Warden's Creed

When Maine game wardens join the service they swear a unique oath:

Recognizing the responsibilities entrusted to me as a member of the Warden Service of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife of the State of Maine, an organization dedicated to the preservation of the fish and wildlife laws of Maine, I pledge myself to perform my duties honestly and faithfully to the best of my ability and without fear, favor or prejudice. I will wage unceasing war against violation of the fish and game law in every form and will consider no sacrifice too great in the performance of my duty. I will obey the laws of the United States of America, and of the State of Maine, and will support and defend their Constitutions against all enemies whomsoever, foreign or domestic. I will always be loyal to and uphold the honor of my organization, my state and my country.

While I was writing The Poacher's Son, I had these words posted above my desk because they defined for me the values Mike Bowditch aspires to embody (not always successfully).

Maine Streets, Mean Streets

I've always loved Raymond Chandler's famous quote about private eyes from his essay, The Simple Art of Murder:

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.

In The Poacher's Son I've extended Chandler's dictum to the wild paths and trails of Maine. The woods can be a scary place, but never more so than when you meet a stranger alone in some isolated spot far from help. Such is the life of the Maine Game Warden. And I think all of Chandler's character virtues apply to the wardens I most admire.

Maine Guide Tip

Every week I'll offer some wood wisdom gleaned from Registered Maine Guides I've known.

Dead Air

It isn't clothing per se that keeps your body warm. Instead it's a thin pocket of dead air between your skin and your first layer of clothing. I'm a big fan of Patagonia products—sometimes jokingly or dismissively referred to as "Patagucci" for their high price tags, but always worth every penny. Patagonia's R1 pullover has an unusual grid pattern on the inside that creates numerous tiny pockets of air close to the skin. As a result, this moisture-wicking polyester pullover is unusually warm for its weight. It's an excellent insulator. (That's the end of tonight's unpaid advertisement.) Old-time Registered Maine Guides tell stories of having to spend nights in the woods and stuffing their wool underwear with dead leaves to create the same effect. Leaves (or crumpled newspapers) won't keep you warm but they do trap body heat and keep it circulating where it will keep your skin warm.

Fit for Kindling

I don't own a Kindle, but I downloaded the Kindle app for my iPod Touch and have purchased and read a couple of novels since doing so. (One of the advantages the iPod and iPhone have over the Kindle itself is that their screens, while tiny, are backlit, making them ideal for bedtime reading.) For someone who loves books as physical constructs — I can still recall the intoxicating, ink-on-paper smell of my first paperback copy of the Silmarillion — the experience of reading an eBook was less soul-crushing than I'd imagined it would be. I'm excited to see what a company like Apple might do with the concept (rumors in the Mac world suggest that Steve Jobs will be launching a computer "tablet" to compete with both netbooks and the Kindle early next year). But, aside from Amazon.com's recent public relations faux pas, there are lots of reasons to wonder if the brave new world of eBooks will be all that brave after all. In today's Slate Farhad Manjoo studies the clouds looming on the electronic horizon.

*Edit: An earlier version of this post predicted that Apple would introduce its tablet computer this fall but the latest rumors suggest a spring 2010 launch date is in the works.

Maine Ghost Towns

Much of the action in The Poacher's Son takes place in the lost villages of Flagstaff and Dead River, near present-day Eustis, Maine. Today, these ghost towns lie at the bottom of Flagstaff Lake, but in the book I've spared them that fate and imagine what they might be like if they had survived into the present.

In 1949 Flagstaff and Dead River were evacuated. Buildings were either relocated or burned to the ground. The following year, the Central Maine Power Company constructed a hydroelectric dam at Grand Falls, creating a shallow, sprawling impoundment throughout the Dead River valley north of the Bigelow Mountains.

For a close-up look at what this area of northwestern Maine looked like before the flooding of Flagstaff click on the map at left.