For 20 years, probably more, Fred Huntress has often roamed the woods of Thorncrag.
His first visit to this 310-acre emerald in Lewiston’s crown was in 1942, he recalled, back at a time when he was attending a YMCA day camp.
It’s the trees, he says, that are dearest to him. After all, he is a forester.
“Trees,” he notes, “are my life.”
The thought of losing some at the renowned bird sanctuary doesn’t sit well with him.
Ribbons of pink and blue plastic dance in the breeze. They mark the place where the Stanton Bird Club wants to level and pave the ground for a parking lot.
More ribbons head off toward a ledge and signal the spot where Stanton members want to build a nature center. Huntress, a former president of the group, calls it “a clubhouse.”
Huntress sees no need for any of it.
“It’s a bird sanctuary,” he notes. “You don’t have birds in a parking lot.”
The Stanton proposal, a revision of one the club put forward two years ago, hasn’t been explained yet to nonmembers. The Sun Journal was unable to reach Susan Haywood, Thorncrag’s steward, by telephone.
Kathy Lawrence, the club’s president, said that Stanton planned a mid-May nature festival that would include roping off the area planned for parking and the nature center. People could comment on the plan then, she added.
Huntress maintains the Stanton Bird Club is losing its focus, and that its newest plan is a sign of that. He sees no need for a building or for the parking lot. He maintains the club wants the parking to handle visitors who will then come to the building and to shop.
And he doesn’t buy the argument some have made: that the building will be a classroom. The sanctuary itself, he says, is a classroom, but one without walls.
If the club insists on parking and buildings, he says, it should build them on a multi-acre lot it owns just across Montello Street from the existing main gate to Thorncrag. A crosswalk could be painted on the road, and flashing lights erected if needed for safety.
The sanctuary, he says, should remains just that: a sanctuary.
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