When ‘becoming one with the environment’ is keystgeorgedragon.com › ... › 2016 › 10 ›...
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DRAGON ST. GEORGE THE A bi-weekly publication of Dragon’s Breath Communications, LLC The first time Tenants Harbor resident Mark Bartholomew went bow hunting was in New Jersey in 1954. “My dad was sta- tioned at Fort Dix—he was an army chaplain. I only hunted one season and got off one shot.” The following year Bartholomew’s father was transferred to Fort Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. It was the family’s 29th move. “Alaska was still a territory at the time. It was fun up there. When we got to Alaska there was—and still is—a one year residency requirement to hunt big game like moose and bear so the first year my brother and I hunted only partridge, ducks, ptarmigan and hares. On the first day we were eligible for big game, we har- vested my brother’s first moose. Later in the year, I harvested my first moose on the way home from school. The next year I shot a moose and a Dall Sheep [white mountain sheep]. During college in Fairbanks we hunted weekends and vacations and fed several families on moose and caribou and ducks too.” For Bartholomew, bow hunting had gone by the wayside in fa- vor of the rifle he bought in 1956. “Bows were pretty primitive at that time. I tried for a caribou at 15 or 20 yards with a bow and the arrow bounced off of it. Needless to say, the next shot was with my rifle.” It wasn’t until Bartholomew and his wife, Betsy, moved to Maine about 12 years ago to help care for Betsy’s elderly parents in Cush- ing that Bartholomew’s interest in bow hunting was rekindled. One reason, he says, was opportunity. “Maine has some of the best bow hunting opportunities in the country, especially for hunters over 70—or with certain physical limitations—in that we are allowed to use a crossbow for most Volume 4 Issue 17 Thursday, October 20, 2016 When ‘becoming one with the environment’ is key Continued on page 2 game in most seasons. Conventional bow hunters also have won- derful opportunities in the expanded archery areas.” ‘Expanded archery areas’ are zones in populated areas with an overabundance of deer where the state encourages bow hunting— the nearest zone to St. George extends from Owls Head to Lincol- nville. “Because of the limited range of both compound bows and crossbows, they are less of a danger in populated areas where deer can be a major nuisance—they make topiaries of a lot of expensive landscaping—and where they present a danger of lyme disease as well. As is true with firearms, specific permission is required to discharge a bow within 100 yards of a dwelling. In the designated areas hunters with the required permits can take multiple deer and help control the population. Many of these deer are donated to charity, so many benefit.” Bartholomew switched from using a compound bow to using a crossbow a couple of years ago when problems with his right eye FREE Business & Recreation News for the St. George Peninsula “Maine has some of the best bow hunting opportuni- ties in the country, especially for hunters over 70—or with certain physical limitations—in that we are allowed to use a crossbow for most game in most sea- sons. Conventional bow hunters also have wonderful opportunities in the expanded archery areas.” PHOTO: Julie Wortman Mark Bartholomew demonstrates the crossbow he now favors for hunting. GREEN BEAN CATERING TENANTS HARBOR, ME 207-691-2780 T U R K E Y C O V E 3 7 2 - 8 6 2 6 AUTO REPAIR Neighbor to Neighbor Need a Ride? Want to Drive? Call 691-7069
Transcript of When ‘becoming one with the environment’ is keystgeorgedragon.com › ... › 2016 › 10 ›...
DRAGONST. GEORGETHE
A bi-weekly publication of Dragon’s Breath Communications, LLC
The first time Tenants Harbor resident Mark Bartholomew went bow hunting was in New Jersey in 1954. “My dad was sta-tioned at Fort Dix—he was an army chaplain. I only hunted one season and got off one shot.”
The following year Bartholomew’s father was transferred to Fort Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. It was the family’s 29th move. “Alaska was still a territory at the time. It was fun up there. When we got to Alaska there was—and still is—a one year residency requirement to hunt big game like moose and bear so the first year my brother and I hunted only partridge, ducks, ptarmigan and hares. On the first day we were eligible for big game, we har-vested my brother’s first moose. Later in the year, I harvested my first moose on the way home from school. The next year I shot a moose and a Dall Sheep [white mountain sheep]. During college in Fairbanks we hunted weekends and vacations and fed several families on moose and caribou and ducks too.”
For Bartholomew, bow hunting had gone by the wayside in fa-vor of the rifle he bought in 1956. “Bows were pretty primitive at that time. I tried for a caribou at 15 or 20 yards with a bow and the arrow bounced off of it. Needless to say, the next shot was with my rifle.”
It wasn’t until Bartholomew and his wife, Betsy, moved to Maine about 12 years ago to help care for Betsy’s elderly parents in Cush-ing that Bartholomew’s interest in bow hunting was rekindled. One reason, he says, was opportunity.
“Maine has some of the best bow hunting opportunities in the country, especially for hunters over 70—or with certain physical limitations—in that we are allowed to use a crossbow for most
Volume 4 Issue 17
Thursday, October 20, 2016
When ‘becoming one with the environment’ is key
Continued on page 2
game in most seasons. Conventional bow hunters also have won-derful opportunities in the expanded archery areas.”
‘Expanded archery areas’ are zones in populated areas with an overabundance of deer where the state encourages bow hunting—the nearest zone to St. George extends from Owls Head to Lincol-nville. “Because of the limited range of both compound bows and crossbows, they are less of a danger in populated areas where deer can be a major nuisance—they make topiaries of a lot of expensive landscaping—and where they present a danger of lyme disease as well. As is true with firearms, specific permission is required to discharge a bow within 100 yards of a dwelling. In the designated areas hunters with the required permits can take multiple deer and help control the population. Many of these deer are donated to charity, so many benefit.”
Bartholomew switched from using a compound bow to using a crossbow a couple of years ago when problems with his right eye
FREE Business & RecreationNews for the St. George
Peninsula
“Maine has some of the best bow hunting opportuni-ties in the country, especially for hunters over 70—or with certain physical limitations—in that we are allowed to use a crossbow for most game in most sea-sons. Conventional bow hunters also have wonderful opportunities in the expanded archery areas.”
PHOTO: Julie Wortman
Mark Bartholomew demonstrates the crossbow he now favors for hunting.
GREEN BEAN
CATERING
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TURKEY COVE
372-8626
AUTOREPAIR
Neighbor to NeighborNeed a Ride? Want to Drive?
Call 691-7069
The St. George DRAGONPage 2 October 20, 2016
developed. He was able to convert to shoot-ing his rifle left handed, but found it dif-ficult to do that with a long bow. “The tech-nology has advanced a great deal for both types of bows, but the crossbow shoots farther and much harder than compound bows.”
Bartholomew enjoys the skill involved with bow hunting. “The thing is, with a rifle, if a deer is in my sight my probabil-ity of killing that deer is about 99 percent because the bullet shoots flat and I’ve been shooting the same rifle since I bought it in 1956—it takes all the sport out of it. But the most critical thing in bow hunting, wheth-er crossbow or compound bow, is know-ing exactly how far it is to your target. A crossbow shoots 350 feet per second, but it drops at 33 feet per second squared so that every 10 yards it drops about 6 inches. So if you have a target you think is 20 yards and it’s really 40 yards you shoot under it. I missed one last year because it was a chance encounter so I hadn’t had a chance to range it and I thought it was 30 yards away. I was walking pretty quietly, and there was just enough breeze to cover the sound. I shot several inches over her because I didn’t think I could walk any closer than 30 yards. But it was like 18 yards away.”
Bartholomew says that experiences like this makes the range finder a very critical piece of equipment. “The new ones are es-pecially handy because they can give you the effective range depending on if you are shooting downward, say out of a tree, or upward. So if you are looking down it may be 40 yards to the target but the effective range might be 25 yards because of gravity.”
Although the crossbow is pretty deadly out to 60 yards, Bartholomew says he pre-fers shooting closer. “That’s because you have maximum power and your errors are smaller. At 20 yards I try for a neck shot because the crossbow is so powerful that it breaks the spine and the animal is done, it goes right down. Farther than that I shoot for a vital area, the heart and lungs. It’s not quite as clean, but it’s still almost as humane as a high-powered rife.”
Hunting that involves firearms (which this year begins October 31 and ends No-vember 26), Bartholomew points out, re-quires lots of flash orange clothing because
‘Becoming one’ From page 1
at the distance from which many hunters are shooting it would be easy to mistake a person for a deer. But with bow hunting (the season began September 29 and runs through October 28, although in expanded archery areas the season runs from Sep-tember 10 through December 10), the idea is just to totally disappear so camouflage clothing, gloves and masks are in order.
“The thing about archery hunting is that, because you are shooting at such close range, you have to become one with the environment,” Bartholomew emphasizes. “You have to be so still that if a deer is with-in sight you hardly can even breathe.”
To illustrate, he tells the story of a time he and a friend had permission to hunt with bows out on Benner Island.
“I was sitting on the north end of the island. There was a pond there and some green grass. It was a good feeding area, fair-ly open, but I was hunkered down in nice tall grass with a rock at my back so I wasn’t silhouetted. I had shot my ranges and there were birds that were migrating—about four different types of warblers and three dif-ferent kinds of sparrows and some others. This doe came out, a very nice animal and there were no kids with her or anything. She came out of the woods and was look-ing right at me so I couldn’t blink. There was a big scrape where a buck had been polishing his horns and pawing the ground and leaving a marker to attract does. She went up and tore at that and then she came
to within about 10 yards and was looking right at me. About that time a bird came and lit on my bow and another one lit on my head. On my bow was a yellow-rumped warbler. I don’t know what was on my head. The doe must have thought, ‘That must be a rock.’ So she ignored me and walked off.”
The surprising outcome of this story was that, despite his pains, Bartholomew didn’t get the doe. Although he got the oppor-tunity to raise his bow and get her neck in his sights he also had the sun in his eye. When he touched the arrow off he heard a “whack” which he thought was the sound of a good hit, but instead it was his arrow lodging itself into a small spruce standing in front of the doe that the sun made im-possible to see. “It wasn’t her time,” Bar-tholomew says with a rueful laugh.
Bartholomew admits that, despite the pleasures of bow hunting, it is still a sport that is far more dangerous for the hunter than hunting with a firearm. “There are so many things that can go wrong. Equipment checks are incredibly important. Luck-ily, before you can bow hunt in Maine you first have to take an archery course, which is basically a safety class. And then there is a special crossbow endorsement that is re-quired. It teaches you nothing about hunt-ing but everything about the cross bow.”
Bartholomew says he loved living in Alaska. After more than 15 years in the Army he finished out his military career in the reserves there and also, among other things, spent about 20 years as the captain of a 95-foot ship that took passengers to see glaciers and wildlife on tours of the Kenai Fjords National Park near Seward, an occu-pation he still misses. But he says he doesn’t regret the move to Maine and, in particular, St. George, even though his wife has deep roots in Cushing.
“We settled on this side of the river and we’re glad we did. It’s much more vibrant and we’ve made good friends here, good associations. The whole atmosphere in St. George is just great. I enjoy volunteering at the Marshall Point Light House Museum and being a member of the Odd Fellows.”
But perhaps most of all, it is the chance he’s found here to learn and excel at a sport that keeps him in touch with the wild. “I’m not the best bow hunter, but I enjoy bow hunting very much and have been lucky to be successful with it.”—JW
PHOTO: Julie Wortman
Mark Bartholomew
The St. George DRAGON Page 3October 20, 2016
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PHOTO: Ahlivia Morris
Every Friday, Mrs. Thompson’s first grade class goes on the nature trail in the woods behind the school. Every week, they look for something different. This week, we big kids went with them as they looked for signs of fall. They were all very excited be-cause they got to release the butterfly that had hatched in the classroom. First, they talked about what to look for in the woods. Miles says, “A sign of fall is colorful leaves.” When they get into the woods, they find a place to sit and have two minutes of quiet observation time. Then they can get up and explore. Many kids were climbing bro-ken trees and on stumps. Miles and Ryker found a covered stump with small trees and bushes growing out of it. Liam and Tucker found a tree with blue inside of it. When we were walking out of the woods, Ahliv-ia showed all the kids her loon call. They were very fascinated. When we got back they talked about what they saw, heard, and felt. They make a book for every week about what they saw. Here’s what they re-ported for this day.
Molly: I heard a bird tweeting like a stuffed animal that talks.
Miles: I saw colored leaves falling on the ground.
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Bradley: I heard a woodpecker.
Eva: I saw leaves that were red and or-ange.
Kaleb: I saw acorns and pinecones.
BJ: I saw butterflies flying away.
Thank you, Mrs. Thompson, for letting us come with your class on Forest Friday. We think the kids are learning a lot from being outside!
(Morris and Evans are in Grade 7 at the St. George School.)
Several readers raised concerns about identifying the Neighbor to Neighbor Ride Assistance Program as “the brainchild” of Dianne Oelberger in the October 6 issue of The Dragon. Here’s a note from Dar-lene Cocke which clarifies the matter: “The article about Jean Hewitt was great but it had wrong information about Neighbor to Neighbor. Stan Levy and Charme Blaisdell started this program. [My husband] David and I went to the initial meeting at their home. Charme and Stan had researched communities across the state and country that had started programs such as Neigh-bor to Neighbor. We were given a lot of information that they had printed out for this meeting. I wanted to make you aware of this.” Hewitt also contacted us about the error, apologizing for it and noting that “all credit for initiating discussions which led to Neighbor to Neighbor’s becoming a re-ality goes to Charmarie Blaisdell and Stan Levy.” Blaisdell and Levy are now work-ing on a Council on Aging/Aging in Place Committee that they hope the Select Board will support. The idea is to create a central place for information and resources in St. George.
Correction
The St. George DRAGONPage 4 October 20, 2016
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The St. George DRAGON Page 5October 20, 2016
The St. George Dragon is published by Dragon’s Breath Communications, LLC. Our mission is to promote the good things about St. George: its natural beauty, its heritage, its hard-working and creative people, its cul-tural and recreational life, its commu-nity organizations, its attractive and often unique local enterprises. Our advertisers are local businesses and groups devoted to creating a pros-perous and vital St. George. We hope you will support them!
The St. George Dragon is distributed to local retail outlets and businesses on Thursdays. The deadline for ad-vertising and copy is on Monday 10 days prior to publication date.
Submit story ideas and photos to:[email protected]
Julie Wortman, Editor 207 691-3234
Advertising and business office:[email protected] Welch, 207 975-5072
© 2016 Dragon’s Breath Communications LLCP.O. Box 1, Tenants Harbor, ME 04860
What painter’s plate is the opposite of her work? —Betsy Welch
Who’s behind the wheel? Email your answer to [email protected]. The first reader to respond correctly wins a free business-size ad in the print edition of The Dragon.
Linda Funk knew Barbara Aras’ plate MUKI in the October 6 issue.
St. George VANITZ
Oct 22 Bean Supper, Ocean View Grange 5-7pmNov 11 Senior Shopping Trip Call 372-6363 for infoNov 15 Senior Pot Luck Luncheon 11:30 Town Office Nov 25- YULETIDE in St. George, a 26 A shopping experience Dec 3 35th Annual St. George Grange Christmas Fair, Wiley’s Corner 9am-3pm PUBLIC Supper, 5-7pm
Upcoming Events
POND HOUSE GALLERYarchival picture framingart * antiques * gifts
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Second place for the 'best creation of a feather ever' goes to Phoebe Bly
First place goes to God again.
—Alan Letourneau, AJ Works.
On October 6, the St. George School hosted a com-munity meeting for newly-retired band teacher Carolyn Kanicki. The meeting included music by the middle-level band and their new band teacher, Kristin O’Neal. The com-munity meeting was a good time for Mrs. Kanicki to lead the band one last time and be thanked for all she has done for the school and the community.
At the meeting, Audrey Leavitt played a solo, “You Raised Me Up” on the French horn. Mila Mathiau, Sophie Vigue, and Laura Olds played selections from “Phantom of the Opera.” Gavin Young, Liam O’Neal and Mrs. Kanicki performed a percussion trio. Mrs. Jennifer Garrett from the School Board presented a painting to her. Special guest Eben Wight, a St. George School alumnus, came from the University of Maine where he is studying music education, and joined in the band, as well. All of us were moved by his appearance. Our new director Ms. O’Neal played too, when Mrs. Kanicki conducted one last time as the band performed “Pirates” and “Colonel Bogey.”
After the meeting, students got to talk to Mrs. Kanicki and wish her a happy retirement. One student, Noelle, summed it up beautifully when she said, “When you directed us on your last song, the music didn’t seem to come from our instruments, it came from our hearts.” It was quite emotional for all of us.
As a tribute to her, the school has started a fund called the Carolyn Kanicki Fund. This fund has been established by the staff at St. George School in honor of our former instrumental teacher for over 25 years. Mrs. Kanicki went out of her way to make sure that all students could learn an instrument and pursue their passion for music. Donations will be used to promote the teaching and learning of instrumental music for St. George Students, which may include providing instruments for 5th graders free of charge in their first exploratory year of band, repairing and purchasing instruments, and for scholarships to music camps. Anyone wishing to contribute should call the office for instructions.
We wish Mrs. Kanicki well and will miss her greatly.
(Vigue and Gill are in Grade 7 at the St. George School.)
Happy retirement, Mrs. KanickiBy Sophia Vigue and Allison Gill
The St. George DRAGONPage 6 October 20, 2016
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PHOTOS: Betsy Welch, top and left, Terry Banda, rightScenes from the St. George Business Alliance’s ‘Trails and Treasures’ event held on Saturday, October 15.
Saturday, October 22 5–7$8 DonationVeterans eat free!
Autumn Bean Supper at the OceanView Grange
PHOTO: Sara Holbrook
Where in St. George...?
Do you know where this is? Email your answer to [email protected]. The first correct answer wins a free business card-sized ad in The Dragon.
Linda Funk identified the statue in Doug Reinhart’s yard in the October 6 issue.
