Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife honors Skolfield and Conover Bennet with Fly Rod Crosby Lifetime Outdoor Achievement Awards

WATERVILLE – Tenley Skolfield of Solon and Alexandra Conover Bennett of Willimantic were both honored Sept. 7 by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife when each were presented the Fly Rod Crosby Lifetime Outdoor Achievement Award.

The award was presented to both Skolfield and Conover Bennet by MDIFW Deputy Commissioner Tim Peabody at the annual Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine banquet at the Elks Club in Waterville. The annual award honors individuals who are dedicated to the stewardship and wise use of Maine’s natural resources, and who have been or are active in Maine’s rich outdoor traditions.

“Tenley and Alexandra have each made their mark in the Maine outdoors, and it truly is a pleasure to honor them both,” said Judy Camuso, commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “Their love for the Maine outdoors is only matched by their passion for passing that love along and sharing the Maine outdoors with others. “

The Department’s Fly Rod Crosby Outdoor Lifetime Achievement Award is presented annually, honoring the award winners, and also recognizing Cornelia “Fly Rod” Crosby, Maine’s first registered Maine Guide, for her work in promoting and showcasing Maine’s outdoors, and her stewardship and passion for the Maine outdoors. This is the first year the awards were presented since being renamed in honor of Fly Rod Crosby.

At the banquet Peabody read a brief summary from the nominations of both award winners prior to providing them with a plaque. Gov. Janet Mills was also in attendance, and congratulated both award winners for their lifetime achievements.

Remarks read about Skolfield Conover Bennet were respectively:

As I stated earlier, the Fly Rod Crosby outdoor lifetime achievement award honors individuals who have spent a lifetime in the outdoors and those that have been generous with their time to get others outdoors, sharing their knowledge and experiences, and welcoming others to a life lived outdoors.

It is fitting that the first year that we have renamed the award, we are honoring two women. Cornelia herself would be very proud.

In one of the nominations for the first winner, the author stated “when I first read about Fly Rod Crosby, I said to myself, this sounds a lot like Tenley. When I read the criteria for the Fly Rod Crosby Outdoor Lifetime Achievement award, I said to myself, this is Tenley Skolfield.”

It is my honor to announce that Tenly Skolfield is one of the two recipients of the Fly Rod Crosby Lifetime Achievement Award.

Anyone who knows Tenley knows that she has dedicated her life to the outdoors, running her guide business where she has introduced hundreds of people to the outdoors, mentoring children, teens, women, and others in Maine’s woods and waters, and volunteering her time to countless boards, committees and commissions,  as well as organizations to get people outside.

Tenley was first introduced to the Maine outdoors at the age of 9 when she first stepped foot in a duck blind on the New Meadows River. Mentored by her father and grandfather, she was wingshooting at age 10, and by age 12, saving the babysitting money she earned for taxidermy. At 14 she became a presence at deer camp, where she was the only female hunter in the group. While living in Harpswell, she fished for flounder of her grandfather’s wharf, caught stripers and blues in the New Meadows, and casted flies for brook trout when on Maine’s inland waters.

With her passion for the outdoors cemented as a child, she dreamed of becoming a guide, which she accomplished in 1999 when she became a master Maine Guide, and established “as the Crow Flies Guide Service.” She later bought and turned around a faltering sporting guide business, Fish River Lodge on Eagle Lake, providing a wonderful atmosphere for families, friends and others to hunt and fish, sharing her extensive knowledge to anyone who came there or went on a guided trip with her.

Tenley recognized that she was extremely fortunate to be exposed to so many outdoor experiences growing up, and she made it a point to pass along her skills. She is tireless when it comes to mentoring, always quick to teach and share her vast experience and knowledge. She has been a teacher and role model in the BOW program, mentored women upland bird hunters in an annual hunt, and mentored countless children and first-timers in her guide service and sporting lodge.

She also worked tirelessly on a variety of boards to promote conservation, provide opportunities, and protect the outdoors. She served on MDIFW Commissioner’s Advisory Council, MDIFW salmon working group, MDIFW non-resident hunter task force, Aroostook county tourism board, Sportsmens’ forest landowners Alliance, Maine Professional Guides Association, Maine Conservation Council, National Wild Turkey Federation chapter, Merrymeeting Bay Ducks Unlimited, Eagle Lake Winter Riders, and many more.

In 2004, she became an unflappable spokesperson in the first bear hunting referendum. She was eloquent, passionate, and sincere. She spoke publicly at numerous events, appeared in debates, commercials, interviews, and just about everywhere. Her efforts, along with many others, were instrumental in preserving Maine’s bear management system.

And now as director of operations for Maine Street Skowhegan, where she is the director of operations, and working tirelessly to transform Skowhegan to a thriving economic, cultural and recreational destination, she continues to pass along her love and expertise of the Maine outdoors. 

I could go on further, and many of her nominations did, but for a lifetime lived outdoors, a selfless dedication to promoting and preserving the Maine outdoors, and a tireless drive to provide opportunities and mentor new people in the outdoors, it is my distinct pleasure to award Tenley Skolfield the Fly Rod Crosby Outdoor Achievement Award. 

Conover Bennett: Once again, it is my pleasure to honor another very special woman who has lived a life outdoors, leaving her mark on many, as a guide, teacher and mentor. It is with deep respect that I announce Alexandra Conover Bennett as a 2024 recipient of the Fly Rod Crosby Outdoor Lifetime Achievement Award.

Alexandra is well known in the North Maine Woods, She has embodied the spirit of the quintessential Maine guide for over 45 years. She has mentored many in a variety of outdoor skills, and to this day continues an apprentice program that teaches her students the art of carving a wooden paddle. Always a champion of conservation, she has fought to keep the Maine woods accessible and available for all.

She co-founded North Woods Way, a northern woods wilderness and guiding center with her partner Gerry Conover in 1980, and since then she has guided thousands of people from all over the world by canoe, snowshoe, and toboggan and through all seasons in the Northern Maine Forests and beyond.

You may also know that she is a canoe paddle carver, with her own design of a classic North Woods Guiding paddle, of which since 1980, she has signed and numbered. Her expertise is so well known, Alexandra’s patterns are now one of the models offered by Shaw and Tenney Paddles and Oars in Orono.

She is a dedicated teacher of the outdoors, and was recognized in 2018 with the Piscataquis County Outstanding Conservation Educator of the Year Award for her exceptional work over the years in natural resource ecology and education. She was an instructor in the Life Jacket program in Piscataquis County, a program developed for troubled youth that provided outdoor experiences and skills that was soon opened to all and became very popular due to the teaching of Alexandra.

With the outdoors as her classroom, she has been a teacher or demonstrator of Folk Arts at the Maine Festival and Common Ground Fair, a presenter at the Thoreau Wabanaki Festival in Greenville, and a traditional outdoor skills instructor at the College of the Atlantic.

An accomplished author, she and Gerry co-wrote “Snow Walker’s Companion: Winter Living and Traveling Skills in the North”, which has become the quintessential guide to winter trekking and camping.

Along with her passion for teaching others, Alexandra made it a point to work to conserve, protect and enhance a Maine way of life by working with or serving on numerous boards and commissions over the years including being a Maine Wilderness Guides founding member, serving with the Allagash Wilderness Waterway Foundation, and the Friends of Baxter State Park.

Perhaps some of the nominations describe her best: I have never met a more competent woman in the outdoor arts as Alexandra. Not only is she a successful guide, seasoned paddler and poler and outdoor skills educator, she can cast a beautiful fly line and delicately present a fly to a feeding trout. Alexandra is a clear choice in my mind to be the recipient of this award.

Another one stated: Alexandra is an inspiration to anyone who crosses her backcountry path. She is incredibly generous with passing on her knowledge, experiences, and skills, specifically to the youth through her teaching at College of the Atlantic.

And: Alexandra’s skills with a paddle, setting pole, fly rod and firearm are exceptional as is her deep understanding of natural history, her impeccable ethics, and understanding of the relationship between Maine’s natural resources, colorful Northwoods heritage, and the roles of hunting and fishing in the management of healthy wildlife populations.

It is for her dedication on passing on a Maine Way of Life, her love of mentoring all in the outdoors, her impeccable outdoor skills she readily shares, and her commitment to education and teaching new generations the importance of self-reliance, conservation, and expertise in the outdoors, that I proudly present Alexandra Conover Bennett the 2024 recipient of the Fly Rod Crosby Outdoor Lifetime Achievement Award.