Donn Fendler was a 12-year-old boy who became famous for surviving a harrowing nine-day ordeal in 1939 when he got lost on Katahdin. His story of survival captivated the nation.
Fendler grew to manhood, distinguished himself as a military warrior, and during his later years, came back to Maine many times to tell his story. He co-authored a book titled “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” with Joseph Egan.
After all of these years, there is a soon-to-be-released motion picture about Fendler, his family and his amazing and inspiring survival story.
Ryan Cook, a native of Waterville, is the producer of the movie titled “Lost On a Mountain in Maine.” Recently, Cook was a guest on my weekly radio program, Maine Outdoors, on the Voice of Maine News-Talk Network.
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Cook said that he had known Donn Fendler for a number of years and always aimed to tell Fendler’s story by producing a movie. As producer, Cook had to find investors and raised millions of dollars to produce the film.
Ironically, according to Cook, the movie was not filmed in Maine.
“There were significant tax advantages for us to shoot most of this movie in New York state rather than in Maine, which we did,” Cook said. Most of the on-location filming was done about 50 miles north of New York City in the Catskills. Of course, the film included actual footage of. Katahdin and other areas near the mountain.
The film stars Luke David Blumm as Donn Fendler, with Caitlin Fitzgerald and Paul Sparks playing his parents. Ethan Slater is also part of the cast. The film is produced by Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions.
Cook gave high marks to the young David Blumm and his performance as Donn Fendler. Cook said it was difficult physically for Blumm because he played the role of a 12-year-old boy whose ordeal left him emaciated with few clothes left, badly cut bare feet and carrying the ravages of bug bites and brush bruises.
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Cook is emphatic that this movie is more than a story about a desperate youngster with remarkable resilience and determination, but is also about family love and the role that it, as well as spiritual faith, played in young Fendler’s survival.
As those of us who read Fendler’s book as either grade-school students or adults will recall, it was, in all probability, one correct decision by the former Boy Scout that ultimately saved his life: Finding that stream and following its flow in hopes of finding civilization.
A group of searchers found Fendler near the East Branch of the Penobscot River. In nine days, he had walked more than 50 miles through some of the toughest woods terrain that Maine has to offer.
The movie attempts to address the question many of us ask: What was it that allowed Fendler to survive an ordeal in which many healthy adults would have perished or gone mad?
Survival expert Laurence Gonzales may have come as close as anyone has to providing an answer: “Mental preparation, as well as survival gear, equals survival some of the time. There is yet another dimension.
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“It’s not what’s in your pack. It’s not even what’s in your mind. Corny as it sounds, it’s what’s in your heart,” asserts Gonzales.
As a youngster or an oldster, Donn Fendler was quite a human being and worthy of legacy status. He died in 2016 at age 90, but his story continues to inspire generations.
“Lost On a Mountain in Maine” will be released in theaters Friday.
V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide and host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network.
CAMDEN — We knew all along how excellent The Place bakery is, at the top of the hill in Camden. That is why folks line up outside waiting for the doors to open.
But the New York Times also figured out how special The Place is, and in a Dec. 24 article, 22 of the Best Bakeries Across the U.S. Right Now,included the Camden bakery, lauding its, “ethereally flaky croissant dough (made with local flour and butter)….”
The Place, tucked off of Route 1 at 117 Elm Street, Camden, has plenty more going for it, thanks to its owners, Chelsea Kravitz and Chris Dawson, who are community-minded and always giving. They opened their enterprise in Summer 2023, and were instantly appreciated.
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Mainers consider the housing crisis to be a bigger problem than any of the others facing our state.
The lack of housing inventory at all income levels, which was caused by historic underproduction and higher migration rates, has sent home prices soaring in recent years. It is harming Maine businesses and shutting many out of the housing market entirely.
Average home values and median home prices increased more in Maine in the last year than they did nationally. Other northeastern states have seen bigger hikes. But other metrics show that the crisis is virtually as bad here than anywhere else nearby, especially when you account for the fact that incomes are lower in Maine than in any other state in the region.
Here are three datapoints putting Maine’s housing crisis into perspective.
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Sale prices are growing nearly as fast here as anywhere in New England.
Median home sale prices are growing nearly as fast in Maine as they are in any other northeastern state. Regionally, they’ve increased by anywhere from 5.9 to 11.3 percent in the last year. Maine is riding the middle at 8.2 percent, higher than any New England state besides Rhode Island, according to Redfin.
To purchase the median home for sale in Maine right now, you need an income of just under $112,000 a year, assuming no debts and a $20,000 down payment, according to Zillow’s affordability calculator. The median household income here is a little under $72,000, according to census data. That shows how out of whack the housing economy is for the average person.
Home values in Portland are growing as fast as they are in Boston.
Over the past year, there have been signs that Portland’s red-hot pandemic housing market is slowing down. But that’s all relative. Home values here still grew by 3.8 percent over the past year as of November, which was only slightly below Boston at 4 percent, according to Zillow.
But when stacked up against the other largest cities in each New England state, Portland is second only to Burlington in seeing the lowest increase in home values in the past year. Providence, Rhode Island, has seen the largest hike, followed by Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Both those cities are facing major shortages and price increases, although they are still far cheaper markets to buy in than Portland. The typical home value in Providence is just over $400,000, which is roughly in line with Maine’s statewide average.
Maine’s rental crisis is worse than in this nearby Canadian city.
The southern Quebec city of Sherbrooke — only 40 miles from Maine’s western border — is in the midst of an “unprecedented housing crisis,” according to a local news outlet.
The city had a vacancy rate of only about 1 percent in October and 25 percent of households are spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Here in Maine, that latter figure is far worse.
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Nearly half of all renters in both Bangor and the Portland-South Portland area are spending at least 30 percent of their income on housing, data from Harvard University found. Roughly 45 percent of renting households in those areas pay over 30 percent of their income on housing, and 24 percent pay more than 50 percent.
As in Sherbrooke, officials here attribute the crisis to a low vacancy rate, a lack of affordable housing supply and the high cost to construct new units. The reasons for the crisis are clear everywhere, but the solutions are coming slowly.
State police are searching for a 41-year-old man they say strangled his pregnant partner.
Dusty O’Brien is wanted for domestic violence aggravated assault, reckless conduct and violating conditions of release, state police said Wednesday. He is out on bail for a separate domestic violence arrest, according to police.
Police say O’Brien strangled his pregnant partner on Tuesday and fled his residence before police arrived.
He is known to frequent the Porter area and other parts of Oxford County.
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