Allagash- the final chapter

As I paddle I look back at the tiny swirls that form like mini tornadoes, spinning and falling behind in my wake. The water is the color of the cloudless sky. Spruce, fir, pine and rotted vegetation from the forest floor scented the warm air with the unmistakable aroma of late summer.

There is only stillness except for my breathing and the light whisper of a breeze. The only other sound is made by my canoe paddle entering the water for one more pull among the thousands I will make this day on the Allagash Stream.

I’m 19 years old and easily more alone than I have ever been. It is at least sixty miles to the nearest town, and probably a good seven miles from the nearest human being. It also occurs to me that I am also still more than 500 miles from the woman I love. The summer is nearly over though and our separation will only last a couple more weeks.

For the first time in my life, I am utterly responsible for every aspect of my own survival. This is exciting and exhilarating. I think everyone should have this feeling at least once in their lives. Real wilderness camping alone can do this for you.

Earlier, I had decided to take the last few unpaid vacation days of my Allagash experience and have my boss, Skip Cram, drop me off at the outlet of Allagash Stream as it flows into the northwest section of Chamberlain Lake. He would tow my canoe filled with gear from the stern of our rangers work boat. From where he dropped me off, Allagash Stream drains into Chamberlain Lake and winds upstream through about 8 miles of old forest to Allagash Lake.

Along the way there is a bridge built from timbers heavy enough for logging trucks where an old tote road crosses. It is one of the few signs of human activity at that time. Ironically, if one were to fly overhead and look down on the entirety of the Allagash, it would look like a giant, green wooly caterpillar from the sky, because all around it, much of the woods has been clear-cut leaving this island of green in its midst.

We had arranged that Skip would pick me back up at the drop-off point four days later. My plan was to paddle and drag the 8 miles upstream and spend a few nights alone. I had made decent plans, filled my canoe with the proper supplies and was anticipating a good adventure.

The late summer had yielded little rain and the stream became more bony and shallow as I made my way towards Allagash Lake. It became a hard upstream hike, pulling my canoe over rocks and portaging around Little Allagash Falls. This made me grateful for my father’s lightweight “Indian Royalex” canoe and not packing too much.

It was early evening when I finally reached the mouth of Allagash Lake. I was once told that it was the only lake in the Waterway with a natural shoreline. The others had mostly been formed or enlarged by dams to direct the water for floating logs. Allagash Lake was notorious for good trout and lake togue fishing, and was one of the more remote portions of the Allagash. The water was clear and clean and you could see to the bottom from most places.

The only human contact you could have on the lake other than the occasional passing camper or two was from a Forestry Ranger who lived on the northwest shore. By the time I made it to his little log cabin it was early evening and I was exhausted. I spent the first night sipping bourbon, playing cribbage and talking about fishing with the ranger. He told me that the best campsite was vacant right now and it was across the lake, east about a mile. In the morning, I shoved off for it, with a mild favoring wind; I was there in no time.

The campsite was incredible. It consisted of a huge beach of fine sand, more than an acre in size with small pines scattered throughout the area. Well-drained and comfortable, this terrain provided an unexpected treat as a campsite. Soon I had pitched my tent, built a small fire and arranged my belongings and sleeping bag in my tent. I had brought a small tarpaulin to cover the area over my picnic table in case it rained. As it worked out, this was good planning.

I shoved my canoe out into the pristine lake and rigged my fly rod, in hopes of catching a meal of brook trout. I couldn’t detect any other human presence on the lake except for the Forest Ranger I had met earlier. Perfect!

As I fished, I noticed the clouds were beginning to thicken and as evening approached, it was totally overcast. No luck fishing so I was reduced to chowing on the canned Dinty Moore beef stew I had packed. I couldn’t decide if I was more hungry or tired, but the stew tasted good with some wheat bread I had toasted over the fire. It wasn’t long before it started to rain and I hustled to get everything under cover. Still somewhat tired from the long haul, I fell asleep to the sounds of pelting rain hitting the tent. Blissful!!

I think it must have been about 5 AM the next morning when a noise outside my tent had awoken me. It sounded like a weak whimpering of a small dog. I pulled the flap of the tent aside and looked out. In the dim light of early morning and through the heavy rain, I could make out the unmistakable shape of a fox. The poor animal was in dismal shape. It was wet and cold, and nearly hairless with large areas of its skin being totally bald with others bearing the long red fir. I immediately suspected that it had mange and/or rabies by its appearance and behavior. Fox are generally very reluctant to get this close to humans. In its desperation it was trying to get into the cooler full of food that I had left on the picnic table. I got up out of the tent and started to yell at it to go away. It just sort of hissed at me, bearing its teeth and kept pawing at the cooler. I finally grabbed a stick and threw it at the fox, hoping it wouldn’t attack me. The stick bounced harmlessly off the picnic table but did the trick and the fox finally disappeared into the woods.

I went back for a couple more hours of sleep and determined that I would fish in the morning, break camp about noon and start the two day journey to Chamberlain Lake after that. Later that morning the rain stopped and the sky cleared off. The heavy rains of the night before had swollen Allagash Stream which made the trip down far easier and way more fun than the long drag up.

On the way up the stream I had found the campsite at Little Allagash Falls which was roughly half way back to Chamberlain Lake where I started the trip. It was there that I would spend my last night of this trip. I anticipated the fishing above and below the falls might yield a few trout and that the pleasant white noise of the falls might be nice to sleep by.

It was there that I met two very “green” campers form Manhattan that had flown in to Johnson Pond and made the carry to Allagash Lake. When I say “green” I don’t mean environmentally conscious. These guys had never spent a day in a canoe before, much less in remote wilderness.

I have to give them this much; they had every piece of modern camping technology available at the time. They had this tent that when you flicked a button; it popped open like an umbrella all ready to sleep in. They had new cameras with two foot long lenses, the best down-filled sleeping bags money could buy, freeze dried food, light weight aluminum cook stoves and even a portable CB radio. They were dressed like they had raided LL Beans before the trip, buying the best clothes and gear you could imagine at that time.

Why they had not gone to the additional expense of a guide, I’ll ever know. That evening we talked over the campfire I built. They asked me to show them how to do that since fire starting was not in their skill set either. We talked through the evening about the corporate, Wall Street world of New York, girlfriends left behind and the camping tips they desperately needed. I shuddered when they told me they planned to go the distance to Allagash Village in a week.

After breaking camp the next morning, we all left the campsite at the same time. I shoved off into the pool in front of the campsite and nosed the canoe towards my destination. I soon I was downriver and out of sight of the two hapless city boys turned canoeists, but could hear them trying to talk themselves through this whole canoe navigating thing. At this point, the water was pretty tame and offered no real challenges, but it was funny to listen to just the same.

Not far downstream, I came to an area that was somewhat challenging. The maneuver through the rocks in this portion of the rapids first required one to quickly slip sideways to the stream; then abruptly get your canoe facing downward in preparation to go over a three foot drop. I was not a total expert, but the experience I had with my father in such situations made me more than a beginner at this, so I was able to anticipate the move and get through it just fine. No sooner had I made the drop to the deep pool below, I heard my former campmates about 100 yards back, banging the rocks, splashing and yelling directions at each other. In my minds eye, I had imagined the possible outcomes of what they might be facing here so I thought it wise that I temporarily tie up to an alder and watch them come through, just in case.

They approached the area and got their canoe sideways, just fine, but as you might have guessed, it stayed sideways as they went over the drop. In a split second, all the gear, paddles and screaming men were in the deep pool below the drop. I shoved off grabbing all the gear I could find, not being two worried about the guys who thankfully were wearing their lifejackets. I can still see them scrambling in the water to try and salvage what had fallen into the river. I was torn between really feeling sorry for them and wanting to split a gut laughing. Fortunately, the former won out at the time. I was able to help them get most of their gear back in the boat, although to this day, I wonder if they were able to salvage their expensive camera gear and food. I can tell you from personal experience that getting gear wet on a trip like this is miserable and getting dry is a huge chore.

It wasn’t long after that when we arrived at the rendezvous point where Skip was waiting for me and I had to part company with the new campers. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for the rest of their trip. I hope they made it and had fun. They were nice guys, just a little bit under prepared.

This marked the end of one of the most important and wonderful journeys of my life. I will carry memories of it for the rest of my life. What I have written here is all true with very few embellishments. What’s cool is that none were really necessary. So many details have long since left my fading memory banks, but writing about them has brought so many back. In the process, it has renewed my gratitude for the many wonderful experiences I have had the privilege of enjoying.

Allagash 4

After a while, I started getting used to the old mobile home I shared with the survey crew. It was strangely similar to the one I had lived in at school in Farmington but had one major difference. It had mice, lots and lots of mice. These little guys had taken up residence in the winter and decided to stay. It seemed that no matter how many we caught in traps, more appeared. It became a grizzly but entertaining game to see if we could smack one with a frying pan, axe or other heavy object as we sat and had lunch or dinner at the table. It seemed that any available nook or cranny that might allow the passage of one of the little critters would eventually yield a potential target. It was sort of like the “Whack-A- Mole” game at the county fair, only with far more dire consequences for the mouse. Other differences included; no electricity or running water, gas lights and refrigerator, and window screens that were not exactly impervious to mingies, black flies and mosquitoes. About all you could say for it was that it provided shelter from the wind and rain with reasonably comfortable beds.

The survey crew guys, (whose names I’ve since forgotten) had been working and staying well upriver when I first arrived so it was a few days before I finally met them. Their job was to blaze the borders of the Allagash Waterway so that the loggers would know where paper company land ended and the states land began. This was a Herculean task, since the waterway was well over 100 miles long and not terribly straight, making the total line well over two hundred miles long. In addition, the terrain was rough and usually covered with blow-downs, cedar swamp and thick forest so it was understandable that they spent their evenings sharpening their axes. The sharper they were, the easier they could blaze trees, so they were diligent at it.

Not long after I got there, I heard they were looking for one more crew member. Not really wanting the job myself, I called my high school friend, Bob Mullen, who applied for and got the job. This was great since we were close friends and having someone familiar around to share the “Allagash experience” made it all the more enjoyable.

After a few weeks of working locally, Bob and the rest of the survey crew headed north to a line about 70 miles north along a particularly remote section of the Waterway.
Not too long after that, Bob’s axe slipped and left a bone-deep wound right through his heavy leather boot into his foot. This seems strange but I was told that the razor sharp edge of the ax made for a cleaner scar as opposed to a jagged one that might have been left by a duller blade. You’d have to ask Bob for his opinion about that, however.
The rescue plane had to make a tricky landing on a shallow part of the dead water on the Allagash River to Medivac him out. This was late summer, so the river was shallow and rocky and I just can’t imagine making that landing.

Later, after being stitched up at EMMC in Bangor, Bob returned to the Thoroughfare on crutches and we later rode home together at the end of the summer. Someday I want to get his recollections of that time.

Allagash Part 3

Charlyn and I decided to marry but needed time to plan our future. Our time away from each other was hard, but it made us grow closer with each day, each letter that passed through the many miles between us. My trips to the Telos logging camp were always filled with the anticipation of receiving mail from the love of my life. Likewise, her trips to the tiny post office in Layton New Jersey were filled with the same anticipation. Suffice to say, her diligence in writing greatly surpassed mine, a pattern that predictalby survives today. The time, place and details of the events in these stories are chronicled in those letters. Reading them now, I feel I am reading about someone else from a time so distant. Like an old flannel shirt, the color in the memories has faded, but the love and warmth that passed between us in those letters in those times has matured and endured.

It was a warm, windless, mid summer evening in the early 1930s. After months of planning, hoarding of supplies and raft building, a different twenty-something couple were about to begin their dream together. The huge log raft 40 feet wide by 50 feet long was loaded down with supplies, tools and provisions and was ready to be launched from what is now known as Telos Landing at the southern end of Telos Lake.

This was to be the opening chapter in a decades-long love story, not only for the young couple who obviously adored each other, but a love for the Allagash Wilderness. Al Nugent and Patty Pelkey were about to establish the now famous Nugent’s Camps on the east shore of the Chamberlain Lake.

By any standard these were exceptionally capable people. Born to parents who lived the life of the north woods as cooks for the river drivers, Patty had what was known as grit. She could fish, shoot, trap, cook, sew, knit, cut firewood and entertain. This is only a portion of a very long list of her talents. She could literally bring home the proverbial bacon and cook it up in a pan.

I like to say that in the old days the phrase “make a living’ literally meant, “make a living”. It actually referred to providing for ones self the essential parts of keeping alive. Food, shelter, protection from outside danger, entertainment and health care were all up to you. The better educated you were about doing these things for yourself, the better life you had. I think as a society we’ve forgotten most of this since our “make a living” has evolved to mean “make enough money” to hire everyone else to provide for our wants and needs.

One legend about Patty goes like this: When under suspicion by the game warden about why Al had an extra deer hanging in the yard, the warden asked her, “Did you shoot that deer, Patty? The suspicion and doubt in his voice made Patty ask the warden, “I see you have a new watch on your wrist. How about you put it on the fence rail over there and see if I can hit it with my .38-40. ?” Needless to say, the line of questioning was quickly dropped and the warden disappeared shortly afterwards.

The “law of the land” in the Allagash was pretty much like the Wild West in those days. In a story Al told me himself, he said that if a warden was disliked too much and made a lot of trouble for people, he might mysteriously disappear, never to be heard from again. In so many words, a warden had to get the hang of local law, a set of rules well-established over many years of wilderness survival. “Hunting to survive or hunting for sport are two different things”, he explained. “If you didn’t fill the icebox, cold storage or pantry with enough food for winter, you starved, and the government’s rules around hunting didn’t rank too high on your list of priorities”.

I was at the check-in area at the bridge in early June that summer. I remember seeing a pickup truck heavliy laden with propane gas cylinders so that the rear body of the truck was nearly rubbing on the tires. It started backing down the ramp near the dock and float near the bridge where a white boat with a canvas top and outboard were parked. Soon, a big man dressed in tan work clothes, Id estimate at well over 6’ with broad shoulders and large hands got out of the truck. Id never seen him before but something told me who he was by reputation. Bear in mind, that in 1974, Al Nugent was about 72 years old with heart disease, emphysema and arthritis.

I will never forget what happened next. Mr. Nugent came around to the rear of the pickup, grabbed a 100 pound propane tank by its base and top, put it on his shoulders and walked to the boat, then setting it down in the boat like it weighed next to nothing. I have since read of his legendary strength, single-handedly moving stoves, refrigerators and other incredibly heavy objects, but seeing a man of his age doing this made a lasting impression on me. I offered to help and grabbed one too, but was reduced to rolling it on the ground to the dock. I’m pretty sure Al found this amusing.

Allagash part two

OK, I’m backtracking a bit but it all fits in. It was late October 1973, early evening on a Thursday night. I had just gotten off work at the cafeteria at the Uniersity of Maine at Farmington dining hall. Getting sweaty mopping floors and washing dishes, working for the ARA Slater Co. was an ideal job for a sophmore in college who needed the money. It paid the rent, beer and gas and allowed me at least two free meals a day when I got the hours.

Wearily, I opened the door of the mobile home I shared with an ex Green Beret, freshly back from his stint in Viet Nam. Bill was at least four years older and way worldlier than I, having parachuted behind enemy lines in North Viet Nam. He had returned to college after his time in Southeast Asia to get his BS in education. The stories of his near-death exploits in the war impressed and riveted me. Looking back, I wonder if most of them were fiction, but at 19 I was naïve, and swallowed all of it. I looked up to him like the big brother I never had.

Bill’s red Toyota Land Cruiser was parked in the drive so I knew he was home. As I pulled off my coat and collapsed onto the ratty couch in our tiny living room, I could tell my entrance had gone undetected. I was already to call out and say hi when I noticed the unmistakable moans and thumping sounds emanating from the bedroom at the far end of the mobile home. The whole place shook rhythmically. This was not terribly surprising or unusual, since Bill was a creature of habit, often finding a young coed to satisfy his urges. He had regaled me with stories of the many brothels he had visited on leave in Saigon. Apparently, he had more women than I had socks, but changed them considerably more often.

I was already to leave and let them have some privacy, when the young woman he was with screamed out his name in passion. At that moment I instantly recognized her voice. I had been dating Gayla steadily for nearly two months. Incredibly hurt, angry and outraged, I suppressed the urge to burst into the room and tell then what I thought of them. Instead, I turned and left, opting for a long walk around the campus to lick my wounds and absorb the shock.

Later, when I confronted Bill, he dismissively told me he’d done me a favor and I’d get over it. In the long run, getting over her was no big deal, but I never got over Bill’s callousness. My admiration for him had instantly evaporated. As it turned out he was just another prick I’d crossed paths with and my naiveté was forever diminished. Expecting more of people has always been one of my flaws.

Ironically, he was right, though. He had, in fact, done me a favor.

About two weeks passed after that episode and I had spent most of that time brooding. I was too hurt to risk another relationship right away, but eventually the loneliness got the best of me and I was soon dating again. After all, the ratio of women to men at UMF was 5:1. Good odds in any book if you’re a guy. I wandered into Lockwood Hall on one of my long walks around campus. I had made a date for the weekend with someone new. But the date with Jama wasn’t supposed to happen until Saturday.

It was Friday night; I was off work and bored. As I walked into the lobby area, I noticed three girls watching TV in the lobby so I plopped down in a chair and just started in talking with all of them. One in particular looked somewhat familiar, but so cute I initially thought to myself” “She’s out of my league”. But what the hell, there was a dance being held at the Dearborn Gym. I didn’t typically care for dances, but it was something to do.

They introduced themselves as Madeline, Denise and Char. All three were nice enough but there was something special about that petite brunette, Char. Dressed in an oversized sweatshirt and baggy jeans, her big white smile, dark brown eyes and hair made her irresistible to me. After making small talk for a few minutes gathering the nerve, I got up and started out the door.

Casually as I could muster, I turned and said, “Hey Char, want to go over to the dance with me?” Without hesitation, she replied, “No, thanks I’m pretty tired, maybe some other time”. “Ok, right, some other time” I said, trying valiantly to shrug off the rejection.

As I headed out the door, I remember clearly, I was in the airlock between the inner door and the outer glass doors, when I inexplicably turned around and went back to ask Char one more time to come with me. I didn’t realize it then, but life as I knew it was about to change forever.

It was one of those moments in time when you really don’t understand yourself why you did what you did. As I turned back and opened the inner door, I gestured to Char, “Oh come on !” and in an instant she was on her feet, saying, “Ok, ok gimmie a few, I have to go change.” I don’t recall making it to the dance that evening, instead just walking the campus with Charlyn Mary Lombaerde, getting to know the woman I would spend the rest of my life with. It wasn’t long before we made plans to marry.

This made my decision to work in the Allagash a bitter-sweet one. She would return to her parent’s home in northwest New Jersey for the summer and I would spend nearly three months in the woods more than 500 miles away from my future wife.

Allagash part 1

It was May 30, 1974. As I left the parking lot at the Shop-Rite in Millinocket, I still had about 50 miles to travel to my final destination at the Chamberlain Bridge Thoroughfare in the Allagash Waterway. Having been there with my dad several years before, I knew the way. I had stocked up on groceries for at least three weeks, since the stores in Millinocket were the closest to where I would be staying.

As my now jam-packed 68 Pontiac Tempest rolled out on to the street, I felt a rush of excitement at the idea of spending the summer in the wilderness as a ranger in the Allagash. Being the son of the Supervisor of Parks for the State of Maine had its perks.

The roads leading northwest out of Millinocket wind between huge stacks of pulpwood being kept wet by sprayers. They seem to go on for miles until the roads change from paved to well-groomed gravel highways, designed for the huge logging trucks that had the right of way over them at all times. Everyone else that uses these roads does so at the pleasure of the paper companies that own and maintain them.

A fully loaded hauler with logs stacked nearly 16 feet high would usually take the center of the road and not give an inch to any passenger vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Slowing down was not an option for them either as the incomes for these drivers and equipment owners depend on getting as many loads out of the woods as possible. These trucks would sway side-to-side so much they appeared in danger of toppling over as they came towards you in a cloud of dust. The roads were exceptionally good, with level gravel surfaces. Sometimes, however they were top-dressed with ragged chunks of sharp shale that could easily cut a tire. Traveling deep into the woods without at least one or two spare tires was a recipe for disaster.

Long after the Abol Bridge checkpoint, the road wound past views of the hills, Mt. Katahdin’s mile-high snow covered peak and scenes along the West Branch of the Penobscot River. I was on the famed “Golden Road”. I suspect it was so named because it was paved with and by the gold earned from the harvesting of the Maine woods.

A trucker I hitchhiked with up there once told me nearly the entire forest of Maine had been harvested five times since the earliest settlers cut trees for the King of England’s navy. I found this amazing since we tend to think of our Maine wilderness as “virgin forest” when in actuality it is far from that. At that time, it was rumored that some of the trees bearing the “Kings Mark” still existed in remote portions of the forest. These were giant pines that were marked as ideal for masts to go on the tall ships in the British Navy in the 1700’s. I never saw one, so I suspect it may have just been folklore.

Back in the 1970s the logging industry was undergoing a huge transition. Large logging settlements like the one called “Telos Camp” had several hundred residents. They were loggers, skidder operators, truckers or those that ran supporting services for them. These were all incredibly strong men, mostly French Canadians who worked long hours bringing trees to the yards to be hauled to the mills in Millinocket. The houses they lived in were little larger than ice fishing shacks. They were a comfortable warm place to rest weary bones, but not much else.

I remember being invited to dine with these guys at a huge mess hall where at least 100 men sat and ate like kings. Their caloric intake had to be very high to replace what they burned in the woods. The food was incredibly good and there was always lots of it. I walked in to the large dining area to a din of French conversation over the evening meal. As I sat down and was introduced, their language instantly changed to English. This was a bit unsettling for me since I did not know any conversational French, let alone the brand of Canadian French spoken in the logging camps.

Slowly but surely these men were being replaced with machinery. In some places the new hydraulic mechanical marvels that cut limbed and stacked trees in the blink of an eye were being used. The handwriting was on the wall for a centuries-old tradition of Maine logging. Skidders had replaced horses, trucks had replaced the river drives, chainsaws had replaced two-man raker saws and now these machines would replace the lumberjack. After what seemed like many long hours over dusty roads, I finally pulled into the Ranger quarters at Chamberlain Thoroughfare.

I was surprised to see a neat, newly built log cabin home with bright cedar logs and a green roof. Perhaps my quarters would be here. The building had a small section that was used to check in campers as most who did the Allagash trip over its hundred plus miles of waterway typically began here. At that time, more than 10,000 adventurers would do the entire length of the trip in a summer season. I got out of the car, stretched my legs and went to the door of the cabin and knocked. Soon, a big man with a red face and sparse blonde air met me and shook my hand. You must be Tom’s boy, he said. I’m Skip Cram, he said. You will be working for me. He was the head ranger at this checkpoint where I’d be spending the next two and a half months. “Let me show you to your quarters”.

Instead of going in, he pointed up the road towards a dilapidated singlewide mobile home that looked like it came from a junkyard. Inside, I was cringing at the thought of bunking there, but decided it would be ok.