HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year!

I spent the first day of 2012 as the last day in the lodge until spring. Wayne worked in the morning so while he was gone I did all the laundry I could before he got home and shut off the water and drained lines. On the 4th I drove down to Bancroft to buy a saddle from Brianna Hannington – she is a delightful young lady and former 4-H’r. We made a timely connection with the saddle – I bought her old western saddle and she used the money to buy herself a new dressage saddle!

By week’s end I had updated Austin Theriault’s “FastTrack” racing magazine and sponsor packet pages. I help the family with some of their design projects throughout the year – the magazine is usually one of my biggest projects. We always enjoy pulling it together, then seeing the finished product when it’s printed.

January cold finally settled in The Valley with overnight lows below zero and single digits by day. Wayne Pelletier and Fred Michaud started grooming our sled dog race trails for the 100 mile race. I joined them on the 7th and we rode all the way in to Moose Point Camps on Fish River Lake. Several times we re-routed the race trail to avoid logging operations. At Moose Point Camps we found a doe that had been harassed by coyotes – she was “hiding” between camps when we arrived and we suspect we scared the coyotes off but they’d already done some damage. She ran off and it was easy to see where they’d tried to “hamstring” her, but she would live another day. On the 9th we pulled together a work crew to cut brush on a section of trail. Although temps were cold, we easily worked up a sweat cutting a 3 mile section of trail. On the 10th, Wayne Pelletier called - he and Fred had made another run to Moose Point to set up trail signs and they found the doe, dead. The coyotes had pretty much picked her bones clean. Those darned coyotes harass our deer year-round, not just when the snow is deep.

We shipped a “Charette Roof Rake” to Cordova, Alaska on the 11th. They were receiving record snowfall and having dealt with our own record-breaking snowfall in 2008, we could appreciate their struggles to stay dug out! Roland Charette (Fort Kent) is a client who has “invented” a better roof rake (www.CharetteRoofRake.com) . We have one and it is now almost effortless to remove snow from our rooftops using his "rake" - which is actully more like a snow "cutter".

January 14th – Eagle Lake Sled Dog Race day! We enjoyed a sunny, mild day for the race which is perfect for spectators. The Wesget Sipu blessed the teams and performed a drumming ceremony before teams left the starting line. It was a slow run out to Moose Point Camps but a fast run back in as temps dropped below zero and the trail hardened up. Denis Tremblay won, with Rene Marchildon finishing moments behind him. All teams were in at the Rec Center finish line by 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning. I crawled in to bed at 3:45 to get a couple hours rest before giving out awards at 11:00 – I no more than settled in to bed when the alarm went off – Wayne headed to work at 4!

Tom Webber & Megan Carr were up snowmobiling for a few days on the 20th. I rode with them on 21st but it was a very cold day. We stopped at the Carter Brook Club House to warm up and have lunch and decided that ride was enough! We headed back for the warmth of the cabin.

On the 23rd I went to Augusta to present our final report of the Non-Resident Hunter Task Force. We spent the fall examining the decline of non-resident hunting license sales in Maine and developed strategies to increase sales. The report was presented, along with other testimony, to the legislature's Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee. We hope they will implement at least some of our recommendations. Since I enjoy the legislative process, I sat through two other hearings before heading north - freezing rain was predicted and I wanted to get as far north as I could before dark!

Mike Duni arrived on the 25th for the Long Lake Ice Fishing Derby Weekend. Wayne and Mike moved our ice shack down to Alex Book – our favorite spot to fish for winter brookies. The guys struggled through lots of slush on the lake but got the shack set up and returned home just after sunset, just as I was getting ready to go looking for them! We fished the 28th and 29th and caught lots of fish; several brookies measured near 15” and weighed 2 lbs., Mike landed a beautiful salmon, but none were derby-winning fish.

On the 29th I came back to the cabin early in the afternoon to follow Austin Theriault’s race on “Speed 51” as he drove for Brad Keselowski Racing in Georgia! Austin finished a very respectable 8th behind NASCAR drivers Kyle Busch and Regan Smith! We're looking forward to his 2012 racing season.

January was seasonably cold here in the north while the rest of New England enjoyed mild weather. Their mild weather prompted many calls about spring fishing, which seems ironic as we’re shoveling snow, drilling holes in the ice to fish, and hoping the red line on our thermometer rises above 0. Our spring fishing bookings trickle in while we're enjoying ice fishing for now!