public and advisory committee meeting notes.
For additional information about this meeting, please contact:
Jim Vogel, Senior Planner, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands
Jim.Vogel@maine.gov
(207) 287-2163
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Three loons released at Grants Cove in Fort Point State Park after rehabilitation by Avian Haven. Photo by Matthew Hamilton.
In my previous role as an Engineer Technician with Maine State Parks, I had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time at Fort Point State Park due to various maintenance needs. Although all the State Parks are unique in their own way, Fort Point will always hold a special place in my heart. Grants Cove, on the north side of the park, is so nice that when I was thinking of a place to take my future wife on our first date, I instantly knew that it was the spot for our picnic dinner. The cove harbors a coarse sand beach among sporadic cobbles, and a few boulders which are hidden at high tide. The gentle slope of the beach near Grants Cove Trail creates a large beach at low tide. The current at the pier is very strong but decreases significantly further inside the cove. As it turns out, conditions like this make Grants Cove the premier loon release site in mid-coast Maine.
Recently, Diane Winn at Avian Haven reached out to me to plan a release of rehabilitated loons; two adolescents and one adult were ready for their return to the wild! On October 7, 2021 I arrived at the Fort Point gate at about noon. I was able to answer a few patron questions and take a call before the Avian Haven representatives arrived. After letting their two vehicles though the gate (saving them a ¾ -mile walk to the Grants Cove Trail while carrying a heavy boxed loon), I met Photographer Terry Heitz, Rehabilitation Manager Chelsey Gundlach, and Rehabilitation Assistant Brianna Guy. Arriving at the Trail, I was thrilled when my offer to carry one of the boxed loons to the shore was accepted. My senses heightened. I was immediately aware of every root and uneven surface on the trail. The loon I was carrying made a sharp call as if sensing its coming freedom, and the smile I already wore became an all-out ear-to-ear grin. Growing up on a lake I’ve seen and heard a lot of loons from a distance, but up close was a bit different. This loon’s call didn’t seem as loud as the 5am summer loon calls I heard as a kid that seemed to come from my windowsill.
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On arrival to the release point we found, due to the tide, a beach of only seven square yards - just enough room for three loon boxes, Chelsey, Brianna and me. Terry readied with his camera with a 12-inch lens on a grassy spot a few yards from the beach. Just after Chelsey released the adult loon, she and Brianna released the two adolescents in unison. With a fair number of short dives and wing flapping, the three loons slowly made their way out of the bay. About 200 yards out the water’s surface changed from totally calm to slightly choppy. Once the loons were beyond this point, they became a little harder to see but we were able to watch two other loons join our three. Until then, I hadn’t seen loons from two different family groups so close together. At one point it appeared that all five were within 10 feet of each other.
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Although I have been fortunate to have many amazing experiences though my work at Maine State Parks, this experience will remain one of my most memorable ‘days at the office’! Thank you, Avian Haven, for what you do every day and inviting me to this experience! I encourage you to learn more about Avian Haven by visiting their website avianhaven.org. The closeup photos of the adult Common Loon and two juvenile Common Loons are courtesy of Avian Haven.
~ Matthew Hamilton, Acting Northern Parks Regional Manager, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands
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If you are planning to decorate with wreaths and garlands during the holiday season, please be sure that they do not include invasive plants that harm Maine's natural areas and wildlife.
Invasive Plants to Look Out for and Report:
The two most common invasive plants used in wreaths and garlands are Asiatic bittersweet, and multiflora rose. Both plants cause severe environmental damage by invading open fields, forests, wetlands, meadows, and backyards and crowding out native plants.
- Asiatic bittersweet kills mature trees through strangling.
- Multiflora rose can form impenetrable thickets that outcompete native plant species.
Both species are difficult to control and easily re-sprout after cutting. The placement of invasive plant wreaths and garlands outdoors or disposing of them in compost piles can lead to new infestations. Birds and other animals also eat the fruit and spread viable seeds into vulnerable forest areas.
Report It - Wreaths may not be sold that contain these or any of the 33 plant species banned for importation and sale in Maine. Report locations where banned plants are sold to the Maine Horticulture Program at horticulture@maine.gov or by calling 207-287-3891.
Habitat Friendly Alternatives
"Look for decorations with native species in them like winterberry holly, red twig dogwood, or American mountain ash," recommends Maine State Horticulturist Gary Fish.
~ Excerpt from Maine Horticulture Program press release.
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Up for Grabs: Timber Pirates, Lumber Barons, and the Battles over Maine’s Public Lands by Thomas Urquhart
Thomas Urquhart takes the reader back to 1783 when Maine was still part of Massachusetts and describes how the northern boundary between Maine and Canada was disputed and established. He covers the decades of neglect of the Public Lots set aside for religion and education, and recounts how Maine’s 17 million acres were surveyed, the Towns and Townships arranged, and reviews two centuries worth of court decisions.
Then Urquhart explains how a report on the Public Lots, released in 1973, was eventually a catalyst to the negotiations between the larger landowners and the State that would eventually lead to consolidation of the Public Lots into many of the Public Lands (know as the Public Reserved Lands) that exist today. Anyone who enjoys Maine's Public Lands for its multiple values will have a better understanding of the history on how the Public Lots came back to the People of the State of Maine after reading Up for Grabs.
~ Tim Post, Western Public Lands Regional Manager, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands
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An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Think back to what you learned in grade school about the origin story of the United States. For most of us I'd bet that the narrative was an almost exclusive focus on the explorers and colonial settlers. And, where mention of indigenous people was made, it was from the colonizing culture's point of view. For it is the conquerors that rewrite history.
So, I urge you to step outside the long-held narrative, open your heart to a new perspective, and read An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States.
~ Jocelyn Hubbell, Interpretive Specialist, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands.
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Send article suggestions or newsletter comments to Jocelyn Hubbell, Interpretive Specialist, webmaster, and newsletter editor for the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands.
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