Maine game wardens have tales to tell

It is a rare Mainer who isn’t fascinated, or at least curious, when it comes to tales from the Maine Warden Service. An affirmation of this is the huge success of the reality TV show, North Woods Law, which featured real life game wardens on the job. And retired Maine Game Warden John Ford, who is a featured monthly columnist in the Northwoods Sporting Journal, has parlayed memories from his warden diary into monthly columns and three very successful books. Add to this Paul Doiron’s equally popular novel series about a fictional Maine Game Warden, Mike Bowditch.

Count me among those who love a good warden story. When I worked as a media spokesman for the Maine Warden Service, it became obvious to me that most wardens who have some time on the job all have at least one or two career experiences that make for interesting tales.

So when Daren Worcester offered to send me a review copy of his new book, “Open Season – True Stories of the Maine Warden Service,” I jumped at the opportunity.

Worcester has written a wonderfully authentic book that is anything but a recycle of warden stories that we have already seen on TV or read before. Open Season contains 20 real-life stories as told to Worcester by 12 different wardens, most of them retired. A couple of the hair raising, life-and-death scenarios recounted by Worcester were familiar to me having worked with a number of these wardens selected by Worcester for his book. Nonetheless, the book and the detailed recountings of these events kept me reading well past my bedtime.

To my surprise, Worcester told me that he had started this book long before John Ford’s books and before the TV show Northwoods Law became so popular. It all started for the author when his father-in-law, retired warden Nat Berry, shared with him some career stories. Says Worcester, “I’d heard enough from my father-in-law Nat Berry’s stories to know that the Warden Service was a topic of interest. So I talked to Nat about putting together a collection of his stories that would ideally provide a representation of the full warden service experience during the time period.”

It was not long before the author’s father-in-law insisted that he talk with some other retired wardens, and soon the book took on a life of its own. So Worcester set out, not only to publish his first book, but to, as he says, “preserve the legacy of these wardens.”

This book does this, and does it with sensitivity, authenticity and integrity.

To reveal even a snippet of any of these tales would be to spoil it for the prospective reader. Suffice to say that there just isn’t a lull anywhere in this book. It marches from one unique warden experience to another. For me, the most captivating chapters are “Ice-Out, Wild Man of Fourth Machias Lake and David vs. Goliath.”

Well, maybe one snippet from the last chapter in the book, “David vs. Goliath,” won’t hurt: Warden Dave Berry enters the home of a suspected poacher. He announces himself, “Maine Warden Service. I’m coming in” and is suddenly greeted by a giant of a man screaming obscenities and wielding a revved up Jonsered chainsaw in a threatening manner!

And that’s just the beginning. It gets worse, not only for Warden Berry, but for two other law enforcement officers.

Worcester, a native Mainer who now lives in Bow, New Hampshire, gets high marks for his literary craftsmanship, his clear prose and his well-researched approach to this book.

Published by Downeast Books, “Open Season” ($16.95) is a must read for anyone who likes warden stories, or for that matter, anyone curious about what it is exactly that game wardens do, especially when things don’t go as planned.

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The author is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide and host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network. He has authored three books.Online purchase information is available at www.maineoutdoorpublications.com.