BANGOR DAILY NEWS • October 31, 2025
The spirit of Halloween is alive in the Maine wilderness. So, in that spirit, I’m sharing some of the spookiest things I’ve stumbled upon in the woods lately. It’s been a particularly strange autumn. First, we have a dead woodpecker with its head stuck in a tree. My dog, Juno, discovered the next spooky thing: an old deer skull atop a 2,600-foot mountain in western Maine. My final spooky sighting was made worse by the stench. I was walking along a trail near my house when I came across the carcass of a huge snapping turtle. The Maine wilderness is one of the safest places you can be — despite the fat but harmless spiders, congregating crows, clacking branches and rattling leaves. Enjoy its spookiness like you would a classic horror movie or local ghost story.