PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 17, 2020
July 17, 1939: Twelve-year-old Donn Fendler becomes separated from his family during a storm near the summit of Maine’s Mount Katahdin. Putting his Boy Scout skills to use, he survives nine days without food or proper clothing, then finds his way back to civilization in the town of Stacyville, having shed 16 pounds. July 17, 1977: Lightning strikes a cluster of dead trees – detritus left over from a 1974 storm – near Katahdin Stream Campground in Baxter State Park and ignites a forest fire that eventually consumes 4,400 acres in the park and nearly 2,000 acres outside it. July 17, 2008: FPL Energy Maine Hydro breaches the Fort Halifax Dam in Winslow, allowing sea-run fish species access to upper reaches of the Sebasticook River for the first time in a century.