Sunday: The Appalachian Mountain Club has far-reaching
plans to make thousands of acres of Maine woods into a national
destination for backcountry recreation.
Today: We canoe across three remote ponds, dragging our
boat down a rocky river that rarely sees human footprints.
Tuesday: A wrong turn takes us off a new 17-mile mountain
bike trail as we explore a rocky route between two sporting
camps.
Wednesday: A plan to follow a proposed hiking route off the
Appalachian Trail becomes a bush-whacking challenge to get off
a mountain before dark.
Read the Northern Exposure series
ABOUT OUR REPORTER AND PHOTOGRAPHER
TUX TURKEL is a staff writer who covers business issues,
including tourism, energy and real estate. A graduate of
Emerson College in Boston, he has won several state and
regional awards for reporting and has worked at the Portland
Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram for 27 years. In 1997, he
and three other journalists reported the Forgotten Water series
for the Maine Sunday Telegram, tracing the 130-mile Eastern
Maine Canoe Trail from the New Brunswick border to the
Penobscot River.
DEREK DAVIS has worked in photojournalism for 10 years, the
past three at the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.
Previously he worked as a staff photographer for the Journal
News in Westchester County, N.Y. He is a graduate of the
University of New England in Biddeford.
Northern Exposure is a collaborative effort of the Portland Press
Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, pressherald.com and News 8
WMTW. Tonight on News 8 WMTW at 6, Steve Minich examines
plans for "nature-based tourism."
Check out exhibits at Osher Library.
It wouldn't be the first time that happened.
More than 100 years ago, railroads were luring tourists from crowded Northeast cities into the Maine Woods with stories of great fishing, hunting and vacation opportunities, particularly in the area around Moosehead Lake.
In an age before automobiles, trains brought visitors from Boston and beyond to Greenville, Brownville Junction and other stops. They became jumping off points for exploring the region being promoted today by the AMC. To get visitors onto the rail lines and into their resorts, the railroads produced scores of maps and brochures. It was the Maine Central Railroad that first coined the term "Vacationland," according to the University of Southern Maine.
The Osher Map Library has on file Vacationland pamphlets from 1927, one showing the hotel at Mount Kineo on Moosehead Lake.
"Most important," according to a university Web page on the transformation of the Moosehead region, "the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad, chartered by the state Legislature in 1891, actively promoted passenger traffic along its own routes by advertising northern Maine as a site for hunting, fishing and wilderness appreciation. The B&A published its first annual guide to the region in 1895, the same year as the first Sportsmen's Show in New York."
Today this region is in transition. With a large second-home development proposed for the Moosehead Lake area, communities are trying to retain the traditional woods products industry, balance development and promote tourism.
Staff Writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or at:
tturkel@pressherald.com
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