Skipping stones is an inherently frivolous and boyish pastime. As a child, I remember the frustration of learning how to skip stones and the eventual excitement when I got a stone to skip three times. Regardless of where I go, skipping stones brings me to a familiar place. The challenge of finding the perfect rock and perfect stretch of beach and throwing the perfect toss consumes my attention and I forget where I am. I focus on how many skips I can get.
On Friday, my dad and I found the perfect stretch of beach on the Maine coast and skipped stones for an hour. Good stones are an obvious necessity. This beach was littered with palm sized pieces of slate.
The weather was perfect; minimal wind interference and warm enough that you felt the rush of being outside without gloves for the first time this year.
The perfect toss.
After skipping stones for an hour, my dad grabbed a piece of grass and started chewing on it like Huck Finn. I guess being a boy has more to do with a state of mind or attitude than your age.
After talking with Millard for ten minutes or so his eyes lit up, "Let me show something." I eagerly followed him to the garage with no idea what was in store.
The garage door slid up exposing a room full of hunting and trapping gear. For the next twenty minutes, Millard walked me through his gear. Starting on the left: Millard's trapping backpack, Conibear traps, a jaw trap and the wood things are pelt stretchers. According to Millard, peanut butter is the best all purpose bait and works on animals from squirrels to beaver and foxes. The Conibear traps are on the left and the anchors on the right are used to secure the traps into the ground.
Millard raved about these Conibear 120's. They can catch a variety of animals ranging from fisher, fox, rabbits, weasels and beaver and are easy to set.
Millard used this set up to catch fishers, their pelts go from $40-$100 at auction. As you can see the traps exert a tremendous amount of force and kill the animals instantly. One winter, Millard used these very snow shoes to track and kill 96 porcupines. In the spring, he collected the 50ยข bounty and bought a Smith & Wesson Competition Revolver for $45 new. That must have been some time ago.
Millard uses these pieces of wood to stretch the skins before he sends them off the to local tannery. Starting on the left; hares, red squirrels, fishers, and foxes. After tanning the pelts, Millard would send them to a consignment auction house in upstate New York and await sale. "Every month or two I get a check in the mail for one of my pelts. Its a pleasant surprise."
These larger, two-piece stretchers are used for coyotes. Note the sign, "Coyote Traps Ahead." One winter Millard got 26. Millard does note like Coyotes. "Red Squirrel pelts will get 1$ in Russia. Apparently they use the dinky furs to line fancy woman's coats. Who would've known."
Three years ago Millard was diagnosed with bladder cancer. After a successful surgery, Millard's catheter clogged and a failed cleaning led to a near-fatal infection. Three months later, Millard recovered, however his sense of balance never recovered, severely limiting his mobility. Today Millard struggles to walk and can no longer maintain his trapping lines. His eyes teared up, "This is just bringing back a lot of good memories."
I will never forget Millard, and I hope that my generation will keep this fleeting Maine tradition going.
Heading toward Stonington along back roads Friday afternoon, I spotted a garage laden with fourteen pairs of antlers and an American Flag. I asked my dad to stop and grabbed my Canon to take a better look. While framing the shot through my view finder, I heard a deep voice with a a Maine accent as thick as maple syrup pipe up, "There used to be a lot more of those (white-tailed deer) around here before the coyotes got out of control."
Startled, I looked over to the deck and spotted a man sitting in a chair wearing a camouflage shirt drinking and cup of coffee. I walked over to the deck and started talking about the one thing that I knew the American flag wearing sportsman would like to talk about, guns. "What did you get those caribou with?" I chimed. The man's eyes lit up and he opened up in the way only an isolated backwoodsman can. We struck up a conversation that lasted forty five minutes and ranged from the current prices of martin pelts, Maine hunting and trapping legislation, and ethanol's effect on his truck's MPG.
Millard Wardwell has lived in Penobscot Maine for the last eighty years. His sister lives across the street. His three sons live within a 10 minute walk and his daughter lives on the adjoining property across the field. For thirty eight years Millard worked the night shift at the local paper mill. This left him to spend his days enjoying the Maine outdoors. Millard loves his LL Bean Real Tree shirt and Wrangler International jeans.
Millard served in the US Navy following VJ Day on a converted Destroyer sweeping for mines in the South Pacific.
Millard's well-loved Leatherman PST II. He has used it for the last fifteen years. Millard showed us his trapping gear, including a demonstration of a Conibear 120, but that is another post.
When I first arrived in Maine in the fall of 2006, Colby played up the Maine aesthetic with an "all-you-can-eat" lobster and Gifford's ice cream cookout. I have never been a big fan of lobster itself and I found the whole spectacle grossly excessive environmentally speaking. Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Lobster, I am interested in the process and phenomena surrounding the "Maine Lobster," and its role in defining an identity for the state of Maine. When most people think of lobster gear they think of a bib, a nut cracker and melted butter, not hundreds of neon yellow cages, blaze orange rope and black and green buoys. I spotted this gear last weekend on the side of the road near Brunswick Maine, was moved by its vibrant colors and its often over looked importance. The bright colors of this lobster gear contrast sharply with the gray water and white waves where they earn their keep. Maine lobster men weather the elements year round to fish for lobster and this gear has to handle the punishments. I love the blues and the reds, all we need is some white . The finished project of Maine, a 1.5 pound lobster.
I left my job in New York in the summer of 2011 and moved into a camper. Since then, I have driven 100,000 miles around the west, surfing and camping. During the summer of 2014, I set up a home base in the Columbia River Gorge. These are some of my stories and photos.
