THE WILDS OF MAINE - We now Fly Back North Across the Equator and the Atlantic, to the Great Outdoor Wilds of Maine! This is quite a Great, Wild, Empty, Crisp, Clean, Clear, Outdoors Wild Area that I Like & Love a Lot! Our Plane Touches Down in a Place like Portland or Bangor. We are now In that Great Wild Maine Outdoors!

Forests, Lakes, Fish, Mountains, Moose, Potatos, Lobsters, Seafood, Rocky Sea Bashed Shoreline, Great Outdoors Country Folk, Gem Hunts, Mt. Katahdin, and Wide Open Spaces with comparatively Few People! This is Maine! This and More is Maine! -The Great Maine Wilderness and Outdoors!

Just one Look at a Map of the Northeastern U.S. Shows this to be so! So Atypical for an Eastern U.S. State!, -Maine *Is* Empty!, Maine IS Wild! You See All the Built Up Developedness of New England and the American Northeast on such a Map, -And then you Come to Maine! Maine is Different! You Suddenly See a Great Thinning Out of Things!, and Emptiness on that Map! Such is Maine! Maine can be, and Often is, Such a Refreshing Change! After All, It abuts Right Up with Canada!, -Moreover, even up Into Canada! The Land and Life is Rugged and Harsh Enuf here, for even such an Eastern American Locale as This, to be so! You've Only got a Stone's Throw North, -Before you're in One of the Wildest, Emptiest Places in the World, -Canada's Ungava, Labrador, and Quebec! No Darned Wonder!, Maine is so Wild, Empty, and Isolated! Up there in our Nation's Far Northeastern Corner. It's one of the World's Great Wild Places!, -Right Here in the Good Ole U.S.A.. And in our East at that!

You'd Think that anything Really Wild within the U.S. would have to be in Alaska or our Great American West! That is Indeed Largely the Case. But we've Got some Others as well!

The Adirondacks, the Appalachians, the Everglades, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Wild Wonderful West Virginia, New York's Finger Lakes along with Champlain, the Louisiana Bayou, Upper Michigan, the Ozarks, Mammoth Cave and Carlsbad Caverns, the Nebraska Sandhills, Acadia and Shenandoah, the Great Smokies, Mt. Rushmore and the Dakota Badlands, Bristlecone Pines-Sequias-and California Redwoods, and So Many Great and Spandiferous National Parks! (Though the Majority of this last One is Out West.)

And to This we Add, -The Wilds of Maine! Truly the Largest and Wildest Area of our Entire East!, Second Only to the Appalachians as a Whole.

(Only 40 per Square Mile, -This Isn't as Sparse as some Other Great Wild Areas of the World. But still Maine has only One and a Quarter Million People in the Entire State!, for such a Population Density of 40 per Square Mile. And a Lot of Those are Concentrated in Places like Portland, Augusta, Bangor, or Other East Coast Locales. These are Based on 1990 Figures. Comparatively Few People Live up here! It may Nominally be a Part of New England, as Well as Being of New England in Other Ways too. But This is *Not* Connecticut or Massachusetts! It is a Place like Bangor, but it is Not Boston! And this is in a 35,387 Square Mile State. Thats a Bit Smallish for even an Eastern State, but a Towering Giant!, when Stacked Next to it's Far Tinier, Fellow New England States as it is! Thruout the Great Majority of Maine, -You *ARE* going to be in Very Empty, Sparse, Wilderness! You Will Know and Feel it to be so!)

Maine is a Good Ole Country Folk Area as well! It may be Well Cut Off from Other Kinsuch Country Areas well to it's Southwest, such as Kentucky, and Other Great Country Hicks / Hillbillys / and Hoedown of Areas. But though Maine may Not be Hillbilly, It certainly is Country! Without a Doubt! Though Maine may Not Entirely Know It, It Shares a Kinship with Other such Great Outdoorsish Country Areas of our's!, All the Same!

America and Americans shud Get to Know Maine a Little Better! Our Own Fellow Brother and Sister, People and State of Maine. While also of course Very Much Leaving it the Heck Alone! -The "Leave Only your Footprints!" Principle. Americans Shud Know that it is There! We shud be so Aware. It is also *Our* Maine, -Not Only that of the Maine Down Easters Themselves! It is There and Available!, to Go Up to, and Get a Taste of! It's Most Definitely Not!, just Another Developed Northeastern State. In Many Ways, It's Not even just Another typical New England State! If it's Fellow States just to it's South and West are as "England", -New England, -Then Maine is as New Scotland, New Wales, or New France!

So Just How is It!?, Up there in Maine? As Both a Great Outdoors Experience, and as a Survival Imperative?

First Off, It's a somewhat Northern Locale. Though on the Southern Fringes *of* Such Great Northern Wild Areas,-COLD. It as such entails, Winter Living, and Cold Survival!

It's also Heavily Forested! It would involve Woodland and Forest Survival! This Boons and Bodes Well for Firewood and Shelter Materials considerations.

It is Four Seasoned Continentally Climed. This includes a Good, Long, Cold, Winter! This certainly Calls For Cold Preparedness and Survival!

If you're Coming from somewhere like the Yukon or Siberia, -True, -You are Going into an Oftentimes "Warmer" Area. But you're Not Going Down to Miami or somewhere! Don't be Fooled or Misled! Cold Arctic Blasts Always Strike Well South! And can Catch you Short! 20 or 30 Below is 20 or 30 Below!, Regardless of whether that be in the Yukon, or More Southerly Maine! Be Just as Prepared! If Arctic Blasts can Strike and Dip Down into the Carolinas!, They Can and Assurredly Do!, Sock and Cover the Likes of Maine!

It has a Rocky and Deeply Indented Seacoast! This Calls for Sea and Shore type Survival! Good Seamanship as Well, would be Well Advised!

The Northern Extents of our Appalachians Come Up into here!, Summiting Off in Mt. Katahdin! This is the Beginning and Ending of the Appalachian Trail, Depending on How you Look at it. Depending on whether you are Beginning or Ending your Trail Journey here. (Another, More Westward Running Trail shud Begin and End here too!, as I Make a Case For, in "Another Appalachian Trail") Maine too!, is an Appalachian Mountains State! This Calls for Mountaineering and Mountain Survival Skills and Techniques!

There are Freshwater Lakes, Fish, and Streams Galore! This Brings the Wide World of Fishing!, to the Fore! Including that Wide Sub-World, of Survival Fishing Techniques!

Similar Hunting and Trapping, Knowledge and Preps, would Serve you Well Up Here, too.

Being Four Seasoned, Maine is Not All Winter! As Wintry as it Often is! Summer with it's Summertime Dry Spells and Downright Droughts!, -Does Come to Maine too!

Which Includes the Very Real Possibilities of Forest Fires! Across Much of Maine's Great Forestland. The Vast Majority of the State *is* Forested! The "Whole State" could conceivably Burn up, as Largely Happened in a Drought of the Late 40's. Forest Fire Safety, Knowledge, Awareness, Sense, Prevention, Detection, Fighting, and Fire Escape and Survival Techniques, are Vital!, Up Here! Who says Forest Fires only happen in the South and American West! Some Can and Do Happen in the East as well, and Maine is a Prime One of Them! Admittedly, however, Most and Many of the Greatest, Do typically Occur Out in the Great American West.

(See "Wildfire Loose, -The Week Maine Burned", by Joyce Butler, Down East Books, Camden Maine. I'm Using the Second Edition Reprint, with a 1987 Copyright. The First Edition came out around the 30th Anniversary of the Fires, in the Late 70s. She Tells a Very Illuminating, even Riveting, Account! Her Only Real Drawback, is that Often, She seems to be "Describing Grass Grow"!, with some of Her particular Style. But Otherwise Superb!, and Well Documented and Researched. Not Much elsewhere to Find Fault with!, and So Much to Compellingly "Keep you Within the Pages"! Joyce Butler's Excellent Work on the Statewide, 1947 Maine Wildfires, once again. I can Only Highly Recommend It!)

But at least Maine *Doesn't* have Earthquakes to speak of! Though Once in a Great While, There's a Really Big One in New England, Eastern Canada just to it's North, Offshore in the Atlantic, or elsewhere in the Eastern U.S. It's something you can Pretty Well Keep on the Shelf!, up here in Maine. But you shud still Keep it in the "Could Happen" Department. On that Part of your Overall, Preparedness, "To Do" List.

Volcanos, however, -Maine has Absolutely None! The Nearest Being as Far Off as Iceland, the Mid-Atlantic, the Carribean, Mexico and Central America, Alaska, and the American and Canadian West! You Won't have to be concerning yourself Any!, with Possible Volcanic Dangers, in these Maine Centered Parts!

Hurricanes so Rarely Ever come up here as well!, and when they Do, they're often somewhat Understrength. Joyce Butler in her Book does speak of one which Came Up to Maine, in 1938. (Page 219).

Tornados are More Common, but are also Quite Rare! So Much so as to be Almost Unknown. But Each and Evry of our 50 States has Gotten Them! I Think this even Includes Alaska and Hawaii. And a Number of Other Countries Get Them too! Albeit Much Less! The U.S. and it's Great Plains Come in as King!, when it Comes to This Subarea of Weather Emergencies! Maine Once in a Rare While Gets one too! But as a Usual General Rule, Most Probably Won't!

Some Other sorts of Survival Imperatives are also Out!, in Maine. Beyond just such Obviousities as Desert and Jungle Survival.

I'm Referring to Less Readily Obvious things such as Swamp and Grasslands Survival. Maine is Not under a "Near Rockies" Rain Shadow. If it were, it could Involve Grasslands or even Desert Survival, even at This Latitude. Maine Simply is Not Under such. And it's Own Appalachians are Not High Enuf, to Do so. Maine as such is Well Forested, -So Grasslands Survival does Not come into play here. While Maine may well have some Swamps, It is Not the Louisiana Bayou either! And so Swamp Survival is at least for a Large Part, a Non-Player, up here in the Wooded Wilds of Maine.

To more specifically Survive up here, You've Got to be Prepared for the Cold! You've Got to Avail Yourself of the Rich Resources of it's Forests! These being Food, Fish, Game, Water, Firewood, and Shelter Materials, among Others. More than just your Tent or Other Survival Shelter, -You Can, and Shud Come To, -Build Yourself a Cabin of some sort! Shud you be there for Any Significant Length of Time. You Have *Got* to be Fire Safe up here!, Especially at Any Time Outside of the Wet Season! Use the Streams. Work your Way to Homes, Farms, Firetowers, Towns, Roads, Clearings, or Settlements. Follow the Streams Eastward to the More Settled and Developed Coast. Caution, There will be some Rocks and Rapids. If in the North, Strike South or Southeast. Or perhaps North to Canada's Nearby St. Lawrence Seaway! You Surely shud be Able to Signal to a Passing Ship there! If in More Central or Southerly Parts of Maine, Head Out East. Or West toward New Hampshire and Vermont, but These are Quite Isolated, Mountainous, Wild Areas too. Or you can here Strike a Little South to Nearby Massachusetts, -Surely a Civilized Area.

In any event, as in the Falklands / Malvinas, -You're still in "Settled" Enuff of an Area, that it Shudn't be All that Hard or Long, Before you can Reach Civilization or Rescue! (If indeed you Even Want to Come Out!, of the Wilds of Maine!) Maine too!, I'm Sure has Good to Great SAR and Other Emergency Capabilities as Well! Even Better I'd Imagine, than in those earlier Lonely Falklands. ( Nothing Meant to Take Away from that of the Excellent British Authorities and Personnel, that I am Sure to be Down There! ) Survival can Very Well be a Pressing Imperative!, here in Maine! The Weather and Elements Don't Care a Hoot!, at What Capabilities as we've Got! But either Soon Finding your Way Out, or Soon Having your Way "Found" Out!, Shouldn't be Much of a Problem! Unless of course you Don't have an ELT or Anything!, there in the Deep Maine Woods and Interior! But Otherwise, When in Maine, -It's Not like you're in the Mid-Sahara or Tibet!

These are What Maine both Is and Is Not! Both Survivalwise and Outdoorswise. These are the Wilds of Maine! The Great Maine Outdoors! Wild, Free, and Natural! I Love, Value, and am Drawn to It So! -Only Naturally and Of Course! And Whats More, It is Really Not All that Far Away! (At Least to I and Others here in the Northeast / Canadian Southeast.) Try for Having at least some Nodding Awareness and Acquaintence, of the Great Outdoor Wilds of Maine! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]