Book excerpt: Loving the North Woods is a chronicle of the difficult challenges that led to tremendous conservation achievements in the great North Woods of Maine. Focusing on the remarkable period of activity from 1990 to 2015, during which historic achievements in American conservation unfolded, it explores how people love a place and how they bring that love into action. The stories of conservation in Maine’s North Woods, hidden in files of land trusts, state government archives, forest landowners’ records, and in the memories of those who participated, can inspire and guide us now and far into the future.