Phyllis Austin – författare

Wilderness is central to the image of Maine most of us carry in our minds. In this extraordinary collection nearly forty writers, poets, artists, and photographers bear witness to the central role it plays in Maine, its importance to our understanding of nature, to our sense of who we are in the world, to our very souls. And some of them devote practical thinking to how we might recover and nurture wilderness in the future.At this time of major changes in land ownership in the North Woods and of development pressures and sprawl threatening the rural landscape of southern and central Maine, these voices for wilderness could not be more relevant.

Buzz Caverly first joined the ranger staff at Baxter State Park in 1960, when the new park was just taking shape under the direction of Helon Taylor and the park's donor, Percival Baxter, who wished the park to be forever wild. Caverly's legendary career in the park one of the most unusual wilderness areas in the nation culminated when he became park director in 1981. Over the years he saw tremendous changes in attitude about land conservation, public access, and park management. From the Wild West days of the 1960s to the intensely managed years of the 1990s and beyond, the clash of personalities and politics is entertaining and inspiring, and reveals the minefield of people and issues Buzz had to negotiate to save the park's wilderness character.

How did she navigate the world of venture capitalists and investment bankers to engineer the sale of her company and reap a personal fortune? And what does her subsequent odyssey to buy and donate a new national park in Maine's north woods—thus repaying what she regards as the “harmonic debt to the planet” she incurred by manufacturing beauty products—tell us about America and the American dream? Queen Bee is a fascinating biography of a fascinating woman, her game-changing skin-care company, and the quest to create a national park in the north woods. A richly textured portrait of the woman who built Burt's Bees from nothing and altered the global business of skin care. A tightly woven story of the paper-industry exodus, the giant clearance sale of the north woods, the downward spiral of paper-company towns, and the battle for a new national park. A tale of the American Dream in action— what it can do for the fortunate few who are in the right place at the right time with wits and determination, and what it can do to the unfortunate many who find themselves on the wrong side of “creative destruction.”