In the late ’80s, I talked my boyfriend into driving from Freeport to Rockwood so we could snowmobile out to Mount Kineo for a project I wanted to do for Dr. Nate Hamilton’s Peoples of the North class at USM. I had learned about Kineo rhyolite, which Native peoples worked to make arrowheads. Why not see if I could whip up a few for extra credit? We lucked out with a beautiful late-winter day and an exposed talus slope where the snow had melted. The deal was, we had to ride to the top of Kineo before we could collect samples. Halfway up, I fell off the back of the sled. My partner kept going, shouting something about not losing momentum. I slid down, mad as hell, and later, my sweetheart got the cold shoulder, figuratively and literally. Back home, I set to work on my bucket of rhyolite. It was a disaster. The only way a moose was going to die from my arrowheads was if it tripped over the rock and fell. Still, Dr. Hamilton gave me an A for effort — and probably an S or two for sympathy and stupidity.

— Wren Pearson, Pownal, Maine