Donn Fendler postscript

To the Editor;

“Lost on a Mountain in Maine,” now showing in theaters nationwide, is an amazing movie. The filmmakers let the story of 12-year-old Donn Fendler’s nine-day odyssey lost in the northern Maine woods tell itself without forcing the narrative. Everything feels right, including the vintage 1939 dialogue and newspaper headlines, including from the Bangor Daily News.

A key part of this survival story missing from the picture involves two BDN staffers named Eddie Baker and Wayne St. Germain. In a stroke of good luck, this duo had just finished a climb up Katahdin when they received the news that Fendler, believed by many to be dead, was alive, having found the rented cabin of Nelson and Lena McMoarn 50 miles away near Stacyville.

Baker and St. Germain drove to Grindstone, then hiked a swampy tote road 7.5 miles to Lunksoos Camps, beating a doctor and officers called to the scene by 20 minutes. Baker photographed the emaciated Fendler while St. Germain conducted a brief interview. In the meantime, BDN photographer Dan Maher drove a panel truck containing a Wirephoto machine to the area and transmitted Baker’s pictures via a telephone line to the newspaper office in Bangor.

The next morning’s edition, July 26, had the first photos and interview with the young Boy Scout. The intrepid staffers, who had been on their feet for 44 hours, arrived back in the office, covered in mud and wearing torn clothing. Switchboard operator Ruby Anderson announced to the office staff, “It’s a miracle. Donn Fendler is alive!” Everyone clapped and toasted the two men who, thanks to teamwork and technology, brought the news into people’s homes.

I finished a 30-year career with the BDN in 2006, never having met Baker and St. Germain. But their historic scoop was held up as one of the paper’s finest achievements. I interviewed Fendler, who died in 2016 at age 90, several times for BDN articles. He became one of my closest friends. He claimed to have no memory of his brief encounter with the two newspaper men, but their reporting became a part of his life.

Richard R. Shaw
Bangor