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.
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.
You must have been a sound sleeper. I shared a house with John Mitton while going to UMO that was infested with mice. They drove me crazy. Eventually he moved.
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