Coffee and Doughnuts - A Study in Public Resource Access

One thing you can depend on in Maine is that during the first week of the year you can find a feature in the Sunday newspaper about reservation seekers at Baxter Park Headquarters. That’s when reservations are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis on the first business day of the new year, an event that always draws a crowd. The human-interest part of the story is that the devotees seeking to reserve campsites have arrived early, many having camped on the snow at park headquarters, willing to stand in line for hours in freezing temperatures to reserve their favorite campsites for their preferred dates. We are invited to share the reporter’s bemused admiration of the dedication of those who would endure chilly inconvenience to secure a good camping spot months hence, the sort of bemusement we find when reading about, say, fans converging on Limestone for a Phish concert. There’s a sort of cutesy subculture angle to the story of the Baxter crowd, as we might regard the young, mobile, leisured Phish-heads. Sometimes the park’s veteran director, Buzz Caverly, serves coffee and doughnuts to those waiting in line.

Why wait in line outside in January, you may ask? It’s the only way to reserve the choice spots. The Park doesn’t accept telephone or internet reservations, and park staff may not get around to processing mailed reservations for a few weeks. If you want a special site during Baxter’s high-season, you’ll have to wait in line in Millinocket in January.

The cost of a campsite or lean-to in Baxter Park is $9 per person or a minimum of $18 per site. These fees apply from spring through fall to all campgrounds and remote sites. For desirable locations during the high season at Maine’s most famous outdoor attraction, $18 for a shelter or tent-sites is a bargain. At Baxter, the most desirable spots are invariably sold out, through paid reservations, well in advance. Those who drive to the gatehouse looking for a site generally find themselves accommodated at a site on the northern side of the park furthest from Katahdin.

Curiously, though, when one has arrived to make camp (duly reserved, of course) at one of the prime locations encircling Katahdin, one sees that many of the shelters and tent-sites are unoccupied. The rangers tell you that these sites have been reserved by parties that haven’t arrived.

What’s going on here? It’s apparent that a lot of those reservations made several months ago were purchased on speculation. At a price of only eighteen bucks to rent a site, it’s cheap for a Katahdin enthusiast to make redundant or precautionary reservations just in case a camper has a scheduling conflict next August, or just in case he might be able to get away for an extra weekend or two. Why not pay a few extra bucks for a lot of extra choice?

The Park Authority’s policy is to defray some of its campsite operating costs from its endowment income, so it’s evident that the park’s policy is to charge below-cost prices for campsites. It’s also obvious that (for most campsites and most dates) that the park’s price is set below what the market cost of the campsites would be, if the Authority chose a pricing policy to maximum revenue. This helps to explain why so many reservations are purchased but not used.

Since demand for reservations exceeds supply at the prices set by the Authority, it has had to devise ways to ration availability. It limits the number of reservations anyone can purchase at one time and limits the number days for any particular location. Recently it has introduced a staggered system which allows for reserving sites no sooner than four months in advance. However, the Park has a “Single Opening Day” in January when only walk-in customers may reserve for any time during the year. This system is designed to reduce the crush at headquarters in January. The Park’s policy continues to encourage walk-in reservations by allowing walk-ins to reserve a week earlier than those who mail reservations. Walk-in and mail remain the only means of making reservations.

Why, one asks, does the Park reward those who are willing to spend the time and expense of driving to Millinocket to wait in line with the pick of the best dates and sites? How does this relate to the Park’s mission of “forever wild” and “recreation for the people of Maine?” If you happen to live in Millinocket and can quickly drive to headquarters and stand in line for a while, the cost of a campsite is very low. If you live in Portland, the cost (in terms of inconvenience of time and travel) is already high before you pull out your wallet at Park Headquarters.

Presumably, the Park Authority is satisfied with the system as it has evolved, which ensures collecting revenues for maximum occupancy while providing services based on limited use. Reserved but unoccupied sites don’t appear to be a concern for the Authority. Its mission is to preserve the park’s wilderness character, not to maximize opportunity for recreational use. I think the Authority has done a great job in fulfilling its mission.

Presumably, the Authority could implement any sort of reservation system – via mail only, by telephone, internet, or some combination thereof. There is no practical reason why, for example, the Authority can’t implement an automated reservation system that allows for immediate completion of reservations via internet or telephone. Efficiency, though, doesn’t seem to be the point. The reservation system functions as a selection process: it maintains the comfortable relationship between the Park and its constituency. That is, the current reservation system encourages those park users who are most satisfied with park management, who tend to return year-after-year, and who have both the willingness and leisure to sacrifice time and effort to gain access to the park. This constituency functions like a group of satisfied shareholders at a corporation’s annual meeting, allowing management to resist change or innovation as for example, when snowmobile organizations lobby for more access. If the park were to modernize its reservation system to allow a wider mix of users, the pool of loyal constituents would be diluted. It’s conceivable that the Authority would face more pressure to write its regulations for a less-specialized group of campers and perhaps be pressured to make “improvements” such as more campsites, more trails, more parking lots, and wider roads. A reservation system that tends to select park “regulars” serves to maintain a constituency most supportive of the Authority’s management decisions.

Please note that I am not arguing in favor of any “improvements” of new roads or conveniences. Percival Baxter’s intentions should be respected and, on the whole, I believe the Authority has done a good job.

But there arises inevitable divergence between Percy Baxter’s explicit intentions and the Authority’s agenda as new technologies and uses require unforeseen interpretations of the park’s charter. I am confident that Percy Baxter, who created the park for “the people of Maine,” never intended the Park Authority to reserve the best campsites for a group of dedicated campers who have the leisure time to wait in line for hours on the first business day in January. Why does the Authority choose to reward this particular group? Because this is the group that tends to supports the Authority in any possible political or legal disputes.

I repeat – I believe the Authority has fulfilled its mandate faithfully. The purpose of this modest essay is to suggest that the relationship between a public resource and its constituency can serve to limit access for outsiders.

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