Gov. LePage to Trump: 'Make the Maine woods great again'

COURTESY / MATTHEW GAGNON, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Gov. Paul LePage is asking President Donald Trump to rescind President Barack Obama's Aug. 24, 2016, designation of 87,500 acres east of Baxter State Park as the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.

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By James McCarthy

In a Feb. 14 letter to President Donald Trump, Maine Gov. Paul LePage urges the president to rescind President Barack Obama’s Aug. 24, 2016, designation of about 87,500 acres east of Baxter State Park as the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.

“Regarding the national monument designation, ‘those cold timid souls who neither know victory or defeat’ argue that you, as president, cannot undo a national monument designation because it has never been done before,”LePage wrote, quoting President Theodore Roosevelt. “They also never envisioned President Trump. I strongly urge you to undo the designation and return the land to private ownership before economic damage occurs and traditional recreational pursuits are diminished.”

LePage said if the land remained under federal ownership, he believed it should be managed by the state of Maine instead of the National Park Service.

“Who better to manage a public resource in Maine than the people who live in Maine? One of the many arguments made against creation of a national park or monument is that new federal land abuts Maine’s extraordinary and unique Baxter State Park. State management of the land would complement and ensure the ‘forever wild’ status of that park without doing harm to the region and the Maine economy.”

LePage closed his letter with a reminder to Trump of the “overwhelming support” he received from voters in Maine’s Second Congressional District and a reiteration of his request for “bold policies that create jobs, restore our national identity, ensure our place in the world and make the Maine woods great again.”

LePage position at odds with Katahdin Region businesses

LePage’s request runs counter to local efforts by Katahdin Region businesses interviewed by Mainebiz last fall, who see the national monument designation as a key element of the region’s efforts to rebuild a local economy devastated by paper mill closures in recent years. The monument is the result of a gift of approximately 87,500 acres of land east of Baxter State Park owned by philanthropist and Burt's Bees co-founder Roxanne Quimby to the federal government.

"The Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument is not the answer to this region's problems," said Jessica Masse, co-owner with her husband, John Hafford, of designlab, a graphic design and social media firm they’ve located in the former Odd Fellows Hall they purchased in downtown Millinocket. "But it is part of the solution. It's an important part of the diversification of the local economy that has to happen here."

Hafford added: "We've been working very hard to get people onboard in seeing the positive side of attracting more tourists to this region. But I've talked to no one in this region who thinks the only thing we're going to do to rebuild our local economy is tourism."

Local businesses that have embraced the national monument designation include North Light Gallery, founded by artist Marsha Donahue; Moose Prints Gallery owned by Anita Mueller and Mark Picard; Appalachian Trail Lodge and AT Café, owned by Paul and Jaime Renaud; and the New England Outdoor Centerfounded in 1982 by Matt Polstein to provide whitewater rafting on the West Branch of the Penobscot River, which he expanded in 1995 with a full-service adventure resort on Millinocket Lake that includes lodging, a restaurant and a variety of wildlife tours.

Polstein told Mainebiz he’s doubling down on his investment in the region, having purchased a long-vacant building on Penobscot Avenue in a foreclosure auction that he’s renovating to become an office for Tom Shaffer's Maine Heritage Timber Co., which is tapping the unique market value of waterlogged wood lining the bottom of a nearby lake, a vestige of log drives to the Great Northern Paper mill. Other possibilities include building modular components of tiny houses there and, perhaps, opening a bike shop once he finishes building a bike trail system.

"It's a statement of our confidence in the future of Millinocket," Polstein told Mainebiz last fall. "The [national monument] designation brands this region in a way that is going to be a huge jumpstart to efforts already underway. It puts a new spring to our step, a new confidence."