On Its Way Home, Samuel Parker's Exploring Tour Beyond the Rockies.

“If I can get them into the hands of someone who values them I will be doing us both a favor.”


Old books with maps and charts are interesting. One on hand they send you further down the rabbit hole looking for meaning, history, accuracy, and context. On the other hand the they add another layer to the question of the book’s value; their folds, creases, different methods of insertion and placements almost always lead to questions about the book’s condition. They are often missing altogether.

So I found Samuel Parker’s 1838 Exploring Tour Beyond the Rockies, recounting his travels to the Oregon Territory, a particularly interesting find in my inventory of several thousand old and rare books. I am happy to report it will find a home with a collections registrar, regional landmarks commissioner, and historical archeologist with deep experience in regional museums and historical preservation organizations in the Northwest. The book is on the road home.

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The map accompanying Parker’s work is reputed to be the first reliable map of the interior of Oregon territory. Parker was on a religious mission pursuing locations, and presumably people, to bring into his particular fold. According to the Washington State University digital library site which contains an online version of the map, “In 1834, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions appointed Rev. Samuel Parker to go to the Oregon Territory and scout locations for missions there. Parker traveled overland to Oregon in 1835, and traveled as far north as Colville while locating sites for missions near Spokane, Lewiston, and Walla Walla. Eventually, he traveled to Fort Vancouver, and from their obtained free passage by ship to Hawaii, and after some delay there he returned to Boston via Cape Horn. In 1838, he published this map, and the book from which it was taken, as an aid and inducement to future settlers.” The Wikipedia entry on the ABCFM is fascinating.

The description of this map as the “earliest reliable source, made from personal observation” is attributed to The Plains and the Rockies: A Critical Bibliography of Exploration, Adventure and Travel in the American West, 1800-1865, begun by Henry R. Wagner and continued by Charles L. Camp and Robert H. Becker. Book and map sellers most often refer to this source as “Wagner-Camp.”


In addition to its map the book contains a glossary of native terminology with English equivalents, and various climatological data. 

1344 Pounds of Granite


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Bill Patterson tested the limits of a borrowed pick-up truck by loading it with thirty-two curling stones and driving them from Sudbury, Massachusetts to The Rink at Brunswick Landing for a series of curling demonstrations. The stones, each weighing about forty-two pounds, belong to a curling club in Massachusetts. The club loans the set, and associated gear, to groups looking to start local curling facilities.

More photos

Located just behind Flight Deck Brewing off of Admiral Fitch Avenue on Brunswick Landing, the rink hosted its first curling demonstrations on pair of beautiful February weekends. Sometimes compared to shuffleboard on ice, curling is extremely popular in Canada, and in colder European countries, but is familiar to most Americans only as a curiosity during the winter Olympics. The antic sweeping, the audible strategic discussions and interplay between the players, and the fact that the stones actually slow down as they move into scoring position gives the sport a kind of conversational sociability that is drawing people in.

Under crystal blue skies with temperatures in the upper 20s curling enthusiasts, novices, and passersby joined in for long afternoons of curling in the lengthening winter days. Patterson was gratified by the strong response, “There were many people, from retirees to recent college grads, that wanted to participate in this highly social winter sport. With youth hockey our focus has always been on the school age population, but this really opens things up. Plus the rink is highly visible and near to the amenities at Brunswick Landing. With Flight Deck Brewing, the Cooks Takes Flight food truck, and the fire pit nearby people were destined to have a good time. The consensus seemed to be that while curling is very tough to master it’s also a very friendly sport and easy for the beginner to pick-up and enjoy.”

Patterson spearheads Midcoast Youth Hockey’s effort to build an enclosed, refrigerated rink at Brunswick Landing to support local skating, youth hockey, and to provide practice space for the high school teams at Brunswick and Mt. Ararat high school. “Bowdoin has always been very good to us but local teams have to compete for ice at Bowdoin’s Watson Arena with the college’s own programming, which happens to include a curling club. I started to think about adding a curling venue to our project when I learned that the Bowdoin kids travel to Belfast at least once a week to use an enclosed dedicated curling facility.”


Curling requires a different ice surface than the smooth surface needed for hockey and figure skating. A pebbled ice surface created by specialized equipment is necessary. Belfast has the closest real curling facility. Under ideal travel conditions Belfast is still a ninety-minute drive from Brunswick. Patterson reached out to local curling enthusiasts through the Bowdoin club and built a network including the Bowdoin College Club, The Pine Tree Curling Club of Portland, and the Belfast Curling Club. This allowed Midcoast to track down the stones and equipment and to bring in some talent to guide the events. “We’d really like to build on the enthusiasm we saw these last weekends. We’ve been working on the idea of a rink for Brunswick for many years and it’s great to be able to expand what we can offer.”

Check the rink calendar for the Brunswick Landing Arena for future events, and the photo gallery to see all the fun.

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Maine's Most Complete Coverage of the State Cross-Country Championships .

See my latest on MaineMileSplit, the best source in Maine for news, data, interviews, and race videos. Here is 2018 Championship coverage for all six races, in all three classes.

Brunswick Dragons, 2018 Northern Maine Regional Champions. With a fourth place finish at States this team qualified for the New England Championships at Manchester, NH on November 10, 2018

Brunswick Dragons, 2018 Northern Maine Regional Champions. With a fourth place finish at States this team qualified for the New England Championships at Manchester, NH on November 10, 2018

Learning a New Sport, Part II: At least there is no offsides.

My most attentive readers will recall my view that the rules of field hockey can make following the flow of the game difficult for new fans, and present some challenges for the photographer. In the last three weeks, I have had plenty of opportunity to see a lot more field hockey, to ask some questions, and to do some reading. But the best thing I learned came in a flash, an epiphany.


There is no offside in field hockey.


Offsides seems simple enough, especially in ice hockey where a big, foot-wide, blue line painted on the white ice should help. But I know one hockey player who spent three years offsides, his inability to remember the blue line eclipsed only by his willingness to blame the kid carrying the puck for the whistle. I’ve heard soccer coaches—paid coaches on travel teams—berating sixteen year old linesmen because the coach plainly doesn’t understand when a player in a potential offside position should result in a whistle.


So kudos to field hockey: no offsides.

But it is still difficult to photograph. The length of the stick and the requirement that players only play the ball with the flat side (forehand) of the stick lead to some interesting contortions. And a lot of photos of back-sides.

And it never helps when you’re looking through the viewfinder and trying to cheer your team on at the same time. Shooting any sport is easier when the scoring, or who scores doesn’t matter. So this series from a game between Bowdoin College and USM last weekend allowed me to capture the full range of movement required for a player with the ball on her back-hand side to get a shot on goal without sacrificing the time to get in position for a forehand shot.

Time is important because the shot is coming off a penalty corner. You can tell by the crazy Hannibal Lecter mask the USM players are wearing, they only don these during penalty corners because of the heightened possibility of a ball or stick to the face.  For a brief time USM will have just four defenders in the shooting area while Bowdoin may have as many as eight offensive players looking for a shot from a set play and as many rebounds as they can hammer on the net before the remaining six defensive players can run back into the action from midfield.

Trying to turn to her forehand will not only kill time, it will also allow the defender—shielded from the ball in the shot here—to take a better defensive position. The shooter is bent more than 90º at the waist with her stick parallel to the ground and almost level with the playing surface. While bending like this she has to retain her balance in order to apply some power to the shot.

And the shot. In the first photo the shooter’s wrists are crossed so that she can get the flat side of the stick to the ball, and take the only legal shot available. A disproportionate amount of the power of this shot will be generated by the shooters arms and wrists as she snaps the stick back into the forehand positions. She knows where the goal is— somewhere over her right shoould—but obviously couldn’t pick a corner.


And the third shot—it’s just a joyous the celebration.