- [Narrator] It's a snowy, frigid day at Hyl-Tun Farm in Starks, a classic central Maine winter scene frozen in time.

(gentle music) - Come on.

I am the eighth generation to live on the farm here.

C'mon, Coco.

- [Narrator] Large animal veterinarian, Kelsey Hilton, grew up here riding horses.

(feed rustling) And she still has horses, three of them.

And she says taking care of them is one of the best parts of owning horses.

Her painted horse, Gracie, has been with her for about three years now.

(hooves rustling in snow) Hilton says Gracie is spunky and confident and always game to try something new.

And that's good because in just a couple of days, Kelsey and Gracie will leave this peaceful place for something very different, a thrilling competition called skijoring.

(crowd cheering) The event takes place in front of a rowdy crowd at the Skowhegan State Fairgrounds.

- 157 on deck.

We got Noel and Doug Weimann.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Equestrian skijoring is kind of like water skiing but it's behind a horse, not a boat, and on snow with jumps and obstacles.

(crowd cheering) Race director, Mary Haley, got the idea after seeing equestrian skijoring events in Western states.

- I used to be a horseback rider when I was younger.

I'm still a very avid alpine skier.

So they're both two sports that I love.

So seeing it together always really excited me.

I was like, "Why aren't we doing this in Maine?

"We have tons of skiers, "tons of horses.

"Like, it's silly that it's not out here, "and that it's just a Western thing.

"So now it's a Maine thing."

- [Narrator] Skijor Skowhegan was first held in 2019.

It's now in its fifth year.

(audience cheering) - [Mary] We try to make it fast-paced, high-action so that it makes people feel tingly and excited to see a new team coming down the track as fast as they can.

- One amazing thing about equestrian skijoring is that it brings together two distinct communities, the skiing community and the horseback riding community.

- Just make sure you got a good hold on 'em.

- [Narrator] For this year's competition in Skowhegan, Hilton paired up with skier, Kayla Starr of Emden.

It's their third year competing together.

- It's really exciting to do something like this.

But also nervous.

You don't wanna fall.

You wanna do the best you can for your horse and rider.

I mean, the horses do a lot of work, the riders put a lot into it, and it's your job just to stay upright and hold onto that rope.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

- [Narrator] Still, safety is key.

Horses wear special studded horseshoes so not to slip on the ice.

And skiers wear helmets to protect them if they fall.

- You know, you could do this with like a snowmobile and you probably would even go faster.

But we don't, we do it with a horse because that's part of it.

You know, there's like the trust and it's sort of primal, you know?

(chuckles) So- - When you put aside what the actual sport is itself when you talk about horse riding and skiing, there's a lot of similarities in terms of it's risky, you're going fast, there's a lot of uncertainties and a lot of things out of your control, whether you're on a horse or on skis.

We just share this willingness to risk it and have fun and enjoy the outdoors.

- [Narrator] It's a great sport for spectators.

Not only is it packed with action but some of the participants dress up in costumes.

(audience cheering) - [Kayla] Ready!

- [Narrator] Hilton, Starr and Gracie ran the course in just under 30 seconds, placing them in the middle of the pro division pack.

- [Kelsey] Oh my gosh, my first run.

I don't think I breathed the entire run, and I got to the end and I was just like (gasps).

I hadn't taken a breath the whole time.

The second run, we were a little more composed.

I think I did some breathing on the second run.

(laughs) - [Narrator] They hit the jump successfully and were happy with their performance as a team.

- [Kelsey] I just really want there to be more of these events.

It's really thrilling, it's cool to see the teams work together, and it's really fun to see the horses, and see what they're enjoying, and sometimes, it's in the middle of a lot of weather, like sometimes it's just like snowing, and you're just galloping down the track with your skier just barely hanging on.

And I think that it's a great day.

I just love doing it, and I think our spectators love doing it too.

(laughs) (upbeat music fades) (gentle music) (gentle music fades) (gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music fades) (bees humming) - I love the hum.

The fascination of such a dynamic thinking organism.

They have this collective intelligence and ways that they act and react.

When I open a hive, I don't care whose hive it is.

For me, it's literally like I'm looking at the hand of God working.

But that's my type of experience when I open a hive.

And that's probably why I will keep bees until the day I die.

- Beekeeping is wicked addictive.

These are the most fascinating creatures in the world.

And if you're gonna start keeping bees, just be aware that, chances are, you're not gonna be happy with one hive.

You're gonna have to have two or three or four.

Just because that's the way it is.

It's my 43rd year.

I started keeping bees in 1980.

I don't recall, in the 43 years I've done this, that I've ever had a bad day in the bee yard.

It's always good to be out here with the bees.

- They're really important to our ecosystem and to our food production.

Bees are great pollinators.

They provide you with honey.

You get bees wax.

You can get propolis, but also, you can just set up a lawn chair next to the entrance and watch bees while you have lunch.

You can listen to their hum and their buzz while they're working.

I think they're really calming, to just watch the bees and see where they're going and what they're doing.

This is a male bee and they don't sting at all.

And they're there to mate with new queens.

There's only a few males in each colony.

Most of the bees you see are all females.

- They're all her daughters.

They're all, at minimum, half-sisters.

And they all get along.

There's our queen, right there.

There she is, right there.

Try to encourage her to come back up this way.

There she goes.

See her long abdomen?

And it's all one color.

She's not used to being out in the sunlight.

This is very unusual for her to be out here in the light like that.

She could go to the other side.

The other side was in the dark side.

So she doesn't wanna... She crawled over to get back into the shade.

Gives you to stop and think she spends the entire three or four years of her life in the dark, inside the hive.

Yep.

They're all nurse bees.

They're all taking care of her.

What they're doing is they're touching her and getting her pheromone, her scent.

The scent of a queen on their antlers.

And then, they go and they pass it on to everybody else.

So that every bee, in the hive, comes in contact with that pheromone every 40 minutes.

This is a frame of brood.

This is all new babies underneath the cappings.

Here's one that's just hatched out.

Here's one that's just now hatching out.

You see the antennas and stuff at the top.

Coming out of the hole.

She's trying to chew her way out.

(light folk music) - We just came up from Georgia where we brought 500 packages of mated queens and three pounds of bees to give to beekeepers in the state of Maine, who are looking to start their apiaries or expand them.

- Oh, my goodness.

We have a Flow Hive that we got for Christmas.

It was a Christmas present for our family.

- This is our second year beekeeping.

Of course, there's a little bit of honey extraction but we mostly do it as a learning exercise and for pollination.

- That's how the plants get pollinated and produce fruits, which is not important just for people, but it's just important for the life on Earth.

- If we didn't have bees or pollinators, we wouldn't be able to eat food and none of us would be alive.

So... - Save the pollinators.

- [Michael] We're doing our part.

- [Brian] These are the packages the bees travel in.

And so, this is a little over three pounds of bees and a tin can of sugar syrup to keep them fed on the trip.

And, inside the biggest cluster of bees is the mated queen.

And they all cluster around her and keep her warm 'cause she is the center of the colony.

And when people get these, they'll open up the packages and install them right into their hives.

- Typical package of bees, roughly give or take 18,000 bees, plus a queen in there.

Pry your cover off.

(wood cracking) The can's gotta come out.

(can tapping) Tap down.

Okay.

Queen's in there.

The queen is residing.

She's in there doing her thing inside the cage.

The other end is full of sugar.

So, which end do we take the cork out of?

- Sugar.

- The sugar end, right.

Do not take the cork out of the other end or she'll be over there in that tree somewhere flying around.

You'll have to go get her.

We're gonna wedge this frame over.

Far enough that we can slide that down in there.

Like that.

Okay, I like to put that just below the top of the frame.

The bees have room to crawl up in there.

Get in there and chew that sugar candy.

All right.

18,000 bees.

We gotta get them inside the hive.

(bees buzzing) (box rattling) Those bees will be able to smell the queen that's in here.

They'll be able to run up in there.

By night fall, they'll all be in here joining up with this one.

Inner cover.

Bee school people, notch goes up, right?

(crowd agrees) It's what we taught you.

Okay, nice, easy.

Get it on there.

Start swirling it gently.

Lowering it down softly as you go.

And there you go.

Package is all installed.

(guitar strumming) - Some people say sometimes bees are aggressive or you get an aggressive hive, but bees are only defensive.

If a bee stings you, that bee is going to die.

She leaves her stinger embedded into your skin and dies.

So, she's decided that you were a threat worth killing herself for.

And bees don't take that lightly.

Yeah, they're just insects, but they wanna live.

They wanna support the hive and keep on collecting resources for the hive.

They don't want to sting you.

- Just relax.

Just let everything flow.

- Just relax.

- Don't get uptight.

They know that you're scared of them.

Just take a deep breath and relax.

It's the most meditational hobby you could ever have.

- We're both members of the same organizations of the Kennebec Beekeepers and the Knox-Lincoln group.

Can't advertise joining a club enough.

- And every county in Maine has a bee club.

And I encourage everybody to join their local bee club and also join Main State Beekeepers Association.

- [Brian] Beekeepers are super friendly and a great resource.

So, you can go to your local bee club and find a beekeeper in your area and do a ride along.

See what they do, get exposed to bees.

And also, it's gonna make it much easier for you to be successful If you do decide to keep bees on your own.

- [Brian] I think it's super important to teach people about bees and pollination.

And just how important they are to a lot of different aspects of our life.

- Good hive of bees in Maine, in the summertime, will give us 60 pounds of honey that we can have for our own personal consumption.

You don't stop and, "Well, 60 pounds of honey."

"That's great."

Well, no, that's a five gallon pail full.

That's an awful lot of honey.

So, yeah, this is a pretty good reward for what little bit of work we have to do to keep these bees through the summer.

(whimsical music) (graphics ringing) (mouse clicking) (light piano music) (snowmobile engine revving) - [Woman] You ready?

Let's go.

(upbeat, funky music) (upbeat, funky music continues) - My name is David Gouger and we live in Bowdoinham, Maine.

- And I'm Valerie Chang.

- Yep.

We're a recreational dog We've been doing it for approximately 15 years.

We have seven Siberian Huskies and we have some retirees.

And then we have four active dog team right now.

All right.

This is Dio, lead dog He wants belly rubs for rewards.

And then Journey.

He loves snack And then Maiden after the the band Iron Maiden.

Okay.

And last but not least is after Motley Crue.

Name all our dogs after eighties rock band, right buddy?

Good boy.

- We're not competitive dog sled We just do this sort of fun of i It's our way of walking the dogs and just having fun with our pets at the same time.

Getting exercise, enjoying the outdoors, enjoying the snow.

- [David] Here's our sled.

Not a racing sled.

It's a freighting sled.

This is a little smoother sled than a racing sled because it can, it's longer.

- [Valerie] When the dog team is there's two picks here that go into the snow and you stand on it and you can shift your weight as you need to to give yourself more stopping power, you really put all your body weight into it.

And we rigged it up with some he - [David] And we loved night dog We're really into it.

We like staying on our property 'cause it's pretty much the safest it could be.

- [Valerie] And my favorite time on the dog sled is when it's perfectly quiet, it's just me, the dog's running, and you just hear the the slides of the dog sled and you're just in the woods.

Pe It's like skiing but you're getting some help along the front.

- [David] Yeah.

Nothing beats wh a pull along by your pets you know that you care and love It's pretty cool.

We love these guys.

(gentle rock music) (electronic chiming) (piano music) (soft piano music) - I'm Ed Friedman, and I Chair Friends of Merrrymeeting Bay.

And we are right now on the Southwest corner of Abagadasset Point in Bowdoinham, looking across what I call the middle part of the bay.

I consider the bay more in three parts, Thorne Head in North Bath up to the Chops, the lower part being lower bay from the Chops up to Abagadasset Point, which is down to the east here from us.

And then from from Abby Point up to the north end of Swan Island, as being upper part of the bay.

It's a fantastic spot, unique in the whole world.

It's a place where six rivers come together, closest to us, the Abagadasset River in Bowdoinham.

Also, the Cathance River, in Topsham, the Muddy River, at the bottom of Swan Island is the Eastern River coming out of Pittston and Dresden.

And then the two big rivers, the Androscoggin River and that's Kennebec River behind us coming down out of Moosehead Lake in Northern Maine, and flowing through the Chops that's called, that gap over there about 200 meter bedrock slot.

Those six rivers, the bay is draining almost 40% of Maine, all the water in Maine, through that little slot behind me.

- The Gulf of Maine is a very important body of water for the world, not just for all the fish that are here but the fact that the Gulf Stream goes up through here, it helps regulate the temperature of the earth, and everything that is an input into the Gulf of Maine is deeply important.

And the Gulf of Maine is one of the biggest fisheries in the world that people have been coming to for thousands of years.

This is the Abagadasset River, one of the six rivers that flows into the bay.

These smaller rivers are really really important smaller feeders, because it helps to keep the circulation going in this kind of bathtub-like bay, which is also nursery habitat for all the agenosomus fish species.

- Agenosomus fish spends most of their life in the saltwater, come up in the freshwater to spawn, and that would be most of our species.

Striped bass, Atlantic salmon, short-nose sturgeon, Atlantic sturgeon, tomcod, alewives, blueback herring, American shad, rainbow smelt, sea lamprey, those are probably most of them.

And then we have one catagonus species that is born at sea and spends most of its life in the river, and that's the American eel.

And so, they all utilize the bay and the rivers, and work their way up some of these rivers to the extent that they can.

- And because of that, it's just a part of the network of just all of the biodiversity and all of the species that surround the bay and then beyond that too.

So, we have a lot of eagles here, a lot of osprey, herons.

A lot of different birds that are deeply important to the ecosystem but also just absolutely beautiful to watch.

And that is a huge part of being here, is just being able to live within this incredible space and I think probably all the animals feel that way too.

- A couple things that make this really unique.

This is freshwater but tidal.

Biologically, it's considered tidal riverine, and what happens at low tide, all that river water from Maine is going through that slot behind me, 17 miles to the ocean down at Popham Beach.

At high tide, 17 miles for that saltwater to come up, but the freshwater is still trying to get out, so it's really the freshwater backing up against the incoming salt that makes the tides in here.

So, very very little salt gets into the bay, technically we're an estuary 'cause there's a little bit of salt, but geologically, this is really cool.

With all these rivers coming and they have their flow, typical river flow down, they get into this essentially big pond and that flow slows down and the sentiment drops out.

So, we are also an inland delta, and while there are a couple of other spots in the world where rivers, major rivers, come to a confluence like here, the estuaries are a little more linear in nature so they kinda come together and go right out.

The Chops really constrains all of these rivers here.

It's really hard to get out of the bay if you're water and even if you get out through the Chops, the odds are in the next tide cycle, you'll be back.

And that has real important implications for what goes into the water.

- As a contributor to what happens on the bay, we all have to be very mindful about what we put into it just as if we were putting it into our bodies.

And so, we want to be careful to keep things like mercury and pesticides and other toxics from going into this water, which then comes up the food chain and throughout the entirety of our environmental health.

And to be thoughtful every time we think about what we're doing in our lives that will go down the drain and end up here, and this here impacts everywhere else.

- I'm Steve Cohen, I work at the Maine Maritime Museum, I'm a crew member on the Merrymeeting vessel.

I think the bay is wonderful.

It's nice and clean, it's a good place to go, it's a good place to fish, place to hang out.

There's a lot of protection in there now where the government has put acts in place, clean water act, protection for the wildlife.

And nature is putting it back to where it was.

- There are some places that are maybe better and not so heavily troddened, and this is a sensitive area, and we don't want to go back to he pollution that we had before.

So, when people come to visit, I hope they see this beautiful place and I hope their also very sensitive to that.

(easygoing music) (upbeat music) - I'm Daniel Mays, I run Frith Farm where we are here today.

Frith Farm is a no-till, organic vegetable and fruit farm.

We grow on about three acres.

It's at a scale that I call human scale, so we do most work by hand and we do no tillage.

So we never disturb the soil.

No-till farming is farming without tilling.

So with... tillage is when we mechanically disturb the soil, so sending fast-moving metal through this soil profile, that's tillage.

So we're choosing to farm without doing that because tillage has been shown to be really harmful to the soil ecosystem.

And also healthy soil just leads to easier farming because plants are naturally pest and disease resistant.

And sometimes the term regenerative farming or regenerative agriculture is used in that way.

- My name is Ian Jerolmack, I'm here at my farm Stonecipher Farm in Bowdoinham, Maine.

I'm a certified organic mixed vegetable farm.

I became no-till following the practices of Daniel Mays.

Once you've established some no-till beds, or some no-till gardens, at that point, what you're gonna observe happening is the soil life wakes up, all the invertebrates that prefer a non-disturbed soil move in, funguses that seek to break down trash material and other organic matter and feed your crops, can all do their job undisturbed.

I call this a no-till touchdown.

I'm very proud of moments like this on the farm, when mushrooms are encouraged to grow, says a lot about the health of the soil.

Look at all this fungal life going on in here.

That is just awesome for the plants that are going to create their symbiotic nutrient exchange with the fungus later on.

And the soil ends up requiring less nutrients and less water to do an even better job than you probably had seen in your gardens before.

- I'm Beth Schiller, this is Dandelion Spring Farm, which is on Wabanaki land, we're in Bowdoinham, Maine.

And we are transitioning from some traditional tractor bed and grow crop methods to a no-till permanent bed system.

So we feel really lucky.

We have a great crew here today from Frith Farm and Stonecipher that are helping us make this transition.

- [Daniel Mays] So that involves, you know, laying out the beds, shaping them, marking them out carefully.

And now we're laying a layer of compost over the beds, and then we'll fill the pads with wood chips.

- It's a layered process.

And if this all goes well for Beth, you'll never see her ground again.

She will only, as we do on our farm, as Daniel does on his farm, continue to add materials on top.

- [Daniel Mays] And that makes a completely weed free experience if we do it right.

And also has all sorts of benefits to the soil health.

- I grew up starting to farm when a production farmer did not farm in this method.

That was not the model that was taught to me, and I embraced a different model for many years.

And now we're at a place in our production where we feel like we've got both the confidence to make a transition, but also acknowledging that, in the end, this is gonna be a management practice that is better for the land and for our farm team.

It's better for the soil in many ways.

And I think it's gonna help us create even more nutritious crops because there's just gonna be such a larger microbial and living network in these beds.

- [Daniel Mays] For me, it feels like such a blessing to play in the dirt with plants producing food and, you know, feeding families within our community.

It feels like such a joy and a privilege.

(upbeat music) (logo whooshing) (upbeat music) - [Jennifer] It's swampy out here under the power lines on the west side of Yarmouth, and there are ticks, but this work crew is undeterred.

(drill whirring) Dan Ostrye is the crew's organizer.

- I used to live just a quarter of a mile from here, and my son used to try and come out here and mountain bike and always come home either shoeless or covered in mud or both.

And so we said we wanna find a way so that future generations can enjoy this, and one of the ways was to develop it into a multi-use trail.

- [Jennifer] For more than a decade, volunteers have been working to complete the 11-mile West Side Trail, the final mile.

This section will be accessible to those with disabilities.

It includes several long boardwalks.

- The boards are my favorite part, carrying them.

- [Jennifer] Owen Seehagen and his sister Olivia are first-time volunteers here with their grandfather.

- We're building a bridge for the people that have a wheelchair or need help walking.

- Some of these will have a dimple on the side that will cause the space to be much wider than it should be.

- [Jennifer] Details matter.

There can be no wide gaps between the boards.

And the team has chosen cedar that is rough-sawn because it is less slippery than pressure-treated lumber.

On the graveled sections of the path, the grades and turns are gentle.

The trail has been carefully designed for inclusion.

Ostrye believes it reflects a generational shift in attitudes.

- What we're doing here, if you tried to do this say 20 years ago, everyone would've said, "Huh?"

And I think that's part of the reason why you're seeing these kinds of trails being developed now.

That ethos wasn't there.

- The new section of the West Side Trail is one of a handful of new trail projects around the state designed to be universally accessible.

They're part of a growing national movement known as Outdoors for All.

But one of the biggest proponents of that movement here in Maine isn't waiting for special new trails to be built.

He's out there now.

Meet Enock Glidden.

Born with spina bifida, Glidden goes everywhere in a wheelchair.

For a year now, he's been traveling all over Maine, testing trails in partnership with the folks at Maine Trail Finder.

- So I go on there three times a week, and I'll pick an easy trail, and then I just go try it and see what happens.

- [Jennifer] Today it's the Knight's Pond Preserve in Cumberland.

- When I'm doing these trails, I'm taking note in my head of different obstacles, like there's a hill behind us, or rocks coming up the hill, or grooves in the road, or roots.

That's a big thing.

There's lots of roots usually 'cause of trees.

And so I take note of all those things in my mind, and I take pictures and I take video to show people what I'm seeing so that before they even leave the house, they know what they're gonna encounter.

- [Jennifer] When he gets home, he posts his pictures and writes a blog.

He liked this trail, calling it a beautiful place to spend an afternoon, and rated most of it accessible or, quote, "wheelie easy."

Glidden spends a lot of time consulting with land trusts and other groups in Maine.

His message, it might not take much to make your trails significantly more accessible.

- If people would just look at the trails they already have, the easy ones, and look at it from a perspective of if I was in a chair right now, would any of this stop me from continuing?

And if they do find something that would stop them, how can we fix it?

And then just fix that and fix the next thing and the next thing.

And then pretty soon you have an accessible trail.

And I want people to see that there is possibilities for accessibility in the outdoors, and it doesn't necessarily have to cost thousands of dollars.

You could fix one bog bridge and change it to a boardwalk this year and then next year fix another one, and then eventually the trail will be accessible and people can use it.

Everyone can use it.

- The origin story of the organization's amazing.

- [Jennifer] Zach Stegeman of the Adaptive Outdoor Education Center says Outdoors for All means all ages and all abilities.

- I think we are approaching a tipping point, approaching a movement.

- [Jennifer] He sees outdoor groups working not only to improve trails, but also the nature of their organizations, making them more welcoming and accessible.

How far do we have to go?

- As far as the trail goes.

We've got a long ways to go.

It doesn't have to be every trail, but it sure would be great if we looked at just about every venue with trails having one that is accessible where someone with a, you know, physical challenge navigating some uneven terrain or perhaps a traumatic brain injury and some balance issues, could be visually impaired, whatever the challenge is, that they can still get outside, access that beautiful space.

It doesn't have to be the summit.

It can just be somewhere along the way.

But we got a ways to go for sure.

- [Jennifer] Meantime, the volunteers in West Yarmouth will keep showing up.

- I just find this rewarding, the simple little work we're doing today, one board after another, two screws here, two screws there.

It's not mindful work, but it's incredibly good work, and it will result in a very good product used by hundreds and hundreds of people for decades.

So what's not to like?

- [Jennifer] And Enock Glidden will keep trying new trails.

- I was doing a trail near where I live in Bethel at the Valentine Farm, and a lady walked up to me and said, "Aren't you Enock Glidden?"

And I said, "Yes."

And she said, "I love your blogs.

You've pointed out so many places that me and my mother can go together."

And so that's really why I do that.

(chuckles) (bright music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (logo whooshing) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (logo whooshing)