FARMINGTON — In the forests of Maine, you never know what you might run into. From groundhogs and raccoons to coyotes and moose, a great variety of animal species occupy the wilderness of Vacationland, and one student is looking to bring more attention to the conventional and unconventional animals in Maine.

Samantha Box, an upcoming senior at the University of Maine in Farmington, is collaborating with Mt. Blue Community Access TV through an internship program to bring a documentary to the multimedia platform that provides content for the towns of Farmington, Jay, Livermore Falls and Wilton.

The subject of the documentary, according to Box, will be cryptozoology in Maine.

“You’ve got all this storytelling, whether it’s campfire stories, or people really dedicated to cryptozoology, which is like this search for hidden animals,” Box said in a phone interview.

Cryptozoology is defined as a pseudoscience that specializes in the studies of unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, especially those in folklore.

“And that includes Bigfoot,” Box added. “That includes animals that used to be in Maine, but are now extinct. We have no scientific evidence they’re still here, but you have people tell these stories and have these sightings of things like wolves and mountain lions that technically don’t exist within our state.

“And then on the other side of this, this vague term ‘hidden animals’ is the more legendary stuff like sea serpents and Bigfoot and some very strange niche animals as well.”

Box pitched the idea to Mt. Blue Community Access TV in early April. Box, along with Executive Director Andre Cormier, began recording interviews for the project June 28 with Lucas Kellett, an associate professor of anthropology at UMF.

Box will also be joining the nonprofit Maine Bigfoot Foundation Inc. to hunt for Bigfoot. “It’ll be really interesting to listen to them and hear their stories and have them show me what they look for when they go on these searches,” she said.

As for Box, she identifies as a skeptic when it comes to the topic of Bigfoot. “I kind of need to have my eyes on something to believe that it’s real,” she said. “But there are so many sightings, especially in researching for the historical encounters, there are just so many sightings of similar descriptions that someone’s gotta be seeing something.”

Cormier, who took over as executive director of  Mt. Blue Community Access TV in July of 2021, said the station was underutilized in terms of student interaction, which is what led him to create a multimedia internship program for the station.

“It’s been really cool to see somebody like Sam come in and really take advantage of an opportunity of having an idea,” Cormier said, “and I’ve been impressed so far with the amount of work that they put in.”

Along with this documentary, Cormier also said they were collaborating with Friends of Wilson Lake to put together a documentary about Wilson Lake and the local organization that maintains the health of the lake. Cormier hopes that with this content and more to come, community interest in Mt. Blue Community Access TV will grow.

“You need sort of a little seed of individuals that will start some projects, and then other students on campus will hopefully find out about those projects,” Cormier said.

“And those that don’t even know that there’s a TV station on campus, may now say, ‘hey, well, I have an idea’,” he added. “And whether it’s through an internship or not, really, the purpose of the community access station is to give people in the community a place that they can come and make media, have some guidance, learn how to do the heavy lifting and what comes with a larger project like that.”

As for Box, she hopes to continue with documentary work as she enjoys the blend of real and scripted elements.

“I find that really interesting,” she said, “especially in the film format that documentaries are in where you’ve got both the visual and the scripted, and you’ve got this unscripted content. I find that combination really compelling as a medium, because you just have so many places you can go with that.”

Box said filming on the documentary is expected to be completed by the end of August or early September.

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