National parks Maine Woods

A soft-spoken outdoorsman and former state planning official, St. Pierre is passionate, reasoned, and convinced he has a vision that s right for Maine. He also may be one of the most patient men in the state, somehow maintaining his enthusiasm for a Maine Woods National Park despite a dauntingly long list of setbacks and disappointments. 

Whether the Maine Woods National Park could follow that same pattern is unclear. St. Pierre certainly thinks it can. As he has often pointed out, at the 200 an acre working forest price, the land needed could be purchased for less than the price of one fighter jet or two days of the Iraq War (at the rate it reached in 2008, 10 billion a month). Americans spend twice as much on Christmas trees each year as would be needed to buy land for the park. 

But the controversy over the lynx and the proposal to extend its habitat did not provide a path to resolving the debate over the future of the Maine Woods—it only polarized the factions further. As record numbers of Mainers submitted comments on Plum Creek s proposal during the public hearing process, it became clear that none of the options on the table had generated much enthusiasm—not St. Pierre s cherished proposal for a national park, nor Plum Creek s proposed mega-resort complex. Both ideas had large, vocal groups of opponents. It seemed the perfect time to propose a third way. 

Quimby made her initial purchases in relative obscurity, amid a mad scramble of real estate transactions in the Maine Woods as land changed hands more in a year s time than had happened in the previous century. But then in May 2003, Quimby joined the board of Restore as part of its campaign Americans for a Maine Woods National Park, in which 100 celebrities, artists, businesspeople, and others signed on to support the effort. A press conference on the initiative was covered by the media throughout Maine, and Quimby was quoted in her role as the campaign s cochair. She made it clear that her land purchases would be part of the national park effort. Her days of purchasing forestland in relative anonymity were over. 

We re not quite ready for a park, she says. A monument or a national wilderness area is less threatening. It s doable. And it will protect nature. And once it s there, and people find they can live with it, enjoy it, and prosper because of it, then turning it into a park becomes no big deal. That s what I m gunning for. And that s what will save the Maine Woods. ... 

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