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Retiring Ranger Looks Back at Baxter Park Years

September 10, 2008 - BAXTER STATE PARK -- At the end of an hourlong epic tale of roving bear, frightened campers and woodsheds buried in snow, chief ranger Chris Drew wanted to get back to work. It was, after 36 years, his last day of work at Baxter State Park.

But Drew is a man who keeps moving, in a 200,000-acre office that is full of the constant movement of moose, deer, hares and rivers.

And, after three decades of caring for Baxter State Park, that's not likely to change.

"He clearly loves the park," said park Director Jensen Bissell. "It's not just a place he works, but a place he wants to be, where he hunts and fishes. He's managed to do that. I don't know a trail Chris Drew has not been to."

Drew worked as a ranger in Baxter State Park since 1972, and as chief ranger in charge of the entire park for 23 years. He came to the park as a rookie ranger, was moved from campsite to campsite filling in when more veteran rangers took days off, and came to know each trail like walkways through his backyard.

"In my first year, I walked 656 miles, just on Katahdin alone. I went through three pair of boots," Drew said.

In the busiest years, Drew stayed a step ahead of the hundreds of hikers who came to ascend Mount Katahdin. He moved the Togue Pond gatehouse further into the park --and away from the park gate -- so visitors could be watched and kept from sneaking off to Roaring Brook Campground, the most popular jumping-off point to climb Mount Katahdin.

Drew stayed watchful for ways to protect the mountain from overuse. And he learned to live on Mount Katahdin in the worst weather – and love it.

"If you were low on the totem pole, you were sent to (live) at Chimney Pond. I had kids in diapers. I was pretty anxious to get those kids potty trained. I carried up a potty chair for them," Drew said, and added with a smirk: "(My son) Josiah is the only man I know who has climbed Katahdin strapped to a potty chair."

Even Drew's tales of chasing black bear at a time when the park was full of trash and garbage-eating bears are the stuff of comic strips.

In the 1970s, bears fed off the food that was dumped freely in the park. But Drew said when Percival Baxter died in 1969 and his endowment was left to the park, funding improved and the staff was increased.

Right away, they went to work on clearing out the garbage – and the bears. Drew describes it as if it was just a regular job.

"In one summer, I removed 16 bears from the park; eight in one day, two females with six cubs," Drew said. "The cubs, you need to catch and keep them with the mother. She's very aggressive. So I would tranquilize her, and then chase her (until she dropped). There was a Scout troop at the campground, and I asked them, 'Any of you on the cross-country team?' Some said yes, so I said, 'You're going to tree a bear.'

"I'd give them each a switch, got them together and said, 'Now, I'm going to chase mama. So I'm not going to be here. But as soon as I shout, you shout and run at the cubs and tree them.' "

With his team of screaming, running Scouts, Drew made short work of his eight bears, tranquilizing all of them and moving them 100 miles outside the park.

All of Drew's park tales of hardship and setbacks are told with joy and laughter.

"The winds blew the snow so hard, Chimney Pond is the only camp I know where I had to shovel snow outside – and six inches of snow indoors. One week, it was 129 below with the wind chill," Drew said. "The winds would blow 100 miles per hour."

One might expect, after 36 years at a place he reveres, that Drew might feel nostalgic on his last day. But he considers the question with near confusion.

Sadness and Baxter State Park are not related in Chris Drew's world.

"I live only 16 miles outside the park, as close as you can get with electricity. And that's planned," Drew said. "I will still be in the park."

DEIRDRE FLEMING, Portland Press Herald, September 4, 2008


Lakes: Upper Togue Pond
Regions: Katahdin


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