74th Eastern Maine Sportsmen’s Show on tap this weekend

Ignore the snow that just fell. Ignore the fact that it was downright cold this morning. Spring is coming. And I can prove it.

This weekend the University of Maine campus will be bustling with the area’s annual harbinger of warmer, better things — the Eastern Maine Sportsmen’s Show — taking up residence in the field house and Memorial Gym.

This will be the 74th edition of the classic outdoor expo, and many Mainers make a point of stopping by and visiting with vendors and exhibitors a couple weeks before the official beginning of spring.

That’s good for folks like us: BDN Outdoors staffers will be there all weekend long to field your questions, talk about our plans for the future, and sign you up for a shot at our popular Win A Drift Boat Trip Contest.

We’re especially proud to be able to hand out copies of our brand new publication, BDN Maine Outdoors, which hit newsstands on Monday. We’re eager to talk about the publication, answer any questions you have, and listen to your suggestions for future issues.

And there will be future issues: We’re already hard at work on the next installment of BDN Maine Outdoors, which we’ll release in June.

I’ll be there with our resident hiking enthusiast Aislinn Sarnacki (who produces our weekly One-Minute Hike video feature), and senior editor Aimee Thibodeau. We’ll be showing a slideshow of great outdoor-oriented photos that have appeared in the BDN over the last 60 years or so, and will have Aislinn’s One-Minute Hike videos showing on another screen.

The Penobscot County Conservation Association puts on the show, with proceeds funding scholarships for college students and “camperships” for youngsters who want to attend summer conservation camp.

The hours of this year’s show: Friday, 5-9 p.m., Saturday, 9 a.m.-8 p.m., Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Admission is $7 for adults and children older than 12, $1 for kids 6-11, and free for those younger than 6.

See you at the show!

John Holyoke

About John Holyoke

John Holyoke has been enjoying himself in Maine's great outdoors since he was a kid. Today, he's the Outdoors editor for the BDN, a job that allows him to meet up with Maine outdoors enthusiasts in their natural habitat. The stories he gathers provide fodder for his columns, and this blog.