You’re driving north on Route 27 and you round that corner and see it. There’s Sugarloaf Mountain, crowding everything else out of the skyline. That’s when you get it. That’s when you understand why people live here.

“A Town Built by Ski Bums,” by Virginia M. Wright. Down East Books. $29.95

“A Town Built By Ski Bums: The Story of Carrabassett Valley, Maine” by Virginia M. Wright is the story of exactly how people came to live around the mountain, first logging the forests, then cutting the ski trails that became Sugarloaf, then carving the town of Carrabassett Valley out of the towns of Jerusalem, Wyman and Crockertown (Sugarloaf) in 1972. Wright chronicles the development of Sugarloaf from a small ski area into a four-season resort that attracts visitors from around the world. With alpine and Nordic skiing, golf, hiking and mountain biking among the outdoors offerings in Carrabassett Valley, there’s no doubt it has become one of Maine premier vacation destinations, and Wright makes that abundantly clear, especially late in the book in a chapter titled “Institutions, Outdoor Recreations, and Partnerships.”

Since I attended college at the University of Maine in the early 1990s, Sugarloaf has been a place I’ve enjoyed visiting any time of the year, for snowboarding, hiking, whatever. Growing up in Vermont, I’ve always felt comfortable in the mountains, and I enjoy learning about history. These make me the target audience for Wright’s book.

That said, while I enjoyed the book, I came away from it looking for more.

“A Town Built by Ski Bums” opens with a short forward by Senator Angus King, who compares Carrabassett Valley to Brigadoon, the mythical village in the Scottish highlands that comes to life just once every hundred years. King’s comparison is apt. Carrabassett Valley has a year-round population of just 673 (according to the 2020 census); its population swells on busy winter weekend with the influx of skiers from around the state and region. Wright’s book does a good job explaining the events that led to this, but more detail would have made this a richer history of the town.

After an introductory chapter in which Wright outlines her general thesis, she gets into the geographic history of the region, as well as what brought settlers to this area of the western Maine mountains in the first place, timber, and with that, the railroad. It’s all necessary setup for what comes next. Still, though the book’s title is “A Town Built By Ski Bums,” we don’t get those ski bums until page 85, approximately one-third into the book.

Perhaps the history leading up to the post-World War II skiers who cut trails and built roads to start the ski industry in the area could have been tightened, or a non-linear story structure could have been employed. Because it’s when Wright gets to the development of Sugarloaf as a ski destination that the book really takes off.

Carrabassett Valley was founded in 1972, the year after Sugarloaf hosted the Tall Timber World Cup race, proving that the mountain is a viable site for top-notch ski racing. Wright lets the reader know the vote was close. At a meeting in March, 1972, residents of Jerusalem, Wyman and Sugarloaf conducted a poll which found Jerusalem heavily in favor of forming a new town, with Sugarloaf more closely divided but in favor by a narrow margin, and Wyman opposed. On Oct. 26, Jerusalem voted 21-13 in favor of forming the Carrabassett Valley, but Wyman and Sugarloaf declined, Sugarloaf by one vote. Sugarloaf did eventually vote to join the new town, and was annexed in 1975.

I wish Wright delved more into the politics of forming a new town. What was the debate like at the time? Was it contentious? Those are among the questions left unanswered.

Where Wright succeeds is in telling the story of the town’s growth as a place where outdoor enthusiasts can thrive. The construction of Sugarloaf Golf Course in the mid-1980s was a game changer that launched the area into year-round outdoor recreation, as was the development of  the Anti-Gravity Training Complex and the Narrow Gauge Pathway, among other infrastructure built to attract visitors year round.

Wright also does an excellent job telling the stories of residents who helped shaped the town. There was Jud Strunk, a musician/comedian who went on to star on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In; and Clem and Rolande Begin, who came to Carrabassett Valley from Quebec in 1961 and created a construction business that helped the town grow. Wright understands that the people of a town make it special.

I would have liked to see more on the world-class athletes who learned their sport on Sugarloaf’s slopes, say a chapter outlining the success of Seth Wescott, who won two Olympic gold medals in bordercross, or Bode Miller, winner of gold and silver alpine skiing medals at the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010, or Kristen Clark or Emily Cook, also successful alpine skiers on the world stage who got their start at Sugarloaf.