Woodlot Project Needs Your Support

My project to donate my woodlot to the Kennebec Land Trust, with a focus on using it to teach kids about wildlife habitat, is off to a great start. Thanks to many generous friends, we’ve raised $14,000 of the $20,000 needed for the project.

If you have not yet donated, please consider doing that. Your check should be payable to Kennebec Land Trust, specifying that it is for the Ezra Smith Wildlife Conservation Area. Mail your check to KLT, 331 Main Street, Winthrop, ME 04352.

Years ago, I dedicated my woodlot to my dad, Ezra Smith, and it sports a sign: Ezra Smith Wildlife Conservation Area. Now that designation will be permanent.

My woodlot is an amazing place, with outstanding wildlife habitat. Our plan is to create a “habitat trail” with signs explaining the various habitats and critters that live there. We’ll use the signs to teach kids about wildlife habitat.

I have also written a booklet about my wonderful encounters with wildlife on the woodlot. I want this booklet to be given to kids for free.

The money is needed to publish the booklet, construct and put up the signs, build and maintain the trails, pay taxes, host special events at the woodlot, and encourage the public to enjoy it.

If you can help with this project, I would be very grateful.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.