The Maine Mill Tour began October 7^th in Needham, Massachusetts on a glorious 70° fall day and the beautiful weather stayed with us for the majority of the trip – except for a bit cooler. Fortunately, we all had our green fleece jackets to keep us warm (which also made us easy to spot.)

Sunday we embarked on Amtrak’s Downeaster train to Portland, Maine. We had a free afternoon and people either visited the downtown port area or went to Headlight State Park where the most photographed lighthouse is located.

Monday, October 9, we began our travels up, down and across Maine visiting five saw mills along the way.  The five mills we visited were Robbins Lumber, Searsmont; JM Huber Engineered Wood, Easton; Fraser Timber Limited, Masardis; and Hancock Lumber’s White Pine mills in Bethel and Rye. We also visited Hancock’s new Windham retail store which really wowed the crowd.

We learned about experiments and new composite materials being developed and tested at the University of Maine’s Advanced Engineered Wood Composite Center and tromped through the woods of the University’s Penobscot Experimental Forest where tracts of land are managed and studied using various methods to determine the most efficient planting mode for a variety of species.

Of course, it wasn’t all work and no play. After our visit to the University, we ate lunch at Leonard’s Mills —an historic logging museum where we saw a demonstration of a working water mill powered saw — and, the much maligned “bean hole” lunch was surprisingly good.