As skiers and snowboarders in Maine, we have it pretty darn good. We have resorts lauded by the national press, with Sugarloaf, Sunday River and Saddleback noted as three of the Northeast’s best. Skiing is easy to get to, with community slopes less than an hour from each of Maine’s urban centers. This fall, as it does every year, the Ski Maine Association sent a press release detailing the dozens of improvements to snowmaking, terrain and facilities.

The month of January is named after the Roman god Janus, who faces both forward and backward at the same time. Janus is also known as the god of gates, doors, bridges, beginnings and endings, transitions, movement and even time itself. That is especially fitting now that we have survived the often forecasted end of the world and are ready to create new beginnings and transitions and an age of greater cooperation on Earth.

This coming week, a bog with its surrounding ring of black spruce, tamarack and occasional white cedar strikes me as the perfect destination for a hike, a surprising conclusion when considering so many critters in this habitat have migrated away or lie concealed in trees, shrubs and forest debris or beneath the ground and water surface.

Before winter arrives with a white vengeance, outdoor folks of all skill levels and ages enjoy December hiking and tracking. With a light cover of fresh snow for a canvas, veteran and amateur trackers alike can easily spot and read critter signs.

In late September 1980, Maine’s annual moose hunt resumed for the first time in 54 years, but not without controversy. The six-day hunt was preceded by several legislative hearings in Augusta in 1979. In packed hearing rooms, the Legislature entertained passionate testimonials from anti-hunters, hunters, business owners, state senators and representatives. Arguments for and against the moose hunt was great live theater, unscripted and unrehearsed.

Maine’s muzzle-loading season in the bottom two-thirds of the state runs through this coming week and closes a half-hour after sunset on Saturday, Dec. 8. For details, check mefishwildlife.com or pages 21 and 22 in the “Maine Hunting and Trapping” booklet.

December marks the beginning of the winter solstice for us in the northern hemisphere. This year that will happen at 6:12 a.m. Dec. 21. That also marks the end of the Mayan calendar, which will just start another cycle. It will flip over to a new baktun that day as it does every 144,000 days, or about 400 years. No astronomical catastrophe will occur like an asteroid or comet hitting the Earth.

Perhaps this winter will be the winter of the grosbeaks. In the last column, I wrote about the irruption of evening grosbeaks into central and southern Maine. Sightings continue throughout the state. Many people are seeing evening grosbeaks at their feeders for the first time in a decade or more.

It’s official. A year after some of Maine’s avid trout fishermen rolled out the state’s only fly fishing show, they’re committed to make it an annual event.

It’s official. A year after some of Maine’s avid trout fishermen rolled out the state’s only fly fishing show, they’re committed to make it an annual event.