Car thefts are unusual enough to make the front page. A burglary in an occupied dwelling is virtually unheard of. The North Country is more like a chunk of Labrador, or maybe Alaska, than the rest of New England. The region is more than 90 percent forested. Ducks and geese make their seasonal pilgrimages along the Connecticut River flyway.
Historians know that wolves and cougars once roamed here.
Modern lovers of the woods, some of them at least, will tell you that the cougars are back and have been for some time, and the occasional wolf may be visiting too. Two great river systems drain the territory, the Connecticut flowing from the western side down into Long Island Sound, and the Androscoggin from the east into the Gulf of Maine. These rivers, now great recreational assets, once carried billions of logs from the most remote corners of the deep woods to the mills in Berlin and Mount Tom. Visitors travelling north along Route 16 or Route 3, will see pine give way to the tall pointed tips of spruce and fir, the oak yield to beech, birch and maple. Sandy soils are left behind as the land turns to glacial gravel and fine loam.