Twenty years ago, Beth Lambert, an artist and graphic designer, traveled the state, visiting boutiques and gift shops with her version of a map of Maine, hoping merchants might sell it in their stores.
Her “Maine Illustrated” probably wouldn’t help anyone navigate from one point to another, but the map was nevertheless filled with hundreds of cartoons about Maine oddities, factoids and trivia.
And it was a huge hit. The entire printed run of 15,000 copies sold out.
For years afterward, Lambert, who lives in Mariaville, took calls from people who wanted to replace their tattered copy of the map, or others who had seen the map somewhere and wanted a copy of their own.
Sorry, she would tell them, the map had long been sold out.
Until now.
With her kids off to college last September, Lambert decided it was time to update the map. Just as she started to assemble her art supplies, she got another call. Once again, Lambert told the caller “Maine Illustrated” was sold out.
But on the other end of the phone, Brunswick entrepreneur Bob Muller said he had an idea: Lambert could continue to revamp “Maine Illustrated” to reflect changes in the state during the last 20 years and add new bits of Maine trivia, and Muller would market it.
This summer, Muller hit the road to sell the new version of Lambert’s 24-inch-by-36-inch map. He traversed the state — often going into the same shops and working with the same owners Lambert did 20 years ago – and the updated version with more than 400 cartoons is now available for sale.
“I was in the Bookland in Brunswick, and I saw it hanging on a wall,” Muller said of the day he saw Lambert’s original creation. “It’s a funky, nontraditional map about Maine, [and] I have an affinity for anything about Maine. I pulled Beth’s name off [the map] and called her.”
Lambert, who had completely redrawn “Maine Illustrated” because she threw away the original artwork years ago, met with Muller one day at the Kennebunk rest stop on Interstate 95 and came to an agreement about marketing the map.
In 1988, Lambert was the one who traveled Maine in an attempt to sell the map. This time around, Lambert made phone calls and set up appointments for Muller, who did the traveling himself. Lambert got in touch with some of the same stores that carried the original “Maine Illustrated,” and occasionally found herself talking to the same store owner whom she had met 20 years earlier.
“It was like meeting an old friend,” Lambert said. “When I called up Houlton, to York’s Book Store, I said, ‘This is Beth Lambert,’ and he remembered me, remembered the map and he couldn’t wait to get [the new version]. Everybody who was there 20 years ago took it. There wasn’t a place that turned it down.”
Muller said he had that kind of reception, too. At Hurricane’s Cafe & Deli in Greene, the first client he visited in June, the owners remembered Lambert and the map.
There were 20 to 40 shops that were still in business and had carried the original map. But there were many that were gone too.
“The trip was really a lot of fun, but one thing I did observe was that there are a lot of little towns with a lot of stores that are shuttered,” Muller said. “You read about it in the paper and you don’t feel it, but [when you] go into town and see those stores it gives you a sadness.”
With changes to Maine towns, Lambert had to make changes to the new “Maine Illustrated.” The Bush family, which vacations in Kennebunkport, is no longer on the national political scene. Many of the paper mills that were going strong in the late 1980s are now closed. Loring Air Base in Limestone is shuttered.
Lambert, however, found ways to fill in empty areas of the map. In extreme northern Maine, where there are few towns, she drew a cartoon of a snarling cougar with the phrase, “Bigfoot of the North” and another line about unconfirmed cougar sightings. Another cartoon shows a person scratching his back with the line, “Don’t leave home without fly dope.”
“Luckily fish and other wildlife is always such a draw for those areas, and all the outdoor trivia is fun, so I kind of researched those areas more,” she said.
In the Bangor area, Lambert added the American Folk Festival.
There is more information about Maine’s skiing areas, Franco-American culture, events such as the Yarmouth Clam Festival and the Muskie Derby in Fort Kent, and buildings such as the Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield. The Presidents Bush came off the map. The Bluenose ferry, which for years ran between Bar Harbor and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, was changed to the Cat to reflect the catamaran that has assumed the ferry service.
In addition to the requests she had over the years for copies of the old map, Lambert said, people are constantly making suggestions for more towns or trivia to include on “Maine Illustrated.”
There’s even a place on the Web site Muller and Lambert set up where people can send in trivia and other ideas for the next version of “Maine Illustrated,” as well as Lambert’s other maps of Vermont and Mount Desert Island.
“We’re looking for people to submit factoids, because they’re the best source,” Muller said. “We want people to submit things we would never uncover in a history book. I think we’re going to find stuff we never would have known.”
To purchase “Maine Illustrated,” “Vermont Illustrated” or Lambert’s Mount Desert Island map, as well as map T-shirts, go to http://www.mymainemap.com. “Maine Illustrated” is also available in bookstores and gift and souvenir shops around the state.