Maine Woods Forever 2022 Summer Roundtable 

June 29, 2022

Dear Maine Woods Forever Colleagues,

Please Save-the-Date for Friday, July 22nd when we will hold our 2022 Summer Roundtable on the shores of Moosehead Lake. This will be the first in-person quarterly roundtable we have had since the beginning of the pandemic two years ago! Roundtable will be held at the Moosehead Cultural Heritage Center, 6 Lakeview St., East Cove, downtown Greenville.  It begins with lunch at Noon followed by our special speaker at 1pm.  

The date coincides with the 16th Annual Thoreau Wabanaki Trail Festival, a program initiated by Maine Woods Forever. The speaker for the 1 p.m. program will be Maine Woods Forever’s Board of Director’s own Paul Johnson. Prior to retiring in 2005 Paul worked as a fishery biologist for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in the Moosehead Lake Region, where he had the opportunity to become familiar with the woods and waters visited by Thoreau.  His program will highlight places that Thoreau visited, and things he observed, many of which can be seen today just as Thoreau saw them more than 165 years ago. It will be preceded by lunch at noon. 

Come take a Friday summer afternoon at Moosehead, have lunch on us at Noon, then stay for the program, where Paul will talk about the traditional Wabanaki canoe routes and portages that Thoreau made into these North Woods and explore Thoreau’s ideas about nature and conservation which were shaped along these waterways through his observations and experiences with Penobscot guides Joseph Attean and Joseph Polis. Two of Thoreau’s three trips into the Maine Woods were launched from Moosehead Lake. In honoring Thoreau and his Penobscot guides, the Thoreau Wabanaki Trail provides a recreational, educational, and spiritual opportunity for both Maine citizens and visitors to our state.  It encourages understanding, appreciation, and stewardship of Maine’s unique cultural heritage and natural resources.

Lunch will be a perfectly delicious three course bag lunch prepared by well-known caterer Di Bartley of Greenville and delivered to the Cultural Center. If it’s nice outside, it may be possible to sit in the new waterfront Crafts Park across the street.

Please RSVP by July 11 so that we can provide a head count and some lead time for Di to order and prepare food enough for everyone.

If you are inclined to stay, following Paul’s Thoreau Wabanaki Trail program, at 4 p.m. will be Bee Botanist Matthew Scott, speaking on the importance of various bee species as pollinators within the landscape. It should also be mentioned that the night before, at 6:30 p.m., will be Penobscot Tribal Historian James E. Francis, Sr., with his take on the Thoreau legacy in Penobscot Sense of Place, a fascinating birds-eye view about a Penobscot creation story and its relation to geographic place names.

Maine Woods Forever continues to actively participate in and provide financial support for the annual Thoreau Wabanaki Trail Festival, now organized by the Moosehead Historical Society, in collaboration with the Penobscot Nation Cultural and Historic Preservation Dept.

With Best Wishes,
Tom Mullin
MWF President

MAINE WOODS FOREVER MISSION:  Maine Woods Forever is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the legacy of Maine’s forests and woodlands by: Promoting stewardship of these natural resources; Finding common ground among people and groups with diverse interests to foster responsible use and shared stewardship of Maine’s forests and woodlands; and Working with others to designate exceptional natural, cultural, and historic sites for the education, benefit, and spiritual well-being of Maine people, visitors, and future generations.