Years ago, when I first moved to Maine from away, the state tourism people had a pretty smart visitor (we called them tourists back then) marketing campaign going on.

It seemed that you could stop just about anywhere along the road and pick up a handful of well-designed, very informative brochures that highlighted Maine's wealth of recreational resources. They all had clever titles like "Hike Me.", "Canoe Me.", "Bike Me." and so forth. Being a newbie to Maine, I took handfuls of them and put them to use exploring my new home state (uh, with the help of my Dad and his car, of course). Just the purpose the brochures were meant for. Ding!

But that campaign soon disappeared...

We have so much to offer here in Maine with regard to outdoor recreation, but we just can't seem to make a coordinated effort to promote it properly. So when I heard of the Governor's proposed ecotourism initiative, I was hoping that it might take off in a similar direction.

At first glance it looks like nothing more than a bunch of tax breaks, tax credits and tax incentives, which are, I'm sure, pretty exciting to the hunting and fishing camp owners who will benefit, but they didn't do much for me.

But there's more.

The measure does appear to include developing more interpretive visitor centers, a series of new recreational guides and maps, and "incorporating numerous trailheads, historic sites, and nature centers into highway-based thematic itineraries."

Sounds good. Now if only I knew what a highway-based thematic itinerary was. If it means that people will actually be able to find the outdoor stuff-to-do that's here, then that's a good thing.

Or maybe we could just give everybody coming over the bridge a DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer and call it good.