Millinocket

By Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo

But two months ago, Weatherbee, who manages reservations at the New England Outdoor Center’s Woods and Water Shop in Millinocket, changed his party affiliation to Democrat. He switched so that he could vote for Lucas St. Clair, a candidate in Maine’s 2^nd Congressional District primary whom Weatherbee sees as ready to revitalize the region.

“I don’t know if I’ll always stay a Democrat, but I vote for the person who I think is best representing me. I’m conflicted, is what I am. I am disgusted with every one of the people in Washington,” said Weatherbee. “I’ve not been happy with the Republican Party, as such, for some time. And then Lucas came along and I thought ‘I want to support him.’ I was kind of here anyway, rolling back and forth between the two” parties.

Weatherbee lives in Millinocket in Penobscot County, one of many “pivot counties” that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, and four years later, switched to Trump. As 2018 elections loom, towns like Millinocket, a former mill town struggling to reinvent itself, could determine the results.

The outcome may depend on whether Mainers choose to vote on local or national issues.

Maine has a tradition of strong municipal governance, which can be traced back to the hyperlocalism of New England’s colonists and Puritans, who did not trust centralized governmental power.

Of the 500 municipalities across Maine, many still operate through town meetings or other forms of direct governance. And in 1969, the state constitution’s “home rule” amendment allowed small municipalities to develop local laws with little state interference.

In November 2017, Maine even passed a set of “food sovereignty” laws, which allow residents to buy and sell local food without much state involvement. Under these laws, municipal law supersedes state law, and municipalities take responsibility for local food safety.

“Home rule is very strong. It’s part of what makes Maine kind of a classic swing state, especially the north district,” said Mindy Crandall, professor of Forest Landscape Management and Economics at University of Maine at Orono. “Because people are very focused locally, and so how they perceive things isn’t as tied to one overarching ideology.”

But despite its political ancestry, Maine is not immune to a rapidly nationalizing political climate.

Dan Shea, a political scientist and professor of government at Colby College, said that given the significance of group identity in northern Maine, voters may still be strongly tied to party affiliation, even when it conflicts with their local wishes. And the decline of local news may push Maine towns further toward polarizing national politics, he added.

“One of the problems is that people are paying too much attention to national news,” said Shea. “Because at the local level you’ve got to get along. You’ve got to meet them, you know them, they’re your neighbors. You find compromises; you sort of work it out. But national news is all yelling at each other, so if people are not paying as much attention at the local level, then you create” incivility.

With both national media and politics fixated on the Trump Administration, the 2^nd District’s coming election may test the power of Maine’s local focus, After two terms, the Republican incumbent, Poliquin, will face one of three Democratic challengers: State Representative Jared Golden, Craig Olsen, and Lucas St. Clair.

St. Clair said it was crucial to avoid focusing on the national politics of the Trump administration when it comes to winning over voters.

“I know what we definitely can’t do this election cycle is hang Donald Trump over the incumbent Congressman’s neck and say, you know, ‘he’s bad, so you should vote for us,’” said St. Clair. “We have to talk about why we’re Democrats, what we want to do for people, how we want to make people’s lives better, and if we’re not doing that, why would they vote for us?”

Though he will have to galvanize enough support across the district to best front-runner Jared Golden, a state representative and Marine veteran, St. Clair may be banking on the strength of local concerns in the district. It was a quintessentially local issue that first put St. Clair on the map as a candidate: the designation of the Katahdin Woods and Water National Monument.

After his mother, Burt’s Bees co-founder Roxanne Quimby, bought the 87,000 acres, St. Clair joined the fight to have the land designated. He is also credited with soothing tensions among locals who balked at any restriction of outdoor recreation on the land. Because of the prominence of the National Monument issue, St. Clair is a natural favorite among Millinocket Democrats.

One advantage that local candidates have is access to voters through events and forums. Weatherbee said he first decided to switch his affiliation after seeing St. Clair speak at an event. He said he saw local politics as an arena where he might actually have influence.

“Local politics is where I see something happening that I might have my two cents in,” Weatherbee said. “I mean, I spoke to [St. Clair]. I don’t get to speak to Trump.”

Marsha Donahue, who owns North Light Gallery in Millinocket, was a lifelong Independent but switched to Democrat recently, in order to vote for St. Clair in the primary. She even hosted a rally for him at her gallery in March.

“It’s hard to go down to Washington and retain your integrity and commitment to your constituents without falling into other agendas,” said Donahue. “I think Lucas is really capable of doing this.”

At the same time, Poliquin has faced criticism for his lack of physical presence in the area. But Town Manager John Davis, a former mill worker and union leader, said that doesn’t change the way he feels.

“I don’t know if he’s ever been to Millinocket, but chances are he’ll get my vote,” said Davis, chuckling. “Because he’s got an R behind his name.”

National politics aside, in a town like Millinocket, the fight for renewal has forced residents with differing views to work together.

After the shuttering of Millinocket’s paper mill in 2008, the once prosperous town has grappled with a decline in population, local business, and tax revenue. From the struggle to keep the town library open to the recent prospect of a cross-laminated timber company taking over the mill site, it is hyper-local issues that could mean life or death for Millinocket.

INTERACTIVE: History of Millinocket

Jessica Masse, who runs Designlab, a graphic design and marketing firm, with her husband John Hafford, said getting things done locally required the ability to ignore national party and political differences.

“We sit on committees with people who have radically different politics than we do,” said Masse, adding that knowing residents personally helps them to focus on common interests. “We might not agree on some national issue, take your pick, but we can agree on issues that are important to all of us right here locally.”

By Caroline Leddy

Set amid thousands of acres of dense forest, at the intersection of 13 lakes and rivers, and within view of Mount Katahdin, Millinocket, in northern Maine, is perfectly situated for a paper mill. Once called the “Magic City” because it seemed to pop up overnight out of the wilderness, Millinocket was built by The Great Northern Paper Company in 1899.

For over a century, the company was the only major employer in town, providing well-paying unionized jobs for 8,000 in a town that had the highest income per capita in Maine.

But beginning in the 1980s, Millinocket was hit with a one-two punch–a decline in demand for paper and the rise in low-cost foreign competition. Just 10 years earlier, the company merged with Nekoosa-Edwards, kicking off the domino effect of the decline of the company and the Millinocket paper mills. The mills were effectively closed in 2008, laying off more than 450 workers.

Great Northern had maintained a monopoly on the workforce by offering high wages, union representation and keeping other businesses out. Because of this strategy, Millinocket was underprepared for the collapse of the driving force behind its economy.

The company “prevented any diversification of our economy, it prevented entrepreneurship,” said Mindy Crandall, a professor of forestry at the University of Maine at Orono, who said Great Northern actively discouraged new industry from coming to Millinocket.

According to Crandall, when the mill closed there was a sense of “don’t blame us for not knowing how to deal with this, we literally were given no tools to deal with this.”

Longtime residents remember how a plant manager would come to Millinocket High School the week before graduation. Students would gather in the gymnasium and wait to receive their call number and steel-toed boots, eager to join a workforce that promised prosperity and job security.

Herbert Clock, a former millworker and lifelong Millinocket resident, worked at the mill for the majority of his life. He said the mill would employ just about anyone.

“You more or less had a job at the mill, if you wanted to work here in Millinocket.” he said. “If you worked at Great Northern Paper, you were right in the in-crowd.”

PHOTOS: Millinocket through the years (Produced by Edgar Llivisupa)

Although the workers who were laid off were offered retraining programs by both the government and Great Northern, the majority were not ready for a change, said John Davis, Millinocket’s town manager. Davis, who worked for Great Northern for more than 30 years and was laid off for the final time in 2011, said he was one of the few who finally took advantage of a government training program.

“We were older and it was hard for a lot of people to get back to the books,” he said, explaining that some friends decided to follow the paper mills around the state, until eventually they all shut.The closure of the paper mill had a catastrophic effect on the town of Millinocket. The once prosperous and busy main street is now quiet and almost empty. The shops that would bring people to the center of town, including bowling alleys, bars and the sole coffee shop, have closed. The town’s population has shrunk to 4,000 people. (Related content: Millinocket saloon is a holdout from a more prosperous era)

PODCAST: Remembering Better Days (Produced by André Beganski)

Not surprisingly, the town’s people jumped at the chance to embrace new opportunities–some of which were highly dubious. Most audacious was the Avenger Boat scheme, which promised to build an $8 million manufacturing facility and would employ 600 people over the course of several years. The town council overwhelmingly voted to bring the company into town and lend it $50,000 to do so. Only Matt Polstein, owner of New England Outdoor Center–voted against the plan, arguing that not enough information was known about the company.

He proved prescient. The company, which did not have a facility and employed only two people, was fraudulent. The town council quickly reversed its decision to allow the company to set up, deciding that Avenger Boat was not trustworthy.

However, when it seemed like all was lost, hope came from an unexpected source: the young people who left Millinocket came back to form Our Katahdin, an organization aimed at saving the town. They started with small projects, their first rebuilding the bandstand in the center of town and decorating it with Christmas lights. Such a small project went a long way, and brought with it a sense of hope for the town.

Surrounded by thousands of miles of untouched wilderness, beautiful scenery and rivers that run as far as the eye can see, Millinocket is perfectly situated for ecotourism. The New England Outdoor Center is set upon the pristine waters of Millinocket Lake and has a picturesque view of Mount Katahdin.

The recent establishment of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument brought with it the promise of increased business for Millinocket, which is located nearby. The land, which was left by Burt’s Bee’s cofounder Roxanne Quimby, would allow activities like hunting and fishing. One sign that the tide is turning in favor of ecotourism in Millinocket–former workers who used to view the woods as supply for the mill, now view them as an opportunity to welcome new business to the town.

“If that’s going to bring people to Millinocket, I think most people will accept it.” said Davis, once one of the Monument’s fiercest local opponents.

The town recently announced that LignaTerra Global LLC, a North Carolina-based company that produces cross-laminated timber, is interested in building a $30 million factory this summer.

“I think we’re starting to turn the corner, coming around a little bit, but people in this area [are] still really skeptical about what’s going to happen from one day to the other,” said Clock.

Young people and businesses are gradually returning. Among the newcomers is Steve Golieb and his shop, Turn the Page Bookstore and Wine Bar. Golieb, who now lives in Millinocket, decided to open his store because of the town’s potential.

“This is a place that kind of represents a lot of rural America,” he said, noting that he hopes that by putting in the energy to transform the town, he’ll be able to come up with solutions for other towns experiencing similar hardship.

The Millinocket Memorial Library has seen positive change in the last year, welcoming a new librarian and being awarded a $500,000 grant to renovate the building. This is a welcome change by many, especially after the library shut for almost three weeks in 2015 due to lack of funding.

“What I saw in Millinocket was a town that was going through an incredible transition,” said Matt Delaney, the librarian at the Millinocket Memorial Library. “A town like this needs a public library more than any other town.”

Related content: Healing through storytelling at Millinocket’s library

Jessica Masse, who owns DesignLab with her husband John Hafford, said Millinocket was the obvious choice for her and her family.

“We both had plenty of experiences here that were impactful to us when we were young,” she said.

Masse and Hafford have two children, ages 4 and 6. Being able to give them a good experience outdoors was a priority, and the miles of untouched forest and expansive outdoors allow them to do that.

VIDEO: Finding a Way Forward (Produced by Rommel Ojeda)

“We wanted to raise them and give them opportunities to know what it’s like to just camp, swim, spend time in the woods and putter around without having to ‘helicopter parent’ them or anything like that,” she said.

Slowly, the return of families like that of Masse and Hafford bring promise for the future of the town. One thing that Millinocket lacks more than anything: families. Should the presence of children increase, it will be clear that the revival was a success.

By André Beganski

Four Millinocket residents who spent most of their careers working at the town’s lumber mill sat down one April afternoon to recall the days before the town’s biggest employer shut down and cast a pall over their once thriving and beloved community. In this podcast, they describe the good times–and how Millinocket is faring in the bad.

Related content: Former mill workers struggle to rebuild their lives

Related content: Millinocket’s former economic engine sits derelict 

By Anne Ehart

Photos by André Beganski and Anne Ehart

The New England Outdoor Center represents what optimists see as the future of Millinocket: ecotourism. Situated at the foot of Millinocket Lake, about 10 miles northwest of town, NEOC boasts a gorgeous view of Mount Katahdin and a year-round outdoor recreation business generating $2 million in revenue last year. Tourism and the creation of nearby Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, protecting 87,000 acres of land from logging, have been met with opposition by residents who have seen the timber industry as the driving economic force in the region. Skeptics don’t think the town can survive on tourism alone. Hopefuls, however, see the beauty of the Katahdin region as key to the area’s revival.

Mount Katahdin, meaning “The Greatest Mountain,” was named by the Penobscot Native Americans. Standing 5,270 feet, Katahdin is Maine’s tallest mountain and marks the northern end of the Appalachian Trail.

Steve Young, left, and Jeff Bustwick visit Maine from the Philadelphia area about five times a year, and enjoy the snowmobile trails surrounding NEOC. They also visit Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, which Gov. Paul LePage has, until recently, refused to mark with signage to direct visitors. (Related content: Maine, terrain and snowmobiles)

“When I first went up there with my wife, and I know the state very well, I lived here and was a trucker for many years, I couldn’t find it,” said Bustwick. The Monument receives mixed reviews from locals, the main criticisms being that protecting the land takes 87,000 acres of trees away from commercial timber use. Despite resistance and lack of signage, the Monument recorded more than 30,000 visitors in its first year. (Related content: No signs point to Katahdin’s national monument)

Matt Polstein, founder and owner of NEOC, wouldn’t trade NEOC’s view of the Mount Katahdin for any coastal location he’s ever seen. He described the combination of attractions in the Katahdin region as a “rare phenomenon,” and thinks Millinocket can benefit. “If you want to succeed in tourism, you have to have something that somebody else doesn’t have, and what we have is an iconic mountain,” said Polstein. “We have that in addition to a world-class white water river on the Penobscot, with a world-class landlocked salmon fishery, with a gateway to a wild and scenic style river, the Allagash.” (Related content: Matt Polstein: Millinocket’s ecotourism champion)

The River Drivers Restaurant at NEOC has a view of Mount Katahdin so breathtaking, diners can be distracted from their meals. “People will go down and leave their dinner on the table and watch the sunset down there,” Polstein said of their lookout on the edge of Millinocket Lake. “When they talk about eating dinner here, it’s not just about food and service. It’s about an experience that really moves them.”

Trees are the lifeblood of a town with its roots in paper making. Of 59 species of trees in Maine, 39 have commercial value. Millinocket is hopeful it can capitalize on its greatest resource with the prospect of a cross-laminated timber company using the old mill site and creating  100 jobs.

Josh Stahl, a recreation guide at NEOC, was raised in Millinocket and feels that tourism is the pulse of Millinocket, after the mill shut in 2008. “The town really is only still surviving purely based on the fact that it’s the closest thing to Katahdin and the Penobscot River with rafting,” said Stahl. “It’s really tourism that keeps us alive.” With 48 full-time employees, and another 75 part-timers in the summer, Stahl said NEOC is the second largest employer in the area after the Millinocket Regional Hosptial.

NEOC guests can rent snowshoes to explore the resort’s trails on foot. NEOC maintains about 100 miles of the state’s 14,000 miles of snowmobile trail and is working on expanding its 16 miles of cross-country skiing trails.

Polstein’s Labrador Indy is known for wandering into guests’ cabins and scoring bacon. NEOC’s 20 cabins vary in size and can sleep a maximum of 145 people.

Polstein thinks Millinocket can have the best of both worlds, with tourism and timber harvesting side by side. “I think tourism has an opportunity here to coexist with whatever industrial opportunity the forest continues to provide,” said Polstein. “Those opportunities being sustainable, compatible, with a mixed-use environment.”

(Related content: Maine’s iconic moose population sees its numbers drop)

By Anne Ehart

In March, the Millinocket Town Council auctioned six tax-foreclosed properties, two of which sold for just $1. These auctions have become a routine occurrence in the once flourishing paper mill town, which has assumed ownership of 97 properties through tax foreclosure since 2012, selling off as many as 25 at a time.

Declines in the paper industry–including the 2008 shuttering of the town’s Great Northern Paper mill–caused Millinocket’s population to shrink nearly in half from a high of 8,000, leaving the town with empty homes with virtually no value, and no one to fill them.

The median home value dropped to $65,000 in 2015, a 12 percent decline from $73,775 in 2000, an economic survey of the town by researchers at the University of Maine at Orono found. That is less than half the median home value for the rest of Penobscot County, which is $137,400.

One-quarter of the homes in Millinocket had tax liens placed on them in 2014 and 2015 alone, according to officials. The town places a lien on a home when the owner’s property taxes are long overdue, ensuring the town gets first rights to the property should the owner fail to pay up within 18 months.

Officials said in July 2016 that the town had taken ownership of 97 homes through foreclosures since 2012. No price is too small to get these homes back to good use, which is how local business owner Steve Golieb was able to buy two dilapidated properties, which he will renovate and restore, at the most recent auction for $1 each.

Locals are beginning to see a slight resurgence in the Millinocket real estate market, a reflection of what some see as the area’s best asset: the beauty of the Katahdin region, which is drawing more eco-tourists.

Dan Corcoran, owner of North Woods Real Estate, Millinocket’s only real estate office, attributed the uptick to vacation home sales on nearby Millinocket Lake, which offers spectacular views of Mount Katahdin.

“It really didn’t start to change until about two years ago,” said Corcoran, who said he bought the business in 2003, at what he describes as “the worst possible time.”

The resolution of a long-running environmental battle over the future of 87,000 acres of land in the Katahdin region owned by Burt’s Bees co-founder Roxanne Quimby also paved the way for more visitors. The battle, which pitted locals who supported using the land for timber harvest and those who wanted to protect it to attract tourism, ended in August 2016 with the establishment of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.

“We started seeing people coming into the office and wanting to look at property, people who have never been here before but came because they heard all the talk about a national monument,” said Corcoran. “They’d be here for just a few days, and then want to buy real estate. They saw how beautiful the area was.”

Other clients became interested in buying property after running in Millinocket’s recently established December marathon, he said.

Corcoran said 80 percent of North Woods business is in recreational properties: vacation homes and plots of land with a view of Mount Katahdin, and islands on scenic Millinocket Lake and the surrounding waters.

The founder and owner of New England Outdoor Center, Matt Polstein, estimated that a lot with a view of the mountain would sell in the $180,000 to $200,000 range, just for the land. Most lots have tiny shacks on them that need to be torn down, costing another $250,00-$260,000 to build a home.

PHOTO ESSAY: Ecotourism on the Rise

Locals are able to benefit from the recent interest in lakefront properties by cashing in on sales of desirable land they own on Millinocket Lake. Much of the land on the lakefront is owned by former mill workers who were issued inexpensive leases there as part of a benefits package from Great Northern Paper. The paper company once owned two million acres of land around the lake, but the leased plots were given to laid-off employees when the company went out of business.

“They actually have something out here that if they want to sell, they can monetize,” said Poletein. “At a time where everybody in the U.S. was building equity in their home, this area was having it stripped away at a pace that was sickening.”

Interest in seasonal homes outside of Millinocket is attracting some people to buy real estate in town, too. Former mill worker David Hartley recently sold his home in town for only slightly more than he bought it for, after just three days on the market. A welding instructor at Northern Penobscot Tech Region III, Hartley bought his 2,000-square foot home for $46,000 in 1995, and sold it this year for $52,000.

PHOTOS: Portraits of Penobscot Avenue

Though 100 pennies can buy certain properties, some houses in town have price tags with six figures. “Last year, we had a half a dozen houses on the market for over $100,000, and we sold all of them,” said Corcoran.

“In the last year, the town has really picked up quite a bit,” said Corcoran. “The market has come a long way and what we see happening with the manufacturing side of the economy is really going to boost that residential market a lot,” said Corcoran, referring to the prospect of a new industry bringing jobs to the former mill site and filling up homes.

The local real estate market is beginning to show signs of life, but the local economy will have to be revived to see a true resurgence in home value. Whether that can be done will depend on what are still speculative hopes of bringing new industry, such as cross-laminated timber, to the mill site. The possibility of 100 jobs on the mill will not bring Millinocket back to the fast-paced, high-priced home market it once was, but will be a healthy, sustainable industry for the town, unlike the boom and crash of the paper mill.