W

hen your job takes you halfway around the world and away from your family for months at a time, vacation isn’t about packing in a thrill a minute. It’s about reconnecting with one another and rebuilding the bonds that can be eroded by time and distance.

For many military families, the old wooden cabins tucked away at the military’s Great Pond Outdoor Adventure Center in the wilds of northern Hancock County provide the sanctuary to do so.

“With all the going back and forth, you have to relearn your position in the family. … This is a great place to do it,” said Rick Kipp, a Navy retiree from Brunswick who has brought his children – and now his grandchildren – to Great Pond since the 1970s.

Recently, men and women who have served in Iraq have spent brief leaves with their spouses and children at Great Pond or retreated to the cabins to resume normal family life when they return permanently.

Dozens of campgrounds and cabins worldwide operated by all branches of the military serve the same purpose. Nearly anyone associated with the military – from active-duty soldiers to

National Guard members, retirees and civilian employees of the Department of Defense – can reserve these private, reduced-cost getaways for their families.

In military lingo, the mission is known as MWR – morale, welfare and recreation. Mark Verhey, who oversees the facility in the town of Great Pond from his office at the Brunswick Naval Air Station, puts it more simply: “We’re the Navy’s rec department,” he said.

The sole MWR facility in Maine, the Great Pond Outdoor Adventure Center is surrounded by 396 acres, much of it wilderness. It offers both backwoods camping and archetypal New England cabins complete with stone fireplaces, log-beamed lofts and a decidedly low-tech vibe.

“We’ve got TVs, but there’s really no reception,” Verhey joked.

In the summer, the center provides a drowsy lakeside vacation that many Americans have abandoned as the cost of waterfront property skyrockets. Kids can live in their bathing suits, boating, swimming and generally enjoying themselves. In the winter, the center becomes the site of ice fishing, tobogganing, hot chocolate and marathon board games in front of the fire.

“It’s nothing like Disneyland, but if you want to get away from everything, it’s wonderful,” said Kipp’s wife, Deborah, who spent Saturday morning entertaining her 3-year-old granddaughter, McKayla Prophett, and waiting for the rest of the family to arrive from Brunswick.

When the Kipps discovered Great Pond, it was known as Dow Pines, a MWR facility operated by Loring Air Force Base and named for the Bangor air base that had been its previous owner.

The site has been in military hands since 1956, when Bangor resident and World War I veteran John M. Norris left his summer home to the cities of Bangor and Brewer, whose leaders ultimately decided to sell the property to the Air Force “for recreation in Maine’s great out-of-doors.”

But when Loring closed in 1994, Dow Pines went into limbo. Years went by, and no one was really sure which office had responsibility for the site. There was a great deal of interest in the property, but nothing could be done until the Air Force finished an environmental cleanup and officially disowned the property. Meanwhile, the circa-1930s cabins fell into disrepair.

“They’d pretty much drained the water, turned off the electricity and walked away,” Verhey said.

For 10 years, the property sat empty while rumors swirled – luxury vacation homes, a new state park, a camp for ill children, and even an Indian casino.

“I was the only person here,” said caretaker and Navy retiree Jim Dence.

But retirees such as the Kipps, who couldn’t bear to see their summer escape disappear, called everyone they could imagine who might have influence. Then, nearly four years ago, Verhey and some colleagues began negotiating to have the facility transferred from Air Force to Navy hands. By 2002, the process was complete, and the Navy spent $250,000 to refurbish the cabins.

The service views the property as irreplaceable – modern land prices are far too steep. If the Brunswick Naval Air Station were to be closed, Great Pond could be transferred to another New England base and remain in the hands of the regional navy command, Verhey said.

Some residents of Great Pond do complain about the military’s tax-free status. Today, the property that the Air Force bought for $39,000 in the late 1950s is worth well over $3 million. But as the Great Pond Outdoor Adventure Center, the land remains open to local people who hike and fish and snowmobile, access that would likely have been lost if it had become a high-end development, according to Dence.

For now, the facility is fairly autonomous. Great Pond should receive federal appropriations, but with the nation at war, that funding has dried up, Verhey said.

“The pot’s gotten smaller and smaller and smaller,” he said. “The money we ring in through our register is what pays the bills out here … not to say we’re making oodles of money, but we’re basically holding our own.”

Saturday morning, local men and women held an ice-fishing derby just down the lake from the Kipps’ cabin.

“This place provides jobs for people, and in this area, jobs are hard to get,” said Dence, who bought a home in Great Pond in 1979, where he has lived full-time for the past 20 years.

Since the center reopened in July 2003, old friends have returned and guests have come from as far away as California, Montana and Texas, said Judy Manzo, a Great Pond native who manages day-to-day operations.

“We’re starting to get the word out,” she said.

Some military retirees have created guidebooks for MWR facilities around the world, but for the most part, people come here because they’ve known someone who loved watching their children discover the language of loons and coyotes while the sun sinks into the trees.

As Verhey said, it’s about giving newcomers the chance to experience “what Maine is really like.”

“They’ve never seen such a place,” Dence said. “We live it, and it’s an everyday thing for us, but even a chipmunk to some of these kids is just unbelievable.”

The Great Pond Outdoor Adventure Center rents RV and tent sites, a lodge, cabins, trailers and yurts with prices ranging from $10 to $125 per night. For reservations and eligibility requirements, visit online www.mwr.navy.mil or contact the center at (207) 584-2000 or greatpondoac@rivah.net.