Maine authenticity

    At one time or another, residents of Southern Maine have probably heard someone from where I'm from, up in Northern Maine, joke that Southern Maine – everything from Augusta south – is simply a province of Massachusetts, an extension of bad drivers, sprawl, and city folk that extends up most of the east coast. In fact, you may have heard someone say, where you're from isn't Maine at all – almost everyone who lives here is from away and finding a good, thick Maine accent is harder than coming across someone speaking Spanish or Somali.
    But even though I can make the claim that I'm a "real" Mainer, I'll admit I've also been scolded by people from the County who remind me that my hometown of Old Town isn't even really Northern Maine – it's hardly even halfway up the state. It just seems like the far north because it takes forever to get to and there's mostly just trees, moose and potato fields if you keep on driving. And when I tell people that I actually went to high school in Orono, a college town filled with academic types from away, my remaining Maine authenticity quickly fades away. If I was into ice fishing, hunting or snowmobiling, maybe that would help my case, but sea kayaking and cross-country skiing, I've been told, are not what real Mainers are into. As I recall from the literature sent to me by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife while I was studying for the Maine Guide exam, real Maine outdoorsmen smoke pipes and wear layers of flannel – two habits that have never appealed to me.
    It's funny the ways in which people strive to claim ownership of a place and tie up their own identity with it. Someone from Scarborough recently described to me how people who live near the town's coast gripe about people from inland parts of town that come to use the beaches. Those people from inland Scarborough, this person told me, then gripe about people from Portland who hang out at the beach and then people from Portland gripe about the tourists from Massachusetts they find at the beach. Everybody believes it's their beach and that they are the ones who have a real right to be there.
    Getting all worked up about who does and doesn't authentically belong to a particular place has always seemed a little silly to me, but one thing I often do wonder about is what it really does mean to be a Mainer – to be from this place. The other day, while completing an application for graduate school, I had to write an essay that explained how my identity would contribute to the diversity of the school I was applying to. As a white male from a middle-class family, the only contribution to diversity that I could construe myself as making had to do with where I'm from. After all, every college campus in the country should have at least one backwoods Mainer hanging about. 
    Especially in the more rural parts of the state, there certainly is uniqueness to the people you find here and a common element to people's outlook on life. It's hard not to draw a stereotype, but in general, I find that Mainers tend to have a strong sense of humility, good work ethics, a clumsy humor and deep sincerity. Maybe those are traits common to rural people everywhere. But another thing I've found in Maine people is that they are deeply connected to their sense of place and suspicious of outsiders. Sometimes that's not such a good thing. I couldn't begin to list the number of times I've been chased off someone's land by an angry property-rights fanatic with a shotgun or barking dogs or – in one case – an oar. It's not that I'm a compulsive trespasser – I just like to wander in the woods and explore the coast. More than once, I've also gotten a comment that amounts to, "go back to where you're from!" Maybe if I'd been wearing a little more flannel people would have been friendlier.
    But whether other people consider me a true Mainer or not, I've got a lot of pride in the state – more even than I have in our country. They're both great places, but Maine is run by a much more decent group of people and, in the end, I'd rather have the blue Dirigo flag flying over my front door than the grand old stars and stripes.
    By the way, I was born in Georgia. But don't tell that to the clients I guide in the summer – they love to think they've hired a "real" Maine guide.