In a much-requested
re-run, we visit Paul Vainio of Blanchard, Maine who has a
talent and passion for restoring old cast iron woodstoves.
Forty
years ago, the Moosehead Riders Snowmobile Club was formed.
They’ve seen a lot in those years, not only the transformation of
the sleds themselves, but the club and a growing and important
entity in the winter landscape of Greenville.
Michael Good is an undisputed master of anticlastic raising –
a technique that creates a piece of gold jewelry that is light,
sinuous and elegantly rich in its simplicity.
Roger AuClair was the first fishery biologist for the Moosehead
Lake Region. 50 years later, he still relishes his life at his camp
on the water.
Fired up about Woodstoves:
Paul
Vainio of Blanchard, Maine has always loved the things of the past. He
grew up near “The Moosehorns” just down from the Old Blanchard Road on
Route 15 in Abbot, along with 10 brothers and sisters. His family was
descended from tough first-generation Finnish stock and they were used
to hard work and “making do”. Paul remembers growing up without
electricity and plumbing and he especially remembers the big cast iron
cook stove that squatted regally in the family kitchen. That cook stove
provided hot water, welcome warmth, drying power for wet mittens and
winter clothes and, of course, the heat to cook all the family meals.
Nowadays,
Paul and his wife, Louise, live in an old home they have remodeled
alongside the Piscataquis River; and they enjoy all the conveniences -
hot and cold water available at the twist of a tap, central heat and a
modern bathroom. But,
Paul still feels a special kinship with the past.
“Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong era,” he remarked. “I think I
would have been happiest if I had lived during the times after the Civil
War. Things were a lot simpler in those days.”
To keep in touch with the
old way of things, Paul indulges himself with fascinating hobbies: he
restores old wood parlor and cook stoves as well as tractors and farm
equipment.
For more, please see page 2 of the January/February issue of Up
North, the Moosehead Magazine
You’ve come a long way, baby!
The Moosehead Riders Snowmobile Club:
When
Tom McCormick and his wife Denise bought property in Rum Ridge
(Greenville, Maine) in 1995, they were hooked on the stunning beauty of
summer in the Moosehead Region. The village was vibrant, the town
appealingly small. A science teacher in New Jersey, Tom never spent time
here in the winter until he retired in 2000.
And then he discovered another world. Except to get on one to ride
around on a field in New Jersey, Tom had never ridden snowmobiles
before. He didn’t know about trails – there weren’t any in New Jersey –
and he was astonished to find out that he could access 13,000 miles of
trails (through the ITS trail system) right from his dooryard.
He joined the Moosehead Riders Snowmobile Club and quickly became
hooked.
“Let’s put it this way, I bought my snowmobile and ATV before I bought
my generator,” Tom admitted, adding, “I knew where my priorities lay; we
were up here to recreate, to be outside. ”The club was
well-established, with 200-plus members, and a strong core of volunteers
willing to do the work inherent in a vibrant snowmobile club.
“I was impressed the way folks volunteered hundreds of hours for other
people,” Tom said. “People don’t do that south of here.”
For more, please see page 14 of the January/February issue of Up
North, the Moosehead Magazine.
In
the world of fine art jewelry, Michael Good is renowned around the globe
as the master of Anticlastic Raising. Essentially, it is a technique of
taking a flat sheet of metal and, with painstaking hammering, stretching
and compressing of the metal, fluid, curved shapes can be created. The
technique is nothing new; it was utilized by Bronze Age artists more
than three thousand years ago. Unfortunately, when the Celts invaded the
British Isles in about 500 B.C., this remarkable design technique was
lost. Extraordinary examples of this art form were found in
archeological digs – double-helix ornaments, and ribbon torques among
them.
How Michael came to be master of his craft is a fascinating tale, and
essentially his wife Karen was the one who kept him on track, believed
in his talent and provided just the right prodding at crucial times in
his career.
For more,
please see page 44 of the January/February issue of Up North, the
Moosehead Magazine.
Roger AuClair, Moosehead’s first fishery biologist:
Roger
AuClair and his friend, warden pilot Malcolm Maheu, strapped a 20-foot
canoe to the float of the plane. Malcolm, as he often did, was to fly
Roger into a remote pond that he was going to survey. The plane gained
altitude and was cruising without trouble, when all of a sudden one end
of the canoe let loose and swung out into the propeller. The prop sliced
the canoe in two. The propeller, still whirling, was sorely bent and put
the plane into a bad case of the shakes. A loose rope spelled the death
of the canoe, and nearly the pilot and passenger. But due to Malcolm’s
fine piloting he was able to make an emergency landing on a nearby small
pond, safely.
Once
the pair wrestled the plane near to shore, Roger held a large rock up
against the prop while Malcolm took another rock and banged it out
enough to flatten it so they could fly out OK. The two chalked up the
narrow escape to good nerves and a bit of common sense. That kind of
ingenuity was to serve them well throughout their careers, when unusual
circumstances, often born under extreme conditions, would turn out to
test the ability of each to cope in remote territory.
Half a
century later, Malcolm is gone, but Roger, now in his 90th year, looks
back with wonder that he should be the last remaining of that early
generation.
The quiet
man from Maine, fair in all weathers, could not have known when he was a
boy growing up along the banks of the Presumpscot River that someday he
would exact a steadying influence and a balance to Maine fishery policy
that has, to this day, come to garner the highest respect among both
sportsmen and scientists and continues to define one of the most
important inland fisheries in the state.
For more, please see page 54 of the January/February issue of Up
North, the Moosehead Magazine
Paul
Vainio of Blanchard, Maine has always loved the things of the past. He
grew up near “The Moosehorns” just down from the Old Blanchard Road on
Route 15 in Abbot, along with 10 brothers and sisters. His family was
descended from tough first-generation Finnish stock and they were used
to hard work and “making do”. Paul remembers growing up without
electricity and plumbing and he especially remembers the big cast iron
cook stove that squatted regally in the family kitchen. That cook stove
provided hot water, welcome warmth, drying power for wet mittens and
winter clothes and, of course, the heat to cook all the family meals.
Paul still feels a special kinship with the past.
“Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong era,” he remarked. “I think I
would have been happiest if I had lived during the times after the Civil
War. Things were a lot simpler in those days.”
When
Tom McCormick and his wife Denise bought property in Rum Ridge
(Greenville, Maine) in 1995, they were hooked on the stunning beauty of
summer in the Moosehead Region. The village was vibrant, the town
appealingly small. A science teacher in New Jersey, Tom never spent time
here in the winter until he retired in 2000.
In
the world of fine art jewelry, Michael Good is renowned around the globe
as the master of Anticlastic Raising. Essentially, it is a technique of
taking a flat sheet of metal and, with painstaking hammering, stretching
and compressing of the metal, fluid, curved shapes can be created. The
technique is nothing new; it was utilized by Bronze Age artists more
than three thousand years ago. Unfortunately, when the Celts invaded the
British Isles in about 500 B.C., this remarkable design technique was
lost. Extraordinary examples of this art form were found in
archeological digs – double-helix ornaments, and ribbon torques among
them.
Roger
AuClair and his friend, warden pilot Malcolm Maheu, strapped a 20-foot
canoe to the float of the plane. Malcolm, as he often did, was to fly
Roger into a remote pond that he was going to survey. The plane gained
altitude and was cruising without trouble, when all of a sudden one end
of the canoe let loose and swung out into the propeller. The prop sliced
the canoe in two. The propeller, still whirling, was sorely bent and put
the plane into a bad case of the shakes. A loose rope spelled the death
of the canoe, and nearly the pilot and passenger. But due to Malcolm’s
fine piloting he was able to make an emergency landing on a nearby small
pond, safely.
Once
the pair wrestled the plane near to shore, Roger held a large rock up
against the prop while Malcolm took another rock and banged it out
enough to flatten it so they could fly out OK. The two chalked up the
narrow escape to good nerves and a bit of common sense. That kind of
ingenuity was to serve them well throughout their careers, when unusual
circumstances, often born under extreme conditions, would turn out to
test the ability of each to cope in remote territory.