This past July, a woman who regularly went paddle boarding alone was killed on a pond in Union. Sunshine Stewart was a biologist, boat captain, and carpenter who loved the outdoors. Police have charged a teenager with her murder but few details have been released about the case. Incidents like this are rare in Maine. And while they can have a chilling effect, some are responding to the tragedy by doubling down on doing what they love.
It’s a weekday night in Portland’s Baxter Woods, and a pack of women young and old are clustering around Sarah Holman as she demonstrates the correct way to use a map and compass.
"So you never want to move that, because that’s your bearing," Holman said. "You want to move yourself to get the red arrow to go in the shed.
This is a Women’s Intro to Mountain Hiking workshop, hosted by the Outdoor Movement Project.
Not long ago, Holman, a 46-year-old mom and freelance writer, was like the novices in this class; active and somewhat outdoorsy, but with no real hiking experience or wilderness survival skills.
That all changed in the summer of 2020. As the pandemic dragged on, Holman felt stuck at home. "And I woke up one morning and said to my family, ‘I'm going hiking today,’" Holman said. "And they were like, ‘What? You don't hike.’ I said, ‘Well, now I do.’"
And off she headed to the White Mountains.
Just one year later, Holman had summited all 67 of New England’s 4000 foot plus peaks, including Maine’s almost mile-high Mount Katahdin. She also backpacked a rugged and remote section of the Appalachian Trail known as the 100 Mile Wilderness, solo. When she finished, she remembers thinking: This is what I want to do.
"How can I do this? How can I share this with other women and other creative people? Because it was such an empowering experience that I want everyone to be able to feel that way," Holman said.
Now, Holman is doing it: working as a professional Registered Maine Guide and offering guided day hikes and backpacking trips through her company, and blog, called She Hikes Mountains.
Along the way, she’s learned how to keep herself, and now her clients, safe — from the elements, from getting lost and from hungry bears.
Unfortunately, Holman said, the one fear a lot of women she works with have is of people - potentially dangerous ones; "of random violence for no reason when you're alone and really vulnerable out in the woods."
Holman says of course, that’s on her mind too.
"I think it would be really sad to stop doing something I loved out of fear, because there are just a lot of things we can't control," Holman said. "Like the other fears I've tackled with knowledge, like bears, and getting lost, I do everything I can to be prepared. But I also have to continue doing what brings me joy."
When that fear bubbles up, she'll ask herself, "Okay, well am I more likely to die in a violent act in the woods or driving to the supermarket in my car? And we all know the answer to that question."
Facts help, says Holman. So does her lived experience hiking all over New England for the last five years, "which is that every person I've ever encountered in the woods has been wonderful," Holman said. "I try to keep it in perspective."
So does sea kayaking guide and expeditioner extraordinaire Janet Robinson.
"I'm 68 years old, and I've been paddling and doing outdoors things since I was about 14," Robinson said. "And I love it, loved every minute of it."
While Sarah Holman was out hiking the region’s 4,000-foot-tall mountains, Robinson paddled the entire Maine coast, a two-week journey, with a septuagenarian friend.
"And there's something about being at sea for so long," Robinson said. "Your world shrinks to the elements, to the tide and the wind and water and all that stuff, very simple. Very nice."
Robinson, a mostly retired environmental consultant, has also cycled (and train-hopped) across the country solo, trekked the 100-mile wilderness, and paddled the Allagash River and Everglades.
Over the decades of expeditions, she’s come very close to some acts of violence against women and encountered dicey situations of her own. And she said you can't assume that just because you're in nature, that everybody else you might encounter is, as she puts it, “a swell guy.”
"It's awful to have to think about that in the out of doors," Robinson said. "But the reality is that there are bad people everywhere."
When she heard about Stewart’s homicide this summer, she says she felt a sense of outrage, and of violation.
"You know, this one was close. It was particularly disturbing," Robinson said. "But it hasn't changed anything I'm doing."
Robinson said she's learned to accept the risks posed by both nature and people, for the reward of doing what she loves most.
Still, what happened to Stewart is a warning; a reminder to be careful, and to be wise.
"And by being wise, I mean being aware, being circumspect, being aware of your surroundings and thinking through any step you take," Robinson said.
And, she said, when a tragedy like this occurs, it’s up to all of us to reclaim the woods. "And to reclaim the outdoor world as ours," Robinson said. "Every individual needs to do this and not let violence that occurs — in any way and form, by whomever — remove us from it and define the wilderness."
Easier said than done, Robinson admits.
But it's happening; this fall, the women in the Intro to Mountain Hiking class will follow in Sarah Holman's footsteps by hiking in the Whites, together.
Janet Robinson also has no plans to stop, let alone slow down. At her age, she said, "the clock is thundering. I can do everything I've always done, but that clock is ticking. You can't assume. You don't say, 'Oh, in the future....'. You say, 'Alright, when?'"
Currently, she's leading sea kayaking trips on her home waters of Casco Bay and dreaming and scheming about her next big wilderness adventure: canoeing in the Yukon.
