PUBLISHED WRITING

Down East Magazine

Making it in Maine - Nothin' But a Gi Thing

When the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi invited him to compete in the world’s largest jiu-jitsu competition in 2012, Pete Roberts had no idea the invite would turn him into a garment manufacturer.

“Everyone has moments that send you one way instead of another,” says the 37-year-old native of New Sharon, outside Farmington. “I had mine in Abu Dhabi.”

Maine the Way

Upta Camps

In the pictures we are always fat, naked babies, squinting up into the sun, oversized hats knotted under our chins. We are plopped on the gravelly beach, clutching fistfuls of pebbles and dirt, or we are standing ankle deep in the lake, staring at clouds of fish hung around our toes. The light is always some shade of gold, tinting it all with a precious value.

In the videos we are always busy: rock hopping along the shore with our plastic nets and buckets, explaining to the camera the best way to catch a grasshopper, running across the front lawn with sparklers snapping over our heads. We are a constant energy, even when curled on one adult lap or another, under a blanket dotted with zebras, in a rocking chair just barely missing somebody's toes- we exhale the energy of childhood like steam rising from the lake.

Matador Network

I didn’t feel culture shock until I came home

I was 22 when I went to Tanzania. I was fresh out of college, slowly realizing more of the real world with each morning I woke. It felt like walking through the woods after winter thaws, when your boots keep getting sucked down into the mud. My days kept moving forward but my feet were slow to follow.

Daily Bulldog

Living in Poverty: "We bleed red"

JAY - A beat-up car comes rolling into the parking lot and finds a spot not far from Unit 9. Two girls, who could be twins, wrestle out of the back seat and begin unloading groceries.

"Bring the milk in the house. And then do your chores," The girls' mother, Meghan Johnson directs.

The girls pretend to be shy, hiding behind one another, and trudge into the house dutifully. Meghan lights up a cigarette and leans against the back of the car, apologizing for being late. She was doing a grocery run with her sister and had to bring her home. She lost track of time.

Daily Bulldog

Drag Your Neighbor

The Drag Your Neighbor competition kicked up clouds of dust Wednesday night, despite a previous postponement due to a soggy track and a water truck running between races. The third annual competition held during Farmington Fair week drew hundreds of spectators - both in the stadium seating as well as on the hoods and tailgates of vehicles.

Maine Magazine

Caring in Crisis

Emily and Nate Peterson have a problem. The couple, who moved to Bucksport and had their first baby just before the pandemic hit, discussed childcare when preparing to start a family, but they had no idea how obsessive they would become about the topic. “We’d heard so many horror stories, even before the pandemic,” says Emily. “Our friends in southern Maine would tell us about having to get on wait lists as soon as you decide that you want to have kids. It was the first question everybody asked when I got pregnant, and it was something we really worried about.”

Maine Magazine

The Artist Bringing Life to a Former Factory in Wilton

At first glance, the bright teal building of the W.S. Wells and Son canning factory might have seemed out of place on a small road in a small town in Maine. But at a closer look, the factory was the quintessential operation of a hardworking rural Maine family. Its history spanned four generations; it was born of hard times and the need to make ends meet, and its success was founded on the hidden bounty of the surrounding woods and fields. For more than three decades, this factory was a supplier of canned fiddleheads and dandelion greens—one of very few, if not the only one, in the country. Under the label Belle of Maine, the relatively tiny Wilton factory could hardly keep up with orders. W.S. Wells and Son paid hundreds of locals to bring freshly picked fiddleheads to the dooryard of its teal factory every spring.

Down East Magazine

In Search of Maine Wild Rice

At a stream in central Maine, guides handed out basic tools: a long wooden pole for pushing canoes through the shallow water, plus two short, thick sticks for collecting wild rice from the grasses growing along the banks. On a crisp morning last September, rice plants stretched high into a blue sky.

Wild rice was a dietary staple for Maine’s indigenous peoples for much of their history — it sprouted in lush stands in fresh waters around the state. But as settlers took tribal lands and damming, logging, and other industrial practices disrupted ecosystems, the late-summer harvest became a thing of the past.

Maine the Way

For the thrill of the ride

Strike out on any snow-packed path in the dead of winter and soon enough you’ll hear the wail of snowmobiles zipping between the trees. Maybe they’re heading your way, and you’ll sink into the sideline to clear the trail, or maybe they’re far off in the distance- on their way north or to the nearest convenience store for a gallon of milk. 

Most likely they’re riding along the 4,000-mile Interconnected Trail System- a volunteer-run, professionally groomed network of snowmobile highway. The system, along with about 10,000 miles of smaller trails linking in, allows riders to go all the way from Lebanon to Madawaska, covering almost every region of the state. The seamless, extensive trailway sets Maine apart from any other snowmobile destination in the country. 

Down East Magazine

Picking Up Steam?

From a low peak in the Franklin County town of Temple, Michael Romanyshyn can survey his family’s 200-acre wood, much of its canopy spanned by bone-white birch branches. “I’d tried birch syrup in Russia,” he said one cold morning, taking in the snow=flecked sweep of land. “When we moved back here, I realized we had this big grove,: So, eight years ago, he started what remains Maine’s only commercial birch-syrup operation. On average, 120 gallons of sap make just 1 gallon of syrup, three times the input need for an equal amount of maple syrup. The result is complex- sweet, but also earthy and tart. Notherly peoples from Finland to Alaska have long had a taste for the sylvan nectar and it works well in seafood glazes, salad dressing sand cocktails. Romanyshyn is convinced that, in time, it will catch on here and that more tappers will avail themselves on the state’s abundant birches. However, he admits on big hurdle: despite birch syrups’ versatility, it’s not great on pancakes.

The Sun Journal

A hidden gem

Driving out Intervale Road it is easy to convince yourself that you may have passed Temple Stream Theater. “Keep going! Just after the little red schoolhouse. Through a tunnel of pines. Smells good tonight!” A cheerful dog walker explained when asked for directions. The little red school house appeared in the distance and soon after passing it, the pines tunneled.

Daily Bulldog

UMF student outruns bears

FARMINGTON - A student at the University of Maine at Farmington has made national news for outrunning a pair of black bears that charged him during a recent morning run.

Moninda Marube, a marathon runner from Kenya, has lived in Auburn with his host family for the past five years. Each morning, the dedicated runner wakes up, goes through his meditation routine, and leaves the house by 5 a.m. Two weeks ago, he left the house for his morning training, expecting nothing unusual.

Matador Network

Where do we draw the line between traveling fearlessly and listening to our guts?

Seven years ago this spring, I was on a 22-hour flight back to New York City. I’d spent the majority of the winter living in M’Sangani, Tanzania, where I was the only white person for miles, only a few people spoke English, and I lived completely off the grid. Now, in my thirtieth year of life, now a mother, a wife and a settled homeowner, I find myself thinking a lot about M’Sangani.