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Downeast
January 2002
Dream Jobs
SPORTING CAMP OWNERS
Watching the North Woods work its magic.
Six years ago, Igor and Karen Sikorsky were living in southern Maine, working at well-paying jobs in the business world. He was a salesman for a wood supply company, she designed clothing. But something was nagging at them. Igor had spent his youth visiting Cobb's Pierce Pond Camps, a sporting camp in the Rangeley region, and he'd always wanted to find a way to get back to the woods full time. "That was implanted in me at ten years old as a lifelong dream," he says. "But I said, 'I'll never be able to do this.'"
Never, as they say, say never. "We don't have kids," continues Igor, "so we didn't have to save for their education. We thought, let's take a risk. You only get to live once. You can squirrel away money for retirement - but what about life until then?" So the pair set about looking for a sporting camp like the one Igor enjoyed so much growing up. Helped by the Cobbs of Pierce Pond Camps, they eventually found Bradford Camps, in the wildlands between Baxter State Park and Aroostook County.
"This was only the second place we looked at and it was like, 'This is it!' "recalls Igor. Four years later they finally settled with the owners of the eight rustic cabins hard by the shore of remote Munsungan Lake, and they moved on up. Maintaining camps, cooking for guests, and simply living two hours from the nearest supermarket were quite a departure from their home and virtually suburban lifestyle in Kittery. "It was a long leap for us," says Igor, who grew up in Connecticut. "Especially for Karen (who hails from the suburbs of Ohio). But for me, well, I'm Jeremiah Johnson."
Once they got established, though, everything fell into place. "It was pretty amazing," says Igor. "Our first day here was only ten days after we left our other jobs. Three days after that we had a full camp." The couple have been learning on the job ever since.
"This is the best job in the world, but for different reasons than we first thought," says Igor. "We don't have time to fish every day, and the pleasures are different than we anticipated. Now, I feel gratified that people leave here very happy and relaxed - and they understand and love something we love."
"I think we love it more and more each year," agrees Karen. "The fact that both of us had careers before we did this helps us understand how profoundly we enjoy it."