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Equipment at Woodland Pulp in Maine roared back to life in mid-December after a 60 day pause in operations, and now one of the state’s largest mills is again accepting wood from New Brunswick producers.
“On Monday, we restarted purchasing fibre for the mill,” company spokesperson Scott Beal said.
“We’re back in the market. We are bringing in some fibre from suppliers in Canada, hardwood and chips.”
The general manager of the Carleton Victoria Forest Products Marketing Board says the news is welcome but not nearly enough to help embattled private woodlot owners in the province.
Woodland Pulp, based in Baileyville, Maine, stopped buying Canadian timber in October because of added costs borne out of a 10 per cent tariff U.S. President Donald Trump slapped on timber imports. (Submitted by Scott Beal)
“Everything is good news at this point, but it is not as good as it could be,” Kim Jensen said. “We’re not back where we were.”
With sales down by about two-thirds from last year, Jensen said some woodlot owners are deciding to pack it up, while others struggle on.
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“We have had some older ones who’ve left, they’ve just, they’ve had enough and they’ve left,” she said.
“The people who have invested in the business, have bought processors and forwarders, they have to stay in business. And if you have $1,000,000 worth of equipment there, your payments are $40,000 to $60,000 a month and you have to work. You can’t just go somewhere else and get a job.”
Kim Jensen, the general manager of the Carleton Victoria Forest Products Marketing Board, said private woodlot owners have lost about two-thirds of their sales compared with a year ago. (Submitted by Kim Jensen)
Duty rates on New Brunswick wood were set at 35 per cent in September, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced an additional 10 per cent tariff on lumber imports.
The sudden increase was too much for Woodland Pulp to bear. The mill relied on New Brunswick wood for about a third of its supply prior to October.
“It certainly adds cost to the business and, you know, like other wood users, I mean we’re always looking and hoping and trying to source fibre at the least cost,” Beal told CBC News in October.
The Baileyville-based mill has rehired all of the 144 people laid off during its two month shut-down, and Beal said it will likely take some time to ramp up to accept the amount of wood it previously did.
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And with the difficult and uncertain tariff environment, Beal said, it’s hard to say how long the mill would be able to continue purchasing Canadian wood.
“It’s a very challenging pulp market,” he said.
“The tariffs remain in place. That hasn’t changed. So it’s not reasonable to think that that won’t be a headwind for the business.”
The federal government did create a $1.25 billion fund to help the industry survive, but Jensen says that hasn’t meant support for individual private woodlot owners.
In October, Jensen told CBC News that sales of timber by the marketing board’s members totalled about $1 million for all of 2024. They have fallen to about $200,000 over the past 12 months.
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And the cost of cross-border business has continued to rise.
Before Woodland Pulp stopped taking Canadian timber, the company had a lumberyard in Florenceville ,where producers could drop off wood. Woodland would then take responsibility for shipping it the rest of the way to the mill.
Now it’s up to individual producers to source transportation and to arrange a broker to help meet cross-border requirements. That’s adding between $60 and $100 per load of timber heading to the U.S.
“The markets are tightening up, and the prices are going down, and you can only go down so far before it’s just done,” Jensen said.
“A mill can stop and start up, maybe. But a private guy who loses his equipment, he’s lost everything. He’s not coming back.”
Steve Heinz of Cumberland is a member of the Maine Council of Trout Unlimited (Merrymeeting Bay chapter).
Man’s got to eat.
It’s a simple truth, and in Maine it carries a lot of weight. For generations, people here have hunted, fished and gathered food not just as a pastime, but as a practical part of life. That reality helps explain why Maine voters embraced a constitutional right to food — and why emotions run high when fishing regulations are challenged in court.
A recent lawsuit targeting Maine’s fly-fishing-only regulations has sparked exactly that reaction. The Maine Council of Trout Unlimited believes this moment calls for clarity and restraint. The management of Maine’s fisheries belongs with professional biologists and the public process they oversee, not in the courtroom.
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Trout Unlimited is not an anti-harvest organization, nor a club devoted to elevating one style of angling over another. We are a coldwater conservation organization focused on sustaining healthy, resilient fisheries.
Maine’s reputation as the last great stronghold of wild brook trout did not happen by accident; it is the product of decades of careful management by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW), guided by science, field experience and public participation.
Fly-fishing-only waters are one of the tools MDIFW uses to protect vulnerable fisheries. They are not about exclusivity. In most cases, fly fishing involves a single hook, results in lower hooking mortality and lends itself to catch-and-release practices. The practical effect is straightforward: more fish survive and more people get a chance to fish.
Maine’s trout waters are fundamentally different from the fertile rivers of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states. Our freestone streams are cold, fast and naturally nutrient-poor. Thin soils, granite bedrock and dense forests limit aquatic productivity, meaning brook trout grow more slowly and reproduce in smaller numbers.
A single season of low flows, high water temperatures or habitat disturbance can set a population back for years. In Maine, conservation is not a luxury; it is a biological necessity.
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In more fertile southern waters, abundant insects and richer soils allow trout populations to rebound quickly from heavy harvest and environmental stress. Maine’s waters simply do not have that buffer.
Every wild brook trout here is the product of limited resources and fragile conditions. When fish are removed faster than they can be replaced, recovery is slow and uncertain. That reality is why management tools such as fly-fishing-only waters, reduced bag limits and seasonal protections matter so much.
These rules are not about denying access; they are about matching human use to ecological capacity so fisheries remain viable over time. Climate change only raises the stakes, as warmer summers and lower late-season flows increasingly push cold-water fisheries to their limits.
Healthy trout streams also safeguard drinking water, support wildlife and sustain rural economies through guiding and outdoor tourism. Conservation investments ripple far beyond the streambank.
Lawsuits short-circuit the management system that has served Maine well for decades. Courts are not designed to weigh fisheries science or balance competing uses of a complex public resource. That work is best done through open meetings, public input and adaptive management informed by professionals who spend their careers studying Maine’s waters.
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Man’s got to eat. But if we want Maine’s trout fisheries to endure, we also have to manage them wisely. That means trusting science, respecting process and recognizing that conservation — not confrontation — is what keeps food on the table and fish in the water.
TJ Biel scored 21 points and Newport native Ace Flagg added 10 points and seven rebounds as the University of Maine men’s basketball team held on for a 74-70 win over the New Jersey Institute of Technology on Saturday in Newark, New Jersey.
Logan Carey added 11 points and five assists for the Black Bears, who improve to 3-15 overall and 1-2 in the conference. Yanis Bamba chipped in 14 points.
Maine led by seven at the half, but NJIT went on a 13-0 run in the first four minutes to take a 43-37 lead. The Black Bears recovered and took the lead on a dunk by Keelan Steele with 7:53 left and held on for the win.
Sebastian Robinson scored 24 points and Ari Fulton grabbed 11 rebounds for NJIT (7-11, 2-1).
Clarissa Sabattis, Chief of the Houlton Band of Maliseets, foreground, and other leaders of Maine’s tribes are welcomed by lawmakers into the House Chamber in March, 2023 in Augusta. (Robert F. Bukaty, /Associated Press)
Maine’s gambling landscape is set to expand after Gov. Janet Mills decided Thursday to let tribes offer online casino games, but numerous questions remain over the launch of the new market and how much it will benefit the Wabanaki Nations.
Namely, there is no concrete timeline for when the new gambling options that make Maine the eighth “iGaming” state will become available. Maine’s current sports betting market that has been dominated by the Passamaquoddy Tribe through its partnership with DraftKings is evidence that not all tribes may reap equal rewards.
A national anti-online gaming group also vowed to ask Maine voters to overturn the law via a people’s veto effort and cited its own poll finding a majority of Mainers oppose online casino gaming.
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Here are the big remaining questions around iGaming.
1. When will iGaming go into effect?
The law takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns this year. Adjournment is slated for mid-April, but Mills spokesperson Ben Goodman noted it is not yet known when lawmakers will actually finish their work.
2. Where will the iGaming revenue go?
The iGaming law gives the state 18% of the gross receipts, which will translate into millions of dollars annually for gambling addiction and opioid use treatment funds, Maine veterans, school renovation loans and emergency housing relief.
Leaders of the four federally recognized tribes in Maine highlighted the “life-changing revenue” that will come thanks to the decision from Mills, a Democrat who has clashed with the Wabanaki Nations over the years over more sweeping tribal sovereignty measures.
But one chief went so far Thursday as to call her the “greatest ever” governor for “Wabanaki economic progress.”
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3. What gaming companies will the tribes work with?
DraftKings has partnered with the Passamaquoddy to dominate Maine’s sports betting market, while the Penobscot Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and the Mi’kmaq Nation have partnered with Caesars Entertainment to garner a smaller share of the revenue.
Wall Street analysts predicted the two companies will likely remain the major players in Maine’s iGaming market.
The partnership between the Passamaquoddy and DraftKings has brought in more than $100 million in gross revenue since 2024, but the Press Herald reported last month that some members of the tribe’s Sipayik reservation have criticized Chief Amkuwiposohehs “Pos” Bassett, saying they haven’t reaped enough benefits from the gambling money.
4. Has Mills always supported gambling measures?
The iGaming measure from Rep. Ambureen Rana, D-Bangor, factored into a long-running debate in Maine over gambling. In 2022, lawmakers and Mills legalized online sports betting and gave tribes the exclusive rights to offer it beginning in 2023.
But allowing online casino games such as poker and roulette in Maine looked less likely to become reality under Mills. Her administration had previously testified against the bill by arguing the games are addictive.
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But Mills, who is in the final year of her tenure and is running in the high-profile U.S. Senate primary for the chance to unseat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Thursday she would let the iGaming bill become law without her signature. She said she viewed iGaming as a way to “improve the lives and livelihoods of the Wabanaki Nations.”
5. Who is against iGaming?
Maine’s two casinos in Bangor and Oxford opposed the iGaming bill, as did Gambling Control Board Chair Steve Silver and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, among other opponents.
Silver noted Hollywood Casino Bangor and Oxford Casino employ nearly 1,000 Mainers, and he argued that giving tribes exclusive rights to iGaming will lead to job losses.
He also said in a Friday interview the new law will violate existing statutes by cutting out his board from iGaming oversight.
“I don’t think there’s anything the board can do at this point,” Silver said.
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The National Association Against iGaming has pledged to mount an effort to overturn the law via a popular referendum process known as the “people’s veto.” But such attempts have a mixed record of success.
