It’s not often that I plan a gripe session in my blog, but this week I am compelled to gripe a little. We’ve been extremely fortunate to be given landowner permission to hunt on land an hour and a half from home. Getting there has always been half the adventure. A good portion of the road is crappy (I mean 25 mph and you’re still cringing crappy) and it needs to be repaired. We make bets on how many moose, rabbit, deer, and other wildlife we may see on our journey. The crappy road slows us down considerably to get there. But once there, it’s always been our “little piece of wilderness”. The joy of hunting remotely is the feeling that no one else is there–complete solitude. You can totally engage your thoughts in what you’re doing and unplug from the world. For me it’s a good time to cleanse the mind and enjoy the experience of being there without listening to cars, dogs, screaming kids, blaring music, or dump trucks to name a few.

In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of vehicles traveling this route. They are adorned with kayaks, canoes and bicycles..in-state vehicles too, but mostly out-of-state cars, driving like freaking mad men and women to get to their pseudo-wild destination that an organization has advertised heavily in a Maine-focused magazine that’s marketed towards the not-so-average-Mainer, but more so for the upper middle class New England Urbanites that want to “unplug” for a weekend. I’ve seen them drive the crappy road as if it was a super highway; driving at high rates of speed, passing on corners, passing on hills, and tailgating just to get to “their” spot. A number of times, we’ve simply pulled over to let them by because they won’t pass but insist on tailgating.

We’ve seen a ten-fold increase in bicyclists, despite the fact that this road is narrow, has no breakdown lanes, no bike lanes, and has hill after hill, and has blind spots throughout scattered with washouts and broken pavement. I’ve even encountered “skiers” on rolling skies who think nothing of tucking down the middle of the road and won’t get over to let you by, or who stop right in the middle of the road to chat with fellow “skiers” without so much as an eye blink when you look at them in disbelief for their inconsideration.

I’ve also noticed that this is the first summer that we didn’t see the number of moose we’re accustomed to seeing in our commute. In fact, we barely saw any wildlife all summer. We saw one moose in May (pictured above), and didn’t see another one until the very last week of September. This is more than disturbing. And I don’t think it’s a tick problem because I’ve never seen a moose in that condition in this area.

This influx of tourists….are putting a real damper on little my piece of wilderness experience! They trample paths made accessible by the organization who’s chopped, mowed, and excavated because the trail can’t be too hard for the tourists to hike…and then the organization creates a “world class” bike trail..a trail that potentially crosses through where game travels, across water flows, wet areas, and in order to do so hack a path through the woods..oh yeah, and they nail their signs all along the road onto living trees that they don’t own. The tourists also like to yell and hoot as they enjoy their bike ride, not caring if anyone else may be bothered by it–yet it interferes with my solitude. So much for “leave no trace”.

Only once have we encountered someone face to face since we make an effort to avoid them at all cost–and what did they do? They pitched a tent IN – THE- M I D D L E of the traveled road/trail where camping isn’t even supposed to happen, and they did it all without hesitation, but instead with a sense of pride and entitlement and they with only the best-of-the-best gear that money can buy as if that somehow makes them outdoorsmen/women.Their response when we told them they can’t tent just anywhere…”We’ve done this for twenty years.”…BULL CRAP! this trail hasn’t been here that long!  They acted as if we were the ones that were encroaching on their wilderness space. It may have had something to do with one of them hanging out naked by the tent, but I really don’t care. News flash back-to-nature dudes…just because you can hike on it, doesn’t mean you have the right to camp on it, cook on it, or poop on it! Is that so hard to understand? We have access to the same land, and under no circumstances would we feel as though we have a right to bring in our camper or tent and pitch it for the weekend. We have more respect for the landowner than to do that!! We have more respect for others that use this piece of land. No one even knows we’re there when we’re there, and when we leave, we leave no trace.

Don’t get me wrong. I cherish access. Access is critical to the enjoyment of Maine and what it has to offer, and we are extremely grateful for the access we’ve been given. What I do have a problem with is the commercialization of that cherished access that is threatening the Maine wilderness experience for a lot of us.

I can only wonder how many animals were missed seeing or barely avoided being hit because people were driving so fast. I can only wonder how much further north I’ll have to go in a few years to find my piece of wilderness if this continues. I can only wonder how wildlife is being affected by all this traffic and all these tourists. I can only wonder if this is a snapshot of what it would be like for the people of Mt. Katahdin area….their wilderness being sucked up, trampled on, and used without real appreciation by tourists…I can only wonder.

Maybe perhaps Acadia National Park, Baxter State Park and the Appalachian Trail provide enough commercialized abuse for Maine’s wilderness. Perhaps we don’t need to sell off our wilderness experience with yet another national park. I truly hope we don’t if this is a sign of what could or may be.