by Robert F. Bukaty
POWNAL, Maine — The fierce winds, 2 feet of snow and frigid temperatures that came with last week’s blizzard paralyzed much of the northeast – but it barely fazed one Mainer who is spending the winter living in a tent.
If anything, the brutal storm did little more than cause Ed Warden to lose some sleep.
“I was up like every hour at night getting the snow off my tent, keeping it off the awnings,” said Warden, 67. “But other than that it was fine.”
Warden is the volunteer camp host at Bradbury Mountain State Park. He doesn’t get paid to live in a tent. He does it because the camping lifestyle is something he’s been in love with for 45 years.
“When I got out of the military in 1970 I got the bug to just go camping and traveling. I had a Volkswagen minivan and drove up to Alaska. I’ve camped in Hawaii…”
“I just like the outdoor life. I think communing with nature is the key to health and serenity, so that’s what I do. I hang out with nature a lot,” he said.
Warden lives in a heavy-duty 12 x 20-foot outfitter’s tent with 8-foot vestibules attached at either end. At the peak the ceiling is 9-feet high. A small wood stove keeps it comfortably warm inside, consuming about one cord of wood per month.
His site is the only one at the campground that has electricity. He uses it to power a small refrigerator and an old TV someone recently brought him. Warden hasn’t been able to find a digital converter so only uses the television to watch DVDs.
“I try to keep a balance between the old and the new,” said Warden. “I like modern conveniences but I also like my wood stove.”
The camping lifestyle has taught him to simplify things and learn to make do with what he has and get by with what he doesn’t have – like running water.
“I try not to dirty a whole bunch of pots because it’s harder to clean that up,” said Warden, who gets his water across the street at the ranger’s house.
A hiking trail just a few feet from Warden’s tent sees plenty of day-users who come in the wintertime to snowshoe or walk dogs dog – but few people come to camp this time of year. The last camper at the park departed a few weeks ago. He told Warden that he decided to buy a small trailer and was heading for Arizona.
Warden’s duties as camp host are minimal during the winter. His primary job is to keep the paths the park’s outhouses shoveled out.
Warden once worked for 10 years as a certified nursing assistant. The experience helped convince him to get back to nature.
“I saw the elderly when they start to go downhill. It was just too depressing. I just thought [camping] is what I really wanted to do.”
This is his second winter in a tent at Bradbury.
“My whole goal in life is to be self-reliant on my own piece of land. I’d love to have a greenhouse, my own little garden, and [live in] this tent,” he said.
“I survived 17 degrees below zero before and now I’ve survived 26, 27 inches of snow. [Last week’s blizzard] was the worst storm I’ve been through. Then we got more snow on Friday. ”
But winter weather is no big deal to Warden.
“Even if I had to pay I would do it just to camp here,” he said while looking around at the high snow banks.
“I call it my ‘Poor Man’s Paradise’.”
For my “Best of 2014” list, I chose a few images from this year’s important news events, but I mostly chose smaller pictures that deserve a second look.
A routine protest at USM turned almost surreal as students invaded a trustees meeting, commandeering their seats and sampling their lunches. The “I Like Mike” sign was my most memorable photo of hundreds from what seemed like an endless election season because, in the end, who wins is the only lasting story.
Photographing crying children is not easy or pleasant, but I think the image reflects the profound sadness the community felt at the murder of three children and their mother in Saco.
I owe a debt of thanks to Autumn Clair, the 16-year-old who let me document the inevitable goodbye between her and Pedro. I like the moment and the split composition of clothing designer Roxi Suger looking at her model in the mirror. Another mirror picture shows the intensity of a young actress as she cuts her hair in order to play a prisoner in a concentration camp.
I’m continually amazed at the beautiful, intimate moments I’m allowed to witness doing this job: henna artist Mary Kearns applying traditional patterns to a pregnant belly while another woman feeds her child. That’s a real gift.
On a pretty routine food story I caught Dhanya Chasmawala giving her big brother Gautam a taste of her ice cream. It’s not newsy, but it made my day. Just a few weeks back, while having lunch in Portland, I stood up and noticed people walking through a patch of sun through the “d” of the deli sign — another non-news photo that made me happy to be a photographer.
Sadly, the University of New England shut down its seal rehabilitation facility, but not before releasing one last batch of pinnipeds, including Stratton, who had a good look around before wriggling back to the sea.
My final pick is the University of Maine hockey team taking to the ice at Fenway Park. That was a fun assignment.
I chose three videos for this list that I think hold up to more than one viewing.
The henna video was a tough one. Cancer took my mother. I wish she could have gotten this treatment.
People seem to like my adventure motorcycle videos, so I included one that features some banjo picking. Lastly, the arm wrestling video is still quirky enough to be a little surprising.
That’s it. Thanks for looking. I’m off to face 2015 with my left eye on the viewfinder and my finger on the shutter.
The beauty of what we do as visual journalists is that sometimes we are given free-range to go out and find something that interests us and photograph it.
I wanted to photograph something that was winter related. My co-worker, Gabor, suggested checking out the Belfast Curling Club, Maine’s only curling club.
I sent an email to the club to see when a good time for a visit would be. Steve McLaughlin answered pretty much immediately and we set up a time to meet later that week.
Being from Ohio, I’ve never seen curling in the flesh, only occasionally on tv during the Winter Olympics. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into. The basics of the game I knew, but I wasn’t sure about where I would be able to shoot from.
Originally, I thought the sheets (the ice section the game is played on) would be spaced further apart from one another allowing me to photograph in between the sections.
No dice.
The sheets at the Belfast Curling Club were touching each other. In essence, it was one sheet of ice with three different playing fields drawn on it. The fact that the sheets were so close together, and that I didn’t have a pair of shoes to go on the ice with, meant I was stuck shooting from the carpeted deck or the observation “warm room” upstairs.
But this is why I love this job, it keeps you on your toes. It makes you throw out your original idea of how you were going to document something and adjust on the fly.
That’s what I did.
Do I wish I was able to get on the ice and shoot from there? Of course I do. But sometimes the challenges are good, and they make you push yourself a little bit more than you would have normally.
