PEAKS ISLAND — Fifty-three years ago, having dropped out of college after an unsuccessful semester in Portland, Stanwood Newell was looking for work. He stumbled on an unusual ad in the paper.

“Tree climbers wanted,” Newell recalled. “Will train.”

Newell, who was 19 at the time, answered the call and joined about 25 other men in Portland’s Deering Oaks for a training program with a tree company. The heights were dizzying and off-putting for some.

“At the end of the week, there were about five of us left,” he said.

The limb of an apple tree falls past arborist Stanwood Newell, 72, as he uses a chainsaw to take the tree down on Peaks Island in September.

On the last day of the program, the remaining trainees traveled to Brunswick to work on a tree from within the bucket of a crane 100 feet off the ground.

“That scared the daylights out of all of us,” Newell said. “As far as I know, I was the only one to make it and become an arborist.”

Now, at age 72, the Peaks Island resident is still climbing.

Stanwood Newell relies on his safety line as he works to remove storm-damaged and rotten trunks from a red maple tree in mid-May.

Most mornings at 9, weather permitting, Newell straps tree-climbing spurs over his jeans and black logging boots, dons a safety harness and climbs a tree. A chainsaw, hand saw and a safety line dangle from his waist.

Newell’s assistant, Donnie Groeger, scoops up the smaller branches as Newell saws them, then handles a rope to gently lower the larger sawed-off logs to the ground to prevent damage to the lawn or other nearby trees. The two work together almost wordlessly. Aside from a few stray commands from Newell, they anticipate each other’s actions and timing. The scene would be almost silent if not for the occasional drone of a chainsaw and sharp snaps of breaking wood. They’ve been working together for about a decade.

Arborist Stanwood Newell uses a hand saw to remove a small branch while cutting down an apple tree.

During the summer, Newell, who was born in Portland and grew up in Buxton, marked his 50th year of living on Peaks. In 1974, he visited the island for a three-day Fourth of July party, and jokes that he essentially never left.

“I had such a good time and loved the island so much that, within a few months, I had moved out here permanently,” he said.

Newell has noticed many changes to Peaks, where he works exclusively. “Back then it wasn’t as developed,” he said. “It was kind of like Buxton surrounded by water.”

But he’s also noticed an uptick in destructive storms.

Stanwood Newell repositions himself in an apple tree on Peaks Island.

“They are becoming more frequent,” he said. “It’s like I’m constantly working on storm damage. Back in my 30s, I embraced it quite well because, you know, it was nice to have the extra work. But now that I’m in my 70s, I find it very disruptive.”

Part of the disruption is that clearing fallen trees keeps Newell from enjoying his favorite part of the job: simply climbing trees. “It just got in my blood and, you know, I just loved it,” he said. “I still love it today.”