Before-thoughts of the Allagash
Excitement and nerves
characterized the days of planning. None of us (daughter E, her boyfriend M,
and I) have ever done anything like this before: four days and three nights on
a remote river in northern Maine, without roads, stores, electricity, motors,
phone service. We’ll carry everything we need in canoes, and of canoeing we
have some lake experience but not river, and certainly not of fast water. The
Waterway is 92 miles long; we will travel about two-thirds of it, skipping the
big lakes at the southern end and ending nearly in Canada.
Nerves: How often
will we capsize? Will it rain? Will the insects be vicious? Can we accomplish
the portages? Will our food last?
Excitement: Will the
beauty be overwhelming? Will we see moose? How wonderful will it be to glide on
a river, sleep under the stars, sit around a campfire?
This and following
posts will mostly be an account of what happened. The photos were taken by my
daughter. I’ll save editorializing (which is impossible for this writer to
avoid) for after-thoughts at the end.
Day 1 – Owls Head/Deer Isle to Millinocket
This was a car
travel day. I left Owls Head about 2:00, stopped in Rockland for groceries, and
arrived in Millinocket about 6:00. E/M arrived from Deer Isle shortly thereafter
and we checked in for the night at the Pamola Motor Lodge. We had dinner at the
nice little Appalachian Trail Café. Millinocket, still in the throes of the
closing of paper mills, has not much else to offer.
Day 2 – Millinocket, to put-in at lower end of Umsaskis Lake,
to Cunliffe Island campsite
We drove both
cars to Katahdin Outfitters just outside Millinocket and left them there. All of
our gear was loaded into a truck and we were driven to the put-in at Umsaskis
Thoroughfare Bridge by Doug, the father of the owner of KO. He is a native
Mainer and interesting mix of conservative and liberal. We talked about local
politics and economics, including the controversial proposals for a national
park in the area, the wildlife in the area, adventures in Maine. Most of the
roads we took were rough logging roads, and we met a number of transport
trucks, empty, having delivered full loads to Canada (!). Oddly enough, Maine
has very few sawmills, just as it has very few lobster processing plants. It’s
still largely a place for harvesting natural resources. The real wealth is
elsewhere. Even the timber companies, some of whom are good stewards of
resource and roads, and some of whom are not, are on shaky financial grounds
these days.
Umsaskis Bridge from
downstream
We arrived at the
Umsaskis Bridge about 10:00, unloaded the truck, and were left with the strong
feeling of being very alone. Doug, don’t leave quite yet! But activity helped,
figuring out the best way to load the canoes and getting on the water and into
Long Lake. Bliss descended as soon as we started paddling. It was a clear,
slightly breezy day, and it was good to start with an easy paddle, about four
miles to the north end of the lake, before the river turned narrow and the
water fast. The map showed no rapids here, but our inexperience said there
certainly appeared to be. Several mishaps occurred, all relatively minor,
involving shoals and hang-ups, but the river was surprisingly warm and
generally shallow (we discovered afterwards that the cubic flow per second was
around 800 cubic feet per second for our trip, well below the “comfortable”
level of 1,000), and it was easy to get out and push the canoes over sandbars
and off rocks.
On the river at last
Lunch on a sandbar
We ate lunch (sandwiches, fruit, candy) on a sandbar and then had a brief
paddle through Harvey Pond to Long Lake Dam, just the remnants of a dam, that
is, and here the rapids were strong enough, and the left-over dam bits
protruding enough, that a portage was recommended, which we took. It was just a
short one, easily managed. We thought about staying at the campsite there,
since it was so pretty, but the rapids were quite loud, and we saw another
canoe approaching, and we decided to try the next site, Cunliffe Island, and were
very happy we did.
Approaching the
island, we saw a cow moose standing in the right channel, eating. Very slowly we
drifted past, watching quietly, then parked at the campsite to unload and set
up. In the middle of setting up, we heard splashing and ran down to the water’s
edge to see our cow slowly crossing the river to the left channel, then
meandering down the opposite bank, stopping to eat river grass. All in all, a
20-minute viewing of this great animal, who, by the way, saw us just a few
yards away and didn’t seem to give a damn.
Meandering moose
The lakes we
paddled through were calm and beautiful and serene, but the river is what
really makes you feel that this is a wild place.
One of my hammock
anchors on the river edge was a huge white pine close to 100 feet high and
three feet thick. It was complete bliss to listen to the sound of water moving
over stones, to look up at sky through the branches of trees.
Cunliffe Island
campsite
Once on the
water, the only people we saw all day were those two people following us at Long
Pond Dam, where they must have stayed the night. A helicopter did fly over
(twice) and a small plane (once) but the intrusions were quickly gone.
For our
guilt-free (free of vegetables, basically) dinner, we ate sausages and bread
grilled over the open fire, plus beans and Rice-a-Roni, and were in bed by
8:00.
Distance paddled:
about 8 miles.
Wildlife seen: moose,
loons, kingfishers, mergansers
Next: day 3
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