George Smith, a prominent figure in the Maine outdoors, died Friday after a four-year battle with ALS. He was 72.
Smith left behind a legacy from his time as the head of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and as a prolific newspaper columnist.
Here’s a selection of what he’s written in recent years:
Hunting is my heritage
In this 2006 column, Smith reflects on his decades-long relationship with hunting and his father.
The privilege of deer hunting
In this 1993 column, Smith recounts a deer hunt with his dad and then-11-year-old son, Joshua.
The day after Thanksgiving buck
In this 2020 blog post, Smith shares a special memory of when he and his father bagged a deer the day after Thanksgiving.
Baby Ada’s deer call
This is one of Smith’s favorite stories about his granddaughter Ada.
Great memories of hunting with dad
Smith was 12 years old when he bagged his first pheasant with his father. Then 40 years later he got the chance to introduce his father to turkey hunting.
My last turkey with dad
In this 2019 blog post, Smith recounts his last turkey hunt with his father before he went into the hospice unit at Togus.
Maine has too many bald eagles
Smith also wasn’t shy about the occasional hot take. Maine’s bald eagles have undergone a robust recovery over the past few decades, but that wasn’t necessarily good news. “Eagles are wicked killers,” Smith wrote in this 2019 blog post.
Fishing Alaska rivers surrounded by bears
Not all of his writings centered around the great Maine outdoors. In this piece, Smith writes about his three adventures into the Alaskan wild and encounters with Kodiak bears.
ALS will eventually end this outdoor news blog
Despite his diagnosis, Smith remained dedicated to writing about the Maine outdoors until the very end of his life. In this short 2018 piece, he reflects upon his diagnosis and his mortality.
