Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Ron Joseph
Maine logger with a big heart gives us all an example to follow Original
A professional logger since the mid-1970s, Greg Drummond has twitched countless sawlogs with his skidder, and harvested hundreds of cords of firewood. (Ron Joseph photo) When Greg Drummond learned that Marilynn, an impoverished, visually impaired elderly neighbor in Highland Plantation, had been sold a pickup load of wet, rotting firewood, his face reddened with anger. He immediately phoned her. “Marilynn,” he said, “I’m loading my pickup truck with seasoned firewood.
Winter spent at logging camp left biologist with many memories
Ron Joseph sent a winter at the International Paper Company's boarding house at Clayton Lake. The bunkrooms were on the second floor. The kitchen, dining room, and offices were on the first floor. (Carl and Margo Holden photo) “If a logging truck is barreling toward you, drive the state truck into a snowbank.” Those words of wisdom came from Kevin Stevens, my wildlife biologist supervisor of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.
Winter spent at logging camp left biologist with many memories Original
Ron Joseph sent a winter at the International Paper Company's boarding house at Clayton Lake. The bunkrooms were on the second floor. The kitchen, dining room, and offices were on the first floor. (Carl and Margo Holden photo) “If a logging truck is barreling toward you, drive the state truck into a snowbank.” Those words of wisdom came from Kevin Stevens, my wildlife biologist supervisor of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.
Mainers made a noble effort to reintroduce caribou
Maine Game Warden David Priest Jr., whose father was also a warden, observes the arrival of the first of 22 Newfoundland Caribou at the UMaine deer pens on December 10, 1986. (Photo courtesy of Paul Fournier, MEDIFW) “The caribou project is a Christmas gift to the State of Maine,” Glenn Manual, Comm. of the Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, Dec. 1986 In October 1986, an ad hoc committee invited Dr. Mark McCollough to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife office in Augusta.
This hermit embodied Maine’s independence Original
At sunset on March 9, 1945, 30 officers from the Maine State Police, Maine Warden Service, Somerset County Sheriff’s Office, and FBI gathered around a hot wood stove at a World War II German prisoner of war camp in Hobbstown, a remote western Maine township. The previous day, three Germans had escaped from an ice-harvesting job.
This hermit embodied Maine’s independence
Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development Store and/or access information on a device You can choose how your personal data is used.
Books to Entertain
Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs and Hermit Bill: Memories of a Maine Wildlife Biologist by Ron Joseph Islandport Press, 2023 215 pp. $18.95 If you are a regular MBH&H reader, you will have read Joseph’s essays about his career and life on the family farm. This lovely book includes several of those stories, as well as more of Joseph’s witty reflections on working and living in rural Maine. He’s a gifted and compassionate storyteller.
Lovesick moose sparks sex education lesson Original
During the rutting season from mid-September until mid-October, bull moose occasionally get their wires crossed and seek out dairy cows. (Photo courtey Paul Cyr) In late September 1960, a weeklong visit of a bull moose on my grandparents’ dairy farm generated big news in the Somerset County town of Mercer. Motorists stopped or slowly drove past our farm’s pastures to catch a glimpse of the moose, which had a crush on Ginger — our top milking cow.
Great white shark sightings are on rise and perception of them has changed Original
My late friend Mark Libby of Pemaquid fished commercially in Muscongus Bay, primarily southwest of Monhegan Island. During his four-decade solo fishing career, he encountered many uncommon marine species, including a yellow-nosed albatross and basking sharks. The latter, he said, were, “nearly as long as my 39-foot fishing boat.” In the 1990s he began seeing great white sharks. “Once, when my boat skirted Monhegan, seals were scrambling out of the water and onto ledges,” he said.
This farming community had a skunk - yes, a skunk - for a pet
Pepe-the-skunk was an adorable, frequent guest at the author’s grandparents’ dairy farm in Mercer in the late 1950s and early ’60s. (COURTESY PHOTO BY PAUL CYR) One summer morning in 1959, the skunk odor in the barn was so strong we covered our noses and mouths with wet handkerchiefs while milking the cows. The stench ruined our breakfast appetites.
This tool helped reintroduce peregrine falcons
In August 1992, state biologist Charlie Todd ascended Borestone Mountain to tend to five captive peregrine falcon chicks. He was met with an unforeseen obstacle: the birds themselves. “I crawled into the hack box to collect fecal swabs and administer antivirals on the falcons,” Todd said. “But I forgot my ear plugs, and the birds were screaming.” A hack box is an artificial eyrie made of wood and used to rear young peregrines.
Golden eagle: The king of birds
The Eagle Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. On a clear day in June 1969, George Young banked his floatplane several hundred feet above Western Maine’s Enchanted Pond, pulled back on the throttle, and cruised in front of a large rocky outcropping on Shutdown Mountain.
Grandfather was the ultimate horse whisperer Original
From the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s, my twin brother Don and I spent much of our childhood on our maternal grandparents’ 105-acre dairy farm in Mercer. It was an idyllic place for a child. The farm’s livestock ponds teemed with frogs and dragonflies. The summer hayfields were home to foxes and nesting meadowlarks and bobolinks. During summer nights, tucked in our beds, we were lulled to sleep by singing whip-poor-wills perched on the farmhouse’s ridgepole.
Ghosts of the Maine woods Original
Holding the lynx kitten aloft wasn’t as dramatic as Rafiki holding up Simba in “The Lion King,” but for me in June 2010, it was an emotionally uplifting conclusion to my long career as a wildlife biologist. My final field trip to an Aroostook County lynx den was a retirement gift from my friend and fellow wildlife biologist Jennifer Vashon, Maine’s lynx research team leader.
Researchers gain knowledge inside a black bear’s den
It’s February 2010, and I’ve snagged a coveted spot on a field trip near Moosehead Lake with Randy Cross, Maine’s chief bear biologist, and his research team. We’ve been snowshoeing in three feet of snow for an hour in a picturesque spruce-fir forest when Cross raises a hand for us to stop. Holding what resembles an old-fashioned television antenna high above his head, he rotates 360 degrees on his snowshoes.
A memorable weekend in the Maine woods
The ice auger would have eased my burden on Christmas Day in 2008. But in my haste to pack for a three-hour drive from my Orono home to a friend’s remote log cabin, I’d neglected to pack it. Thankfully, my Tundra truck’s bed contained an axe, chainsaw, tire chains, come-along, shovels, 5-foot pry bar, and three buckets of sand — essential items for traveling the final 15 miles on snow-covered western Maine logging roads.
In the Field: My high school served moose meat
On Monday morning, Dec. 6, 1965, I unloaded my Winchester Model 94 lever action .30-30 rifle on the football field and carried it into the principal’s office. No SWAT team rushed to Williams High School in Oakland. My parents weren’t phoned. Nor was I suspended from school. It seems inconceivable today that in the 1960s, rural Maine boys, including me, routinely carried firearms to school during hunting seasons.
In the Field: Fishing with Franz
I’d barely dropped my line through the hole in the ice when Franz, my University of New Hampshire classmate from Germany, stepped into our fishing shack with a platter of crispy, golden-fried smelts, slathered in tartar sauce, courtesy of one of our neighbors on the frozen Cathance River in Bowdoinham. “Wow,” Franz declared. “These smelts are delicious!” Sitting on a folding wooden chair by the wood stove, he devoured four fish to my one.
Canada jays a rare marvel in Maine
North of The Forks, if I’m lucky, Canada jays seek my company. They’re little known, unusually friendly boreal forest birds with remarkable memories. I’m certain they recognize me as the chap who readily feeds them during my annual ice fishing adventures. Like black-capped chickadees, our official state bird, Canada jays live year-round in Maine’s western and northern forests. They’re intelligent, tough-minded, stay-at-home residents.
In the Field: Canada Jays a rare marvel in Maine
Editor’s note: This new column by author Ron Joseph will be published on the second Friday of each month. North of The Forks, if I’m lucky, Canada Jays seek my company. They’re little known, unusually friendly boreal forest birds with remarkable memories. I’m certain they recognize me as the chap who readily feeds them during my annual ice fishing adventures. Like Black-capped Chickadees, our official state bird, Canada Jays live year-round in Maine’s western and northern forests.
Local Author Pop Up Shop
show_chart Personalised advertising, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development devices Store and/or access information on a device You can choose how your personal data is used.
Remembering Maine's Failed 1980s Attempt to Reintroduce Caribou
As told to Ron Joseph From our April 2023 Animals issue Mainers have twice attempted, unsuccessfully, to re-establish herds of woodland caribou that roamed the north woods before market hunters slaughtered them in the 19th century. Twenty-three Newfoundland caribou released in Baxter State Park in 1963 dispersed and gradually died off.
The Stories Behind Five Classic Maine Fly Patterns
By Ronald Joseph Illustrations by Jada Fitch On July 1, 1924, Carrie G. Stevens cast a homemade fishing fly into the outlet of Mooselookmeguntic Lake and netted a 6-pound, 13-ounce brook trout. Her Gray Ghost — featuring white hairs from a deer’s tail and pheasant and jungle cock feathers — catapulted her to acclaim in the sporting world. Today, the Gray Ghost is a global favorite of salmonid fishers.
The Stories Behind Five Classic Maine Fly Patterns
By Ronald Joseph Illustrations by Jada Fitch On July 1, 1924, Carrie G. Stevens cast a homemade fishing fly into the outlet of Mooselookmeguntic Lake and netted a 6-pound, 13-ounce brook trout. Her Gray Ghost — featuring white hairs from a deer’s tail and pheasant and jungle cock feathers — catapulted her to acclaim in the sporting world. Today, the Gray Ghost is a global favorite of salmonid fishers.
Media will do absolutely anything to keep Trump from being re-elected
There is an article floating about on the internet titled "ALL Republicans and conservatives should refuse to speak to anyone at the NY Times." This article was written in response to the management of the paper apologizing for publishing an opinion piece by a conservative member of Congress and in response to several of their so-called journalists kvetching to the publisher about this non-liberal, non-Democrat op-ed.
Haters Yelled Ethnic Slurs, But the '44 Waterville Panthers Became Champs
By Ronald Joseph From our March 2020 issue John Mitchell was 16 years old when his hotshot high-school basketball team headed to Bangor for an away game. As the Waterville Purple Panthers’ point guard — a team leader, responsible for running the offense — he’d come to expect a certain amount of trash talk from opposing players and fans.
Central Maine Power Company’s proposed transmission line is bad for Maine
Robert F. Bukaty | AP Robert F. Bukaty | AP In this Tuesday, May 28, 2019 photo a homemade sign is posted on a telephone pole in protest of Central Maine Power's controversial hydropower transmission corridor in Jackman, Maine. The power corridor would extend 53 miles from the Canadian border into Maine's north woods on land owned by CMP.
Dowsing - Maine - Down East Magazine
On a sunny July day in 1965, two recent Harvard University grads in peculiar clothing marched across a Maine hayfield to meet my 71-year-old, illiterate grandfather, Florian Yeaton. My twin brother and I, age 13, held the reins of our grandfather’s two jittery Belgian workhorses, who were as perplexed as we were by the strangers. “Sorry to interrupt you,” said the soft-spoken brunette. She wore a bright-yellow headband, leather sandals, and a full-length, beige hemp dress.
We’re guilty of underappreciating Maine’s native brook trout
One evening in May 1964, when I was 12, Dr. Donald Poulin of Belgrade loaded his son Paul and me into his new Scout International, and drove 10 minutes from his home to the thoroughfare connecting Great and Long ponds. An avid fisherman, Dr. Poulin tied a streamer fly to each of our fly lines. “Just drop it in the strong current,” he advised. “Strip out 50 to 60 feet of line and then strip it back in.” We each caught several handsome trout until it became too dark to see our lines.
Flyfishing - Theriault Flies | Down East Magazine
Shipped to fishers throughout the U.S. and sold in 20 Maine fly-fishing stores and sporting lodges, Theriault flies are legendary. The late Bert O’Leary, a venerated Allagash fishing guide, once told me that Boston Red Sox great Ted Williams was so enamored with Theriault’s flies, they were the only ones he used casting for trout from O’Leary’s canoe on Fourth Musquacook Lake. Many years ago, I met a Chicago fisherman in Yellowstone National Park who’d caught several impressive cutthroat trout.
Listen to our wildlife biologists. We can avoid more quixotic boondoggles that way.
During a hot, humid week in July 1989, I stood on the bed of a slow-moving Maine Department of Transportation herbicide spray truck. I wore a baggy dark green jumpsuit, rubber gloves and boots, respirator, yellow hard hat and safety goggles — odd attire for a state wildlife biologist. My hands gripped a fire hose shooting a stream of wolf urine onto Route 201 ditches from Moose River to the Forks.
Eagle Freaks: The Big Personalities Responsible for Restoring Maine's Bald Eagle Population
ne day in 1978, I stood on the shore of Damariscotta Lake with Frank Gramlich, my supervisor in the Maine office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Some 100 feet above us, a hired tree-climber squatted in a massive nest. Peering sheepishly over the edge, he yelled down to us, “This eaglet has three legs — which one do I put the band on?” Gramlich was a no-nonsense, 80-hour-a-week charger who didn’t suffer fools gladly. He looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Remind me to fire this guy,” he said.
How Maine Black Bears Hibernate
n early January, in a spruce-fir forest 20 miles southeast of Greenville, two bear cubs are born in the pitch-blackness of a den concealed by two feet of snow. It is minus 20 degrees, but strong northwest winds make it feel much colder. Inside the bear’s lair, however, it’s a balmy 32. Weighing a mere 12 ounces each, the two 8-inch-long cubs suckle teats on the sow’s sparsely furred underside and snuggle against her skin, which radiates warmth ranging from 88 to 98.6 degrees.
A dead moose in a Subaru and other scenes from a Maine moose hunt
Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife | BDN Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife | BDN Maine wildlife biologist Amanda Shearin measures antler width before removing a tooth for aging at a hunter check station in Eustis.
Moving from New York to rural Maine inspired this boy’s love of birds
Bill Sheehan was 10 years old when he fell in love with birds. It came at the end of a long, hot June day in 1973, when his family moved from Long Island, New York, to an abandoned Patten farmhouse on 180 acres of played-out potato fields. “Moving to northern Maine was culture shock,” Sheehan, 53, said. “The house was in very bad shape. Chokecherries were growing up through the steps, and overgrown bushes blocked views from first-floor windows.
The day a gift moose nourished an impoverished Maine boy and his schoolmates
It was the morning of Friday, Dec. 10, 1965, an hour before my social studies quiz, when Principal Fred Whitney and Maine Game Warden Oral Page made a surprise appearance in study hall at Williams High in Oakland. The imposing men whispered to a teacher and then summoned me and three other teenage boys into a hallway. A large bull moose, Page explained, had been struck and killed 40 minutes earlier by a Central Maine Railroad train near school property.
Farewell to Doc: My friend taught me that fly-fishing and life lessons are synonymous
“If our father had had his way, nobody who did not know how to fish would be allowed to disgrace a fish by catching it.” — Norman Maclean, “A River Runs Through It” “You’re casting too fast,” my older friend advised from the stern of a Shorty Bilt canoe. “Pause on the back cast to allow the fly-line to straighten out and then cast forward,” he added. The green floating fly-line looped around my neck and shoulder before the Royal Coachman fly took hold of the brim of my red wool Crusher hat.
My Maine baseball memories: moose, cows, foxes - and harsh life lessons
“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” — Rogers Hornsby (1896-1963) Teammates nearest Albert thought he was dead. The teenage first baseman had circled under a towering pop-up, missed catching the ball and was knocked unconscious when it struck his head. He was rushed to Waterville’s Thayer Hospital in a Pontiac GTO, arriving minutes ahead of a police escort cruiser.
A Maine dog saved my brother from drowning, breathed life back into him
In late October 1961, well past midnight, my grandparents Lucille and Florian Yeaton were awakened by their farm dog Bonnie. “There might be a bear in the barnyard,” Florian replied. “Yesterday, Bonnie and I discovered bear tracks in the apple orchard.” He lit a kerosene lamp. Their late 18th century cape farmhouse in Mercer was not wired for electricity. Awake now, too, my 9-year-old twin brother, Don, and I shuffled to the ell kitchen, where Bonnie whined to be let out.
A memorable Christmas
Despite lean times, the 1960 holiday in Oakland was an all-time favorite. My father was an unemployed welder during the 1960 Christmas season. With his last paycheck arriving in late October, my family had accepted that Christmas would be lean. Despite hard times, however, that Christmas remains my all-time favorite. Two weeks before the annual school Christmas party, my third-grade teacher paired pupils and asked each to bring a small gift to exchange.
The German POWs Who Tried to Flee Maine for Argentina
By Ron Joseph Archival photos courtesy of Dean Yeaton From our December 2014 issue. March 8, 1945, started as a routine day for Dean Yeaton. His father’s remote logging camp on the edge of western Maine’s Spencer Lake had no electricity and no running water. In the morning, the 16-year-old trudged out to the frozen lake, dipping two pails into a hole drilled through 2 feet of ice, filling them with drinking water for the camp’s 14 loggers.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Ron
Contact Ron, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack