Here Back East

Maine in the Air

An unexpected whiff of Maine arrived yesterday by FedEx. My fishing friend Darcy sent along a homemade wreath decorated for the holidays. I knew immediately upon breaking the seal on the box that it was from the Maine woods. The scent of fresh spruce and fir filled the room and it was exhilarating. My sense of smell has been a bit off of late for some reason — perhaps post-Covid symptoms — but I certainly could detect the fragrance in the branches from the woods around my camp in Danforth.

Darcy is a single mom who makes her way quite successfully guiding, house cleaning and caring for her darling little one-year-old guy. Starting in late fall, she goes into the woods every day during her son’s naptime and collects tree limbs from around our camp. She weaves the sprigs and trimmings artfully into wreaths and adorns them with pinecones and red ribbon. The wreaths are then sold to a local distributor downstate who resells them to retailers like nurseries and flower shops. She manages to make 300 before the season is done — it is a pretty impressive business for a single mom who sometimes heads into deep snow to provide for her family. This self-determination and resourcefulness is Maine bred. Most people don’t seem to want or expect a government handout, preferring to make their own way.

I often read in the local Houlton paper about area residents — many of them high schoolers — who are recognized for being especially industrious either through entrepreneurship, or volunteer work. There is no “take for granted” attitude in the wilderness. Everyone is on their own from the lobster men in Cape Porpoise who live by the sea to the woodsmen who clear around Lake Baskahegan for paper pulp, to the handyman who maintains the various camps along East Grand Lake. My heart and respect go out to Darcy for her hard work and the lessons her father Greg taught her to survive to maintain a life in the woods.