INTERVIEW: Patrolling the wilderness on ‘North Woods Law’

On Animal Planet’s North Woods Law, Sgt. Tim Spahr and other game wardens head out into the remote areas of the northeast state to help stranded hikers, enforce hunting regulations and keep wildlife free from illegal intrusions.

For Spahr, his profession is the result of a lifelong fascination with all things wild.

“For me, I think it was something that was started at a very young age,” Spahr said recently during a phone interview. “I had a real desire to be in the woods. I couldn’t wait to get home from school, probably suffered on … many homework assignments because basically got off the school bus and was headed for the woods. I was exposed to hunting and fishing at a very early age, and couldn’t wait until I got my hunting license.”

As a child, Spahr would watch The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. This gave him an interest in natural resources and wilderness, and now he couples his passions with his profession.

But life as a game warden isn’t the easiest job … or the safest.

“Game wardens adjust their schedules by seasons,” he said. “Summer brings on a different type of outdoor activity from, say, the fall, or the spring or the winter. And after a few years, a game warden gets used to those routines, and they shift every season. But I think there’s always a twist or some sort of nuance that comes up and is something that you may have not dealt with before. We assist other agencies as well, including the Maine State Police.”

When some of the more serious crimes occur, like homicides, clear jurisdictional lines are drawn between the wardens and the Maine State Police.

“I have the greatest respect for the Maine State Police, and in many cases when we’re in a situation like that [a serious crime] we are requesting them for assistance, or even the other way around,” he said. “For example, I remember assisting them on a homicide that occurred in a wilderness area, and the reason they called us in because they consider us to be very clue-sensitive in wilderness areas.”

In Maine, hunting is a tradition. Current regulations, according to Spahr, allow for moose hunts only after a hunter has successfully won a lottery. If one’s name is not drawn, he or she must try again the next year. Deer and bear are hunted according to permits.

“So you can hunt deer and bear if you’re a licensed hunter, and you passed your hunter safety course,” he said.

Beyond hunting, the game wardens also look for stranded people, some of whom may be hurt in remote locations. “And if you really look at Maine game wardens, they are, and this is my verbiage not the department’s, they truly are the front line authority in the wilderness, in the management of all wilderness activities, from … hikers who are lost, Alzheimer’s patients who step off into the woods to any type of recreational activity — canoeing, boating, ATV, snowmobiling,” he said. “Once you hit the wilderness, you’re in the domain of the Maine game warden.”

These stranded humans are sometimes ill-prepared for the unpredictable nature of, well, nature. Others are seasoned pros who may have become lost or injured.

“I remember responding to a woman who left Portland, Maine, at probably 10 o’clock in the morning and was driving a couple of hours, expected to walk something like 4 or 5 miles back into a remote pond and be home for supper in Portland,” he said. “And she just wasn’t at all prepared. I think people do miscalculate, and sometimes they’re unprepared for food, for overnight accommodations, for fires, for taking care of yourself when you’re in a wilderness area.”

He added: “We have real hikers that break a leg, sprain an ankle, have other types of health issues, and they require us to get in there to get them out. And generally you can look at a map at some of the mountainous areas of western Maine, and it looks like you only got about a mile to go in. But that mile might be straight up, and then straight down and then straight up again. It can take literally the better part of a day to get somebody out because you’re going up and down very steep cliffs.”

On their treks, the game wardens now have camera operators working for Animal Planet. It’s an unusual professional relationship but one that has produced the hit reality series, which airs new episodes 8 p.m. on Sundays.

“We probably joke around too much, forgetting that we’re on camera, and we’re being recorded,” Spahr said. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always loved documentary shows. My argument is that this is not reality TV. This is really kind of a new type of documentary series, and I do maintain that if somebody was looking back on this 50 years from now, some graduate student, they would be able to use these as reasonably accurate representations of what game wardens do. That goes back to my love of shows like The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• North Woods Law airs 8 p.m. Sundays on Animal Planet. Click here for more information.