Michael Chaney was from Concord, New Hampshire and attended the University of Maine in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He conducted numerous oral history interviews for classes AY 125 and AY 122. In the 1980s, he worked on the Maine Folklife Survey. He was the author of Northeast Folklore XXIX, White Pine on the Saco River: An Oral History of River Driving in Maine.