We’ve received all sorts of feedback on Dave Mance’s story on hunting camps in the Autumn issue. One wrote that “I wanted the hunting camp article to go on and on.” Going to camp means different things to different people. Lots of kids have gone to summer camp, typically on a lake, where they live in bunkhouses with other kids and learn how to swim, paddle, and make boondoggle and S’mores.
For others, going to camp means going to the family camp. This is what our family did – we had a camp on Sixth Lake in the Adirondacks. Not grand, but a great way to get away from the sweltering heat of summer in Syracuse. The intersection of our camp and summer camp happened out on the lake where flotillas of canoes filled with campers would pass by on their long journey from Old Forge Pond to Raquette Lake. I always felt bad for them knowing the campers had survived the trudge-up-the-hill portage from Fifth to Sixth Lake.
And then there’s hunting camp. Dave wrote in his article, “Camps do not have electricity, telephones, or cable television. If they do, it’s not a camp; it’s a second home.” So the Northern Woodlands camp on Whiskey Brook, in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, definitely qualifies as a camp. Northern Woodlands has owned the camp for a few years now, and we have established the tradition of spending the second weekend of rifle season there. Before then, it’s headquarters for fishing trips and the occasional overnight for R and R.
Until now, we’ve been leasing the land on which the camp sits from Essex Timber. But Essex’s 86,000 acres has been for sale and we’ve learned that a deal with Plum Creek will close any day now. It could be closing today, but with all of the doings on Wall Street, who knows? Presumably, there is financing involved in a transaction like this, and with all the turmoil in the financial sector, deals like this – the asking price was $26 million, though the selling price hasn’t been reported – might have to wait for the dust to settle.
If it goes through, we’ll be sending our lease checks to Plum Creek, a company that has been embroiled in controversy with its plans to develop some of its land in the Moosehead Lake region in Maine. No such development can happen with this land, though, because they won’t be buying the development rights, which are held by the Vermont Land Trust. So this will be solely a timber investment for Plum Creek, which will be a relief to all the Vermonters who use this vast tract for recreation.