Chiltern Mountain Club was founded in 1978 by Sturgis Haskins, a Maine Yankee with a wonderful sense of style. He explained in a recent letter how it happened:

I moved to Boston in the mid-1970's and found it difficult to meet people who liked the outdoors. It occurred to me it might do well to organize something to bring together other gay/lesbian outdoor types. I scheduled a climb up Mt. Wachusett for the fall of 1977. It was a lovely day and my ad (in Gay Community News) said to meet at the Beacon and Charles Street gates to the Public Garden. Alas, no one showed. So I returned home and moped. The following spring, on April 29, 1978, I rescheduled the hike. There were about ten people who showed up I think. The event was a success and other outings were scheduled.

Bliss Woodruff, himself a sixth generation Connecticut Yankee, played a major role in the early years. He and Sturgis knew each other from the Boston Unitarian-Universalist Gays and Lesbians (BUUGL), which met evenings at the Arlington Street Church. BUUGL agreed to sponsor what was initially known by the daunting title of "The Boston Gay Hiking Club in association with BUUGL." Bliss brought to the club his familiarity with the mountains and trails of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, while Sturgis' hiking had been mostly in Maine. Bliss Woodruff became the club's founding Treasurer. Sturgis, of course, was President.

Trips went about once a month during those first memorable years: Monadnock in May, Mount Tom in June, Osceola in July. In the early years nearly every trip was the "first" of its type: first overnight trip, to Gray Knob Cabin on Mount Adams, August, 1978; first tenting trip, to Bondcliff, September, 1978; first repeated mountain, Monadnock, May, 1979; first Randolph Cabin trip, September, 1979; first bicycle trip, Nantucket, November, 1979; first skiing and first skating trips, both December, 1979; first hike on our adopted trail, Welch-Dickey, May 1980; first long weekend in Maine, July, 1980. Although the club had fewer than 100 members, as many as 30 came on each trip. Initially, the club also had monthly evening meetings, but these were soon abandoned.

Sturgis recalls needing a name in a hurry for an upcoming ad in Gay Community News. At that time it did not seem feasible to select anything explicitly gay. As he remembers it:

It happened that a vintage Bar Harbor cottage directory was on my desk. Chiltern had a nice ring, I thought, and chose it without much thought. The Chiltern estate in Bar Harbor had been built by Edgar Scott, founder, I think, of the Scott Paper Company. The handsome house was razed in the 1940s, after his son, Warrick (who was reportedly gay) was killed in WW II (bombed by American planes while imprisoned on a Japanese ship). The Chiltern gates still survive, but now lead to an adjoining estate at the end of the famed Shore Path, on Bar Harbor's waterfront.

Sturgis announced the club's new name at the next board meeting. His surprised board raised no serious objection, and Chiltern Mountain Club we became. A few years later one their talented members created the club's familiar "mountain and bird" logo.

Chiltern now has more than 1,200 members, from all over New England, and lists hundreds of trips every year throughout the region. Their spring and fall Jamborees are typically attended by upwards of 150 members. All Chiltern events are open to both men and women, and their membership includes over 350 women.

So what's Sturgis up to today? He's currently happy, healthy and enjoying life near Bar Harbor, Maine.

Researched by Robert Mack