A new organization aiming to protect Baxter State Park is embarking on an educational campaign to gain support and members.

The year-old group’s mission, according to a brochure, is “to preserve, support and enhance the wilderness character of Baxter State Park, in the spirit of its founder, Governor Percival Baxter.”

That’s the same role played by the Baxter State Park Authority, the group created by statute to govern the park’s activities.

Members of the new Friends of Baxter State Park, however, say the authority is not always on the mark in its interpretation of what is “wild.” So now, for the first time, there will be an advocacy group focused exclusively on the park.

Baxter, who was governor of Maine from 1921 to 1924, purchased more than 200,000 acres around Mount Katahdin and gave it to the people of Maine with the condition it be kept “forever wild.” A debate over the meaning of those words has been going on for decades.

Before his death in 1969, Baxter donated nearly $7 million to run the park. He also stipulated that the authority would be made up of three state officials: the commissioner of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the director of the Maine State Forest Service, and the attorney general. They would govern the park in accordance with Baxter’s Deeds of Trust, which were created between 1939 and 1962.

But the new friends group claims in its literature that the “ideas expressed by Governor Baxter have been threatened many times over the years.”

Some of the issues that have raised the ire of conservation groups in recent years have included snowmobile use, forest management practices and crowding.

DIF&W Commissioner Lee Perry said at times the authority has faced dilemmas in discerning Baxter’s intent, but it is its duty by law to set policy based on the Deeds of Trust

Cathy Johnson of the Natural Resources Council of Maine said the authority does a good, thoughtful job, but not every decision it makes is ideal.

Johnson, director of the NRCM’s north woods project, said there have been issues where another conservation voice would have helped, such as the controversy over whether to allow hunting and trapping on land the authority purchased in 1997.

Baxter State Park is a wildlife sanctuary on the bulk of its 204,733 acres. But Great Northern Paper, which sold the 2,669-acre parcel of land to the park authority, always had allowed hunting and trapping. In the end, the authority decided those activities could continue there.

A member of the Friends of Baxter State Park, Charlie Jacobi said that decision was one the group would have questioned.

“If [environmental] groups felt hunting should be prohibited on that kind of land, we’d speak up for it, go to the Legislature,” said Jacobi, the chief of maintenance at Acadia National Park.

Baxter State Park Director Irvin “Buzz” Caverly said he has seen more controversial issues fought over during his 20 years as director than in the previous 23 years he worked at the park.

He said a group cannot claim to support Baxter’s wishes and not support the authority.

“If they are truly friends of Baxter, and not friends of special interest groups, their role is to support the authority as the sole delegation to carry out trust provisions,” Caverly said. “If they have their own agenda, they are friends only by title.”

John Neff of Winthrop, Friends of Baxter State Park president, said Baxter’s intentions need to be better understood, and his group already is working toward that end by reviewing Baxter’s letters, speeches and documents.

“We need to be sure of what he said,” Neff said. “As the years go further and further away from people who knew Baxter and heard his words, it will be tougher to interpret what might have been meant by those principles.”

Caverly contends it is clear Baxter intended the park authority to decide those principles because of how he reacted in 1965 when a group tried to change the authority through the Legislature. Baxter denounced the idea, saying he had full confidence in the authority.

Neff said the group will work in unison with the authority, but it also will be ready to go to the Legislature to protect the park from changes that threaten it.

Right now, educating the public about the park, its history and policy is the group’s primary focus. To help raise awareness, Jacobi will hold a slide presentation at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Unitarian Church in Ellsworth, one of several meetings to be held around the state.

Since the friends group formed, it has increased membership to 100 and raised more than $20,000 to fund its work. But it needs more members and capital.

Johnson of NRCM said she hopes it succeeds. She said Caverly, with all his ties to history, one day will retire and then the continuity around the park could be lost.

“It’s really timely for this group getting up to speed,” Johnson said.

Deirdre Fleming covers outdoor sports and recreation. She can be reached at 990-8250 or at dfleming@bangordailynews.net.