Bear hunt more than just the hunt

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Every year for the past three … or five … or 15 … they drive north, then farther north, then take a quick turn to the west and follow the St. John River to a place where the locals are proud to call themselves Moosetowners.

Allagash is, for all intents and purposes, the end of the road in these parts. You can continue through town, past the outfitters and the stores and a couple of small diners, and keep going … if you want to.

What you’ll find if you do so: Woods. Deep, vast, unforgivingly beautiful woods.

And what you’ll find at this time of year – if you’re lucky, and if you’re one of those who’ve made their annual pilgrimage to this tiny outpost community to do so – is a bear.

Jim Snyder has been heading to Allagash to bear hunt for the past 12 years. Snyder lives 12 miles south of Philadelphia, on the Pennsylvania-Delaware border. But there’s nothing that will stop Snyder – nor those like him – from arriving during for the first week of the season.

Two weeks ago, Snyder had an accident that cost him the tips of three fingers on the hand he uses to draw back his bowstring. He’s still here.

For the bears? Perhaps, though most of his hunting each year is done with a video camera, the bow safely stowed nearby. For the wilderness experience? Maybe.

For the camaraderie? Absolutely.

Snyder, along with many of the other hunters who make yearly trips to their favorite outfitters, has more than a client-guide relationship with his guide. He has become very close with the Kelly family, and makes time to head to Allagash several times a year.

It’s that kind of relationship that those supporting a ban on the baiting of bears – the preferred method of hunting in these parts – don’t seem to consider.

Bear hunting has a bit to do with the bear, you see. But it has a lot more to do with friends and food, stories shared around camp-wide meals, and good-natured ribbing and inside jokes that originated five or 10 years ago, and which continue to ferment with each passing season.

“I came up four weeks ago, [the Kelly family was] sitting on the porch, and I drove up and said, ‘I’m home!” Snyder said earlier this week, leaning back in a porch chair not a stone’s throw away from the Allagash River. “That’s the only way I can explain it. I just love to be up here. I love these people. I really do. I do whatever I can for them. Absolutely.”

This year, Snyder isn’t hunting. Not really. He can’t draw his bowstring back … but he can still videotape the bears that he sees. And he can still enjoy the experience.

“When 7:30 rolls around, I can’t wait to get out of that tree and pick my hunters up,” said Snyder, who helps guide Wade Kelly by shuttling a group of hunters to their stands each night. “I like to see their faces and see how excited they get. I don’t give two hoots about killing a bear.”

To those who view bear hunters as callous killers, as lazy tree-sitters, or as men and women unconcerned with the species they pursue, that comment may sound odd.

In Allagash, you hear it every day. Several times. And it always rings true.

The bears are why they’re here, after all. Most hunters would love to bag one. But a bear hunt without the hunters, without the camp experience, without the relationship with the guide and his family? Well, that experience would be hollow, to say the least.

Now, a way of life – and those yearly excursions – are threatened. Hunters whisper about the referendum in hushed tones, like they’re talking about a friend who has recently died a particularly unpleasant death.

At first, the whispers. Then, as they fully realize what they might be missing, voices raise, tempers flare, and frustrations show.

Up the road at Allagash Guide Service, Sean Lizotte shares a similar relationship with the men who return to his lodge every year. Lizotte guides for eight months a year … and 45 percent of his income is a result of bear season.

The threat against him and his way of life is sobering. And while a report released on Thursday pegs the statewide economic impact of the bear season at $60 million statewide, Lizotte says there are financial spin-offs from the season that are hard to quantify.

“I’ve had three previous customers actually buy homes here,” Lizotte said. “So, it’s really neat to come up to a place they’ve never been before, and to fall in love with it enough that they’re willing to turn it into their eventual home.”

One of his clients, Bill Wrobleski, has been heading north from his home in Richmond, N.H., for the past nine years. The trip is a yearly event he cherishes.

“These guys are friendly, they treat you decent, they treat you like a human being, you have a chance of getting something,” Wrobleski said.

Though Wrobleski enjoys the time he spends in Maine each year, the widespread assumptions that surround bear-baiting continue to rankle.

“Everybody thinks baiting is that easy,” he said. “I’m an experienced hunter, I’m a fairly decent shot, I like to think I’m a good shot sometimes. But since ’96, I’ve gotten three bears. So it’s not as easy as people think.”

Darren Compton of Moscow, Pa., is another of Lizotte’s clients. He grew up listening to bear-hunting stories told by his father and uncles. And since heading to Allagash for the first time, he has returned for a variety of reasons. He and his wife fish for native brook trout. Deer hunting is an option. But it all began with one bear hunt.

“I grew up and became old enough to come up to Maine bear hunting,” Compton said. “I’ve got children. I want to be able to tell them the same stories I heard growing up, and to bring my children up here.”

If some get their way, that won’t happen. If some get their way, bear-baiting – and likely bear hunting as a whole – will cease to exist in this state. This may be the last big bear season of all time in these remote Maine woods.

The thought bothers Wade Kelly of Kelly Camps. But not for the reasons you’d think. Kelly cares about bears. He says he and his fellow guides would shut down the hunt themselves if they thought they were doing things that would adversely affect the management of the herd.

But he cares more about his friends. Friends like Snyder, and plenty of others who take the time to head to Maine for a week each year, just like they have for the past three years … or five … or 15.

“The funniest thing about it, is, you take a guy like Jim Snyder – as good a friend as you’d ever want to find,” Kelly said. “And I’ve known him 12 weeks in 12 years. That’s the kind of friend you find in a short span of time. and they’re lifelong.”

For months, Wade Kelly finds ways to make ends meet. He works in the Bangor area at certain times of year. Then he heads back north for deer and moose season. And come the first week of bear season, no matter how long his hours have been, and no matter how tired he is, he’ll be smiling.

You can bet on it.

“It’s like a homecoming. It’s like the fourth of July,” he says, trying to explain the inexplicable bond that has been built over the years. “You wait for that every year. All your friends come in, and it’s like a reunion every year. And they look forward to that as much as we do. And it has very little with the fact that they’re going to kill a bear or not kill a bear. They love to get out there and they love to see the baits torn up. They love to hear the stories.”

Come November, those stories may stop.

In towns like Allagash – population 200 or so – things would change. Businesses would fail. People would move away … again. And those friendships forged over years of once-a-year visits? They’d change, too.

The bear hunt manages the bear herd. But that’s not what the bear hunt is about. Not really.

Over at Jan Soucy’s Black River Guide Service, longtime hunter Walter Davidheiser shook his head at the notion.

“It would be a shame. Just a shame,” he said.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.