We’ve put out the Wildfire

Kate GoodingOur TV show Wildfire has been dashed. Simply put, it was fun but too much work for my cohost James Cote and me. Our last show aired in mid-December and featured Tom Brennan of Poland Spring Bottling Company.

For 13 years I cohosted Wildfire with my friend Harry Vanderweide, and it was a great experience, with a large audience. The show gave us an opportunity to explore key outdoor issues and present lots of people doing great things for our state.

But when Harry came down with Lyme disease, Wildfire left the air. Three years later, with Harry’s blessing, I invited James Cote to join me as cohost and bring Wildlife back to the air.

The show aired on Time Warner channel 9 and was also available online at www.vstv.me. We had some great guests, including Kate Krukowski Gooding who cooked up a special Black Fly Stew featuring bear, moose, and beaver meat during the show. Delicious!

We covered lots of important issues, including the new big game management plans and legislative bills proposed for the 2017 session.

You can still watch those shows at www.vstv.me.

While James and I enjoyed the shows, it was too much of a time burden to raise the money to pay for production and airing, and to recruit the guests and plan the shows.

I already miss the show but know it was the right decision.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.