Across the board people put “way too much information” out there, said Berlin Police Detective Nathan Roy. We agree and have – like the police and prosecutors used it – as an investigative tool mostly to look into a specific crime. Some swash-buckling criminals totally incriminated themselves by providing the details of their crime. But it’s not just that; all of us need to think twice before we hit the send button or better yet — follow Ben Franklin’s advice to turn our tongue three times before speaking – four when angry.

Missing from this medium is reflection (how will this message be received and what impact will it have?) and empathy (is it a friendly kidding or would I say this in public?). If that’s not enough, think selfishly, how will I explain that to a potential employer – if I get the chance?

Our sister paper – the Coos County Democrat — was taken to task a few weeks ago for not publishing a controversial letter to the editor about a bullying incident and Facebook readers took us to task – which to us felt more like a lynch mob than a reasoned debate. We gained some sympathy for the popularity obsessed teen-ager who may be slighted or joshed and then the comment is affirmed by two dozen friends approvingly hitting the “like” button.

This problem seems to be more generational. Young people, who have grown up in a technological age where communication has always been instant and exhibitionism more popular than privacy, are learning some hard lessons. Sadly, it is happening in a less forgiving and more troublesome time — where college is becoming less accessible; more than half of all 18-24 year-old are unemployed and good jobs are hard to find; police prosecute most every legal indiscretion and most everything is part of the public domain.

This Facebook photo of Michael Glidden with a fawn led to his conviction on an illegal possession charge.

LITTLETON– Law enforcement officials are learning that social media sites – like Facebook – are a double-edge sword – helping with investigations but also dragging them into many petty name-calling disputes. On-line, interactive social web sites are increasingly playing a major role in all aspects of life – connecting people to each other and leaving a vivid public trail of every utterance and photograph.
“People put too much information” out there, said Berlin Police Detective Nathan Roy. Some of it is embarrassing and other illegal.

“Its part of the evidence. Its good evidence.” said Littleton’s prosecuting attorney Aliza Anavri, it helps “prove motive and intent.” The younger generation is more casual with sharing personal information and even incriminating banter on the internet, which is in the public domain. All personal communication records – including telephone, text messages and e-mails — are available and can be obtained by law enforcement officials with a proper court approval. This is rare – in part because more easily accessible social media sites provide police and the general public with so much information.

Consider the case of two young men who were accused of possessing a fawn – a young deer in Littleton recently. Michael Glidden, 20 of Lisbon, and Michael Rothney, 19 of Littleton, both pleaded guilty to charges and were fined $248 on January 10. The investigators were aided by Glidden’s posting on his Facebook page with a photograph of the fawn sitting on his lap. The collared neck was key said Fish and Game Conservation Glen Office Lucas, who handled the case.

Lucas said his department received a tip from someone who saw the posting. “I jumped on-line” he said and pursued the case. Lucas admits that he was surprised by it all. Glidden’s Facebook profile is public and the photo with the fawn remains on it, possibly because Glidden is incarcerated on other convictions and unable to remove it.

Whitefield Police Chief William Colborn said he doesn’t routinely scan postings, but does use it when he has a suspect of an alleged crime. He is using it “more and more,” he said. A few years ago, a local gun store was robbed of several guns and, he said, we “got a big break from Facebook” that led to a conviction. Social media is used more broadly than to snoop on people, said Prosecutor Anavri . She knows of police officers who have used to simply communicate with people and to seek clues on a tough case. More sophisticated people, Anavri said, have skirted the court-ordered non-contact stipulations by posting information on a third party’s site knowing full well the intended person will get the message.
The pressure is mounting for people to be more discreet, sites are being monitor by parents, schools, employers and some are asking potential employees to log into their sites and display their previous posts. “People are getting smart to it,” said Roy. It is possible to make one’s page private and only accessible to accepted friends, but many people don’t do it.
Cyber bulling has increasingly disrupted schools, agonized children and adolescents and occupied administrators who are required by law to investigate. Recently, White Mountain Regional High School was accused of ignoring a bullying charge (one the school vehemently denies). But, still it illustrates the varying legal standards between school rules and criminal law.
Police report that they are getting more complaints stemming from unkind comments made on social media sites. “We get a lot of calls,” said Lancaster Police Chief John Gardiner, and they will say someone “said this about me on Facebook.” In most cases, he said “We really have no legal basis. That’s a civil thing.” Civil cases are typically disputes between people, whereas criminal crimes are violations of state law brought by the state and are punishable by jail time or a fine.
“It’s more than we can handle,” Gardiner admits. Police Departments use to more regularly deal with harassment by telephone. It’s called “unwanted contact” or “crank call” and it is considerably harder for an individual to protect themselves against such aggravation. Today with the internet, it’s much simpler and Berlin Police Department’s Roy reminds callers to his department asking them to investigate unfriendly comments to “just block them” from their page.

BERLIN – One of my favorite places in Berlin is the grounds of the former Notre Dame High School. The spot gives a spectacular and holistic view of life here. The community pillars are all proudly displayed – church, mill and the mountains. But a closer view reveals still more– the forests, the outline of the river and the neighborhoods. The old brick school building is hauntingly quiet and decrepit these days. There are gaping holes, graffiti and an entire section has been ripped away. Yet it is still eerily beautiful. Tri County CAP has big plans (costing around $8 million) to convert it into 33 senior citizen apartments.

Forty years ago this month, Notre Dame was closed. The word came in a formal decree from the Bishop Ernest Primeau himself. It was a big loss to the city and foreshadowed bigger losses to come.
With this thought in mind, I go looking for people willing to share their memories. The youngest alums would be in their mid 50s and the oldest close to 90. The obvious place to stop at this close to noon hour is the Berlin Senior Citizens center.
I arrive, check in with the center’s able director Leila Villeneuve and work my way around the tables – recognizing several faces from previous visit just before Christmas and even recalling a few names. People are happy to share and are surprised that it has been closed so long.
It “was sad when it closed,” said Doris MacDonald, of Berlin, a 1961 graduate. She remembers the athletic competition – especially with Berlin High School in basketball, football and hockey. “Basically,” she said, “Hockey was the main thing.”

Florence Aubit, of Berlin, a 1960 graduate, said “the nuns were very nice people.” Norman Dumont, of Berlin, a 1951 graduate, had a different view. “The nuns were a pain,” he said, “but they did settle me down.” One he recalls, Sister Mary Sarat Princilla “was a good sized woman and “you didn’t mess with her.” In 1952, she won a regional “favorite teacher” contest and won a tour of England. Dumont, who grew up not far from the school, said his favorite thing was being able to “go home for lunch.”
A freshman (9th grader) in 1943, the year Notre Dame opened, Bob LaCroix, of Berlin, a 1945 graduate, remembers the “camaraderie. We were a very small group.” Like bookends, his son was in one of the last classes at Notre Dame.

Just then Leila makes an announcement calling all Notre Dame graduates to the front for a photo. They form a large group and then spontaneously break into their school song, “Our Alma Mater so dear” in perfect harmony.

Notre Dame Song: Our Alma Mater so dear.
Let echoes ring; oh so gaily as we sing for the school.
We revere Oh Notre Dame.
We praise highly the lessons that your teachings hold.
And in our hearts we pledge loyal to be forever to the Blue and Gold.
Oh, Notre Dame, keep on guiding your sons and daughters on life’s way.
Bravely we march on to glory. A challenge to our friends or foes
and as we strive on to honor and fame, we all shout hurrah for Notre Dame.

LANCASTER – Long-tme civic and business leader Michael Beattie died on Friday. He was 68-years-old and had been suffering from cancer.

For 18 years, Beattie served as a Lancaster selectman. He owned a local trucking company and formerly owned the Riverside Speedway in Groveton.

Beattie was also a member of the local fire department, bank trustee and chairman of a major snowmobiling event — the Grand Prix, which attracted as many as 16,000 people to Lancaster to watch top-level racing. In 2011, he took part in a video interview about the Grand Prix.

Visiting hours will be held Monday, February 20, from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Bailey Funeral Home, Lancaster and a funeral the next day, Tuesday at 10:30 at All Saints Church, in Lancaster.

Eleanor Miller with son, Steven.

By Jeff Woodburn

Eleanor Miller could never have imagined how her husband’s short trip down to the village to vote in the annual town meeting election, on March 9, 1954,  could have propelled her into office and both she and her husband, Velma “Val”  Miller, into Whitefield’s history books. Both that day would invariably be entangled in one of the town’s biggest political controversies, and when it was all over Mr. Miller, who that day was re-elected as selectman, was forced out of office, and replaced by his wife, who became the town’s first female selectman.

As Mr. Miller climbed the steep steps of the town hall, he may have worried about his chances of being defeated, and as he passed through the doors of the old town hall, the 41-year old dairy farmer may have wondered if he had moved too fast in the controversial firing of the longtime police chief. Once inside the hall, he walked past his nemesis, Murray Clement, the police Chief that he discharged two years earlier. Little did Val Miller know that Mr. Clement had been waiting all day for him.  As Mr. Miller approached the election officials and requested a ballot, Mr. Clement dropped a bomb shell that would rock the town for weeks, immediately change the political landscape and become a permanent part of local political folklore. He challenged Mr. Miller’s right to vote because he was not a citizen of the United States.

The Challenge. Harold Burns, then a young ballot clerk, remembers the awkward scene. “We were all terribly surprised,” he said. After all, Mr. Miller, who grew up in Dalton and graduated from the Whitefield High School, had been a voter in town for 15 years. “The Moderator, Richard French” the “Coos County Democrat” reported, “did not permit the challenged man to vote as no affidavit of citizenship was presented to him.” Nonetheless, Mr. Miller was re-elected, but was not sworn in as selectman. Over the next several days while Mr. Miller tried to secure documents proving his citizenship, the controversy spread through town. The details were noticeably absent from the weekly issue of the “Coos County Democrat.” The publisher, Clinton White, decided as he later wrote “with open reluctance to withhold the story until the investigation was completed.” The “Union Leader”, the state-wide newspaper, smelled a rat and made charges of a cover up engineered by the Mr. White and town officials. The conservative paper and ardent supporter of the Red baiting Joe McCarthy’s anti-communism crusade wrote a provocative article leading with, “A Federal investigation is being conducted into the citizenship of the former Chairman of the Board of Selectmen.” The story included several key officials including Mr. Miller, Selectman Maynard Gallagher and town attorney Walter Hinkley either refusing to comment or contradicting each other. On March 24, the “Coos County Democrat” ran a front page story on the citizenship challenge and refuted the “Union Leader’s” accusations, and reminded readers that “the Lancaster paper had supported ex-chief Clement in… his dismissal,(and therefore) an extreme effort was made to be fair to Mr. Miller.”

Meanwhile,  Miller continued to put the puzzle of his citizenship status together. The story was complicated from the start. There was no exact record of where  Miller was born. It was believed that he had been born in Middlesex, NB on January 9, 1913, but his half-sister believes he could have been born in Orleans, Vt. or possibly in other locations near the U.S-Canadian border. Further complicating matters was the fact that Val’s mother, Cora Miller, was born a U.S. citizen, but when she married Frank Miller, a Canadian citizen, in 1904, she automatically lost her status as a U.S. citizen. That marriage ended in divorce in 1924, when Val was 11-years old. It was presumably then that Mrs. Miller and her children moved to Dalton. In 1936, she regained her U.S. citizenship, but by then her son, Val, was 23-years old and no longer under his mother’s guardianship.

Miller apparently had some doubt about his own citizenship status and in 1938; he consulted with an attorney about starting the Naturalization process. At this point, he was advised by the attorney that “he didn’t have to, he was a citizen anyway” according to an article in the “Coos County Democrat”. It was then that Mr. Miller registered as a voter in Whitefield. In 1951, he ran and was elected one of the town’s selectmen. By September, 1953, he sought to reopen the question of his citizenship presumably to dispel rumors circulating around Whitefield. He consulted Myron C. Hubbert, Acting Examiner of the U.S. Immigration Naturalization office in Berlin.

Immediately after the challenge Mr. Miller’s attorney, Walter Hinckley, of Lancaster, indicated that Mr. Miller was in fact a U.S. citizen. Three days after the challenge on Mach 12, 1954, Mr. Miller went to the Lancaster to see the Acting U.S. Immigration Naturalization Examiner Hubbard. It is not clear why Mr. Miller went to the Lancaster office, rather than the Berlin office where he began the inquiry five months prior. Possibly, Mr. Miller and Attorney Hinckley felt a more favorable response was likely, or conceivably they believed the Berlin office shared private details of the case with Mr. Miller’s accusers, ex-chief Murray Clement or one of his associates. The case was transferred to the St. Albans, Vt. Office and later Examiner Percy Gee ruled that Mr. Miller was not a U.S. citizen. The “Coos County Democrat” made it clear to note that Mr. Miller “had every reasonable cause to believe that he was a citizen and ran for public office in entirely good faith.”

The Chief. While former Chief Clement may have won his legal battle to remove Mr. Miller from his position as a selectman, but it was Val Miller who garnered the sympathy of Whitefield’s townspeople. “People were ticked off,” said Kenneth Russell, Sr., who remembers the incident. “Somebody did him (Val Miller) wrong.” The insertion of Mr. Clement on the political scene was reminder of the actions that lead to his removal as the police Chief. A former Boston and Maine Railroad fireman, Mr. Clement became chief in 1929, and reined over the relatively somber days of the Great Depression, prohibition and World War Two. The winds of change were in the air. Even in small towns like Whitefield, returning veterans and other young people wanted to enjoy life and have a little fun.  Chief Clement, a stout and portly man with a mean streak, was determined to keep a tight grip on his town. “His presence kept us in line,” recalls Kenneth A. Jordan “I was afraid of him.” He wasn’t the only one. Chief Clement was notorious for using so-called “twisters” to gain control over people he was trying to detain. “He demanded and received obedience with them on,” said Mr. Jordan. The “Coos County Democrat” described a twister as “a chain that will exert pressure without cutting and its use is legal when required.” Mr. Jordan said they would draw blood and he specifically remembers Chief Clement putting them on a drunk and twisting them until the man’s wrists were bloody. Even those, who defended Chief Clement, said he had a penchant for violence. Edward Boswell remembers him as being “pretty fierce, (but) fair.”  He too saw the Chief draw blood. Chief Clement “beat the hell out of old Dan Beaton for being hot (drunk)… and he wouldn’t get into the (police) car.”

After 23 years as chief, Mr. Cement’s power was solidified, but his enemy list was growing and his old school approach was wearing thin. On September 6, 1952, a 19-year old was arrested for reckless driving and according to the “Coos County Democrat” “was taken to the jail and he resisted arrest, kicking and thrashing around and hollering until twisters were put on his arms.”What happened next is not exactly clear, but at least two current residents remember that the police were having as Robert Stiles recalled “a beating party” at the police station and Charles Canton, a prominent business and civic leader, who lived directly across from the station, intervene. One thing led to another and ultimately, Mr. Canton in the words of his grandson, Steve Canton, began “thrashing the cop.” A week or so later 61-year old Mr. Canton died of a heart attack. The police brutality incident was investigated by the County Solicitor (attorney), Whitefield District Court Justice Harold E. Kier and the “Coos County Democrat.” All stood behind Chief Clement. The “boy” and his father both refused to point the finger at the Chief Clement and the “Coos County Democrat” wrote, “the boy’s father told this newspaper… that the boy had not been injured at all,” and then concluded with “these statement are reported that circumstances will not give credence to exaggerated stories.” Apparently, the selectmen were not so convinced and on September 22, they signed a letter addressed to Chief Clement that “his services were no longer be required” and that Burton McLain, of Lancaster, had been appointed the new chief. No reasons were given as to why the long time chief was let go, and the Union Leader reported that the firing took place “only a few month before his date of retirement.”  The chairman of the Board of Selectmen was none other than Val Miller, who 17-months later would seek re-election.

Mr. Miller, the aspiring dairy farmer, had more pressing problems than to worry about the ex-chief. He had to build a barn. Six days after Murray Clement was fired, the town rallied together to rebuild the Miller’s barn, which had been lost by a $25,000 fire a year before. As many as 75 people participated in an old fashion “barn raising.” The Milk Pail, a dairy farming journal, wrote the “a new barn, the first of its kind in New England is completely fire proof”. Newspapers from as far away as Boston covered the event.  This public outpouring of support clearly demonstrated that most people thought, as Robert Stiles said, that “Val Miller was a helluva nice guy” and as Kenneth Jordan, Jr. said, most people were “glad that he (Clement) was gone.” “Everyone knew that Murray Clement hated my father,” said Joan Miller Bateson, and the reason was clear: Val Miller did something few people did he took on Murray Clement and won. By 1954, Mr. Miller was still popular, but that could not fix his citizenship problems.

The Woman.With Val Miller out, the remaining two selectmen, Maynard Gallagher and Edward MacDonald, needed to appoint a replacement to fill the 3-year term. Little information is available about the reasoning or the process, but the choice was both historic and defiant. The selectmen appointed Eleanor Miller, who became Whitefield’s first women selectmen. At 41, she was born before women had won the right to vote, but no grand announcements about the historic nature of the appointment came from her or anyone else. It just seemed like natural thing to do. “It just wasn’t a big deal at the time” recalls Kenneth A. Jordan.

Most observers believed the appointment was designed to give Val Miller the last laugh and not let Murray Clement get away with usurping the will of the voters. Some, like Robert Stiles, then a town employee, believed that Mr. Miller continued to call the shots. “Eleanor was appointed,” he said, “but Val did it.” Joan Miller Bateson remembers her mother as a loyal wife, but she “had a mind of her own.” To comprehend Mrs. Miller, one must understand the events that shaped her formative years and her all encompassing role as a farmer’s wife. She seems defined in a many way by the events of her time namely, Prohibition and the Great Depression.  In that era, the home was the central place to demonstrate piety and frugality, and within the shadows of their husbands and the culture of the time, many women were strong, influential partners. Nowhere were these partnerships more pronounced than on a farm, where the work never ended. The Millers got into farming when most people were getting out, and by Whitefield standards they were large. By the 1950’s, dairy farming was declining due to the centralization and standardization of dairy production.  State law and larger wholesalers, like H.P. Hood, for whom the Miller’s supplied milk, required expensive improvements to ensure milk sanitation. A large steel holding tank was a vivid sign of changing face of agriculture on the Miller’s farm. It was razed along with the farm to make way for the Weeks Medical Center a few years ago. Mrs. Miller dealt with the business side of the farm and although quiet, she was comfortable dealing with the many customers as well as wholesalers. Ruth Waid, who as a young girl worked for and lived with the Millers, said “Eleanor was hard working… more the type to listen (than talk.)” She “did not go all out for politics,” but she was principled.  There was at least one political view that Mrs. Miller cared deeply about, Mrs. Waid remembers, “No liquor whatsoever. I can safely say the she (Eleanor) was against drinking (and for prohibition).” Most remember her, as Peter Packard, then a young farm hand, as caretaker making sure everyone was well fed and looked after.

Mrs. Miller also had a background that surprised many, including her own children. In her early years, she worked at the State House in Providence, RI and later the North Providence city office. But all that was before she married Velma Miller, and thereafter, as a selectmen and even when she died unexpectedly in 1966 the news accounts referred to her as “Mrs. Velma Miller.” Her own name doesn’t even appear in her obituary, but it is affixed in the town’s history as are the events that lead to her appointment.

The sequence of events

March 5, 1951               Val Miller elected Selectman

September 6, 1952         Allegations of police brutality made against Police Chief Clement

September 22, 1952       Selectmen fire Police Chief Clement

September 28, 1952       Community “Barn-Raising” rebuild state of the art barn for the Miller’s farm

March 9, 1954

Ex-Chief Clement challenges Selectman Miller’s citizenship

March 30, 1954

Eleanor Miller appointed Whitefield’s first female Selectman

1955

Val Miller becomes a Naturalized U.S. citizen

GORHAM, N.H.—For a while, it looked like northern New Hampshire’s papermaking heritage was gone for good.

When the region’s last mill closed in 2010, 197 workers were out of good-paying jobs, and the pain of lost paychecks rippled through this tiny mountain town of 2,848. Many feared the digital age had finally felled the local tradition of producing paper for printing and writing.

John Tully for The Wall Street JournalThe Gorham Paper & Tissue mill in Gorham, N.H.

But the century-old Gorham paper mill is running again, under new owners, with 176 employees and plans to hire 48 more. The rebirth, and optimism at other paper mills nationwide, is due to one of the few bright spots in the industry: steadily rising demand for toilet and tissue paper that goes with population growth.

“I know of nothing that can replace it. You can do digital on books and financials and all this, but it’s hard to do digital on tissue paper, hand towels and so forth,” said Willis Blevins, the 70-year-old manager of Gorham Paper & Tissue. “Your bath tissue is always going to be there, in my opinion. What are you going to replace it with?”

For more than 100 years, paper mills were the economic engine of northern New Hampshire, and by the 1970s there were four mills in a 25-mile radius in Coos County, a string of small towns with misty mountain views and moose-crossing road signs.

The mills—churning out mostly writing paper, newsprint and printing paper—meant economic security. “When you went in, you were guaranteed to be there for the rest of your life,” Mr. Blevins said.

But between 2001 and 2011, U.S. annual consumption of daily-newspaper newsprint plunged an estimated 61% to 3.6 million tons and annual consumption of paper used for printing, note pads and more fell roughly 38%, according to Vertical Research Partners, which tracks the paper industry. The decline was devastating to paper producers.

The main local mill closed in 2001. Then in 2006, a dismantling outfit blew up one of the defunct mills and three smokestacks that served as landmarks along the Androscoggin River. “I could hear it and I was crying,” said 56-year-old Mike Johnson, a fourth-generation mill worker. “It was like someone taking out a part of you.”

The Gorham mill hung on until the fall of 2010, after Canadian owner Fraser Paper Inc. sought bankruptcy protection. Aside from the local hospital, it had offered the highest wages in the area, as much as $23.17 an hour with benefits.

Workers such as Alex Doherty found themselves jobless at a time when county unemployment was in the double digits, and few had other skills. “They don’t talk much about age discrimination but when you’re over 60, they don’t look at you the same way,” said Mr. Doherty, who is 62 years old and wound up with part-time work at a car dealership.

The effect of the industry’s decline could be seen in the empty storefronts and dwindling population, said Mark Belanger, manager of the local branch of the state employment-security division. Berlin, once a Coos County paper hub whose motto is “The City That Trees Built,” had been a bustling mill town of more than 15,000 in 1970 but by 2010 had lost nearly 40% of its population, he said.

by Jeff Woodburn 

BERLIN –There is hardly a question more revealing than what draws and holds people to a particular spot – especially a spot that seems so inhospitable.  We can deal with this query most of the year, but this is February and as my grandfather use to warn “never make rash decision in February.”  

Even the most loyal natives have wayward hearts this time a year. I toss the question around for a few hours before I test it on the street, but that opportunity never comes.  At Gorham’s Laconia Savings Bank, my question is out-ed.  I’m just trying to cash a check and the question comes from over the counter.  “Do you do that question on the street for the paper?” asks Carol Frechette.  I say that I do with pride that my regular feature has some followers.  And then Carol asks a follow up question: “why don’t you do it here?” 

It has occurred to me to host these sessions at local businesses, where it’s warm and my subjects are more trapped.  That could be a double-edge sword too; as I lose valuable time chit-chatting when I should be working. Typically, I stand outside and near the entry of a busy store catching people as they rush in or out.  This keeps us both brief. 

I share my draft question with Carol and her colleague, Janet Nadeau.  Carol, a proud native of Gorham and resident of Berlin, goes first and qualifies her response like a seasoned politician “Where?” she asks and emphasizes — “if not here?” Then slowly the answer unfolds, “Easy Street,” she says, “South west of Bar Harbor.”  Carol said she actually came across this street while on a visit and at that time she said to herself, that’s where I’d like to live.  It’s doesn’t hurt that it has views of the Atlantic Ocean. “It’s a beautiful place,” she adds.  Later, I learn the nearest Easy Street is in Littleton, up behind the elementary school.

Janet, who lives in Gorham, is more stumped by my question and seems to appreciate the time to think about it. She offers a more general response especially considering the early morning temperatures.  “The Carolinas,” she says, “I hear that’s decent. Not balmy like Florida, not freezing” like here.   She admits that she has “never been there, but that’s what I gander.” 

At this mid-morning hour, the bank is quite. Another employee and customer politely decline my question, so I move on with the rest of my day. Late at Jericho Mountain Sports near the Berlin-Milan line, I talk with Jericho Motorsports owner Randy Cicchetto about the weather and its impact on his business.  I learn he’s from Deerfield, NH — a place that I know well.  I ask how he ended up here. 

 Randy points to the ATV park across the way, but it’s more than that — he loves the land, solitude and the people. Like many folks, Randy and his wife pay a high price to live here.  Particularly, his wife as she travels frequently to her job in Concord.   If he didn’t live here, where would he want to be?  “Alaska,” he answers. But he’s happy here even though this year has been a tough on his business.  “It’s a friendly, tight-knit community,” he adds.

“We’ll always take more but at this point,” says Cannon Mountain’s Greg Keeler, “all the major routes are covered, we’re still making snow, so it’s been great.”  

But it’s taken a while to get there.  Business at New Hampshire ski areas is off an average 18-to-35 percent from last year, although last year was a record setter.  The die-hards are as faithful as ever, but the day-trippers aren’t in the mood because they don’t see snow in their own yards.

“We’ve had three months of snowmaking,” says Ski NH President Alice Pearce, “and we’ve got great conditions.  And with our ski areas covering 96 to 100 percent of their trails with snow making we’ve got the snow.”  

That snow making is a huge expense that pinches a little more when skier visits are down.  The next two weeks are school vacations in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, a critical chance for the resorts to make up some of that lost business.

“The February vacation weeks are an important part of our business even in a year when we’ve had strong visits all year,” says Pearce.  

Share ]]> http://www.whitemtnews.com/?feed=rss2&p=8305 0 http://www.whitemtnews.com/?p=8305 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/whitemtnews/~3/8FjajDZVda8/ http://www.whitemtnews.com/?p=8298#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:04:37 +0000 White Mt. News http://www.whitemtnews.com/?p=8298 By Rick Ganley, NHPR

Opposition to the Northern Pass Project has inspired lawn signs, bumper stickers and even legislation. Avid hiker Larisa Dannis has taken her protest of the proposed 180 mile transmission line through New Hampshire’s North Country to the top. Read more…

LITTLETON – Republican Gubernatorial candidate Ovide Lamontagne stressed his North Country roots during a recent visit to Littleton.  On Saturday afternoon, the Manchester attorney and long-time conservative activist attended a reception hosted by the Northern Grafton Country Republican Committee. 

Despite the region’s steady decrease in political power, Lamontagne said, the North Country is what people identify with the state. “The heart of New Hampshire is north of the notches,” he said, “My heart is here.” 

Lamontagne’s grandfather started coming to the Lake Umbagog in the 1920s and built a camp there in 1954.  “We’ve coming up here since we were kids,” he said.  He has regularly explained his spiritual roots to the region and lists the state’s northern-most lake as his favorite place in a questionnaire for WMUR-TV.  Lamontagne also has a cabin in Chatham – north east of Conway – at the base of Evans Notch.  “It’s a great little spot,” he said, “I love to snowmobile there.” 

Lamontagne’s brother, Dr. Denis Lamontagne, is a local podiatrist, but as a Vermont resident, he’s not able to cast a vote for his brother. 

Lamontagne said he would bring his knowledge of the region to the governor’s office.  He called for a more targeted approach to promote the area and recruit business, regulations that respect the different culture and lifestyle of rural areas and balance conservation with recreation. He said the area would be a good location for a national call center. 

Tyler Drummond, of Littleton, visits with Ovide Lamontagne.

An unsuccessful 2010 U.S. Senate candidate, Lamontagne touched on various hot-button issues.  He’s a proponent of lower taxes and smaller government, supports so-called “Right to work” legislation, opposes gun control and leans against expanded gambling.  On the Northern Pass, Lamontagne said, he doesn’t think eminent domain should be used, but he doesn’t have a problem with the hydro power coming from Canada.  He wants to see what the new, improved route will be.  If the project were to be approved,  Lamontagne wants a “New Hampshire first”  right-of-first-refusal deal that would offer power cheaper to New Hampshire, than the rest of region.  The current plan requires all power to be put into the national grid. 

Lamontagne, who has competed in several primary elections and was the GOP nominee for governor in 1998 (losing to Jeanne Shaheen), said he would take a non-partisan approach to being governor.  He

praised Governor John Lynch for “reaching across the aisle” and he promised to do the same.