Fall classes await outdoor enthusiasts

OK, recess is over. Back to class! I’ve got some information on fall classes, a water trails conference and an upcoming meeting of the Maine Outdoor Adventure Club to tell you about. They’re happening right away, so be sure to sign up quickly – like today!

For folks living in the greater Bangor area who have an interest in the outdoors, United Technologies Center on Hogan Road is once again offering a gaggle of courses to build your skill levels and increase your knowledge. The school’s wilderness careers curriculum is going into its third year now and course offerings include hunter safety, intermediate kayak skills, Maine Guide courses for the sea kayak and recreation licenses, navigation, rolling clinics, sea kayak navigation and wood strip canoe and kayak making.

UTC Director Greg Miller told me tomorrow is the last full day you can register for this fall’s offerings, so get going. The evening classes start Sept. 4 and some run for 15 weeks.

My friend and kayaking mentor, Karen Francoeur, is teaching the guide’s course for sea kayaking and sea kayak navigation, and she’s conducting rolling and rescue skills clinics in a pool to help you develop or hone your skills.

Dick Parker, guide extraordinaire, is teaching the Maine Guide-Recreation course, which is the cornerstone for anyone interested in beginning a career as a Registered Maine Guide. This course and Francoeur’s sea kayak guide course will prepare you for taking the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife examination you must pass to get your guide’s license. Parker is also teaching an introductory course on land navigation.

If a strip built canoe or kayak is something you’d like to learn how to build, sign up for Mike Maybury’s class. He’ll run through everything from selecting boat designs to the finished product and two lucky students will go home at the end of 15 weeks with their own boats. Other students will have the opportunity to build the requisite “stations” to build their own boats.

And there is a four-day hunter safety course on tap as well.

The tuition for these course offerings varies from $3 for the hunter safety course, to $65 for land navigation, to $175 for the recreation guide course, to $275 for the sea kayak guide course.

Call the school at 942-5296 for more information, or stop by at 200 Hogan Road.

By the way, there are many other courses which are not outdoor oriented that are offered at UTC – everything from applied food service sanitation and auto collision repair to computer related courses to medical and horticulture courses, so check it out, expand your mind for a reasonable cost.

For all you island lovers (and who wouldn’t that be?) and water trail freaks, don’t forget that the “Small Boats and Water Trails Symposium” is taking place Sept. 7-9 at Southern Maine Technical College in South Portland. It’s the 14th annual Maine Island Trail Association Conference, and it is co-sponsored by North American Water Trails. It promises to deliver a national perspective on water trails as well as a local focus on Maine’s islands.

Already there are more than 250 folks from all over the United States and Canada registered to attend.

The weekend’s workshops and demonstrations are being held in conjunction with MITA’s stewardship party Friday night in tribute to the volunteers who have given their time and effort to maintain the 90-plus islands (more than half of which are public) in the Maine Island Trail.

While it’s a little late to get in on the meal ticket, there’s still time to register ($125) for two days of programs and workshops. The keynote address will be given by Chris Brown of the National Park Service and workshop speakers include Dave Getchell, co-founder of MITA and first president of North American Water Trails; Charlie Jacobi, resource specialist with Acadia National park; Joel Eastman, Casco Bay historian; Wayne Curtis, expert paddler and the first kayaker to traverse the Maine Island Trail; Susan Farady, New England Ocean Conservancy’s ecosystem protection manager; and Mike Krepner, co-founder of Native Trails, Inc.

Here are a few of the topics to be covered: The Truth about Sharks, by Mary Cerullo; Cuisine a la Trail – Four-star Cookery by Craig Worthing; Sharing the Sea with Seals, by Lisa Smith and Barbara Lelli; Experiencing Canada’s River and Coastal Heritage: A Spiritual Journey by Brian Grimsey; and Paddle Safe Arrive Alive by Registered Maine Guide Natalie Springuel.

For more information call MITA at 761-8225 or check out their Web site at www.mita.org/annualconference2001/schedule.html.

And last, but not least, it’s time for the Maine Outdoor Adventure Club’s Bangor branch to kick into high gear and for its first meeting of the new season at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 4, at Cadillac Mountain Sports, downtown Bangor. The group has invited Dick Parker (see above) to talk about navigation and the GPS. MOAC’s Bangor group has grown to more than 60 members in the first year. If you’re looking for new friends with similar outdoor interests to yours, get down to this meeting and talk to the folks there.

Jeff Strout’s column is published on Thursdays. He can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.