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Creation of “This Extraordinary Place: A Guide to Allagash Ecology”

By DICK BARRINGER

When, after three seasons in the field, Janet McMahon delivered her ecological assessment of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, the AWWF Board of Directors recognized it as a game-changer in our understanding of the Waterway, today and into the future. The first ecological assessment of the Waterway since its creation in 1966, the report establishes that:

  • From an ecological perspective, the Waterway is an extraordinary place; there is simply nothing quite like it anywhere in the United States east of the Rockies;
  • The watershed of which the river is part has always been a dynamic place, changing over the centuries and millennia in response to tectonic processes, ice ages, flowing water, and human and animal activity; as such, the Waterway may not be forever“preserved” like a fly in amber;
  • The long-term health and well-being of the river depend upon the ecological integrity of its tributaries and the forests and wetlands that surround them; and, so,
  • The watershed as a whole and its management matter greatly to the future of the Waterway; only a voluntary management compact among the private landowners, the State, and interested parties will suffice to assure its longevity for present and future generations.

The AWWF Board, under the leadership of Bob McIntosh, has spent the last year reaching out to the private landowners in the region and to Maine’s nonprofit conservation organizations, sharing Janet’s report, findings, conclusions and recommendations. The Board also decided to seek funding to create a new, ecological guide to the Allagash, based upon Janet’s work. The new guide would be a companion piece to the earlier, successful “Allagash Explorer,” the historical and cultural guide to the river since European colonization.

Today marks a significant milestone in this endeavor. “This Extraordinary Place: A Guide to Allagash Ecology” has come off the press, a tangible culmination of our collective efforts. This comprehensive guidebook, filled with Janet’s vital research and the team’s dedicated work, will be available in Maine bookstores this May, just in time for the paddling season. It represents not just a publication, but a tool for fostering deeper understanding and stewardship of this irreplaceable wilderness.

With funding in hand, we created a team of Don Hudson, Paul Johnson, Janet, and myself to oversee the project; and added several professional helpers from the Explorer effort – notably, Alison Carver as illustrator, Jane Crosen as copy editor and indexer, and Jocelyn Hubbel to represent the Bureau of Parks and Lands; and importuned Peter Weed to serve as the guide’s co-editor. We were staffed in the effort by Dan Dinsmore and Chafee Emory.

In remote, monthly team meetings throughout the summer and fall of 2024, we pondered how best to give life to “A River in Space and Time” for the young adult and older reader. We decided to build the new guide around “storylines” such as those in the Explorer, that might best tell the story of the Waterway’s complex ecology. We together chose the storylines and made assignments to team members for their writing and illustration. We invited a half-dozen Allagash veterans to share their reflections on the Waterway. We refined all these through numerous iterations via email and meetings into the winter; and called upon friends and colleagues to help prepare the maps and photographs to be used. And throughout, Peter and I did our best to make all this coherent, expressed “in a single voice.”

The members of this wonderful team join me in the hope that you, the reader, will find the end result as pleasing, informative, and even moving as do we.

We will share more information on how to pick up your copy of “This Extraordinary Place” early next month.

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