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.