Maine Warden Service Pilot Laid to Rest

Maine Game Warden pallbearers pause over the casket of Warden pilot Daryl Gordon before entering the Augusta Civic Center on Wednesday for a private funeral service. Gordon died as a result of a plane crash on Thursday, near Cedar Lake in northern Piscataquis County. Photo Credit: Kevin Bennett BDN

Daryl Gordon had what may have been the best job in law enforcement.

You have to understand that Maine is a state a little smaller than North Carolina and with a little less than 10% of the population. In other words there are parts of Maine that even the deer need maps. It is in these parts, were the air is filled with the smell of a Christmas Tree lot year around that Warden pilot Daryl Gordon was a cop.

Gordon had the job that us living in the Tarheel state could only dream of, flying over vast uninhabited forests and landing on frozen lakes, a job where the only domestic violence calls where those of male moose during mating season.

I wish I had met Daryl Gordon during his life, though I'm sure I've seen him flying overhead from time to time while visiting family in Maine. Whenever pilots much like fishermen get together there are always tales to tell and stories to share and I would have enjoyed that, so very much.

Godspeed Warden Pilot Godspeed.


Daryl Gordon stands next to a plane (not the one in which he crashed) on a frozen lake in 2007. Gordon, one of the agency's game wardens, was killed in the crash of a small plane on Clear Lake in a remote northern part of Piscataquis County Thursday night March 24, 2011. Photo Credit: AP Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

More about Daryl Gordon from the Bangor Daily News here and here and finally here.