Gov. Percival Baxter’s champion is leaving.

Buzz Caverly has worked at Baxter State Park for more than 45 years, directing park operations since 1981. He announced his retirement this week.

Caverly has been a tireless advocate of protecting Baxter’s vision of the 200,000-acre wilderness and its crown jewel, Mount Katahdin. He often echoed the late governor’s mantra of “forever wild” to any who would listen.

Sometimes that would irk some of those listeners.

People in Millinocket, the town nearest to the park, often criticized Caverly as being unbending when he would reject suggestions to increase commercial uses or to cut and maintain snowmobile trails through its wilderness.

Others chaffed at Caverly’s rigid enforcement of Baxter’s edicts when it came to hunting. There were to be areas where the sport is allowed, and places where it isn’t, and Caverly kept it that way.

When Baxter gave the parkland to the people of Maine he attached a few strings to his gift. First and foremost the land, most of it anyway, was to be kept as a preserve, a place where wildlife – both flora and fauna – would prosper. Next, it was to be a place where people could enjoy nature, and solitude, without changing it.

Caverly listened to Baxter while he was alive, and studied his will after the governor’s death. And he kept his promise to Baxter and to Maine’s people to keep Baxter State Park wild.

He will be missed.