It's snowing!!

Once again it is quiet here at Ktaadn Guide Service. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with family yesterday, and this morning I awoke to snow coming down. This snow will stay. Predictions are for a colder winter this year without the crazy snowfall levels of the recent past. Although we only had to plow three times last winter, the two winters before that were the kind I remember as a kid growing up with the snowbanks built up much like mini mountains. To the north of us in the 2007-08 winters, Fort Kent recorded 218 inches of snow. I received some photos online that year that I should have saved. One had the snowbanks so high, a moose became entangled in the power lines and roads were like tunnels. Last February we were in Harrisburg Pennsylvania, at the Eastern Outdoors and Sports show, and they were absolutely dumped on with snow, record year for them. The other night the Channel 5 weather man predicted we would be receiving that pattern, however without the high levels of snow. We'll see just how good his predictions are!!
We arrived in Harrisburg to bare ground, and when we opened up the motel door the next morning there was 22 inches of the white stuff and for the very first time in 55 years, they closed the show down due to the snowstorms. Big E and I were not so much bothered by the snow being from Maine, it is much the norm for us. So we were out on the city to find not even McDonalds open and a police officer wondered why we were out on the roads. We just laughed and said isn't that what four wheel drive is all about?!
Only two days left for rifle season on deer. Neither Big E nor I have put much time and count into the deer hunt, keeping ourselves quite busy with other things. Our young friend Nick has been putting down some tracks trying to find the last few deer in the area, and thus far has found a few good tracks, scrapes and pawings, however even he remembers when things were different and he is only 20 years old.
We have been tipping fir trees for the Wreath Factory, putting out coyote baits, and trapping and that has kept us out of trouble one might say. I enjoy the tipping as the smell is like no other. There is not a candle or scented spray that can really imitate the smell of balsam fir. It allows me time to think, or to think of nothing while I'm out there. I like checking out the area, tracks, sounds and smells and getting even more familiar with the lay of the land . I have been exploring our new 100 acre lot and picturing where things will be in the future. Oddly, the only tracks I have seen very much of is coyotes. I have not cut a buck track yet, not that it would matter. At this point I would feel guilty to shoot a deer knowing the herd is struggling.
I was watching the news the other night, and was angered at a report claiming the deer herd was in better shape, but as usual, they were reporting about southern Maine. Some of you may not realize but there has been the opinion for many years that there are two Maines, North and South, and yes we battle sometimes for the simple reason that all too often Northern Maine is forgotten, or thought to not have much count. Unfortunately it is true. The populations of southern Maine far outnumber the northern regions. The largest city we are familiar with is Bangor, which is about 70 miles south of us. We still have vast areas of wilderness in the region and large farming communities with forest to the north. These are the areas that were hit the hardest during the hard winters, and of course also the same regions highly overpopulated with the eastern coyote along with a few other predators that the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Dept. still will not openly admit exist. However, they do..... A couple years ago Big E and I were traveling home from an evening of fly fishing at Nesowadnehunk Lake, traveling slowly as we used to count high numbers of moose on the roads. We came around a corner by Harrington Lake and saw something on the left side of the road, stopped, and watched a wolverine lope across the road. We both looked at each other, and I asked " what did we just see?" I knew, but I wanted to hear it from someone else. "Wolverine!!" The funny part of that was we had watched a documentary on the wildcats about a week previously!! We also had a hunter tell us he had seen one on a bait and even though the gentleman was quite credible, we thought maybe he saw a fisher cat, which is close and definitely vicious as he described. After we saw the creature, we both thought, well maybe he did!!! Since then I have heard through the grapevine of another sighting. However IF&W have not commented, nor admitted even the slightest possibility. They also will deny that the wolf and mountain lion are here as well. Deny as they wish for whatever reasons they feel, I'm no fool! I have spent way too many hours, and days in the woods from here to the Canadian borders and I have not only seen tracks and heard the hair tingling howls and yowls, I have seen them. I have not ever had the camera with me, which these days is not a common thing for me not to have a digital camera on me, so I can't prove it as they say. No matter what, I know what I know and one warden who will remain nameless due to the fact,he is one of the best wardens I have ever dealt with, admitted the large cats when we encountered them on one of our traplines. Augusta can deny all they want thinking folks will go on some frenzy witchhunt, but we are all too familiar with the lies of politics and I will not approach that subject any further.
So here we are, with the snow falling,a cup of hot coffee and my laptop, contemplating winter, the rapid closing in of Christmas,and thinking forward to the sportsmen show once again.