Issues → March/April 2008 → Features →
Roxanne Quimby: Controversy in Maine
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The Lumbermen's Museum in Patten is as close as we will likely get. Bud Blumenstock has been a docent there for several years, having retired from managing woodlots from Fort Kent to Kittery. He sees these changes in the woods more optimistically than most, retaining the hope of a forest that will always support the people of that area. "Logging and lumbering have always been a big part of our economy," he explains. "It's changed in that Maine is now a village woodlot in the global economy. We're up against Brazil and China. To be competitive, we have to be efficient. It's a very complex situation."
And the players have to bring themselves into that competitive mix. "A logger is no longer a man with an axe on his shoulder," says Blumenstock. "It's not unusual for a logger to have a million dollars invested in his work. When people like Roxanne Quimby come along, they have a lot of money and they want to buy land. I once told Roxanne that I'm a tree hugger and a logger, and she said, 'How do you do that?' 'Well,' I told her, 'I hug the tree and then I cut it down.' Parks are nice, but they don't produce any lumber."
The great trees of these woods are long gone, and much of the new growth, thinner and less substantial, is not good enough for lumber. These trees are chewed up for wood chips or used in pulp mills to make paper. Much of the land Roxanne and Plum Creek have bought has been damaged by extensive logging. Plum Creek is proposing trophy homes and resorts. Roxanne wants her land to return to wilderness.
Like many people around here, Blumenstock keeps his opinion of Roxanne to himself: "I don't want to say anything negative about Roxanne Quimby. She has her plan. It's her choice and her prerogative, but logging is an important industry to the state of Maine. Trees grow. That's my one-liner. As long as we harvest them wisely, we'll always have a strong working forest in the state of Maine."
"Oh, Roxanne Quimby? she's my hero!" Wallace Drew is the ranger on duty at the check-in station at Baxter State Park's Matagamon gate. "We compare her to Governor Baxter. When Baxter was buying up the land for this park, people were mad about that, too. He has it in the deeds: Forever wild. That means no paved roads, primitive campsites. Most of us understand that these lands need to be preserved."
From the station, you return to your car and leave this earthly world. It is almost impossible to describe the feeling. The park road -- narrow, with grass growing between the dirt tracks -- wanders, twists, and turns, mile after mile, edged tightly by trees and canopied with their branches. At openings, there are waterfalls, marshes, or streams, and eventually, majestic Katahdin.
Baxter's struggle to climb to the Katahdin summit remained one of his few actual experiences on the big mountain, which rises a mile high. When he visited his park later, he came in his chauffeur-driven Cadillac -- a strange sight, the old man viewing his most important legacy from the backseat of a black limousine. He thought about that park every day, his chauffeur reported.
That is true for Roxanne as well. But her struggle is in sharp contrast.
Once, years ago, she came home from selling candles and lip balm at a craft show. It was 3 in the morning and 20 below zero. She was tired and discouraged. She had not sold enough to even pay for her gas home. When she got home, the wind had blown the window of her cabin open, and there was snow all over. "Sometimes you feel like giving up. I did that night," she recalls. "But then you pick yourself up again. I believe that success is getting up one more time than you fall. It's not one brilliant idea, but a bunch of small decisions that accumulate. Never underestimate the amount of work involved, the amount of fear involved."
In November of last year, Burt's Bees was sold for nearly a billion dollars to Clorox, which stated that it was eager to "grab market share in so-called green products."
"It feels like closure," Roxanne said shortly after the sale. The little company that grew is now completely out of her hands. But 20 percent of the sale price went to Roxanne. "That has put a lot more green energy into what I'm planning to do," she added.
In December, after a year of closed-door negotiations, Roxanne struck a new kind of deal with state officials and local civic leaders. From the Gardner timber company, she purchased 8,900 acres east of Baxter State Park, which she will return to wilderness, and in turn granted the state a two-year option to buy 5,000 acres of her Millinocket-area property plus a working forest easement on another 6,600 acres, guaranteed to be open to motorized recreation and logging. She also agreed to keep open two important snowmobile trails that cross portions of her land, perhaps heralding a thaw in her relations with area sportsmen and residents.
Today, she is working on acquiring still more contiguous parcels on the east side of Baxter State Park. "This feels good," she says. "Yes it does."
Click here for more information about Roxanne Quimby's foundation to improve the quality of the north woods in Maine, keepmebeautiful.org.
Reader Comments
Comment from Beth Dorton on March 7, 2008
Contention over how to assure the ongoing existence of wild places should not prevent people with vision and foresight from taking necessary steps to protect what's left of our few remaining living forests. Maine is unique in the contiguous states in having that much relatively unscathed land left to argue over. When our family sets out to go hiking, we want wilderness, we don't want to hear motors, we don't want to smell exhaust. We want to see vibrant, complete ecosystems and the living things that can only exist there. Thanks to Roxanne Quimby and RESTORE, very possibly our descendants will still know what that's like.
Comment from Brian Miville on March 7, 2008
This is an interesting debate and both sides have merit. But one thing I think is being overlooked that would help BOTH sides come to agreement much quicker. That is to designate the land a National Forest instead of Park. The White Mountains are a supreme example of a National Forest at work. Sustainable, selective logging helps support the local workbase. Snowmobiling, hunting, fishing and hiking are also a big part of the National Forests motto of "Land of many uses". There is a balance between nature (in the White Mountains there are Federally designated Wildernesses which protect the forest from human development of any kind) and Current-Use that can be reached if both sides are willing to give and take to come to an agreement.
Comment from Pete Pete on March 12, 2008
Why would I want to pay for areas in maine that I can not visit to hunt or fish? Now we can tax the owners and regulate there use of the land. How can people who have second homes around moosehead tell others they can't build there. Makes no sense, good enough for them to develop the land for themselfs, but not for people now. The Maine North Woods is not park worthy. It is not anywhere near a yellowstone, or grand caynon. It is working forest. The State can regulate development in curtain areas forever. I just don't see the spectacular volcanic areas or amazing caynons. It has nice lakes and small mountains. The Federal government will never want to spend the money for a park like that. You need amazing vistas and views. Katadin has some, but other areas around the north woods just aren't spectacular to see. It is fun to camp and fish and hunt but agian it is no Denali. I love the area but I would hate to see it not get developed around moosehead and see the town of greenville disapear. I like to see resorts and industry come back and see more people spend time in the area and money.
Comment from Alaine Winters on March 13, 2008
I guess I'm not as enthusiastic as others posting here. I respect Ms. Quimby for what she has accomplished, but I'm not convinced that a national park is in Maine's best interest. I'm also impressed by the amount of land that will be permanently conserved under Plum Creek;s plan, roughly 400,000 acres, 95% of the plan area. What should we say to the people who live and work here? What happens to the forestry supply. Forestry jobs pay well and make up a huge portion of our state's GDP, with all the federal cuts for social programs, a weakening dollar, the need for renewable energy, one more national park seems like a luxury we simply can't afford...what if the government wanted your back yard?
Comment from Tom Condon on March 21, 2008
For many years I worked as a canoe guide on the West Branch of the Penobscot with the Boy Scouts. This experience led me to a career with the US Forest Service and National Park Service. I believe the North Woods would be a perfect addition to the NP system. The rivers and mountains offer a wilderness experience within easy reach of millions of Americans. There are so few place left in the east that offer the serenity and unspoiled beauty of the North Woods. I still belong to the scouts. We take these young men (and women) to some wonderful places. We visit the Smokies and the Rockies. We canoe the entire Connecticut River. But it is in Maine, along the Penobscot, that we get our truest sense of wilderness. National Park status would raise the awareness of the American public to this vast resource. I hope that the people of Maine will see beyond the quick bucks of vacation home development and preserve this land for future generations.
Comment from Robert Matthews on March 26, 2008
I have been a logger in Northern Maine for over 30 yrs. That said, I have little faith in industrial forestry's ability to sustain, let alone improve, the economies of the local communities. There is also little evidence that the overall health and welfare of the forest is of any real concern. I do, however, believe that there is something inherently beautiful about a local culture built around the natural resources that surround it. This way of life is severely threatened. It is threatened by the Roxanne Quimbys, the Plum Creeks, the fact that land values are determined by out of state markets, the forest industry's focus on consuming the trees rather than managing the forests,ect. ect.. Outside this complex web of control and consumption there are thousands of individuals whose connection to the land has been at best marginalized, at worst ignored. We (with permission and/or legal right) hunt, fish, trap, canoe, hike, camp, x-country ski, snowshoe, snowsled, ride 4-wheelers, pick fiddleheads, cut firewood, leaf peep, and in general sit around with our chin in our hands thanking God for the opportunity to just be here. There was a time when I thought that my passion, my love, my profound appreciation for what surrounded me (ie. what I had the right to reach out and touch on any given day) was payment enough to insure that I would not be excluded. I no longer believe this to be true and it saddens me beyond words. More for my children than for me. Yet there is hope. If my children can become obscenely rich, buy 10's of thousands of acres in the North Woods, and invoke in perpetuity my personal agenda on all who would wander there then I guess that's OK.
Comment from bill melucci on March 30, 2008
I think when God created Maine he surely wanted people to be able to enjoy all parts Downeast the North Woods, Deer Isle and MDI. But I am sure he wasnt planning on some greedy or self aggrandising CEO to charge the average joe 10 bucks to see it, swim in it or breathe it's air. A WISE man once told me:
IT IS EASIER FOR A CAMEL TO PASS THRU THE EYE OF A NEEDLE.... THAN FOR A RICH MAN TO GET INTO HEAVEN!!
TRYING TO BUY REMEMBERANCE IS SHAMEFULL ONE SHOULD BE THOUGHT OF ON THEIR MERIT(S), ALONE.
Comment from John Cubberly on March 31, 2008
I'll be happy to pay ten bucks for some clean air and water.
Just donated to RESTORE and I wish success to Roxanne and her project.
Comment from Ginny Ward on April 7, 2008
Wouldn't it be ironic if Roxanne Quimby's ancestors were from Central Maine, where the lumber business thrived a generation ago?! I would love to know if the Quimby Veneer Mill in Bingham was owned and operated by her ancestors! She is not My hero! She takes pride in her "poor" beginnings (like most wealthy folks do). Her early hardships in Central Maine were much like the hardships of all Central Mainers, Downeasters and Northern Mainers. I would love to hear the REAL stories of Ms. Quimby during her early endeavors in the woods of Maine. These stories would need to come from neighbors and townspeople who observed her and had daily interactions with her. Her "uniqueness" comes from her wealth and riches, not from the fact that she lived in a way that hundreds of other Maine people have lived for generations. Any "uniqueness" in that area, would only be because she was not accustomed to the lifestyle of living in the Maine woods. Did she get town assistance? Did she get financial help from her Daddy? Did she get a welfare check from the State of Maine? Was she considerate of her neighbors and the community? Did she always have "complaints" about how the towns and State were run? Did she grow "pot"? Did she sell it? (Most hippies did) Did she pay taxes? Did she show respect for the generations of Mainers who were hardworking, mostly unskilled ---- just doing what they had to do to make a living? Or was she, even then, looking down upon us all, from her "priviliged upbringing", so engrossed in her own interests, that she was "blind" to the realities of the real Maine and it's people?
Comment from Mark of Millinocket on June 25, 2008
Roxanne, you have really lost sight of Millinocket and let down those that stuck up for you,,,, and no, I?m not one of those fools that thought you?d change.
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