Sunday River Farms

from Bethel Living Magazine, Issue #58, August / September 2023

A New Chapter for Bethel’s Independently Owned Grocery Store

During the summer many, many cars cascade along Route 2, ferrying vacationers and wanderers across the width of Maine to Acadia National Park and our spectacular rocky coast. And the Irving gas station in the Mayville section of Bethel is positioned to attract a good number of those travelers. They pull in to fuel up, to stretch their legs and to gaze out over the farm fields to the east, where the Androscoggin River also streams to the coast on a journey all its own. Inside they may purchase some snacks for the trip — a bag of potato chips perhaps. And although they will never know it, the potatoes in that bag may have been grown in the very field they glanced over on their way across the parking lot. The world can

by Laurie Ann Knowles

be funny that way; simple on the surface, intricate below.

Similarly, the production of raw materials for that common bag of chips has become more interconnected and technical as the ascendance of processed foods requires ever greater uniformity. GPS systems attend to the planting, tending and harvest of the crop in real time throughout the growth cycle. Satellites and cell systems constantly monitor weather metrics to optimize plant hydration and yield. If everything goes well the FL-2137 cultivar (that’s the potato) will come out of the ground nice and smooth — regularly formed with good shipping qualities and a high solids content; in essence, the perfect chip potato for making the perfect potato chip.

The McCrum family — the owners of that field out behind the Irving and many, many more like it — moved to Northern Maine from New Brunswick, Canada in 1875. County Super Spuds — the McCrum family business entity — farms 10,000 acres up in Mars Hill, with an additional 850 acres under cultivation in Bethel, Rumford, Andover and Gilead. They bought the large yellow Mayville farmhouse and surrounding fields in 2004 as part of a larger purchase from the Arthur Ladd family, who wanted the fields kept as they were — open for farming and agriculture, not filled up with cookie-cutter houses blocking the view to the river. Jon McCrum, a 5th generation potato farmer, tends to the Oxford County arm of the McCrum potato empire, which operates as Sunday River Farms LLC. It’s hard work producing his share of the 120 million pounds of potatoes that County Super Spuds sends to market each year, with most of the Bethel crop going to Lays, Cape Cod and Utz to be turned into potato chips.

Modern farming may have some high tech bells and whistles but the challenges — which include drought, floods, finding laborers to work the harvest and a host of other hurdles — have been a part of farming since fields were first planted. It’s a year-round business with December through March taken up by maintenance chores on all the tractors, hauling trucks and other parts and pieces that go along with planting, tending and harvesting. Spring is time to bring in the seed, starting the growing cycle once again. In Bethel, Jon grows two strains of potatoes, but In Aroostook the McCrums cultivate at least six, which vary from round potatoes for chips to russets for fries. All of the Bethel potatoes are chip potatoes; up north about 1/3 get harvested for french fries with the other 2/3 for chips. As soon as the potatoes are harvested they get washed, then shipped immediately to the plant for processing — sliced, fried and packaged. In Bethel, crops rotate between potatoes and corn, which is sold as cattle feed. All parts of the plants not harvested are shredded and turned back into the soil. In Northern Maine there isn’t enough heat to grow corn, so alfalfa is grown instead to sweeten the rocky Aroostook soil — so different from the smooth and fertile soil composition found in the Sunday River Valley.

Jon and his wife Stevi have 3 boys ages 10, 8 and 6 and they all love being around the farm, with the boys showing interest in the business at a very young age. The family enjoys Bethel’s outdoor lifestyle with visits to Mt Abram’s Bike Park in the summer and skiing in the winter — mountain time is family time. Sunday River Farms is part of the Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce and donates chips for the football boosters, potatoes for fries and supports other sporting groups and events.

FMI about Sunday River Farms and McCrum visit www.penobscotmccrum.com or see them on Facebook at Sunday River Farms

by Laurie Ann Knowles

When the two worldly travelers Jacob Pitcher and Denise Moriba chose to settle down, plant roots and create an existence by design one of their first orders of business was tying the knot. The two met at the Museum of African Culture in Portland, which has on display New England’s largest collection of Sub-Saharan African tribal art. Denise had run a restaurant in Rwanda for a year and a half and Jacob had spent some time living in India and the UK. In keeping with their eclectic interests, the marriage ceremony at the Cataracts, a rugged hiking trail that accesses numerous pools and waterfalls along Frye Brook, was officiated by the late author Angelo Kaltsos — who summered in an offgrid cabin in Andover for about 30 years.

The newlyweds settled into their Andover home in 2015, softening the focus on their careers as they undertook the creation of a nurturing and educational environment for their two young children. By combining the physical rigors of a small farm with the intellectual wonder of a used book store they hope to evoke the past and the present as inspirational forces. The kids love reading, while also expending plenty of energy tending to the sheep, lambs, rabbits and orchard on the family homestead.

With an inventory culled from the couple’s abundant personal book collection and expanded through their curious natures, browsers at the shop will find used books about Maine and Maine history, books written by Maine authors like Anne Morin, homesteading guides, a large fiction section, children’s books, a section on UFOs and esoterica, shamanism, hypnosis, spirituality, magic and the paranormal. Located across from the Andover Covered Bridge, the shop is cozy and quaint, built foremost with the love of books in mind. Among the many strange and interesting used books are occult tomes on witchcraft, many first editions and a hoard of old Saturday Evening Posts, all in a charming stockpile with something for everyone.