Looking toward the future of Moosehead Lake

As a native of the Moosehead Lake region, I can certainly understand why many people are concerned about the concept plan that Plum Creek has submitted to Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC). After all, this is a beautiful part of the world with strong traditions, and the idea of change does not come easily.

What nobody knows better than a native, however, is that the region has actually been changing for many years, and few people would argue that it has been changing for the better. The forest products and tourism industries are the traditional foundations of the local economy, but the forest products industry has shrunk as a source of jobs, while the grand hotels that were once part of the Moosehead landscape have all disappeared.

Given the scope of Plum Creek’s plan, I believe it can help reverse many of the changes of recent years and allow us to look with confidence toward the future of the Moosehead Lake region.

For starters, it is largely a conservation plan, with nearly 400,000 acres of working forestland committed to permanent conservation easement. That will guarantee a sustainable wood supply for the forest products industry and ensure that the industry remains a key source of employment for local citizens.

At the same time, in developing this plan Plum Creek has clearly understood the role that the tourism industry has played in the past in this region, as well as recognized how it can be returned to its former prominence.

To support this point, I can call on more than my local upbringing. I have been in the resort and hospitality business for my entire life. My parents and grandparents were all part of the business, so I grew up in it in the Moosehead region and have called on that early experience throughout my career.

When I was 22 I moved to Alaska. When I left Alaska in 1983, I went to work for a company in Dallas. Over the years, I ran eight resorts throughout the Midwest before becoming homesick for the East Coast and the Moosehead region.

Given my experience, I know that while it is nice to think that all a region like Moosehead Lake needs is small tourism businesses to maintain a strong tourism economy, the fact is that when a place is as off the beaten path as this region is, it needs so-called “flagship” operations that can commit significant resources to promoting their businesses. Inevitably, those businesses will attract visitors who want to experience the services and accommodations being promoted, and those visitors will also get a chance to see firsthand what else the region has to offer.

In other words, by working to fill their own, more numerous beds, resorts on the scale that would be possible under Plum Creek’s plan would help to fill the beds of smaller operations, as well. In turn, that will lead to more customers for the numerous outfittters, guides, restaurants and other services that have been part of the Moosehead Lake economy for generations.

I come back to visit the Moosehead region as often as I can, but I have not made my home here for many years. It was my father who encouraged me to leave, arguing that there were just no real opportunities for a young person in the region, so it only made sense to look elsewhere.

Obviously, I am not the only person who grew up in this region who has basically felt forced to leave home. One need only read the surveys which show how the region’s population has steadily dropped in recent years, or recognize that the Greenville High School has fewer than 100 students, to understand the extent to which the region’s opportunities have disappeared.

So what Plum Creek’s plan boils down to for me is more hope for the region than I have felt in many years. No doubt, the plan is not perfect, but it is the first plan that I know of that has bothered to look across our landscape and into our future in order to try to move us all forward.

Change is never easy, but change comes whether we want it to or not. Indeed, change has been under way around Moosehead Lake for quite a long time.

At least with the Plum Creek plan there’s a real possibility that things will finally start changing for the better.

Jeff McIver of Holderness, N.H., is a 1974 graduate of Greenville High School and vice president of East Coast Resort Management.