Loon plates earn Mainers free ride> Most state parks open gates Aug. 15-16

It’s not often you get an offer for something free with no strings attached to it, but the Department of Conservation will repeat last year’s free use of state parks for two days.

This year’s dates are Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 15-16, and all you have to do is show up in your vehicle displaying the loon license plates. You and your passengers will get free use of the park on these two days.

Three state parks – Baxter, the Allagash Wilderness Waterway and the Penobscot River Corridor – are not participating in this offer, but the rest of the 31 parks and 12 historic sites are free for the two days as is admission to the Wildlife Park in Gray.

The offer does not apply to camping. Free day use is being offered in appreciation for the motorists who support the Department of Conservation by purchasing loon license plates. To date, according to Susan Benson, spokeswoman for the department, $4.4 million has been distributed to the loon fund from sale and renewal of these special plates. The money has been invested by the Departments of Conservation and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to protect endangered species, like peregrine falcons and bald eagles, and to address a $10 million backlog of repairs at state parks such as roof repairs at Fort Knox.

Last year’s sale of the plates increased 10,000 over 1996 bringing the total in circulation to 105,000 since the program’s inception in 1993. When a new plate is sold for $20, the Secretary of State gets $6. The remaining $14 is split 60-40 between the Department of Conservation and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. That breaks down to $8.40 for the Department of Conservation and $5.60 for IFW. On a renewal of $15 the Secretary of State gets $1 and the remaining $14 is split the same 60-40 way, Benson said.

One of the most recent beneficiaries of the fund is Mt. Kineo in Moosehead Lake. Tim Hall of the Bureau of Parks and Lands said without the funds made available through the loon license plate fund recently completed trail rehabilitation work would not have been done.

About a dozen College Conservation Corp of Maine students working in conjunction with Americorp spent a few weeks working on trails and signs. Trail signs were replaced, a new bulletin board was installed at Kineo Landing, trails were rehabilitated, others were closed off to protect nesting peregrine falcons, Hall said. The loon plate money “supplements our budget so we can get this work done … It’s a real positive thing for us. All of a sudden we have money to to these projects.”

Mt. Kineo is the most dominant feature of the Kineo peninsula. Standing 1,789 feet it rises 700 feet above the surface of Moosehead Lake. It is in an 800-acre parcel of state-owned land purchased in 1990 from Louis O. Hilton with money from the Land for Maine’s Future Fund.

In addition to the rare peregrine falcons there are several rare plants found at Kineo, inculding rock cress-Whitlow grass, hair-like sedge, birdseye primrose and fragrant cliff wood-fern. It has been a source for inspiration for more than 11,000 years. It’s volcanic stone rhyolite was used by native people extensively for tools and weapons until about 1700. Some of the projectile points have been found in sites as far south as Martha’s Vineyard, as far east as Nova Scotia and as far west as Vermont and Ontario.

Mt. Kineo is accessible only by boat. There is a privately operated shuttle from Rockwood public landing at a fee of $5 round trip, and brochures with maps of the hiking trails are available from the shuttle operator.

For state park and historic site information contact the Bureau of Parks and Lands, Northern Region in Bangor at 941-4014, or the Southern Region in Hallowell at 624-6075. For information about the Wildlife Park in Gray call 657-4977 or the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife information line in Augusta at 287-8000.