Camp comfort

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Around the turn of the century, they called Dan Buckley “a real deer slayer” up around Westfield. Buckley and his woods-tough friends used to hike into the woods to hunt with little more than a rifle, an ax, tin stove, tar paper, beans and some salt pork.

They would tramp into a good spot, fell some trees and build a lean-to. The lean-to would be their home for as long as they could stand it, and simple meals would be cooked on the stove.

And they always got their deer.

Grandson Bill Buckley of Bangor continues the family tradition, but in a remarkably different way. Buckley, who produces the popular Coffee News publication, organizes an annual deer hunt at Fourth Machias Lake in Washington County, an event that his grandfather would hardly recognize. The crew converged there for this year’s event last weekend.

The comfortable cabin sleeps 18, boasts wood heat and a propane stove on which gourmet fare is cooked for the hungry hunters. Scallops wrapped in bacon. Seafood chowder. Steaks and chops. Pies and cakes baked from scratch. For diversion, they hire a musician. For their tired, aging bodies, they visit the sauna or hot tub before going to sleep.

This ain’t roughing it.

The “hunters” are a diverse group, which includes a neurologist and a neurosurgeon, educators and businessmen. Some don’t hunt. Some don’t even own a gun. Some come for the camaraderie (and the food) and the hikes around the lake.

The men mark their calendars each year for the Fourth Machias Lake Annual Hunting Trip. Last year, Buckley even sent out menus.

Hunting and farming were always strong in the Buckley family. Bill Buckley grew up on a potato farm in Bridgewater, where brother Ed was the real hunter. Ed Buckley is a retired teacher and principal in Mars Hill.

“My father hunted, my grandfather hunted and my brother always hunted. They taught us the spirit of the hunt,” relates Bill Buckley who proudly uses a vintage compass handed down from several generations. The compass “probably dates back to 1905 or 1910, and every year people ask me to leave it to them in my will.”

In 1952, when Buckley was 9, an uncle bought a camp on Lambert Lake. “It was a 3-mile walk into the wood. There were no snowmobiles or four-wheelers in those days. You carried in everything you wanted.”

Uncle Jim Powell worked in U.S. Customs and covered the trains to Montreal. On the long train trips, he would meet all sorts of people from all over the country. The best of these got an invitation from Jim to the Lambert Lake hunting trips. “They came in caddies. One of them owned a candy factory. They loved the locals, and we would always try to get them a deer. We were just poor farmers and we would marvel at their stories of city life. And there was always someone different every year,” Buckley said.

The Lambert Lake tradition continued for 10 to 15 years and left a lasting impression on Buckley.

Then Buckley’s sister married an energetic University of Maine forestry major named Lee Whitely, who was born in Long Island, N.Y., “but he always wanted to be a Maine farmer,” Buckley said.

After he developed a career in the Maine paper industry, Whitely bought a camp on Fourth Machias Lake in the 1990s. He found an Alaska transplant who specialized in log cabins to erect the main building, then used that restless energy to turn a tool shed into a sauna, then built a wood- fired hot tub.

Invoking the spirit of Uncle Jim, Whitely and Buckley started inviting a diverse group of visitors for the three-day trip that expanded every year. “The camp sleeps 17 or 18, but we could have 40 every year, if we had the room,” he said.

Retired telephone company executive Jim Castonguay has a Coffee News franchise in Portland. When he heard of the trip, he wanted in. The amateur gourmet cook was welcomed with open arms. “Jim doesn’t even hunt. He just comes along for the good time. He specializes in cakes and pies. He can cook anything, really.”

Musician Ken Brooks comes along to supply the stories and the songs around the wood stove.

Don Kimball came from the Rumford area to work for Harbor Management in Bangor. He and Buckley became friends and got an invitation to the hunting trip. “Kimball is another ferocious worker. He loves the woods and hunting. He has to be doing something all the time. We sort of adopted him and he asks to come every year.”

Another sister married Joe Markey, a retired neurologist who doesn’t hunt but makes the trip from Charlotte, N.C., to hike and watch the wildlife. He brings along a friend, Dick Presley, a retired neurosurgeon, who flies his own plane to the annual event.

Out-of-stater Markey didn’t make it this year since he is moving to Colorado. But he said “the best thing about the trip is Lee Whitely, who does a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure everything goes well. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of hunting – I think there are a lot more deer down here in North Carolina than around Fourth Machias – but they occasionally get one. The really bad thing is the baked bean bake-off. I would recommend avoiding it if at all possible.”

Attorney Tom Brown of the Eaton Peabody law firm is an annual attendee. “His father was my father’s lawyer and Tom is my attorney, so he gets invited along.

“Tom is an amazing person on the 16th year of a heart transplant. The neurologist and neurosurgeon are always amazed at Tom drinking and eating what he wants. Tom doesn’t hunt either. He brings along his son to keep the family hunting tradition alive.”

An ardent Democrat, Brown said the political discourse is always as hot as the roaring wood stove, since Republicans outnumber Democrats 3-1 in the camp. “You should have been with us when the U.S. Supreme Court crowned Bush, the younger, the forthcoming president of our now not-so-fair land. Stay tuned,” Brown said.

Ed Buckley brings along his friend Roger Shaw, the school superintendent in Mars Hill. The cast of characters also includes Troy Alexander, a principal and fourth-grade teacher, married to Ed Buckley’s daughter. He brings his father Gary Alexander “who is the real hunter of the group. He brings the deer calls, the rattles and the urine. He has shot a lot of deer.”

Bangor banker Arthur Comstock met Buckley at a banking seminar and eventually landed an invitation. Comstock brings his friend Arnold Ellis, a retired immigration officer who brings the tradition full circle from Uncle Jim.

No one goes hungry.

Each morning starts with coffee and muffins at dawn to allow the hunters an early start. Then a brunch is served around 10 or 11 a.m. Last year’s menu included a “Fourth Machias Lake breakfast sandwich with fresh Maine eggs, fresh Maine-made sausage patties on an English muffin, home fries (Maine potatoes) and French roast coffee.”

Dinner was baked stuffed clams as a mere appetizer, with an entree of seafood stew with “Gulf of Maine shrimp, Maine lobster meat, Muscongus Bay scallops and Casco Bay shrimp, Aroostook County potatoes and Houlton Farms butter.”

The second day featured a brunch of omelets cooked to order with bearnaise sauce, bacon, home fries, freshly squeezed juice and French roast coffee.

Dinner was prime rib, “garlic and pepper encrusted with a basil overtone, served medium rare to well done, Jim’s third baked Aroostook Chef Special potatoes stuffed with red and green peppers, Vidalia onions, Maine cheddar cheese, Aroostook cream and butter and tasty Maine King turnips from beautiful downtown Falmouth, made almost edible with plenty of butter.” Dessert was apple crisp with Maine apples and “whipped cream standing by to make it an even more salivatory, gustatory experience.

Imagine what grandfather Dan in his lean-to would think about “basil overtones” and a “salivatory, gustatory experience.”

“In other years we have quiche, oysters in the half shell and grilled salmon,” Buckley said.

Buckley’s own concoction is “six ounces of bourbon, six ounces of brown sugar, a cup of ketchup in a sauce pan with a pound of red hot dogs cut into one-inch slices. You simmer that for 20-30 minutes.

“The dogs are served on toothpicks till they are gone. The second helping [with more bourbon] is always a little bit richer,” he said.

“I gain five or six pounds every year,” he said.

Buckley and the gang at Fourth Machias Lake celebrate the outdoors and wildlife as much as hunting on the annual trip. “We are all thankful that there are places like this left where we can go. I think we are losing the hunting tradition,” he reflected. “Soon it will be a managed, guided trip. You pay so much and they help you shoot. It will be like staying in a hotel. They are taking all the fun out of it. This is a down-to-earth family tradition.”

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTOS BY GABOR DEGRE

Don Kimball of Bangor (right) turns New York sirloin steaks over an open fire while Arthur Comstock of Bangor holds the flashlight at the Fourth Machias Lake Annual Hunting Trip. Propane lights illuminate the camp (top) at the close of a hunting day.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BILL BUCKLEY

Westfield potato farmer and “deer slayer” Dan Buckley received the compass as a gift from Smith’s Hardware in Mars Hill. He eventually gave the piece to his grandson Bill Buckley.