Stuff about me
My name is Keith Michaud and this is “Letters From Away,” a blog written by a Mainer living outside the comfortable and sane confines of New England. The blog is intended for Mainers, whether they live in the Pine Tree State or beyond, and for anyone who has loved ’em, been baffled by ’em or both. Ayuh, I am “from away.” Worse still, I live on the Left Coast – in California. Enjoy! Or not. Your choice.
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Tag Archives: logging
They’re all logged on: Serous outdoors competitions kick off Woodsmen’s Day | Kennebec Journal
WINDSOR – Lynn Faustino and Carol Grime found their stance, gripped the handles and tested the teeth of a two-handled crosscut saw before ripping through a log.
The two women from Rochester, Mass., teamed up for the women’s crosscut saw competition Monday at the 14th Annual Woodsmen’s Day at the Windsor Fair.
Blistering heat continued Monday on the second day of the fair, which ends Labor Day. But Faustino, a 42-year-old registered nurse, and Grime, 60, who works for a logging company, were barely breaking a sweat.
They made the first cut. Then a second.
The saw vibrated as its teeth ground into the wood fiber, dislodging sawdust and spilling it onto the ground.
Faustino said lumberjack competitions are great exercise, and they get to meet a lot of nice people.
“My husband got me into it,” Faustino said after her match. “I did it for six years and just started up again because my son’s doing it now. It’s really great fun, and we get to travel a lot.”
Click for the rest of the story by Mechele Cooper in the Kennebec Journal.
Posted in Entertainment, Outdoors
Tagged crosscut saw, logging, lumberjack, timber, Windsor Fair, woods, woodsmen, Woodsmen’s Day
Maine author to sign new book | Bangor Daily News
Posted in Environment, Journalism, Maine, Outdoors
Tagged "A Forest Environment", author, book, civil engineer, Dover-Foxcroft, forest, logging, Moosehead Lake, river log drives, scaler, U.S. Forest Service, woods
No need to be peeved over the peavey! It’s from Maine!
I knew the answer to today’s DownEast.com trivia question because we had one or two of these tools around the garage while I was growing up. Um, of course, our peaveys were normal-sized, not giant-sized.
What is that strange-looking implement held by Bangor’s Paul Bunyan statue?
Answer:
It’s a peavey, a logging tool invented by Joseph Peavey of Stillwater in the 1850s.
Here’s a bit more about the peavey tool. This is from Wikipedia, so I won’t vouch for the accuracy, but it does seem correct.
A peavey or peavey hook is a logging tool consisting of a handle, generally from 30 to 50 inches long (0.75 to 1.25 m), with a metal spike protruding from the end. The spike is rammed into a log, then a hook (at the end of an arm attached to a pivot a short distance up the handle) grabs the log at a second location. Once engaged, the handle gives the operator leverage to roll or slide or float the log to a new position.
The peavey was named for blacksmith Joseph Peavey of Stillwater, Maine, who invented the tool as a refinement to the Cant Hook (also known as a cant dog) in the 1850s. Many lumberjacks use the terms interchangeably, though a peavey will have a spike in the end of the handle, and a cant dog will have a blunt end or possibly small teeth for friction.[1]
The Peavey Manufacturing Co. is still located in Maine and manufactures several variations.
The entry has a line drawing of a logger using he peavey so here’s a link to the entry about the peavey tool.
Posted in Maine, Maine trivia, Outdoors
Tagged cant dog, Joseph Peavey, log, loggers, logging, Paul Bunyan, Peavey Manufacturing Co., peavey tool, Stillwater, timber, Wikipedia
A vision for the Maine’s North Woods
In delicate talks, the many factions
of landowners are forging a plan
that tries to satisfy all of their interests
The long-simmering debate over the future of Maine’s northern woodlands is about to move back to the front burner.
A group called the Keeping Maine’s Forests steering committee is working on a proposal to protect millions of acres of the working forest from further development. The committee is close to having a final plan and will deliver it to federal officials as early as this month.
People already are lining up to oppose it with competing plans for the more than 10 million acres known as Maine’s North Woods. It’s the largest unfragmented forest east of the Mississippi River, with most of it in private hands.
The steering committee grew out of an effort, organized by state officials, to get the traditionally warring factions of landowners such as Katahdin Timberlands, environmental groups such as Maine Audubon, outdoor recreational organizations such as the Appalachian Mountain Club, and members of the forest products sector such as the Forest Products Council, to forge a plan that would satisfy all of their interests.
“The fact that we got them sitting down at one table is unprecedented,” said Alec Giffen, director of the Maine Forest Service.
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Beth Quimby in the Portland Press Herald.
Here’s more:
The Maine Woods
• Maine is the most heavily forested state in the nation, with trees growing on 90 percent of its land base, or 17.8 million acres.
• The Maine woods are home to more than 20,000 species of wildlife.
• As an economic resource, Maine’s forests directly employ nearly 23,000 people.
• About 95 percent of Maine timberland is privately owned, with small, non-industrial landowners holding more than 6.2 million acres.
• The Maine woods generate $1.15 billion in revenues from forest-related recreation and tourism activities.
• Maine’s forest industry harvests 6 million to 7 million cords of wood each year to build homes and make furniture, paper and other products.
Source: Maine Forest Service
Steering committee members
• Eliza Townsend, Maine Department of Conservation
• Wolfe Tone, The Trust for Public Land
• Rosaire Pelletier, adviser to Gov. John Baldacci
• Sherry Huber, Maine Tree Foundation
• Karin Tilberg, Office of the Governor
• Mike Tetreault, The Nature Conservancy
• Alec Giffen, Maine Forest Service
• Patrick Strauch, Forest Products Council
• Ted Koffman, Maine Audubon
• Roger Milliken, Baskahegan Co.
• Marcia McKeague, Acadian Timberlands
• John Williams, Maine Pulp and Paper Association
• Eleanor Kinney, Environmental Funders Network Council
• Karen Woodsum, Sierra Club
• Brownie Carson, Natural Resources Council
• Alan Hutchinson, Forest Society of Maine
• Peter Triandafillou, Huber Resources
• Walter Graff, Appalachian Mountain Club
• Don White, Prentiss and Carlisle
• Mathew Dunlap, Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine
• Rich Merk, Small Woodlot Owners of Maine
• Ken Elowe, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife
Posted in Economy, Environment, Maine, Outdoors, Politics and government
Tagged "The National Parks: America's Best Idea", Appalachian Mountain Club, conservation easements, Forest Products Council, Katahdin Timberlands, Keeping Maine’s Forests, logging, Maine Audubon, Maine Forest Service, Maine Land Use Regulation Commission, Maine Sportsman, Maine’s North Woods, national forest, national park, public access, Restore: The North Woods, working forest
Advocate promotes North Woods park
Group says 3.2 million-acre preserve
would aid region as Acadia boosts coast
FORT KENT, Maine — There is little chance the forests and wild lands of northern Maine can ever be returned to their pristine state, but a group of conservationists sees no reason they can’t be at least partially restored and protected for generations to come.
RESTORE: The North Woods has advocated the formation of a multimillion-acre park or preserve in north central Maine since 1994, and on Friday the group’s director discussed the plan with students, faculty and guests at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.
“I can’t see another place in the United States where we could even be having this discussion,” said Jym St. Pierre, RESTORE director. “We are talking about 3 million-plus acres that could be acquired without disrupting people or communities.”
The area in question has long been the center of timber and logging operations in Maine going back to the early to mid-1800s when lumber from the great northern forest produced enough raw material to help Bangor become the lumber capital of the world.
Toward the middle and end of that century, the recreational value of the vast tracts of forests began to attract the likes of Henry David Thoreau and later Theodore Roosevelt, with the railroads billing it “America’s wilderness playground.”
Click in the link for the rest of today’s story by Julia Bayly in the Bangor Daily News.
Posted in Outdoors
Tagged Acadia National Park, Allagash, Allagash Wilderness Waterway, Appalachian Mountain Club, Baxter State Park, conservation, conservationist, forest, forest industry, Land Use Regulation Commission, logging, lumber, Maine coast, Moosehead, North Woods, preserve, protected, RESTORE, Roxanne Quimby, Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, The Nature Conservancy, timber
Letters From Away 