Transcription of Thomas Belluscio, registered Maine guide for the show Love Maine Radio #319: Tony Owens, MD, and Thomas Belluscio
Lisa Belisle: Thomas Belluscio is a registered Maine guide and certified wilderness first responder. He is also the founder of Northeast Wilderness Company, an outdoors company that offers workshops, studies, and guided trips. Thanks for coming in today.
Thomas Belluscio: Thanks for having me.
Lisa Belisle: So does it feel weird coming in out of the outdoors where it’s beautiful out there and fall-like?
Thomas Belluscio: Absolutely, yeah.
Lisa Belisle: And instead hanging out with all us desk-jockey types?
Thomas Belluscio: I do feel like a country mouse visiting the city, for sure.
Lisa Belisle: The country mouse. But aren’t you from New Jersey?
Thomas Belluscio: Originally, yeah, though I grew up in the pine barrens of New Jersey, so…
Lisa Belisle: Tell me about that. I don’t know what pine barrens of New Jersey are.
Thomas Belluscio: The pine barrens of New Jersey are its own little wilderness. It seems absurd to think of anything like that existing in New Jersey. Most people think of The Sopranos, or the infamous Jersey Shore. But it’s a beautiful, beautiful state. There’s a lot of great wild places there.
Lisa Belisle: Now did that influence your decision to become a Maine guide and do the type of work that you do?
Thomas Belluscio: For sure, yeah. So my childhood was spent, I grew up on dirt roads, and literally could just walk out of my house and run through the woods. Fishing and camping and whatnot, so probably for as long as I can remember, I’d want to say at the age of five I started camping on my own, out in the backyard kind of a thing. And then I just, I don’t know, it just grew and grew. Sort of became a passion.
Lisa Belisle: Did your parents camp?
Thomas Belluscio: Yeah, my father took us camping. My father took me camping for the first time when I was two, which I don’t remember much of that other than wetting my sleeping bag I think. But yeah, that was, the vacation was always camping. And actually when I was really young we started taking trips up to Acadia. And that was when I really fell in love with New England and the state of Maine in particular. Always just kind of had a hold there.
Lisa Belisle: But you’re describing growing up in a really beautiful place. So moving from someplace that was already pretty beautiful to Maine, that must have been an interesting decision.
Thomas Belluscio: It’s true. I think… I don’t want to say I had enough of it, but I spent a good the first half of my life anyway exploring that particular ecology, and it’s not to say that pine barrens are exclusive to New Jersey. There are pine barrens in Maine and New Hampshire. But yeah, I guess I was just ready to explore other places. I’d taken a couple of cross country road trips, and saw a lot of beautiful states, and I don’t know, always sort of gravitated back to New England. I love the spruce forests, the coastline here is incredible, and probably worth mentioning is, it’s the most forested state in the union. It’s about 90 percent forested, the state of Maine. So for someone that likes to explore wild spaces, this offers a wide playground for me.
Lisa Belisle: And you seem to like trees.
Thomas Belluscio: I love trees. Trees are awesome. I could nerd out about trees all day really. Knowing the trees enhances my experience being in the woods, and as somebody that practices the popular buzzword, bushcraft, or woodcraft, knowing different types of trees and what you can use them for is extremely beneficial as an outdoorsman, knowing what you can use to reliably and consistently get a fire going despite the weather conditions, or the types of woods that make good canoe paddles. Even which soft woods offer ideal resin for making adhesives for repairing canoes. So it benefits you, benefits me personally to have that awareness of the ecology that I’m in or moving through.
Lisa Belisle: I can relate to this because I’ve thought a lot about homogenization. So you go to the grocery store and you have an orange, a watermelon, a kale, and so growing up we had this idea that everything is one thing. But the deeper you look into something you realize there’s actually multiples of whatever that something was, right? So it’s not like there’s a tree, it’s there is one particular type of tree of many, many different types of trees that are out there in the world. Which is very different than the way we sometimes think about things.
Thomas Belluscio: Sure, yeah, I think a lot of people even that enjoy recreating outdoors, hiking in particular, I’ve taken out groups that spent a lot of time, most of the people that I work with spend a considerable amount of time outdoors, and you take them out and you start showing them the diversity of what’s around them, and… I don’t know, it unlocks something. You’re no longer just hiking that trail, you’re engaging with the environment that you’re in. And so it becomes like, I don’t know; on one level, it’s just fun. It becomes kind of this Where’s Waldo game, where things that you would have walked right past all of a sudden have new meaning and significance. And that’s a really enjoyable aspect.
Lisa Belisle: That’s so true, because I know that I enjoy plants and the healing properties of plants.
Thomas Belluscio: Right on.
Lisa Belisle: So the more I’ve studied it, the more I find myself out even just taking a run on a trail, and I’ll say oh, look, there’s some chicory, there’s, you know… And I think it really does, it’s almost like you walk in the world in a different way, because everything starts to become more alive. It’s like when you buy a red car you see all the other red cars that are out there.
Thomas Belluscio: Exactly that, yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I don’t know, it’s hard to articulate without sounding a bit nerdy, honestly.
Lisa Belisle: Well I think we should put this to rest here, because honestly you’re just talking to me, and I love this stuff, so don’t feel nerdy, and anybody who’s listening, if you think this is nerdy, you don’t have to listen, it’s totally fine, but we’re having a conversation, so you can be as nerdy as you want.
Thomas Belluscio: You know, moving away from just the sport if you will of being able to identify the different plants around you, moving towards self-reliance, you mentioned medicines, like the resin of balsam is medicinal. It’s actually incredible for burns. I’ve used it and I’ve seen people use it. Someone that was on a trip with me a few years ago scalded their hand while cooking over a fire, and just immediately covered it in fir sap. Well I couldn’t break down the science behind it here now, it just kind of created a second skin, and there’s antiseptic properties in the pitch that … I won’t say it healed overnight, but there was no blistering, it got rid of the pain. So having these things at your disposal at any given time, having that knowledge and awareness of what you can use, even probably one of the more notable medicinal fungi, the chaga mushroom, knowing where to find that, and that it is a prolific mushroom and you don’t have to be shy about harvesting it really, and what it’s good for. It’s praised the world over.
Yeah, the more… the tag line, the saying often goes with woodcraft or bushcraft is, the more you know the less that you have to carry. And I think just in general, it takes people from a place of moving through a foreign landscape that they’re not terribly comfortable in, and it unlocks that. It gives us this confidence. Not to say that anything bad would happen, barring the sort of overly dramatized survival scenario that’s thrown around, it’s just having a greater understanding of where you are gives you a greater level of confidence to move through the landscape. And I think that’s the most important thing, the most tangible if you will take away from it all.
Lisa Belisle: Talk to me about being a registered Maine guide. That’s actually a pretty significant process, and it’s multi leveled from what I understand.
Thomas Belluscio: Yeah, in a way. So with regards to becoming a guide, first of all it’s sort of renowned, the Maine guide exam is the most difficult to pass in the US. So people come from all over to become registered Maine guides. I have a great friend who is a guide. We tested at the same time; he’s from Texas. I think the people, the guys that were interviewing him were scratching their heads a little bit, why is a guy from Texas coming up here to be a Maine guide? But it is, it’s an achievement, so it’s a point of pride there with the history and tradition. And they don’t… their job is to fail you, really. Because they want to make sure that if you’re going to be taking people out into a potentially dangerous situation that you’ve got it covered. They don’t want the liability. So the process is… there’s a written exam that covers a lot of laws, and then you have to stand in front of a board, usually just two seasoned guides that have been guiding for 30 or 40 years. There’s absolutely no pulling a fast one on these dudes.
And they drill you with questions, and they just deadpan stare at you, give you no feedback. Different things with regards to identifying wildlife and plants. And from there you have to demonstrate proficiency with a map and compass. Which seems to get a lot of people. And then the last phase is arguably the most difficult. There’s a lost person scenario, a catastrophic event, where they present you with the hypothetical situation of being in a back country setting and something goes wrong, and you basically have to ask all the right questions and walk them through everything you would do in order to pass.
So it’s intense, for sure. I don’t think it’s the hardest thing in the world, but it’s one of those, you either know the material or you don’t, and they don’t really cut you any slack for not knowing. I got a little, I got scolded. I rushed part of my map and compass, and… they give you like 20 minutes. I think it took me five to get all my bearings, and I just sort of blurted them out, and I knew in my head that the numbers didn’t add up. So I stopped, I just said, wait, can I double check my math? And they were like yeah, you still have 15 minutes. So… I don’t know where I was going with that.
And so it’s like an achievement, yeah, it’s a point of pride. It’s something I’m certainly proud of. The actual guiding of people can be a bit trying at times too. I think one of the things people don’t often factor in is that you kind of also have to a guidance counselor, because you’re dealing with people that are in love with the romance of wilderness travel but maybe don’t fully grasp the weight of the situations that they end up in. Just with regards to being out of their element. So you have to be able to just be an ear for people, talk people down from breakdowns, which I’ve done a number of times. So there’s that soft skills aspect too, the interpersonal stuff that you deal with routinely. Which I honestly find rewarding. It’s draining, but it’s a rewarding aspect of the gig, for sure.
Lisa Belisle: And do they test you on that? Do they actually say, well, how would you deal with someone who’s in the middle of the wilderness and is having a breakdown?
Thomas Belluscio: For sure, yeah, within the catastrophic event or lost person scenario usually there’s an element of that. For mine the hypothetical was that I had a group of four on a river trip, and we were two days in and another canoe paddled into our camp in the morning screaming something about his wife, his wife, and then they basically just gave me the floor and said go. Handle this. And so you do, you kind of have to just feel it out and ask the right questions, and they want to see… I almost feel like it’s not as much what your answer is but how you answer that they’re looking at, also. They want to hear that you’re direct, they want to hear that you’re sort of in charge of the situation and not panicking. Which admittedly is easier to do in the woods than with a microphone in your face.
Lisa Belisle: So you actually are more comfortable in the dark and the quiet and all by yourself than, yes.
Thomas Belluscio: Yeah, I do appreciate the fact that there’s a tree in the corner. That helps.
Lisa Belisle: I like having this tree right behind me. It’s very centering. So I’m sure it’s good for you as well.
Thomas Belluscio: It is, it is.
Lisa Belisle: It’s an interesting thing that you are doing these days, especially because you are helping people to understand this environment that we’re being told we must save. We need to save our planet, as if the planet didn’t exist before us. But this has become really important to the type of work that you do.
Thomas Belluscio: It’s imperative to the type of work that I do. Yeah, I think … even just from an economic standpoint, the state of Maine relies on these wild spaces, and so to have no regard for them is just counterintuitive. It doesn’t add up to me at all. And it’s not about, I don’t think, maybe it sounds cliché, but it’s not about saving the planned, like you said. It’ll be here after we’re gone, it was here before we were here. But for us to have it and enjoy it, once it’s gone it’s gone. We won’t get these places back in our lifetime. So preserving that for future generations, it just makes sense. To me anyway. I don’t know…
Lisa Belisle: I just finished reading a book called Braiding Sweet Grass by a woman named Robin Kimmerer, and she is a botanist and she does a lot with plants, so she brings up the idea that sweet grass, which is used for basket making by Native Americans, that the sweet grass actually does better when people are harvesting it for use by humans. And I think there are actually some cases where if we can interact with the environment in a way that’s beneficial really, that it doesn’t always have to be about us overharvesting things or us overusing things and having it be a negative, but there is sometimes a relationship that’s more symbiotic.
Thomas Belluscio: Sure, yeah. I think even with regards to logging, which can be a point of contention for some, if it’s done responsibly, if it’s done sustainably, it’s great for the environment. It’s great for the wildlife in particular. Moose populations tend to bounce back in areas that have been cut, because you’re basically opening up this dense, densely forested landscape and all of this young new growth sprouts up, really succulent rich plants that animals like moose all the way down to snowshoe hare and even grouse benefit from. So yeah, interacting with the landscape in a responsible and sustainable way is beneficial for not only us but also the land, for sure, I totally agree.
Lisa Belisle: You have an interest in mushrooms.
Thomas Belluscio: I do.
Lisa Belisle: You talked about chaga, which I find interesting myself. I use chaga every morning. We have the north spore mushroom company here in Portland.
Thomas Belluscio: Yeah, right on.
Lisa Belisle: They’re actually kind of growing mushrooms, but we have really wonderful fungus in the woods. And to know about that and to be utilizing it, I find very interesting.
Thomas Belluscio: Yeah, god there’s… mycology is one of those, it’s sort of a rabbit hole. When you start getting into it it’s so intriguing. It kind of ratchets things up from the tree identification that we were talking about, because every little clue that you gather about a particular mushroom points you in the direction of being able to identify it, right down to the smell oftentimes will be a distinguishing characteristic. I actually worked for a mushroom farm, the New Hampshire mushroom company for a time. I still pal around with that crew. There are just some species though that can’t be cultivated. And so a lot of these places, I’m sure north spore does as well, will buy wilds from people, which sort of is another fun aspect of woods wandering, if you will. You can stumble upon a handsome reward growing on the side of a tree. Species like morels, they’ve tried to cultivate those and I think one person came close to doing it, but the end result, the actual fruiting body just didn’t have any of the flavor. They’re so temperamental.
Yeah, really fascinating. From the medicinal properties, just the ones that are delicious, knowing and understanding the deadly ones is certainly beneficial and also fascinating. I was out with a class a couple of weeks ago and we found a particular species of amanita. A common name for it is the destroying angel, which is such an appropriate name, because it’s absolutely beautiful, it’s this pristine, white, just perfectly shaped mushroom. It catches the light, and it kind of glows and calls you in, and if you eat one of those, over the course of about a week, five days, basically your body shuts down, and you feel it the whole time. It’s a fascinating field. It’s endless. I really enjoy it, but I’m confident in what I know, and I’ve been doing it for years, but I’m just scratching the surface, and even the field of mycology in general is really just starting to scratch the surface.
Lisa Belisle: But when it comes to knowing the outdoors, isn’t that always the case? Whether you’re somebody who’s just say a gardener with your tomato plant in your pot on your back porch, or if you’re out in the woods wandering around looking at various species of mushrooms, there’s just not going to ever be a way to know everything.
Thomas Belluscio: No, it’s endless. It is. I think that’s sort of the… another aspect of having my guide license and wearing the guide patch is, it’s a reminder to me, it’s humbling. Some people see it and assume that you’re an expert in all things regarding the outdoors, and there’s no way to ever say that. There’s no way to ever be that. You’re always just a student of it. And that’s the fun of it, really. How boring would it be if you could have it all figured out? There’d be no wonder left to it. So yeah, that’s part of the magic, for sure, that there’s always another rock to turn over, there’s always another thing to look at and ponder about, and sort of pick apart and grow to understand. So it’s endlessly exciting.
Lisa Belisle: It’s not that dissimilar to medicine, really.
Thomas Belluscio: No.
Lisa Belisle: We get qualified as doctors, we get an MD behind our name, we do our residency program, and then patients will come see us and they expect us to know everything, and we’re like, well, see I know some things about a lot of things, but I don’t know everything, and so we’re going to have to work through this a little bit. Because it’s still, you’re talking about not only biology as you mentioned, but also the soft stuff. You’re talking about people’s personalities, you’re talking about how they react in different environments. So I find it just as humbling as what you’re describing you find yourself feeling.
Thomas Belluscio: It is. And it will always be. I think there certainly within the guide field, there’s a propensity for this bravado, this… I’ve been around people that tend to posture and try to present themselves as, I’ve done this and this and the other thing, and until you’ve done… and I just don’t have any time for that. It makes me shake my head when anybody has information or an understanding of something and withholds it. And that’s not to say I think that you should give it away for free, because we all have to eat and we have bills to pay, but yeah, that sort of hubris that some people fall into can be a real turnoff, I think, for a lot of people that want to break in, and participate. Especially with regards to wilderness skills. It seems to be a dynamic of people that want to put themselves up on a pedestal. It doesn’t seem enjoyable to me.
If somebody’s passionate about learning something that you know about, then that’s the most exciting interaction you can have with regards to whatever it is you’re studying. Because until you teach something, you can understand it in your head, but until you’ve explained it to someone else, you don’t fully understand it yourself, I feel like.
Lisa Belisle: Well this conversation has been a lot of fun for me, and I know we could keep talking. We could definitely nerd out when it comes to things like healing plants and tree sap and mushrooms and such. I guess people who would like to get more of your wisdom will need to look you up and maybe have you guide them through the wilderness.
Thomas Belluscio: That’d be awesome.
Lisa Belisle: I’ve been speaking with Thomas, Tom, Belluscio, who is a registered Maine guide and certified wilderness first responder. He’s also the founder of Northeast Wilderness Company, an outdoor company that offers workshops, studies and guided trips. Thank you for coming into the studio and being the country mouse in the city.
Thomas Belluscio: Thank you so much.