Allagash: hard road to wilderness
By V. Paul Reynolds
Take the two brothers, Buzz and Tim Caverly.
For a combined 72 years, these two men, both still alive and active, served the state of Maine as conservation officers in a variety of roles: Buzz, most notably as director of Baxter State Park, and Tim as supervisor of the Allagash Waterway.
Few Mainers would dispute that in modern times no two individuals left a bigger mark as impassioned public servants and guardians of Maine’s wilderness than the Caverly boys.
Ironically, both brothers fought hard during their careers for what they believed in and yet, eventually, they were both removed from their posts. Buzz, who knew Percival Baxter personally, struggled, sometimes against the grain, to honor Baxter’s vision for protecting the Park’s wilderness character. As the guardian of the Allagash Waterway’s integrity as an American Scenic River, Tim’s tenure as the Waterway supervisor was also a struggle against political maneuvering by those who would seek to serve their own self interests in ways that would undermine the statutory regulations intended to protect the wilderness character of the Waterway.
Looking back at the historical record of these two public leaders, which is so well chronicled in a book by Phyllis Austin titled “Wilderness partners” and Tim’s latest book, “The Allagash: A Hard Road to Wilderness”, it is astonishing to learn that so much political intrigue and bureaucratic internecine warfare was waged against two determined men, who simply valued Maine’s natural resources and wanted to protect the wilderness experience for all in perpetuity!
The adage comes to mind, “History rarely remembers the comfortable; it remembers the determined.”
“The Allagash: A Hard Road to Wilderness” is Tim’s 15th book in his Allagash Tails collection. Relying on personal logbooks, diaries, letters and office memos, he has woven together a fascinating tapestry of what happened behind the scenes in his 32 years as a park ranger and 18 years as the supervisor of the Waterway.
You will be amazed! The Caverlys’ remote home was burned by arsonists. From 1981 to 2001, 17 pieces of legislation were proposed to undermine the integrity of the Waterway. Tim’s personal and professional kerfuffle with his nemesis, Rep. John Martin from Eagle Lake, is a real insight into the sheer venality that often underlies the Augusta political dynamic.
From Tim’s diary, “January 1999: Traveled to Augusta for yet another reprimand. I don’t think that the scolding will stop until they get me out. Expect to be gone by spring.” He was not wrong, for Caverly was dismissed in June of that year.
In his book’s conclusion, Caverly writes: “In the last four decades, state officials and politicians have undercut the law many times and betrayed the public trust.” Most damning of all is Caverly’s contention that the Maine Department of Conservation and its subdivision, the Bureau of Parks and Lands, itself “jeopardized the health of the Waterway and degraded any concept of wilderness.”
In other words, Tim believes that the proverbial fox is guarding the chicken coop. Is the picture truly as bleak as the book portrays? I honestly don’t know.
What I do know is that the late Baxter State Park benefactor, Gov. Baxter was wary of this sort of misfeasance and insisted that the oversight and administrative management of his creation was as insulated from the whim of state politicians as he could make it, hence: The Baxter State Park Authority.
Well, there is no doubt that Percival Baxter was a man of vision. With regard to the oversight of the Allagash Waterway, perhaps it is time to revisit the administrative structure of the significant and fabled Waterway.
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.sportingjournal.com, Outdoor Books.