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Maine
A Maine man took his friend into the woods for one final deer hunt
This story was originally published in December 2022.
Jerry Galusha and his best friend, Doug Cooke, share a friendship that dates back to 1984, when they were living in Rangeley and were introduced by mutual friends.
Over the years, they have often gone fishing or deer hunting, activities they both have enjoyed immensely.
“The relationship that we have is just unbelievable,” Galusha said. “We’ve had some really amazing adventures.”
This fall, Galusha was confronted with a heart-wrenching task. He would take Cooke into the woods, one last time, in search of a big buck.
The difference was that this time they would not be walking the tote roads and trails together. Instead, Galusha would be carrying Cooke’s cremains in his backpack.
Cooke died on Sept. 5 at age 61 after a long struggle with renal failure. Galusha said after 40 years of dialysis or living with a transplanted kidney, Cooke opted to cease treatment and enter hospice care when his third transplant failed.
Doctors had originally told Cooke he would be lucky to celebrate his 30th birthday. Thus, he tried all his life to avoid getting too emotionally attached to people. He seldom asked anyone for favors.
Cooke and Galusha hadn’t seen each other much in recent years as Galusha focused on raising a family. But in late August, Cooke left a voicemail for Galusha explaining that he planned to enter hospice care.
Cooke told Galusha he didn’t need to do anything, but wanted him to know. He did not want to become a burden to anyone else.
“His body was telling him that he’s had enough,” Galusha said. “He couldn’t golf. He couldn’t play his guitar. He hadn’t been hunting in years.”
Galusha couldn’t let it end like that. In spite of Cooke’s reluctance to have his old friend see him in such poor health, he went to visit him.
But as Cooke faced his own mortality, he asked one favor of Galusha.
“He said, ‘Promise me one thing, could you please, just one time, take me in to Upper Dam to go fishing before you dump my ashes?’” Galusha said.
The dam separates Mooselookmeguntic (Cupsuptic) Lake and Richardson Lake north of Rangeley. It was a favorite spot of theirs, one Cooke introduced to Galusha, who grew up in New York.
“He really loved the wilderness and Rangeley,” Galusha said of Cooke, who was a Vermont native.
Galusha immediately said yes but, knowing how much Cooke also enjoyed hunting, he didn’t feel as though the fishing trip was enough to adequately honor his friend.
“I said, I’m going to take you for the whole deer season, every time I go,” Galusha said. “He looked at me and started crying and said, ‘That would be so awesome.’
“It was hard. We cried and hugged each other,” he said.
When Galusha went deer hunting near his home in Rangeley during the third week of November — a week the two buddies often spent together over the years — he tried his best to make it like old times.
Galusha spared no effort. He carried the cardboard urn containing Cooke’s cremains inside a camouflage can, which was wrapped with a photo showing Cooke posing with a nice buck he had harvested many years earlier.
He also packed Cooke’s blaze orange hat and vest, along with his grunt tube, compass, doe bleat can, deer scents and a set of rattling antlers.
Galusha chronicled the events of each hunting day by posting to Cooke’s Facebook page, complete with observations, recollections and photos.
Lots of deer were seen and there was one encounter with a buck, but after missing initially, Galusha refused to take a bad shot as the deer was partially obscured by undergrowth.
“I just did what Doug would have done. He’s not going to shoot and I wasn’t going to shoot,” Galusha said.
He spoke reverently about Cooke’s resilience through the years in the face of his constant battle with health problems, which included not only kidney failure, dialysis and transplants, but four hip replacements and, eventually, a heart attack.
The arrival of muzzleloader season provided one more week to hunt. On Friday, Dec. 2, Galusha walked more than 3 miles along a gated road to an area where he had seen deer a week earlier.
That got him off the beaten track, away from other potential hunters, something Cooke would have appreciated.
“He wasn’t afraid to go do stuff,” Galusha said. “It might take us a little bit longer, but he didn’t care.”
Galusha, who still often refers to Cooke in the present tense, said he vocalized some of his reflections while in the woods. He saw eagles, which he thought might be Cooke keeping an eye on him.
“I talked to him a lot,” Galusha said, who also enjoyed telling the handful of hunters he encountered that he was not out alone, rather with his friend.
He then explained the story of his promise to Cooke and reverently removed the urn from his pack to show them.
When Galusha finally saw the buck, it wasn’t quite close enough. He uses one of Cooke’s favorite tactics to coax the deer closer.
Galusha tried the grunt tube, and then the doe bleat can, but the deer didn’t seem to hear it. Then, he blew harder on the grunt tube and finally got the buck’s attention.
“I irked one right in, that’s what Doug would say,” said Galusha, recalling Cooke’s affection for using the alternating calls.
The spikehorn turned and walked directly at Galusha, who shot it.
“I cried,” he said of the moment, recalling that Cooke had been there when he shot his first antlered deer, also a spikehorn.
During the long drag back to his truck, Galusha had plenty of time to think about how much Cooke would have enjoyed the hunt — and watching him make the drag.
At one point, a crew of loggers had approached.
“I was pointing to the sky saying, ‘We got it done,’ shaking my hand,” Galusha said. “A guy came up behind me and said, ‘You all set?’ and I’m like, yup.”
Cooke and Galusha had lived together for 10 years at one point, but they also had gone long periods without talking with each other. Even so, whenever they were reunited it was as if they had never been apart.
The last few visits were difficult. Cooke’s health was failing, but Galusha just wanted to be there for his buddy.
“It was emotional,” said Galusha, who was present when Cooke died. “I held his hand to his last breath.”
Next spring, hopefully when the fish are biting and the bugs aren’t, Galusha will grant Cooke — who he described as a fabulous fisherman — his final wish by taking him fishing at Upper Dam, just like they used to do.
“I’m thinking maybe around his birthday [July 19]. It might be sooner, depending on how buggy it is,” said Galusha, who expects to make more than one excursion with Cooke.
Galusha said he will know when it’s time to say goodbye.
“I really don’t want to let him go, but I promised him I would, so I will,” he said.
Local News
Two crew members on the fishing boat suffered life-threatening injuries after they were struck by a snapped rope.
A 26-year-old fisherman died Friday after he and another crew member were injured in an accident aboard their fishing boat off the North Shore, officials said.
Just before 4 p.m., the US Coast Guard responded to a distress call reporting that a snapped rope had struck two crew members on the 25 TO LIFE, a fishing vessel, according to spokesperson and Petty Officer 2nd Class Diolanda Caballero. The boat was located about 25 miles east of Nahant.
One of the crew members suffered a concussion and possible broken ribs, and the other, later identified as Jaxson Marston, had a broken neck and was “intermittently unresponsive,” Caballero said in a statement.
The Coast Guard launched response boats and diverted a helicopter to aid in the recovery, according to officials. Shortly after 5 p.m., one of the response boats reached the 25 TO LIFE and delivered the two crew members to a Gloucester pier.
The crew members were transferred to emergency medical services and taken to Beverly Hospital, where Marston was pronounced dead on arrival, officials said.
Marston was originally from Addison, Maine, according to the Bangor Daily News. Josh Stubbs, a member of the town’s select board, said on Facebook that he loved Marston “like a brother.”
“I have had trouble all day trying to find the right words to say,” Stubbs wrote. “I have known you for a long time. But the last years we have been close. I don’t know what to do.”
Cape Ann Lobstermen, a fish market in Gloucester, started a fundraiser to provide for Marston’s family, scallop fisherman Jesse Roche posted on Facebook. For the fundraiser, fishermen are encouraged to donate a bag of scallops out of their final catch, with the proceeds going to the family.
Maine State Representative Tiffany Strout offered her condolences on Facebook.
“Jaxson, only 26 years old, a husband, a dad, hard worker, passionate hunter and a freind to many was doing what he had done many times before, just trying to earn an honest living to support his family,” she wrote. “Now his family can use all the support as they try to move forward with the loss of their loved one.”
Strout also encouraged community members to keep the other crew member and his family in their thoughts, writing that he “needs all the support for him and his family as he tries to recover from his injuries.”
“A reminder that life is short, things can change in an instant and sometime accidents just happen, even with the most caution and readiness,” Strout wrote. “Please keep the fishermen’s family’s in your thoughts and give your family and friends big hugs as I am sending big hugs to the families.”
I read Peter Ryner’s April 12 op-ed, “Zoning won’t solve Maine’s housing crisis — and zoning didn’t create it,” with interest. His central assertion, “Zoning … is neither the source nor the solution to Maine’s housing problems” is incorrect and not supported by his argument. Many cities, towns and villages in Maine could not be rebuilt today. Most buildings in these places are “non-conforming,” i.e., they don’t meet current zoning regulations.
In many instances, municipalities have applied suburban building standards to their traditional town centers. Requiring a half-acre lot in the center of a town or village doesn’t just prevent the “warehousing” of people, as Mr. Ryner frets, it prevents the building of anything at all. Not only are most towns not adding housing to their historic centers but, as housing is lost, it’s not being replaced. This is bad and we should address the problem: outdated zoning regulations.
Maine’s recent law permitting accessory dwelling units statewide was a good step in the right direction. Still, we must do better. Allowing, and encouraging, the “thickening up” of the historic centers of our cities and towns would be a great place to start. Eliminating minimum lot sizes, shifting to a focus on form rather than use or density and, perhaps, eliminating zoning requirements altogether around transit hubs would all be good next steps.
Zoning reform is not a panacea, however any meaningful expansion of housing opportunity will require at the hard look at the constraints zoning imposes.
Brian Banton
Topsham
A beached buoy is pulled off Wells Beach by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Marcus Hanna on April 22, 2024. Carl D. Walsh/Portland Press Herald
The U.S. Coast Guard has proposed the removal of over 100 navigation aids in Maine waters, along with many more along the East Coast.
In a notice posted earlier this month, the Coast Guard said the removals are intended to modernize and rightsize the setup of buoys, most of which were deployed before modern GPS systems.
“This effort will result in the most sustainable navigation risk reduction to support and complement modern mariners, today’s much larger ships, ECS system availability and requirements, and powerful smartphone navigation subscription apps affordably accessible to virtually all waterway users,” the Coast Guard wrote.
Locations listed for buoy removal include Portland, Camden, Cape Neddick, Castine and Wells harbors, as well as Penobscot Bay and the Damariscotta, Penobscot, Saco and Scarborough rivers.
The buoys serve various purposes, such as marking harbor entrances and coastal hazards.
Many waterway users have objected to the proposed removals online on sailing forums, yacht club Facebook groups and Reddit. An unofficial interactive map with the approximate locations of the buoys slated for removal has been published online as well.
The Coast Guard is accepting public comments and feedback on its proposal via email at DPWPublicComments@uscg.mil until June 13.
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