Author Earl Brechlin, who had to cancel his April 9 engagement due to travel conditions, will talk about his adventures and his latest book, on April 30 at the Norway Public Library. (Submitted image)

NORWAY — Author and Registered Maine Guide Earl Brechlin will read from his new collection of evocative and heartfelt essays about Maine’s iconic landscapes, the power of family, and the search for meaning and renewal in the embrace of wilderness, during an appearance at the Norway Memorial Library on Tuesday, April 30, from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Along with the reading, he will share a slideshow showing the connections between the great figures of Maine’s outdoor heritage.

Attendees are encouraged to share their stories of great adventures in the Maine woods. Brechlin’s book will be available for purchase and signing the night of the event for $18. The program is part of the library’s series Conversations about Nature. The series explores our relationship with nature.

“Return to Moose River, In Search of the Spirit of the Great North Woods,” was released this last summer by Down East Books, a division of Rowan and Littlefield. It includes more than a dozen narrative non-fiction essays chronicling adventures across the breadth of Maine, from the iconic Moose River, to the top of Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park, Telos, to the Appalachian Trail’s 100-Mile Wilderness and Moosehead Lake, to the majestic St. Croix River on the border with New Brunswick.

Whitewater canoeing, backpacking and snowmobiling adventures are all included. Each essay focuses on the featured area’s natural and human history. For Brechlin, it is the spirits of those who have traveled Maine’s woods and waters, as much as anything, that give these areas special significance.

“We’ve done such a great job of conserving land and water in Maine, but we haven’t done as well preserving the human history and legends that populate these places,” Brechlin explains.

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“Whether it’s the Native Americans, early settlers, explorers, loggers or others, you can’t separate the people from the land or the land from the people and we need to do more to celebrate that,” he adds.

Brechlin is the author of more than a dozen books, including “The Adventure Guide to Maine,” hiking, and paddling guides to Acadia National Park, and numerous volumes using antique postcards to share the history of Maine and New England.

A former Maine Journalist of the Year, he worked for nearly 40 years in the state’s newspaper industry and was the founding editor of the Mount Desert Islander. He is a regular columnist for “Islandport Magazine” and his work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Down East Magazine, The New York Times, Chevy Outdoors, and the Maine Sportsman.

A graduate of the University of Maine Forestry School, Brechlin’s family roots include Maine author Ruth Moore and lighthouse heroine Abbie Burgess. For several years, he operated a small independent bookstore in Bar Harbor featuring Maine authors and illustrators and writers who worked here. “Return to Moose River” is being celebrated by noted writers and pillars of Maine’s outdoor community.

To find out more about Earl and his books, visit the “Return to Moose River” Facebook page or go to www.earlbrechlin.com. To find out more about the library program, call 743-5309, Ext. 1, or visit the library’s website at www.lib.me.us.


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