What do you get when you take six young friends who’ve never been to Maine and set them loose for adventures and dining on the coast and the mountains? It’s called Chasing the Sun, an interactive immersion in Maine’s culture and lifestyle that was produced by BVK for the Maine Office of Tourism in collaboration with L.L. Bean. It ran in the The Maine Thing Quarterly.
This group of young adventurers had a chance to experience the essence of the great outdoors in Maine. It was a journey of discovery, brought to life through innovative interactive media. Using a creative convergence of text, still images and video, Chasing the Sun tells their adventurous tales. This new form of digital storytelling is what really sets The Maine Thing Quarterly apart.
Better yet, we had a chance to glimpse behind the scenes of this shoot that went from the coast to the mountains.
The group of young adventurers assembled at the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport, the home town of L.L. Bean. The adventurers were real people, not actors, from Virginia and Maryland, who were first-time visitors to Maine. They were chosen because of their appreciation for the outdoors and their openness to spontaneity. To keep it fresh, they were not informed of any of the activities they would be doing.
They included Katie and Zach Kroko, a married couple who work in corporate America and are avid travelers and outdoor enthusiasts; Matt and Dave Der, who are Katie’s brothers, and run a technology consultancy company and have traveled the world; and finally Cindy and Dan Ennis, a newly married couple who love being spontaneous and have an “up for anything” attitude in their travels and their lives.
Katie says that they knew that their “comfort levels would be tested. They asked us if we were afraid of the dark or afraid of heights before we started.”
Fortunately, the adventure started off in great comfort, with a night at the Inn. There were bikes for them to ride and explore the area, to get their first taste of a New England town and see a bit of the Maine countryside. There was also dinner at Royal River Grill House in Yarmouth.
A vintage Land Rover was placed at their disposal, an off-road classic that would take them on their adventures. After each explorer was outfitted by Bean with clothing, tents, camping gear, cookware and footwear, they loaded up their gear and got ready to crisscross the state in search of adventure.
Their adventures included trying their hand at fly fishing, with one group fishing the Royal River in Yarmouth along the coast and the other heading inland, fishing from a drift boat along the Androscoggin River.
Most of them were wetting a line for the first time. Alas, the fish took the day off, but our adventurers clearly looked good, attired in their L.L. Bean gear.
Their outdoor adventures continued when they learned to camp along the Atlantic, pitching their tents at Recompence Shore Campground in Freeport.
It was an adventure in the great outdoors, but all of it under the expert supervision of the production team. There were up to 15 stylists, camera people and producers orchestrating this shoot.
Katie recalls that The Maine Quarterly shoot, which went from Saturday to Thursday, made for long days.
“Most days were 10 hour workdays, but one day ran 12 to 13 hours,” she says.
The group took to the waters of Casco Bay for paddle boarding, at the Flying Point Paddle Center in Freeport.
This was another first for all of them, and it got more exhilarating as they headed toward Lower Goose Island.
The next day they packed up their gear and headed north to the Rangeley Lakes area to test their mettle cliff jumping in Coos Canyon, a rugged gorge.
“This was a challenge for us,” Katie recalls. “It was a higher jump than we thought it was and to be honest, the water was freezing cold.”
The Swift River has eroded and cut through layers of metamorphic rock and granite to form Coos Canyon. Now it’s refreshing place for a cool dip on a hot Maine summer afternoon. Assuming you don’t mind jumping 25 feet from a cliff top, that is.
The crew was there to record every leap and every scream. As Zach Kroko, Katie’s husband, put it, “You just have to roll with it.”
Finally, there was the hike up Tumbledown Mountain, in Western Maine, which offers panoramic views and an alpine lake.
Of course, there was always a spare minute for a selfie or two.
“We had the best fun off camera,” Katie confesses, even though the day’s shoot was so lengthy that some of the crew ended up hiking down in the dark with headlamps.
It was a wrap. The six of them were tired but as they left the Maine woods, they reflected on their newfound outdoors skills and their fresh confidence in the woods and on the water.
“We got to Portland on that Thursday night and we basically ‘Yelped’ places in the city,” Katie says. “We had lobsters and oysters and cocktails and beer, and we spent the last night at the Hyatt Place Portland.”
It was a great opportunity to unwind, change clothes and “take our first showers in four days.”
To view all of their interactive adventures, go to “Chasing the Sun.” For the latest Maine Thing Quarterly on “The Art of Maine,” click here.
