An Interview with the Author
Elizabeth Egerton Wilder
The Spruce Gum Box

Why did you wait so long to write your first novel?

Writing a book was always a dream for me but it never seemed to be the right time to take the time needed to do it. When I slipped into my 8th decade, I felt it was now or never. I just wasn’t ready earlier in my life.

How long did it take to complete the story?

It rattled around in my head for many years while I researched. The Aroostook War was a surprise to me; the idea that there was an impending conflict between America and Britain seemed a secret gem of New England history. The fact that the US government allocated $10 million for the possible war was such a lot of money for the early 1800’s. It must have been very important. I made notes and visited northern Maine, spent a lot of time on the Internet and gleaned whatever information I could from 2001 through my move to Pennsylvania in December 2008. I started writing seriously in January 2009 and completed my manuscript a year later.

Since this novel took so long and you started it later in life, would you do more writing?

Now, I cannot think about not writing. Ideas keep popping up in my mind. I think the tap has been opened and as long as I am able, I don’t think it will be turned off. After all Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until she was 76. I have a head start on her. Her first breakout show was when she was 80!

Was writing a book on your bucket list?

Not at all. I view a bucket list as things to do before the end. I hope that finally writing a novel for me is a beginning, not an end of a new adventure. One where there is so much to learn and complete. As for my bucket list–it would include a visit to the Grand Canyon.

What gave you the idea for your story?

I became curious about the Aroostook Valley and the early “pioneers” when my husband and I went to northern Maine to trace his family ancestry. Despite the fact that I lived in New England my entire life, prior to this I never knew that this area in Maine was still disputed so many years after the Revolutionary War. The more I researched the history of the region, the more I wondered about the earliest settlers. The lumbermen first claimed the wonderful forests along the river, then the farmers began to clear land. I wondered what it must have been like, especially for families. My imagination took over and the story unfolded.

What is a Spruce Gum Box and why did that become your title?

The logging industry in northern Maine in the early 1800’s sets the stage for my story. Back then, a crew would go in to the forests before the rivers froze, and it would be months before they came back out when the thaw came and the river ran so they could move the logs to the sawmills. Since the lumbermen did not work on Sundays they found busywork to help fill the hours. Some played cards, others worked on repairing their equipment, and many whittled. One item that was very popular to whittle was a box to hold spruce gum; the globules of resin the men collected in the forest from spruce trees. Chewing spruce gum was a treat. The loggers would take a solid block of wood and carve it in to the shape of a book. Then they patiently hollowed the piece leaving the top open. A thin piece of wood was formed to slide along a slot in the top so that the “book” could be opened and closed. While working in the woods, the men would find pieces of spruce gum, put them in the carved and decorated boxes, and take them home as gifts in the spring. There are many references to spruce gum boxes throughout the story so the title felt right.

How did you research all the tidbits on how the Indians used sinew and such?

Actually, I have a lot of miscellaneous tidbits floating around my brain. You know, trivia that has been collecting for a lot of years that I never thought would be useful. It’s amazing how much stuff is rolling around in storage at the back of your brain that pops up when you are writing. Then when I plugged theses bits and pieces into the world of cyberspace and added more detail to what I knew, I was blown away by the ingenuity of the tribes native to the northeast.

Did the Native Americans really make maple sugar?

Absolutely! They boiled down the sweet sap from the maple tree long before the Europeans arrived with their metal kettles. This was a staple for the tribes. At one time, maple sugar was cheaper than cane sugar. Cane sugar was a luxury.

Did you come across anything in the Indian ways that surprised you?

The old ways of boiling down maple sap really surprised me. They did not have any metal kettles so they made containers out of birch bark. How then could they put those over fire? I discovered they didn’t (of course). They put rocks in the fire until they were very hot and then dropped them in the sap in the containers over and over again until the sap evaporated to syrup and then down further to sugar. Ingenious.

Where did you get the idea of using a bean hole to bake beans?

My parents once lived in New Hampshire and every summer there would be a bean hole supper at the town hall. We always looked forward to it. The men would bury the bean kettles the day before and the tourists (and townsfolk too) couldn’t wait for the beans to be dug up. They served them with hot dogs. They always smelled so good when the tops came off the kettles! The cooks in the lumber camps began to use beans a little later in the 1800’s than my Jacob, but since the Indians had been using that technique for years, it seemed likely he could have been a pioneer among the camp cooks by cooking the beans this way. The lumberers liked a lot of salt pork in the bean kettles as the extra fat would hold them longer. At the same time, the cooks knew that extra pork would keep the beans from going dry while cooking. Camps would break up and move often so there was never time to do a thorough soaking. Buck and Company was unusual in that their camp was more permanent.

How did you create the character Ben?

He just turned up in my imagination one day. I wanted to tell my story by following a baby that was brought up by an Indian family. I really enjoyed researching the Native Americans in the northern Maine–New Brunswick area. At first the boy was going to be taken by his father to live with some resettled Acadians further north in Maine. Jed was going to hire an Indian woman to take care of him. But the pieces I wanted to tie together didn’t work out with that story line. I had no idea when I created him what his name would be and was really surprised when Jed named him Ben. I had confided in a friend at church in Maine that I was going to write a story about a boy and she asked for the longest time–does he have a name yet? After he was named by Jed, I wrote her and said “Ben.”

Why did you make Ben a cookee?

My son Scott is a chef. When he started dating his wife, her little girl called him “Cookee” because he “cooked.” Actually, she still does. When I was reading about the lumber crews that worked the Aroostook River, I was amused to find out that the assistant cooks, were called cookees. Then I read how many Indian men worked the winters as cooks for the lumber crews. It made sense that Ben could be a cookee since he grew up with Jacob. Originally I named my cook Jake. At the time I did not know he was Jacob. I had the first line of the story years before I had anything else. Whenever I saw something in a museum about a cookee, I imagined Ben doing that–carrying the yoke, using the push sled, cleaning the kitchen, etc.

Why did you make Jedediah originate from Northern England?

It only made sense that Benjamin Wingate would hire a fellow Englishman to work for him in the forest. He certainly would not have trusted a Yankee. My problem was how to get Jedediah from his farm in England to the Maritimes. I visited the moors in Northern England several years ago and saw the farmhouses dotting the countryside with incredible stone fences dividing the parcels of land. I knew Wingate’s crew boss was going to father the child of his daughter and would have to raise the child. I did not know how much a part of the story Addie would be and how her love for Jed would hold the story together. Land baron Wingate would be pressed to find a forest manager in London so once I figured his place in the lives of Jed’s parents, it all fell in to place. The young Jed leaving England was a part of the story that took me by surprise when I realized he would never see his parents again.

How did you pick the names for the characters?

That was actually harder than I expected. I wanted names that would have been more common in northern Maine and among the European settlers at the time. Also, knowing the French-Catholic influence on the Micmac people–I wanted to find names that reflected that heritage. Finally I went to birth, death, and marriage records in the early 1800’s in northern New England to find names that were common then. I also searched names in French genealogies.

Did you ever consider having Addie come back from England to live on the river with Jed?

Never. At first she was going to be sent to England in disgrace – I had not planned that she would be so frail. This was to be a father and son story from the beginning. In a way with Addie close to death, I was able to make other characters stronger than I originally planned, like Mary and Mrs. Wingate. I came to like Mary very much.

Were there other characters that you found yourself particularly fond?

Nuga, of course. She was the bridge between the “old ways” and the future. And I thought Birdie grew into a very special part of Ben’s life.

So what’s next for you?

First, I’m going to enjoy promoting my novel and hopefully have the opportunity to enlighten others on the northern Native American Tribes and life in early northern Maine in the lumbering communities. I would really like to spread the word to other would-be authors to never give up on their writing dreams, even if they have to wait until their 8th decade to make them come true. But I do have plans for another story and have already started to plot out my next research project. Stay tuned!