In the days when papermaking was a mainstay of the Maine economy, and most of our state’s timberlands were owned by Great Northern Paper Co. and a few other large but stable corporations, the existence of modest camps on leased lakeside shore frontage was very commonplace. Timberland owners, who managed millions of acres of timberland that just happened to include undeveloped water frontage, considered it good community relations to lease camp lots to outdoor recreationists for a token annual fee.

There’s no question about it; this was a good deal for the leaseholder. What it did was give most folks, regardless of income, a chance to have their own little slice of paradise.

And if these folks were handy with a hammer and a saw, they could put up a small camp for a modest cash outlay. In fact, the camp on leased lakeside frontage became almost a Maine legacy, a fixture in our north woods culture. In a way, we were probably spoiled in the sense that we began to see this landowner-leaseholder arrangement as more a right than a privilege. It was our reward for surviving in a state with endless winters and low-paying jobs.

Sadly, those days are just about gone. Papermaking is no longer king in Maine. Forest land ownership patterns are changing at a frenetic pace. In the past few years, it is said that 12 million acres of Maine timberlands have been bought and sold. In many cases the wildlands are owned either by faceless LLCs, or multi-national corporations that have little concern for their institutional reputation with Maine citizens. Combined with this, the demand for recreational shore-front property has driven up the market value to the point where timberland owners are diversifying and getting into the shoreland development business. In short, the days of leasing a waterfront camp lot for $100 a year are gone forever. It is the stark economic reality of the times; timberland owners are adopting strategies driven by market forces.

In many cases, large landowners like Irving and others have given leaseholders a chance to purchase the camp lots that their camps are on. Some leaseholders have opted to swallow hard and make the purchase decision; others have simply walked away from their camps amidst tears and anguish. There have been some outright horror stories. Landowners with ice in their veins have refused to sell to leaseholders at any price, or, in what has to be the ultimate cynical act, have with cunning and premeditation, set the asking price prohibitively high. There was no real intention to sell the land in the first place.

“This is outright extortion,” says Stu Kallgren, President of the Maine Leaseholders Association, a group that has worked hard to try to improve communications between landowners and leaseholders. Property rights or no property rights, Kallgren’s characterization seems apt. Thanks to his organization, Maine law now requires that a leaseholder be permitted one year to remove his property from leased land that is sold out from under him.

Legislatively, a lot more needs to be done to mitigate the ultimate leaseholder’s nightmare that comes when a new land owner refuses to sell a camp lot to an existing leaseholder, who is then forced to abandon his lakeside property, regardless of how much money and sweat invested.

If state government has the power to seize property by eminent domain, it conversely should also have the authority to prevent new large timberland owners from extorting leaseholders or engaging in outright piracy.

State lawmaker Rod Carr disagrees. He argues that, however unfair this all seems, it is a matter of private property rights — the landholders. Carr has obviously never been forced to walk away from his camp without compensation!

There is a legislative resolution waiting in the wings: LD1646. Among other things, this bill would require landowners to provide a doomed leaseholder with at least some percentage of restitution for his involuntarily abandoned camp property. Sponsored by Rep. Herbie Clark, this bill has been around for a few years, but at least, according to Kallgren, it has begun to make some headway in Augusta. (It may come to a vote during this winter’s legislative session.) Reportedly, lobbyists for some landowners have intimidated lawmakers with threats to summarily cancel all camp lot leases if this bill passes.

Maine citizens should expect government to protect them from this brand of wholesale extortion, and, in some cases, de facto expropriation of their legal property. As long ago as 1967, Hawaii enacted a Land Reform Act that addressed this very same issue. Why has Maine been so long in coming to grips with this deep seated inequity? Why hasn’t Gov. Baldacci used his bully pulpit and the power of his office to jawbone for reform?

Maine Conservation Commissioner, Pat McGowan, is chairing a task force that is expected to find solutions for this state’s complicated and ever-worsening land access dilemma. If it does nothing else, it must find a way to level the playing field for Maine’s downtrodden camp-lot leaseholders.

Meantime, leaseholders can help themselves by supporting and joining the Maine Leaseholders Assn.

The Website is www.maine-leaseholders.com. Stu Kallgren can be reached at 723-4476. His e-mail is [email protected].

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].