Stephen Law's dream job had him working in the nation's best environment – its forests. Raised on a farm in rural Maine, Stephen became a civil engineer for the U.S. Forest Service. A Forest Environment was written from his experiences. He loved the woods and the animals that lived there; he hunted, fished, and loved to camp and explore.

In a chronicle spanning two generations, Stephen shares his adventures in the wild, as well as the insights from his father, also a veteran of the Maine woods, who worked for the paper industry in the early 1900s.
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This is the story of a magnificent wilderness in a relatively unknown valley, circumscribed by high, steep mountains. It is also the story of the valley's rogue river, Wild River; of a raging wildfire and the disappearance of an entire village community; of both land abuse and land stewardship; of ecological disaster and renewal; of nature's vulnerability and resiliency; and of people who experienced tragedy and good fortune. Amazingly, through the centuries a single mighty hemlock tree survived to be a living witness to it all.

Dean Bennett, who has spent a lifetime exploring the natural world and its human connections, brings to life this surprising story of the power of nature to renew. Illustrated with photographs and maps and Bennett's beautiful illustrations.
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The Family Heirloom Edtion is the new enhanced version of Jack Ahern's 2008 book, now out-of-print. This book has a new hard cover and is printed on higher quality paper. It has 22 more pages than the first book and has approximately 50 new images, including photos of Theodore Roosevelt and many of the Munsungun guides, along with images of Native American artifacts. It also has a larger index to include the new material.

Jack Ahern made his first visit to the Maine woods on a hunting trip to Ripogenus Dam in 1947. After visiting Munsungun Lake at the headwaters of the Aroostook River in 1956, he became a regular guest at the Bradford Camps and has continued to hunt and fish this area for over forty years.

While at these camps, many yarns are spun during both the fishing and hunting season. He realized that there was a great deal of history that could be either lost or recorded for future generations. It was evident that the older guides and the camp owners were eager to reminisce about their early years in these Maine wood. These are those stories and tall tales.
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In 1908 the Maine Forest Service released a booklet titled Forest Trees of Maine. Now, 100 years later and in its 14th edition, Forest Trees of Maine remains the Maine Forest Service’s most popular publication.

For the first time, range maps have been included. The maps are based on those of those of the legendary US Forest Service dendrologist, Dr. Elbert Little, who assisted with the 7th edition. The keys have been revised and, for the first time, a winter key has been included. Also, color photographs, which have long been requested, appear for the first time.

The book contains information on 78 different tree species, including all of Maine’s commercially important native tree species, as well as a few of the more common and important introduced trees. Several species are included that occasionally grow large enough to be considered small trees (e.g., bear oak, witch hazel, rhododendron, mountain laurel), but are more commonly found as shrubs.
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A series of essays by a Master Maine Guide, writer and columnist that highlights the recreational opportunities available on state-managed lands.

These unique essays run the gamut from grouse and bobcat hunting to camping and hiking to preparedness in the wilderness. They speak to the intense, wild beauty of the lands owned by the people of Maine.

Features illustrations by Kelly Thorndike.
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Originally published in 1954, My Life in the Maine Woods has been revised and updated by the author’s daughter. It recounts Annette Jackson’s North Woods experiences during the 1930s when she, her husband, and their children lived in a small cabin on the shore of Umsaskis Lake. Jackson, an avid sportswoman and nature lover, writes of hunting, fishing, campfire cooking, and the sounds of the wilderness through the seasons. She visits trappers and woodsmen, and tells what it’s like to sleep on a bed of pine boughs under the stars that shine over the legendary Allagash.

This new edition expands on Jackson’s original, including not only new photographs, author biography, and foreword, but also new material from Jackson and revisions she made following its original publication.
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First published in 1945, Helen Hamlin writes of her adventures teaching school at a remote Maine lumber camp and then of living deep in the Maine wilderness with her game warden husband. Her experiences – from snowbound months in a two-room cabin to sub-zero treks for food, to the sheer joy of spring – are a must-read for anyone who loves the untamed nature and wondrous beauty of Maine’s north woods and the unique spirit of those who lived there.

In the 1930s, in spite of being warned that remote Churchill Depot was “no place for a woman,” the remarkable Helen Hamlin set off at age 20 to teach school at the tiny and isolated lumber camp at the headwaters of the Allagash River. After teaching for one year, she married a game warden and moved even deeper into the wilderness, where she spent her next three years. In her book, Hamlin captures that time in her life, complete with the trappers, foresters, lumbermen, woods folk, wild animals and natural splendor that she found at Umsaskis Lake and then at Nine Mile Bridge on the St. John River.
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This is the story of an idea and a place. More than 100 years ago, when the Maine Woods was a more remote place, when trout were more plentiful, when caribou as well as moose and deer roamed the forest, a few visionaries with limited financial resources – but rich in the wisdom of the woods – gave birth to the idea of the Maine sporting camp. Thousands of “sports” came year after year, and the idea became a tradition.

Today, these places are scarce, remnants of many long gone. Camp Phoenix, however, remains. This is its story.
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The tiny town of Kokad-jo, population four (at the moment), has a colorful history stretching back to the time when Native Americans camped on the shores of First Roach. This is the story of Kokad-jo, from the heydays of the lumberjacks and the renowned Roach River Hotel, up to the present-day Kokad-jo Trading Post and Sporting Camps.

The loggers, the hermits, the fire wardens, the game wardens, the Civilian conservation Corps, the long-forgotten logging farms – each has a story to tell.

Also included are the rich histories of First West Branch Camps, Big Lyford Camps, Medawisla, South Inlet, and Northern Pride Lodge.
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More than half of Maine has never been settled and lies in what is called the Unorganized Territories, millions of acres of quasi-wilderness. Add to this the thousands of farms that have grown back to woods since the Civil War, and you have the most forested state, percentage wise, in the United States. But the “uninterrupted forest” that Henry David Thoreau first saw in the 1840s was never exactly uninterrupted, for loggers had cut it severely even before the Concord iconoclast’s trip, settlers had gnawed into it, and the Indians, much earlier, had left their mark.

This is the story of these lands – wild then and, in many places, wild still – and the humans who used them and shaped them and fought over them. It is a story that starts in the present with the current controversies over land sales, clear-cutting and spraying, proposals for a gigantic National Park, the future of the pulp and paper and lumber industries, and no less than a secession movement in Northern Maine, and then seeks to answer the question: “How did this extraordinary region come into being?”

We go deep into geologic time to understand the land and the trees that grow on it, and then come the stories of people and events that have shaped it further: Native Americans, French, English, Puritans, settlers, loggers, speculators, great proprietors, surveyors, soldiers, squatters, industrialists, game poachers, conservationists, philosophers, artists, writers, sportsmen (and women), nature lovers, property rightists, preservationists, hermits, mystics, and picturesque characters of every stripe that have created and still create their own legends. Here is the background to see the Maine Woods – its wildlands – in perspective.
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