Unity event has sportsmen on a roll Wheelchair-bound outdoors enthusiasts raise awareness of land accessibility

UNITY – Allen Barter traveled by himself in a red van with an elevator that could lower and raise his wheelchair. He was one of the few at the Wheelin’ Sportsmen event at Unity College who came without anyone to help him.

But Barter was not without need. The fishing trip to Twentyfive Mile Stream near Unity Pond proved that.

Like many of the eight disabled sportsmen who went on the angling outing that was part of the three-day outdoors program for the disabled, Barter was able to wheel himself to the stream along a dirt path. But a night of rain had softened the ground, and after two hours of reeling in poppers, talking fishing and minding the shady pool, Barter and his wheelchair needed to be pushed to his truck.

This event for disabled sportsmen, sponsored by the National Wild Turkey Federation and Kittery Trading Post, was held in New England for the first time. It started in 1995 in Alabama and since has provided sportsmen in six southern states with fishing and hunting opportunities.

The event brought 18 disabled men from around Maine and New Hampshire to Unity College over the weekend to learn new ways to hunt, handle a firearm, shoot a bow and fly-fish. Last year, 119 disabled sportsmen in Maine were given complimentary hunting or fishing licenses because they were paraplegics.

A man in his 50s with legs shrunken from polio, Barter has personality enough to make up for his disability. He has a gentle, outgoing nature that helps him ask for aid as well as aid others, as he did this weekend by doling out secrets he had acquired from decades as an able-bodied fisherman. Barter has been in a wheelchair for six years.

“I should have my [butt] kicked. As long as I could walk, I should have advocated accessibility,” Barter said between casts. “I ignored the fact I would be in a wheelchair one day. Now I’m in a wheelchair full time.”

The man from Boothbay Harbor said he foresaw the time when he would be restrained by a machine that could get him so few places. Now he dreams of the few places he would like to go, old haunts along Cobbosseecontee or Sebago lakes, places he hasn’t visited in years.

“I would like to see the state provide the handicapped with access to a pond or lake,” he said. “They took a reclaimed gravel pit and stocked it with trout and said that was for the disabled. They hadn’t done anything. They don’t do it maliciously. It’s human nature [to think]: You’ll get a place and you should be happy. I hope [this event] is the start of something.”

The Wheelin’ Sportsmen event was kicked off with Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Deputy Commissioner Fred Hurley discussing legislation signed into law Friday by Gov. Angus King that will allow the DIF&W commissioner to give a permit on a case-by-case basis to persons with a permanent disability so they may hunt, fish or trap at times or in a manner otherwise prohibited by law.

Anyone seeking such a permit must get approval from an advisory committee that will be made up of disabled people, a physician and representatives from state agencies and sportsmen’s organizations.

Hurley said the bill will provide more opportunities, although he said fishing and hunting regulations previously offered limited opportunities to the disabled.

Barter didn’t attend Hurley’s presentation. He said it’s not so much the law that needs work, it’s the places in Maine’s outdoors disabled people are prevented from getting to – places such as hiking trails, oceanside boardwalks, coastal vistas where one could fish for mackerel, or lakes or ponds with natural fisheries where a wheelchair-accessible float could provide hundreds with forgotten pleasures.

“Something like this,” Barter said of the simple stream running under Route 139. “Someplace flat, with disabled parking. People would flock to it. My father built a ramp onto a float on his pond where I can fish. I’m one of the lucky ones.”

Deirdre Fleming covers outdoor sports and recreation for the NEWS. She can be reached at 990-8250 or at dfleming@bangordailynews.net.