Black fly-themed items all the buzz Down East

MACHIAS – The reputation of the Down East black fly got a bit nastier in 2005 when the new “Defenders of the Wilderness” moniker took hold on T-shirts.

Now the same claim is appearing on clocks, and the sale of black fly-adorned items is bigger than ever.

The beneficiaries of all the money are good causes that can use a $200 check or two, courtesy of the Maine Blackfly Breeders Association.

The tongue-in-cheek group of volunteers with day jobs held its year-end business meeting Saturday during breakfast at the Blue Bird Ranch restaurant.

In the five years since the group formalized with nonprofit status, more than $11,000 has come and gone out again for the good of the Washington County community.

Another $16,000 has been raised by the black fly group in AIDS awareness walks over the past 10 years in Ellsworth and Machias. That is all donated directly to the walks’ organizers, the Down East AIDS Network.

The Machias Food Pantry, Down East Hospice, the Ark animal shelter in Cherryfield and the Porter Memorial Library in Machias are a handful of organizations that have benefited from black fly projects and profits.

Big Brothers Big Sisters, Down East Community Hospital, the Passamaquoddy Mentorship Program, the Quoddy Regional Land Trust, the Lubec Library and the Down East Birding Festival are others.

“It’s really amazing,” said Holly Garner-Jackson, a black fly enthusiast who runs the Woodwind Gallery and Custom Framing shop in Machias, which serves as the black fly group’s official international headquarters.

“We generally give $200 at a time, which isn’t a lot. But when you add it all up, it does go a long way. It just feels good to know that we’re helping the community. The word gets around.”

That’s because nearly 1,000 people have paid $1 apiece for the honor of holding Maine Blackfly Breeders Association membership.

Marilyn Dowling, the artist behind all the insect artwork, expects that 2006 will bring the group’s 1,000th member.

“We are at 970-something right now,” she said.

Garner-Jackson of Whiting and Dowling of Jonesboro get help from the two other board members, Laurel Robinson of Machias and Jim Wells of Machiasport.

In December, Wells and Dowling decided that black fly clocks would be just the thing to spread the black fly’s message – “Defenders of the Wilderness.” With Wells, a retired psychologist from New Hampshire, doing the woodwork and Dowling putting the design on, the clocks came out too late for Christmas.

But the message will sell through all the seasons, particularly May and June when black flies are in their glory Down East.

The group last summer brought out T-shirts with the same design – and sold $3,300 worth of them at the Machias Blueberry Festival in August.

That’s because “Defenders of the Wilderness” just resonates with folks, especially tourists who hike outdoors unprepared.

The group came up with the name and design when they were invited to Quebec last spring for a celebration of that province’s favorite pest. An e-mail from that black fly festival’s organizer included the “Defenders of the Wilderness” bit, and Garner-Jackson knew that the Machias group just had to use it, too.

It came off an Internet blog, she learned, of a young man in New York – Mike Natalle – who wrote about going camping with his friends upstate. Garner-Jackson contacted Natalle to get his permission for the group’s use. He granted it – in return for a T-shirt with the design.

“If you have ever been in the deep woods at the height of black fly season, you know they are truly defenders of the wilderness,” Garner-Jackson said.

The T-shirts turned many heads in September when Garner-Jackson and Dowling wore them at the Common Ground Fair.

The $12 shirts are screened by Liberty Graphics of Liberty, which also does the design work for the Common Ground Fair. The printing company loved the “defenders” idea and now features the T-shirt in its catalog.

Liberty Graphics alone has sold more than 400 of the defender T-shirts and donates 50 cents back to the black fly boosters for each T-shirt sold.