John W. Neff

For those who love Maine's Baxter State Park and its spectacular mountain, Katahdin, this book will only add to the depth and breadth of this feeling. Many trails, mountains, lakes, and campgrounds have rich stories associated with them and Neff tells these with grace and humour.
It is strange that the author gives the lumber industry such a free ride. This in spite of the fact that in the course of the book he describes in passing the challenge of Katahdin trail builders as the lumber industry obliterated trail after trail over the years, the lumbering practices of blowing up Katahdin area stream beds to prevent logjams and blowing up boulders on the mountain face to facilitate hauling out lumber, not to mention the devastated forests, derelict buildings, dams, and equipment left behind as lumber companies exhausted Katahdin area timber and moved on to exploit elsewhere. And also given that the timber interests were the main lobby that for many years successfully frustrated both Baxter's legislative and private efforts to preserve the Katahdin area.… (mehr)