When men retire from their life’s work, they usually wind up taking one of two paths. Some become happy slackers. For them the good life is really taking it easy, a lot of ball games on TV, backyard cookouts and some trips with the wife. Other retirees take an entirely different path. They catch afire and pursue an avocational passion with a vengeance. One retiree of the second category is Gerry Lavigne from Boyd Lake, not far from LaGrange.

You may know Lavigne as the Maine deer biologist. For 30 years or so, Lavigne, a nationally respected deer biologist, managed Maine’s deer herd. During his professional career in wildlife management, Lavigne used his free time to dabble in his hobby: making sausage, ham and bacon for family and friends. Much of what he made was from wild meat or from pigs raised on his farm on Route 16, which he eventually named Dunlatr Farms. (Today it is Dunlatr Farms Smokehouse).

Since his retirement from state government, Lavigne has been working day and night, mostly joyfully, to upgrade his smokehouse, his processing facility and his custom wild game business. One May afternoon, Lavigne walked me through his rustic 19th century farmhouse. With understandable pride and enthusiasm, he explained how his meat processing business evolved and elaborated on his plans for the future. His meat processing facility, which is spotlessly clean, is attached to his farm house. The facility includes a large walk-in meat cooler that he constructed himself and a “mixing room” that contains large shelves of spices. Lavigne takes pride in the fact that his spices are all custom-mixed and, unlike commercial spices, are low in sodium.

Adjacent to the main house is an elaborate, newly constructed smokehouse that is nearing completion. Lavigne built this facility and scientifically engineered it for carefully controlled smoking conditions. All of his meat and fish products are smoked “the Old Time Way” using sugar maple and apple exclusively.

These excerpts from Lavigne’s custom wild game brochure tell the story:

“Bear Ham- Well-trimmed bear hams and shoulders are pumped and dry-rubbed with a sweet cure of sugar, salt, real maple syrup, and sodium nitrate. When cured, hams are smoked 4 to 12 hours until a mahogany brown color is attained. Flavor is very similar to pork hams.”

Or how about this one:

“Cured and Smoked Game- We can process large cuts of lean game into delicious corned beef, pastrami, or pepper-crusted slabs using our sweet cures and smoking. Cuts from the hindquarters of deer, moose, elk and caribou work best.”

Lavigne’s operation offers 25 different products, including several types of salamis, kielbasa, hot dogs, smoked sausage, snack and pepperoni sticks, fresh sausages, smoked game hams and smoked wild fowl.

Lavigne’s farm property reflects the wildlife biologist’s personal energy, innovative instincts and back-to-the-land philosophy. It covers about 35 acres, includes a fish-stocked farm pond, vegetable gardens, hardwood stands for firewood and a formidable root cellar. In the loft of his barn, he has constructed what he calls his “field office.” This is a small, wood-paneled, heated room with a small shooting window. Lavigne, who is also a deer spokesman for the Sportsmen’s Alliance of Maine (SAM), has been promoting the need for sportsmen to help save a deer by hunting coyotes. Putting his effort where his mouth is, Lavigne shot a number of coyotes from his “field office” this past winter. In fact, Lavigne has been known to hand out smoked coyote sticks to state legislators.(They are, believe it or not, quite tasty.) Not a big fan of store-bought salami, I nonetheless sampled his smoked turkey salami. Wow! Delicious and delicately herbed. It frankly surprised me. Lavigne’s product brings a new gourmet-like respectability to the word “salami.”

Lavigne’s meat processing business tends to pick up in the fall during the hunting seasons. He says that in the spring, however, a lot of business comes his way from moose hunters who bring left over meat from their freezers to be smoked and processed. He stresses that frozen wild game can be custom processed in his facility as long as it is not freezer burned. Dunlatr Farm Wild Game Smokehouse is located at 1388 Elm Street (Route 16) in Boyd Lake. The telephone number is 207-943-2584.

Of course, Gerry Lavigne is not the first retiree to find renewal in a second career and redirect a hobby into a promising business. Ironically, he accomplished much in his first career and could have rested on his laurels. But he chose not to. That’s the remarkable nature of the man from Dunlatr Farms, and others like him.

The author 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, WQVM-FM 101.3) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected] and his new book is “A Maine Deer Hunter’s Logbook.”