You can’t have a serious discussion about outdoor newspapermen without mentioning Leavitt’s name. He stood, I’m told, a giant among men, with a booming voice and biting wit. For over 40 years, his daily outdoors column informed and entertained readers of the Bangor Daily News. Half of those 40 years, he hosted a Saturday night outdoors show on television. He fished and hunted with celebrities, politicians and famous athletes, including the great Ted Williams. But most importantly, he could connect with the average Maine sportsman on a personal level.

I don’t have the experience or the history necessary to do Leavitt justice in describing his impact. I’ll leave that to those who knew him far better than I ever could. But folks who didn’t have the pleasure of experiencing Bud Leavitt’s outdoors can get a taste of it by reading his book, “Twelve Months in Maine”.

Published in 1977, “Twelve Months in Maine” is a compilation of short pieces of Leavitt’s writing covering all facets of the outdoors. Fishing takes a prominent place in the book, with several articles on fishing in general, and others on specific species like pickerel, smelt and salmon and smallmouth bass. Leavitt also told of memorable fishing trips with common folk, Maine guides and, of course, his longtime fishing partner and Boston Red Sox star Ted Williams.

Williams wasn’t the only famous person Leavitt mentioned in his book. In addition to including pictures of basketball stars like Bob Cousy on fishing trips to northern Maine, Bud devoted a section of the book to describing Maine as a “mecca for famous sports persons”, including three U.S. presidents.

“Twelve Months in Maine” also contains some humorous depictions of Maine guides, and special pieces on parts of the outdoor environment that make Maine unique, like blackflies in summer and long, hard, tough-weather winters.
Since Maine has always been a bit of a destination for recreationists in the Northeast and beyond, Leavitt included a section of the book detailing some of the best spots for hiking, fishing, hunting, skiing, and even golfing.

For the trophy-minded sportsperson, the book features a list of Maine’s state record fish from each species category from 1966-1975, and records of the heaviest bucks harvested in Maine from 1967-1975. The records include location of catch and the individual record holder.

The end of the book reflects Bud’s love for cooking wild game, with the last 50 or so pages dedicated to game recipes. These include recipes submitted by folks from all over the state, with many funny and interesting back stories. Finally, I’d be remiss not to mention the beautiful illustrations by Tom Hennessey which are featured throughout the book.

Overall, “Twelve Months in Maine” is a smattering of the Maine outdoors covering the entire range of sporting topics, and I think it provides a good summary of Bud Leavitt’s writing style as a whole. It also shows why he was so popular. Throughout his career, Leavitt displayed a unique ability to sense just what readers wanted to know – his writing was generalized for a wide audience yet written to entertain even the most savvy outdoorsman. Heck, with over 13,000 columns under his belt, he had to be doing something right!

A century ago, the wilderness of Alaska and northern Canada was full of adventurers looking to fulfill the dream. It helped that prices for animal furs were sky high, and rumors of gold and other mineral finds were proven true in many areas. Many thought they would get rich. In reality, the vast majority didn’t cut it, and those who did weren’t rich, but they earned the freedom to live a comfortable lifestyle outside of most trappings of society. If one could be content with that, life in the north was great.

Though the north lands were scattered with trappers and prospectors in the early part of the last century, they weren’t full of writers. Few of the woodsmen were able to put their thoughts on paper, and even fewer were eloquent enough to write books we’d be reading intently almost a century later. Erik Munsterhjelm was one of those few.

A native of Finland, Munsterhjelm immigrated to North America as a young man in the mid 1920’s, but tired of monotonous labor after two years working on a railroad in the California desert. He had the urge to head north, and soon made his way to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to look for work. There he met a fellow immigrant, a Swede named Karl, and they decided to try their hand at trapping in far northern Saskatchewan. It was the beginning of a long series of adventures in the north for Erik.

The two young trappers were not alone in their quest to make a living in the wilderness. Competition abounded, but they took things slowly, starting by hunting and trapping muskrats in an abandoned cabin on the Athabasca River near McMurray. By the time spring breakup arrived, the young men had learned much from their neighbors about the opportunities for trapping in the north. They put together an outfit, loaded up the canoe they’d built and headed down the river, across Lake Athabasca and eventually to the village of Stony Rapids, hundreds of miles from civilization.

He didn’t know it at the time, but Stony Rapids, with its population of about a hundred people, would be the closest Erik would get to civilization for years. That fall he and Karl headed to a remote area up the Porcupine River to spend the winter trapping. The territory was all theirs – hundreds of square miles. The Indians, Chipewyans who lived in this part of the north country, believed the area had bad medicine and didn’t dare enter. It was also brutally tough to get to. The men spent long days portaging hundreds of pounds of gear around countless rapids and falls to make it to their destination.

Erik and Karl built their cabin and spent the winter running long traplines through the wilderness that surrounded. They survived on fish and caribou, and caught wolves, foxes, mink and other animals in their traps. They ran their traplines on dogsled with their mongrel team, or on foot, and slept in makeshift shelters or under the stars beside a campfire when too far from the cabin. It was a real tough living, but also a very satisfying one for Munsterhjelm. It’s clear in his writing that he thoroughly enjoyed the wilderness and the beauty that surrounded him.

Erik liked the north country so much that after selling his furs and unwinding for a few short weeks that summer, he made plans to go back to the bush. This time he went on his own, to another remote wilderness territory and build a cabin on the shore of a large lake. Another winter passed, and so went several years in the north for Erik. He loved it. The experiences he had during these early years are recorded in the book “The Wind and the Caribou: Hunting and trapping in northern Canada”.

Several years later, a major gold rush hit the area around Munsterhjelm’s trapping grounds and he caught gold fever along with everyone else. His love for adventure, the north country and its people, and living off the land made him a great prospector. Erik spent about five years prospecting for gold, staking and selling claims, and almost striking it rich during these exciting times. His book “Fool’s Gold: A narrative of prospecting and trapping in northern Canada” tells tales of these northland adventures better than any other I’ve read.
Little is known about Erik Munsterhjelm outside of the accounts he left in “The Wind and the Caribou” and “Fool’s Gold”. He also wrote a short book “A Dog Named Wolf”, a fictional account of a dog’s life in the north, and wrote eight books in Swedish and Finnish, which were never translated to English. He died in Brantford, Ontario in 1992.

You can experience life in the northern wilderness nearly a century ago – or at least get close – by reading Erik Munsterhjelm’s books. Not only was he a tough bugger who loved adventure and feared little, he was also a great writer, who gave firsthand accounts of northern trapping and prospecting like no professional writer of the time could. You can still find his three English-written books in libraries and at online bookstores for a reasonable price.

The beauty of a childhood in the outdoors is that those simple things, combined with our wild imaginations, are what truly fulfill us. When Bud Simpson sent me a copy of his book, “Mantawassuk: The Cove”, it reminded me of those simple things we enjoy as kids in the outdoors.

“The Cove” is a collection of stories about Simpson’s experiences growing up in a special little piece of the Penobscot River in Brewer, Maine. Growing up dirt poor during the Great Depression era, Simpson found the outdoors to be a refuge from a tough life. Fortunately for him, that refuge was just outside his back door, where Johnson Brook enters the Penobscot River in an area called “Mantawassuk” by the Indians, and referred to by Bud as “The Cove”.

Most of the stories in “The Cove” revolve around water, and most of those involve some type of fish. Bud tells of his first encounter with pickerel and how he learned to catch them “by hook or by crook”. Bud and his brother Trevor did lots of fishing in the cove and the Penobscot. Oftentimes they had to improvise with crude equipment and fishing tackle, but that was all part of the challenge in the mind of a young, adventurous boy.

Eventually, Bud and Trevor felt the need to become more mobile, and thus began their adventures in boat building. Their first raft sunk, and a cardboard boat covered in wax met with a similar fate. When they began building better rafts, and occasionally borrowing a boat from a neighbor, their horizons expanded far beyond the cove.

Bud had the good fortune of observing Atlantic salmon up close and personal in the Penobscot, and even in the cove. He and Trevor eventually found ways to catch salmon, and they got pretty good at it. One memorable fish took the boys on quite a ride below the Veazie Dam!

“The Cove” was truly a special place for a young Bud Simpson, just like other woods and waters were for many of us growing up. To remember so many of his adventures in this place, and to have the passion to write a book about them, though, is what sets “The Cove” apart from the rest.

Though it wasn’t typical of the outdoors books I usually read and review, “Mantawassuk: The Cove” stands out as a book well worth reading. Simpson is an incredibly gifted writer and his honest, down to earth and often humorous writing style made this a book I highly recommend.

“Mantawassuk: The Cove” was self published by Bud Simpson in 2010.  It can be purchased from Amazon.com (see link below).

If you’re a regular reader, you probably know that I enjoy reading and collecting old hunting and fishing books. You may also be interested in starting a collection of your own, or expanding an existing one. I’d like to offer a few tips and tricks that I have learned while starting my personal collection.

Define your goals

When starting an outdoor book collection, it’s important to think about the goal you’re trying to achieve and how you plan to get there. What’s your motivation for collecting? Is it a hobby? An investment? What type of collection are you interested in? Do you want only the oldest and rarest books, in the finest condition? Or are you more interested in the quantity of books in your collection? How much money are you willing to spend? Defining these goals will help you make clear and consistently wise decisions about the collection. For instance, I have a very limited budget and want to get my hands on as many books as I can. I’m more interested in the content of the writing than actual book condition. I’ll typically spend $10-30 per book. Different people have different goals, and individual goals can change over time. Be sure to define your goals before diving in headfirst.

Find your collecting niche

To be a successful collector, it helps to think about what type of books you’re interested in and narrow things down. I’ve struggled a bit with this since I like just about all outdoor literature, but I do have particular areas that I’ve focused my collection in on. There are literally tens of thousands of books to choose from, so if you don’t find a focus area, things can get overwhelming really fast.

Focus areas for outdoor book collectors can range among a variety of topics. Perhaps you have a specific author you enjoy reading. You can start by collecting all of their books. My favorites are Edmund Ware Smith and Arthur Macdougall, Jr. I’ve been trying to collect everything those two have written. Some folks will take that a step further and collect all editions a particular book or a group of books written by an author.

Another great focus area for collectors is books written about a particular region. The Maine Woods is a very popular focus area, since so many writers have made this region their focus for such a long time. Within this niche you might collect books by authors like Smith, Macdougall Jr., Lew Dietz, John Gould, Helen Hamlin, Louise Dickinson Rich, Gerald E. Lewis and others.

Some collectors target specific publishers of outdoor books. By far the most collected outdoor sporting publisher is the famous Derrydale Press. Others look for books from specific time periods.
One of the more obvious outdoor book collecting niches is the type of outdoor sporting activity being written about. Many collectors are only interested in books about shotgunning for upland game with bird dogs. Others like waterfowl, deer, fly fishing or backcountry adventures. An interesting activity that’s really collectible is one that isn’t even done here anymore: fox hunting on horseback. That brings up another collecting niche: individual species of fish and game. And yet another niche would be collecting books that themselves are collections of stories that range among the above topics and more.

By now you get the idea: there are plenty of niches to collect books from. You can pick yours, or just start collecting and eventually you’ll work your way into one. Finding a niche can make collecting more fun and help you set goals for your collection that are realistic and attainable.

Learn what’s out there

Most people don’t have a clue how many outdoor sporting books have been published over the years. Trust me, the numbers are staggering, and once you begin to think you know everything that’s available in your niche, you find something you’d never heard of before. So how do we get a better handle on what’s available to be read and collected?

You can start with a trip to your local used bookstore. Most have an outdoor or hunting and fishing section, and some of these stores even specialize in old outdoor books. Then, talk to other collectors, or friends who have outdoor books of their own lying around. You can pick up bits of information from almost anyone. Begin to gather that information, because it will be critical to starting or growing your collection.

If you are even a bit technologically savvy, there are incredible resources online to help you learn what outdoor books are available. A great place to start is a simple internet search of the author or topic you’re interested in. Another resource is my website (www.outdoorsportinglibrary.com) – shameless self promotion, I know! I’ve put together a very small but growing list of outdoor writers and their books. You can browse among the different writers and topics and see if something jumps out at you.

If you’re interested in a particular author, a great resource is WorldCat (www.worldcat.org). This site houses the book catalogs from over 10,000 libraries worldwide. Search for an author on the site and you should find a list including every book they have ever written. Google Books (www.books.google.com) is an incomplete but growing resource that includes outdoor books. Internet Archive (www.archive.org) is a great place to look for older books.

Once you’ve defined your goals, focused in on a niche, and done some research, the next step is to actually get your hands on some books!

After you’ve decided to embark on outdoor book collecting, it can often be difficult to know where to start finding books. Simply put, there are three ways to get your hands on books. You can find free books, borrow books, or purchase them.

Finding Free Books

For the sake of conversation, let’s assume that you don’t have an overly generous friend willing to give you a bunch of great outdoor books from their collection. If you do, maybe I need to be taking pointers from you. But realistically, there actually is a way to get free books: the public domain.

According to copyright law, all books published prior to 1923 are in the public domain, meaning that they can legally be copied and reproduced since they no longer have copyright protection. Institutions, private individuals and companies like Google have taken advantage of this opportunity and have scanned massive amounts of books into electronic files. For instance, Google has gone into some of the largest libraries in the country and used proprietary technology to scan just about every book in the library’s collection. They have made these public domain books available for free online. Search for these at www.books.google.com or www.archive.org . Sure, this doesn’t help folks looking for actual hard copies of the books, but if you’re short on cash and just want to read the book, it’s a great way to gain access to pre-1923 material.

Borrowing Books

Most of the books you’re looking for were probably published after 1923, and may be extremely rare. This means they will likely be expensive to purchase if you can find them at all. Plus, you might be like me and read far more books than you can afford to purchase for your collection. Or you may want to read a book before spending any money on it. If a book exists, chances are that one of the thousands of libraries in the country has it.

Today, you don’t just have to rely on your local library to carry the book you’re looking for. The Interlibrary Loan system has revolutionized book borrowing to the extent that your local library can request a book for you from anywhere in the country. You may have to wait a while to get the book, but the service is typically free. I have found this to be an extremely useful resource when looking for rare books that I otherwise would never get to see. Check your local library or go to www.worldcat.org to search for books.

Purchasing Books

It’s tough to grow your book collection without actually purchasing books, so ultimately you’ll have to pony up some money and buy a few gems. I’ve been buying outdoor books for a few years now, mostly online, and have learned a lot about finding the best deals.

The most obvious place to start looking for outdoor books is your local used bookstore. These mom and pop shops are becoming increasingly tough to find, though, and may not have what you’re looking for. Another traditional but fading resource is the mail order book store. I’ve received a couple of catalogs from one such company in recent years. The catalog is basically an up to date list of what books the company has in stock at the time. Some individuals like Jim Casada also sell some of their collection through simple book lists. Garage sales and book sales at local libraries are another way to find outdoor books for your collection, but looking for specific books here can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Most buying and selling of outdoor books today takes place online, through auctions or direct sales. The major auction company, Ebay, sells just about everything imaginable, including outdoor sporting books. Searching for specific books for sale on Ebay can be a lot of work. Auctions typically only stay up on the site for a week, meaning that to be diligent you’d have to go to Ebay and search for the books you want each week. Nobody wants to do that, since it can really make this collecting thing feel like work. Luckily, Ebay has something called ‘saved searches’. You save a search for a specific keyword, and Ebay will email you every time an item that matches your keyword comes up for sale. I have saved searches for each author I collect. When I get a ‘saved search’ email from Ebay, I take a few seconds to look an item over. If it looks good and the price is right I’ll bid on it. If not, I wait for the next ‘saved search’ email to come in.

The three major retailers of used books online are Half.com, Amazon, and Abebooks. For the most part, these sites do not stock the books themselves. They serve as the go-between for individual buyers and sellers. Any time you’re looking for a specific outdoor book, you’ll want to check all three of these sites for book availability, and for the best price. Sometimes a seller will be asking over $100 on one site for the same book you can find for less than $20 on another. It pays to shop around. You’ll also want to check these retailers when bidding on an Ebay auction, to make sure you’re not overbidding for an item you can purchase cheaper elsewhere. These three sites are excellent sources to purchase outdoor sporting books from.

Collecting outdoor sporting books can be a lot of fun. My collection is still small, but continues to grow over the years. I hope some of these tips prove useful to you in pursuing your collection and getting your hands on more books that represent our great sporting heritage. Feel free to contact me at jrodwood@gmail.com if you have any questions, or would like to share information about your sporting book collection.

The Maine woods have always lured adventure seekers from throughout the Northeast, especially in the early days. The country was still wild and untamed back then, and outdoorsmen longed to explore the north woods while seeking nature’s bounty of moose, deer, bear, caribou, trout and more. Though few were skilled writers, many wrote stories of their trips, which were published in the numerous sporting periodicals of the day.

I’ve written about a few of the old time Maine woods stories in the past, but there are literally thousands of them, scattered throughout the archives of a few libraries and even fewer personal collections. Most of the stories are over a hundred years old, and though the majority can be circulated freely (they’re no longer protected by copyright law), no one has undergone the task of sifting through the best stories and making them widely available….until now.

In “Old Tales of the Maine Woods”, Steve Pinkham has put together the most comprehensive collection of early Maine outdoor stories that I’ve ever seen. The 300 page book, released this spring, contains reprints of dozens of Maine woods stories originally published between 1849 and 1913. These include tales of hunting, fishing, canoeing and hiking throughout Maine. Each tale was hand-picked by Steve from his extensive collection of over 22,000 articles and stories. The stories come from magazines like “Forest and Stream”, “Shooting and Fishing” and “American Sportsman”. Others are excerpted from entire books written about experiences in Maine.

The stories in “Old Tales of the Maine Woods” cover adventures throughout the state. Since most people who visit the Maine woods are familiar with a specific area, Steve felt it was logical to group stories by region. The book is split into seven chapters, each covering a specific geographic region in Maine. The regions are as follows: 1)Androscoggin and Magalloway rivers, 2)Rangeley Lakes, 3)Dead River, upper Kennebec and Moose River, 4)Moosehead Lake and Piscataquis region, 5)Penobscot River, 6)North Maine Woods and 7)Down East. At the beginning of each chapter, Steve gives a general description of each region and its importance in the early sporting history of Maine. The individual stories then follow.

Pinkham reprints stories from numerous authors in the book. Some are fairly well known, like Thomas Sedgewick Steele and Fanny Hardy Eckstorm. Others are more obscure, and some of the stories are from anonymous authors, or those who wrote under untraceable pen names. For the known authors, Pinkham provides a brief description of the author’s background and gives some context to the story. In my opinion, this is one of the most valuable aspects of the book. It provides perspective, and also helps those who are interested in learning more about particular writers. An index of the stories and authors would be useful, but isn’t provided in the book.

Steve picked some really interesting stories for this book. Among my favorite are the tales of hunting woodland caribou in Maine. Caribou became extinct from the state in the early 1900’s, but at one time they were very plentiful and were the subject of many hunts. Other stories highlighting fishing experiences and run-ins with predators were fun to read. And of course, the book wouldn’t be complete without a few tall tales, including the famous “Tame Trout” story.

I’m glad to see a book of old Maine outdoor stories being published. While the old writers may have been rough around the edges and certainly fibbed a bit, they sure provide interesting historical perspective for readers a century later. Steve Pinkham pulled together some good stories, and if you’re into Maine outdoor history, I think you’ll enjoy reading them in “Old Tales of the Maine Woods”. To learn more, visit www.oldtalesofthemainewoods.com.

Many game wardens, woodsmen and guides of the past spent most of their lives in Maine’s remote north woods. Some of them brought their wives, and some of those wives wrote stories and books about their experiences that remain with us today. Louise Dickinson Rich, Helen Hamlin, Dorothy Boone Kidney, Annette Jackson and others fascinated readers with their stories about life in the Maine woods.

Louise Dickinson Rich
Louise Dickinson Rich is certainly the most well known and accomplished of these female writers of the Maine woods. Born in Massachusetts in 1903, Louise Dickinson met her future husband, Ralph Rich, on a canoeing trip to the Rangeley area in western Maine in 1933. Ralph, an engineer, and Louise, a teacher, were both fed up with everyday life and ended up falling in love and living together in a cabin in the woods of Forest Lodge on the Rapid River.
Both of the Riches were skilled writers, but Louise found the most success. She began writing articles for numerous magazines, which was very lucrative in those days. With her writing income, she was able to help provide the basic necessities for her and Ralph’s growing family. The stories eventually morphed into books. Rich was a prolific writer and eventually authored 24 books and dozens of short stories and articles published in magazines.
Louise Dickinson Rich is best known for her popular book “We Took to the Woods” and its sequel, “My Neck of the Woods”, which told stories of the Riches’ life away from it all in the Maine woods. She wrote several historical books including “State O’ Maine”, and outdoor fiction for young adults, including my favorite, “Start of the Trail”, an adventure story of a young Maine guide. Rich’s life and writing are summarized in a biography written by Alice Arlen in 2000, entitled “She Took to the Woods”.

Helen Hamlin
Born in 1917 and raised in Fort Kent, Maine, Helen Hamlin wrote one of Maine’s most beloved books, “Nine Mile Bridge”, a New York Times Bestseller, which describes her life for three years in the Maine woods. Hamlin finished school and went to the woods to become a teacher at the lumber camp at Churchill Lake. Most of the students and their families were French Canadians. The area was then a bustling little community in the north woods, where today it’s a quiet area frequented only by park rangers, game wardens, recreationists and commuting woods workers.
Helen met and married a young game warden and lived with him in a cabin at Umsaskis Lake, and later at Nine Mile Bridge on the St. John River. Hamlin was an excellent writer, and her and Curly fully enjoyed their lives in the woods. The book is a real pleasure to read.
Hamlin wrote another book, “Pine, Potatoes and People, the Story of Aroostook”, which describes life in Aroostook County during the booming potato farming days of the 1940’s. It’s another really great read. Hamlin left the woods and lived quite an adventurous life until her passing in 2004.

Annette Jackson
Around the same time and in the same area, Annette Jackson, wife of legendary Maine game warden Dave Jackson, was writing stories of her experiences. Her book, “My Life in the Maine Woods”, was published in 1954. It provides another great perspective on the area and lifestyle in those days. Jackson was a very skilled writer. She was a regular columnist for the St. John Valley Times newspaper in the 1960’s.

Dorothy Boone Kidney
For 25 years, Dorothy Boone Kidney lived with her husband Milford at Lock Dam on Chamberlain Lake, in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Milford operated the dam and helped canoeists who were travelling the waterway. Kidney wrote a popular book about her experiences, “Away From it All”, which was published in 1969. The success of this book led to the publication of two more, “A Home in the Wilderness” (1976) and “Wilderness Journal” (1980). Kidney was a prolific writer who authored several other books on various topics before her passing in 2001.

There’s no question that these women and others played an important role in documenting history of the Maine woods in their time, as well as thoroughly entertaining readers from Maine and beyond. Their works deserve more attention.

John Ford was a Maine game warden in Waldo County for 20 years, and he sure has plenty of stories to tell. He had the foresight to document his experiences in a journal throughout his career, making it much easier to recall the details of each episode. Every month, Ford writes a column for the Northwoods Sporting Journal, sharing another of his tales about experiences he had on the job. The column is very well received, and it’s due time Ford gathered these stories together in book form for us to enjoy.

“Suddenly, The Cider Didn’t Taste So Good” is a collection of 35 stories that highlight notable events in John Ford’s career as a Maine game warden. The tales run the gamut from catching night hunters to raising orphaned animals. In one story Ford is tracking down escaped convicts in the Maine woods, while in another he’s scolded by some old ladies on the side of the highway!

The stories in Ford’s book are short and to the point. He is a great story teller, and doesn’t waste ink. I enjoy reading this style of writing, and seldom put the book down until I finished it. The wide variety of topics also hold the reader’s attention: you never know what you’ll read about next.

John really tells all in this book. He isn’t afraid to tell of his cleverness in getting the upper hand on poachers. For instance, he recalls a time when he and a fellow warden outsmarted some deer drivers by dressing down and joining the drive. In another story, he slyly tricked a poacher into coming in to the police station to be arrested. And several times, he seemed to materialize in the woods like a ghost and scared the daylights out of folks breaking the law.

At the same time, Ford openly shares stories where he may not look his best. In writing a ticket for a man boating without a life jacket, the old fellow pointed out that warden Ford didn’t have a life jacket of his own. Ford once snuck up on a tree stand where he believed a man was illegally hunting, only to find that his hunter was actually an orange hat pinned up to a tree. And the cider story…..well, you’d better just read that one for yourself!

Other stories tell of large sting operations, close calls with death, and the relationship between warden and poacher in a small community where professional adversaries can be personal friends. “Suddenly, The Cider Didn’t Taste So Good” is a great read. It’s Ford’s first book, but I can’t imagine it being his last.

The woods of northern Maine lost another legend this winter. Jim Carter, the “Man from Munsungan”, was a well known hunter, angler, trapper and all around woodsman who lived and loved the Munsungan country. He spent most of his time at his camp by the outlet of Little Munsungan Lake in the headwaters of the Aroostook River. Jim passed away in December, but his memory will live on for a very long time.

I still remember a few conversations with Jim when I worked on an angler creel survey of the upper Aroostook for Maine IF&W and would stop by his camp. The man was certainly memorable, but I’ve long since forgotten many of the things he told me. I wish I would have written down more of what he had to say.

When folks pass on, it’s often surprising how much history is lost when they’re no longer around to share their memories. That’s what makes historic literature so important. The more we can record for future generations, the more they will appreciate and find useful.

Jack Ahern must have been thinking the same thing when he began researching for his book, “Bound for Munsungan: The History of the Early Sporting Camps of Northern Maine”. Ahern began visiting the Munsungan country in 1956 when he joined his father on a fishing trip to Milt and Minna Hall’s Bradford Camps. Like many other visitors from outside of Maine, this became his paradise, and Jack has returned to the camps for over 50 years.

Ahern soon realized how much incredible history this area contained, and many of the guides and camp owners were more than willing to share their stories. “Bound for Munsungan” was a project long in the making, as Jack evidently spent over 20 years researching the area’s history and interviewing its inhabitants. It’s a good thing he started when he did, since many who he spoke to while working on the book have since passed.

While it began as an attempt to document the history of Munsungan Lake, it soon became clear to Ahern that the book should encompass the entire upper Aroostook drainage to be complete. So he started with a history of the town of Oxbow, the gateway to the upper Aroostook. He went on to describe the life of legendary woodsman Will Atkins. He then wrote about the Libby sporting camp legacy, the Bradford Camps, and topped things off by including Ray Carter’s history of the Munsungan Hunting and Fishing Club.

If you planned to hunt or fish the upper Aroostook in the first half of the 20th century, Oxbow was a critical point on the map. After arriving at the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad’s Masardis station, you were shuttled to Oxbow via buggy or, in later years, automobile. Oxbow was where you checked into a hotel (likely the Atkins or Libby hotel) to rest after the first leg of your journey. It was here that you met your guide and he took you on a multi-day trip up the Aroostook River to the sporting camps where you’d stay. The hub of Oxbow had friendly accommodations and a long list of capable Maine guides. In fact, the Libby Hotel register of 1896 listed 15 guides residing in Oxbow. At the top of that list was a man named William Atkins.

Will Atkins may have been the most influential man in the history of Oxbow. Born in 1857, Atkins was reported to be the first to build sporting camps north of Moosehead Lake, on Millinocket Lake in the upper Aroostook River drainage. At his peak, Atkins was operating some 52 sporting camps in the area, a hotel in Oxbow and a thriving taxidermy business. At age 53, he spent a winter fulfilling his dream to trap in the wilderness of northern Canada. He returned home and continued to operate the camps and trap in the Aroostook territory until his death in 1930.

No conversation about the upper Aroostook is complete without mention of the Libby name. C.C. and Melissa built a hotel in Oxbow in 1890 and young Will Libby took great interest in the hunting and fishing business. He and Miles Arbo established sporting camps throughout the territory, and eventually bought out Will Atkins’ camps. Today the Libby name is still alive and well in this area. Matt and Ellen Libby run a world class operation based on Millinocket Lake.

The Bradford Camps, named by Milt and Minna Hall, were some of the original camps built by Will Atkins, sold to the Libbys, and then sold to the Halls. Milt and Minna ran a top notch operation there for many years. They sold to the Youlands in 1972, who continued in this success. Today the camps are in the very capable hands of Igor and Karen Sikorsky, who spend most of the year on beautiful Munsungan Lake.

While “Bound for Munsungan” is packed with information from Jack Ahern’s painstaking research, it also contains many bonus features. One is a history of the Munsungan Hunting and Fishing Club written by Ray Carter, Jim’s father. Ray tells the tale of a group of friends looking for a place to hunt deer in the upper Aroostook in 1928. The group stayed together for over 40 years and eventually built a camp at the outlet of Little Munsungan Lake. Ray recounts the stories of each hunting season with the group. When the club disbanded, Ray purchased the camp and continued to spend much of his time there. He passed away in his sleep while at camp with Jim in 1988. Jim took the place over after a time, and it became his heaven on earth for years.

“Bound for Munsungan” was a labor of love for Jack Ahern, and it’s a book that we should all appreciate. It provides a window into the early days of hunting and fishing in northern Maine with its descriptive text and 140 vintage photos. The book is part of the preservation of an outdoor history and culture that’s important to so many of us. I encourage you to pick up a copy.

“Bound for Munsungan” is published by Pear Tree Publishing. The first edition came out in 2008 and may be tough to find. The 2009 Family Heirloom edition is a beautiful hardcover with 20 pages of new material. The book can be purchased from Bradford Camps (www.bradfordcamps.com) or Pear Tree Publishing (www.peartreepublishing.net).

At the base of New England’s freshwater streamer fishery is a small fish known as the rainbow smelt, which attracts much larger sportfish that pursue it as a delicacy. For more than a century, anglers in this region have caught landlocked salmon and brook trout by developing special flies that imitate smelts. The flies are either cast to big fish in moving water, or trolled behind a canoe or boat in lakes and ponds.

This fishery is seasonal. Each spring, shortly after the ice goes out of the lakes, vast schools of smelts begin migrating to inlet and outlet streams to spawn in moving water. The large concentration of these forage fish draws in salmon and trout like a magnet, and they feed heavily on smelts. This is when seasoned anglers are most successful using streamer flies to catch fish near the surface and in shallow water. And that’s how these streamers, or “trolling flies” developed.

In “Trolling Flies for Trout & Salmon”, Dick Stewart and Bob Leeman provide a comprehensive guide to the “trolling fly” world. They describe how these flies were developed, how to tie them and how to fish with them. They also provide a vast reference to the most popular streamer patterns, including color photographs of 96 flies and the recipes for tying many more. Cover art and illustrations by Larry Largay are superb.

I’m not aware of any other book that provides such thorough information about this unique genre of fly fishing. In describing the history of how smelt-imitating streamer flies were developed, Bob and Dick tell the story of the origin of the Grey Ghost, the most famous of all such streamers. Legendary angler Carrie Stevens developed the Grey Ghost back in 1924, and when she won a national fishing contest in Field & Stream magazine by catching a huge brook trout on the fly, it became an overnight sensation. Other popular flies have interesting histories as well, and the authors describe some of the more notable ones.

In addition to fly information, the book also gives a brief overview of fish biology and habitat, and describes the different fish species that are caught using traditional trolling streamers. The authors have a firm grasp on the science behind this type of fishing, and communicate it clearly.

The book also describes the tackle and techniques used to effectively troll with streamers in lakes. Tips gleaned from this subject can be very useful for the angler who hasn’t yet mastered the art.

The most dedicated fly anglers like to tie their own streamers, and for those folks the book includes a section on fly tying. It’s not too in-depth, but provides just enough information for the practicing fly tyer to adapt his or her methods for tying smelt-imitating streamers. A great example is given, which describes the step-by-step instructions for exactly how Carrie Stevens tied her famous Grey Ghost. Many of the original patterns have been changed or adapted over the years, which can be a good thing. However, the authors caution that changing a fly pattern simply for the ease of tying can sometimes compromise the fly’s effectiveness by changing the way it appears to the fish. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to detail when tying these flies.

Dick and Bob each provide their top ten list of favorite streamers, and also include correspondence from well known streamer tyer Jim Warner, describing some of his patterns.

Finally, one of the most useful parts of the book is the extensive list of streamer patterns. Ninety-six of these are shown in full color, and recipes are included for many more. This is invaluable for the individual who wants to try tying and fishing different patterns that have proven useful for others. Like the authors mention in the book, certain colors appear differently in different water types and conditions, which means it sometimes requires strange looking combinations of colors to imitate a bait fish.

If you fish with streamer flies in the Northeastern U.S., you’ll be well served to pick up a copy of “Trolling Flies for Trout and Salmon”. I’ve already found it to be extremely useful, and I know it will be a valuable reference for years to come. I can’t wait to tie up some of the patterns from the book and try them out on the water!

“Trolling Flies for Trout & Salmon” was originally published in 1982 by the Stephen Greene Press in both hard and soft covers. The two printings sold out, and the book was not reprinted until just recently. It has been revived with a 2011 printing by Maine Outdoor Publications. The 1982 edition can be found on Amazon for a steep price.

You can order a copy of the 2011 edition of “Trolling Flies for Trout & Salmon” by sending a check for $21.95 (softcover) or $29.95 (hardcover) to: Bob Leeman, 22 Alan-a-Dale Road, Brewer, Maine 04412.

The book is a collection of deer hunting stories from Tom and Steve’s experiences in western Maine. Father and son each write from their own perspective, and the book constantly shifts back and forth between Tom and Steve’s stories.

If you’re looking for a book full of accounts of successful hunts and bagged trophies, this isn’t the one for you. Tom and Steve hunt in an area that has extremely low deer densities, making it difficult to even see whitetails on a regular basis, let alone harvest one. No, hunting isn’t about the kill for these two. Instead, they focus on the experience.

Tom describes his earlier hunts as a youth, and then goes on to write about his greatest passion in the hunting world – deer camp. He and a group of family friends have been going to the same deer camp in western Maine for decades. Each year they go through the same routines, hunt the same areas, tell the same stories, and just have a great time together. Tom’s description of deer camp is typical of many such camps in the Northeast, and he describes the quirks of this particular camp quite well.

Steve’s real passion for hunting seems to relate to time spent in the woods and experience gained from hunting with his father. He describes the father-son bond well, as does Tom when relating hunting experiences with his own father. The natural progression of a young hunter is usually fostered by experiences with his father in the woods. He learns the habits of his quarry, how to stalk animals, and find his way through the woods. It’s obvious throughout Steve’s stories that he truly values the hunting experiences he’s had with his dad.

Oh, and I can’t forget Grey Ghost – he’s the wary old whitetail buck that Tom and Steve has always dreamed of harvesting, but haven’t yet. Grey Ghost is the inspiration for a lot of hunting tales.

“The Legend of Grey Ghost” is a unique book, written by father and son about their love for hunting the Maine woods. Hard copies are difficult to find, but you can purchase a Kindle edition from Amazon.com (see link below).