Talk Story
Taking a look at extreme
sports, Downeast-styleTIRED of lobster-boat racing, lumberjack chop-offs, kayak slaloms and fly-fishing, folks in Maine are always looking for new ways to pack precious summer days with fun.
Maine is the thumb-shaped state in the upper right corner of your map of the mainland. It's east of all the rest of the United States and north of much of Canada -- as far from Hawaii as you can go without leaving the country. We were there last week.
Both states have populations of about 1.2 million and vie for the title "Most Taxed in the United States." We also share long coastlines and love for the outdoors. Maine's fiords, gentle offshore winds and frigid waters don't favor surfing, however, so thrill seekers have resorted instead to snowmobile skipping.
THIS sport, not unique to Maine, has become all the rage across the northern latitudes. After all, says Snowmobile Online, "With performance snowmobiles costing what they do, it's a shame to use them for only three or four months out of the year."
Besides skipping -- where competitors attempt to drive their sleds across rivers, lakes and other bodies of water -- there's also snowmobile racing on grass or on asphalt, where wheels are added to the machine's runners.
Water skipping, or water cross, has run afoul of the law, however. The killjoy Maine legislature passed measures, effective last week, that not only outlaw the sport but require owners of snowmobiles and motor boats that sink in lakes, ponds and rivers to fish them out within 24 hours or face the consequences.
"No data are kept on water-skipping incidents," said the Waterville Morning Sentinel, but game wardens were "troubled by the danger faced by unwary snowmobilers who follow the tracks of a 'skimmer' in the colder months."
ANOTHER new law gives Maine's moose and deer a sporting chance, banning both aerial hunting and using aircraft to spot game and radio information to rifle-toting hunters on the ground.
The local fondness for firepower was reflected at the seventh annual Hiram Maxim Machine Gun Shoot and Expo held two weekends ago in Dover-Foxcroft. Maxim, inventor of the single-barrel machine gun that bears his name, was born in Sangerville, Maine, in 1840.
The Maxim gun was to a large degree responsible for the carnage of the Russo-Japanese and Boer wars and World War I, when out-of-date infantry tactics encountered lightweight automatic guns capable of firing up to 666 rounds per minute.
Nowadays, Maine's machine gun aficionados -- and those "from away" -- gather at a large gravel pit to talk, swap, admire and fire weapons ranging from .22-caliber machine pistols to quad .50-caliber anti-aircraft guns.
Expo sponsors, the Waterville-based Hiram Maxim Historical Society, furnish wrecked cars as targets and plant dynamite charges to provide satisfying secondary explosions.
This year's continuous firing lasted for two hours, except for a brief cease-fire when a MG-42 shell exploded and its brass casing embedded itself in the bicep of Jim Wilkinson, who drove up from Connecticut to attend.
"I've been shot before, when I was younger." Wilkinson told the Sentinel. "It's no big deal." Barry Sturk, Maxim Society president, concurred. "It's equivalent to a smashed thumb," he said. "People like to blow it all out of proportion 'cause it happened with a gun."
One dealer at the Expo estimated more than 30,000 Americans now own machine guns. "It's a terrific investment. There is a limited supply and an increasing demand, so prices keep going up," he said.
Mary Drew of Orono told reporters she doesn't shoot machine guns but likes those who do: "I feel comforted by people who know how to practice and uphold their Second Amendment rights."
Too bad the founding fathers didn't own snowmobiles.
John Flanagan is the Star-Bulletin's contributing editor.
He can be reached at: jflanagan@starbulletin.com.