Last winter, I joined a friend on a walk at the Maine Forest and Logging Museum trails at Leonard’s Mills in Bradley, Maine. It was a perfect winter day, just cold enough to make our cheeks rosy, with a blanket of snow that wasn’t too deep for hiking boots. My friend remarked on various animal tracks – including those of snowshoe hare! – as we ambled. We stopped at the edge of Blackman Stream where it widens before it flows out of Chemo Pond to take in the winter scene – mostly frozen water, cattails and rushes lining the far edge in various shades of brown, woody shrubs lining the bank, conifers mixed with hardwoods. We stood in silence for a while, and even Rio, my husky, stayed still, until a sudden pop and splash from our left surprised us. We turned to see a river otter’s head sticking out of a soft patch of slushy ice. It went to work on the fish dangling from its mouth, oblivious for a moment that it had an audience. Then it paused and looked right at us; for a moment even its world went still as we each stared (Rio in utter astonishment), before it ever so quietly slipped back under the ice.
The Maine Forest and Logging Museum was founded in 1960 at Leonard’s Mills with the support of 12 prominent paper and land management companies; 204 acres of the Penobscot Experimental Forest were donated to create a “living history” complex to celebrate a traditional woodcutter’s way of life and community. This site was chosen because archaeologists had discovered remnants of five sawmills indicative of a late 1700s colonial settlement along Blackman Stream. With additional land donations during subsequent years, the property now consists of 450 acres. Over many decades, and with countless hours of volunteer work, the museum constructed cabins, a sawmill, a bateaux (riverboat for transporting people and goods), and other historical features reflecting colonial life in the 1790s up through the early 1900s, and has found ways to bring visitors to the site year-round with special events. Casual enjoyment of the protected trails, forest, and wildlife are a bonus.
For years, I attended their Living History Days in autumn with my family and friends. Bean-hole beans and strawberry shortcakes draw long lines of hungry visitors. An apple press produces gallons of fresh cider for immediate consumption. Women and men in period dress tucked inside cabins demonstrate weaving, baking, and blacksmithing, among other craftwork and pastimes of the period. During the Children’s Days at the end of the school year, local children are bussed in to learn about the region’s logging history and to enjoy the local ways of the woods. Since two dams came out of the Penobscot River in 2012 and 2013, and the construction of a Denil fishway and rock and pool ladder along Blackman Stream were completed in 2009, the alewife have returned. Accordingly, a smokehouse and interpretive signs were built to reflect the importance of this food fish to the colonists (there’s a much larger story there that involves many communities and support for the Penobscot Nation and their traditional fisheries, but that’s for another day). The alewife are so thick some days during the annual migration that children lining the bank can easily scoop out a fish by hand (even though it may be frowned upon).
This past summer, I stopped in with another friend to show him the metalwork displays and the restored Lombard log haulers, which you can read more about on page 10. It was fun to see his delight in the historic tools on the wall, the blacksmith shop, the log haulers, and faded black-and-white images showing these tools in action. During that visit, I was impressed with how the place had grown – most of the buildings were open to visitors that day – and how well it is stewarded.
I recall another winter visit, when my daughter was very young. We had come for the horse-drawn sleigh rides and to be warmed by the company of friends, other community members, and steaming hot cocoa. There’s something about an outdoor event in winter, draft horses stomping their feet, a snow covered, wooded trail, snowflakes gently falling, the laughter of children, and friendships growing. What a gift from the many people who create these events, building community while preserving and learning from the knowledge of times gone by.