“Gil” Gilpatrick of Skowhegan received the 2010 Wilmot Wiggie Robinson Legendary Maine Guide Award at the Maine Professional Guides Association banquet on April 10.

The award honors Maine Master Guide Wilmot “Wiggie” Robinson, who died in 2007. The first legendary Maine Guide award was presented posthumously to Robinson and accepted by his family.

Robinson was a Maine Master Guide since 1950 and a member of the Maine Trappers Association, the National Rifle Association, Trout Unlimited and Ducks Unlimited. He also founded the Maine Bird Dog Club, the Millinocket Fin and Feather Club, and was instrumental in founding the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine.

Robinson was on the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Advisory Council and was an outdoor writer, broadcaster, photographer and award-winning member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America.

A member of the Maine Professional Guides Association, Gilpatrick also has earned renown as one who continues Maine’s outdoor traditions.

For 28 years Gilpatrick was a vocational instructor of an outdoor course at Skowhegan Regional Vocational Center, where he taught hundreds of young people how to build and paddle canoes.

The popularity of Gilpatrick’s classes and his outdoor products led to him teaching adults various outdoor projects, as well.

As a canoe guide, he would test the canoes he built in class on his summer river trips down the Allagash Wilderness Waterway.

Gilpatrick has written several books on how to build canoes, snowshoes and outdoor gear, and how to lead canoe trips.