The Interrupted Forest: a History of Maine's Wildlands.

• Author: Oriel, Elizabeth
• Position: Book Review

by Neil Rolde Tilbury House Publishers $20.00

Imagine traveling down Maine's Penobscot River in a canoe, while a guide points out common and rare species: silver birch, kingfisher, moose. Reading The Interrupted Forest by Neil Rolde is the literary equivalent of such a journey, but Rolde's terrain is history--of the land and the cultures that have interacted with forests, rivers, and seashores.

What Thoreau termed "uninterrupted forests" have been the stage for a dramatic story of human interruption, "mirroring world history," Rolde points out. With "[nearly 1.5] billion hectares of forests that once blanketed Earth" lost. Maine's large forest acreage plays an important role in the global economy, and in the work to counteract climate change.

Rolde addresses global aspects of the paper, pulp, and wood products industries, and their complex relationships with Mainers. He peppers his work with maps that inspired his book. The Interrupted Forest tightly details Maine history, its creators and observers, tying together sources from varying perspectives: literary references, religious, political, and first-person accounts. Although Rolde mentions conservation projects he's worked on, he carefully presents both sides of many issues. And he's knowledgeable about strange alliances that develop in politics, as in clear-cutting, wherein corporate interests have joined forces with environmentalists.

In describing battles over that issue, as well as over the proposed Maine Woods National Park, and land swaps between paper companies and the state, an attitude emerges in the north country that is highly protectionist, yet which also tolerates certain kinds of interference. "It's our land, even if we don't own it," is how Rolde summarizes the general attitude toward the vast Maine wilderness, much of it owned by paper companies.

Rolde begins his look at this great land 500 million years ago, when "coastal Maine wasn't even part of North America.... 250 million years ago, it sat where Ghana is now, near the equator." He examines the Abenaki claim to being the "oldest Native American tribe," evaluating that assertion in light of two preeminent theories--that the continent's first inhabitants arrived across the Bering Straits, or from across the Atlantic.

As Rolde moves down the centuries, he notes that the Bay of Fundy and Casco Bay come from the Spanish, a legacy of explorations by Portugal's Estavao Gomes. He details the arrival of settlers, their clashes...