‘Guide’ mocks best of Maine

ADVENTURE GUIDE TO MAINE, by Earl Brechlin, Hunter Travel Guides, Newmarket, Ontario; 2000; 530 pages; $16.95.

Many Mainers love Tim Sample’s self-effacing humor. We can laugh as he mocks our black-fly festivals and trailer parks, because he indisputably is one of us – born in Aroostook County.

But natives bristle like a porcupine at the thought of tourists doing the same.

So when a self-proclaimed “local” writes a guide designed to introduce tourists to the real Maine, then mocks the Down East dialect in a chapter titled “Ayuh, Been Theyah,” and informs tourists that folks from northern Maine drive snowmobiles in lieu of cars each winter, and that rural people are likely to give direction in terms of the number of beers you can drink between destinations, I find it less than charming.

“Adventure Guide to Maine,” written by local newspaperman Earl Brechlin, was published in 1999 with the aim of encompassing the entire state of Maine and giving visitors the inside scoop on where to hike, canoe, eat and sleep.

If you aspire to a lengthy tour of Mount Desert Island’s many charms, the book is very successful. But Brechlin’s personal biases are painfully evident.

The book divvies up Maine into seven geographic regions ranging from the south coast to the far north. In the book’s most comprehensive chapter, Brechlin extols the glory of his primary stomping ground with a 16-page spread on “the crown jewel of accessible wilderness” – Acadia National Park.

Now, I’ve hiked through much of Acadia in flip-flops. The park is an incredible showcase for Maine’s natural beauty, but it has been packaged for visitor consumption since 1900. You have to look awfully hard to find any true wilderness within 100 miles of the traffic jams ringing Sand Beach each summer.

A visitor seeking untouched nature must drive north to Baxter State Park or the Allagash Wilderness Waterway; which coincidentally rate fewer pages – combined – than Acadia in the guide.

Semantics aside, the book is well crafted. After a short introduction, each region’s recreational possibilities are described under standard categories such as hiking, scenic drives, canoeing and fishing. The book is a treasure-trove of phone numbers and addresses so visitors can reserve a bed, kayak or snowmobile before leaving home.

But the Down East chapter unfairly implies that there are no restaurants or places to sleep in Ellsworth, while listing 14 on Mount Desert Island. But then, Ellsworth is just a “typical shopping strip” with fast food and a

Wal-Mart to draw visitors – hardly a destination to compare to the “thousands of motel rooms, a similar quantity of campsites and plenty of private cottages and cabins to rent” on the island.

Certainly, Bar Harbor is a wonderful place to visit. But in a book claiming to be the definitive guide to the entire state, building up one destination at the expense of others is unfair.

Backhanded compliments paint Belfast as trying to shed its “past as a chicken-processing port,” Rockland as “once best-known for the odors emanating from its many fish-processing plants,” and Camden as “more crowded with visiting yachts than ever.”

These criticisms may be true, but they’re unnecessary. A statewide guide such as this should dwell on the positive features that make each region unique. When he’s not editorializing, Brechlin does make a good effort to describe the destinations along Maine’s coast and through its central forests. But the farther north he ventures, the more inaccuracies pepper his advice.

Speaking as a native of northern Maine, much of the information about Aroostook County is just plain wrong. French is not the primary language. Loring is not the site of “frequent Woodstock-like concerts.” And we don’t “practically live on snow machines,” to survive a frigid arctic winter.

But far worse than sweeping generalizations, some of the mistakes lure tourists into dangerous situations in Maine’s true wild country. A Bangor Daily News staffer native to the Allagash region skimmed the guide’s recommendations and found several places where Brechlin downplays the hazards of canoeing these waters. He said an inexperienced boater who follows the guide’s advice and attempts to navigate an old dam at Long Lake, deemed safe by Brechlin, could end up with a boat or body pierced by metal spikes.

No one could know the sort of detail necessary to catch these errors in each region of such a diverse state as Maine. Even if they had years, one ambitious person couldn’t successfully write an insider’s guide to the entire state.

If Hunter Publishing wants to provide a fair and accurate guide this extensive, it needs to contract with several writers who have the experience to write firsthand about the state’s several regions. For now, check your local bookstores for regional guides such as Brechlin’s fine Acadia guidebooks, and forgo the “Adventure Guide to Maine.”