By Matt Burnett
As we came together at the usual meeting place, Panera, in Augusta Maine, I surveyed the group. There were a lot of 12 year olds, many of whom knew each other through previous Northern Forest Explorer events and some who played soccer together.
I had no doubt that they would step up to the needs of a 90-plus mile trip, roughly four times the distance they had paddled on the other Adirondack events.
The other guide, Scott Fuller, who is a veteran of the Allagash and my fellow guide came up with some of the campers from Poland, Maine. There was the usual scrambling around of dry bags, last minute gear purchases at Walmart, and a couple gonzo chess games in the parking lot with my new travel set, a birthday present from my wife, Amy. We were getting down to business!
We made it to Chamberlain Lake that night and had a great conversation with the ranger before departing on Sunday, starting with a sunny day and flat water. Scott and I had purchased 12-foot river poles with the idea of running some polling clinics, but as we looked across the young group with what seemed an average height of 4-feet we started to reconsider how much of that we would be doing. Part of the fun of expedition traveling is that every group, every trip, dictates its own circumstances. You can plan and plan, and still you will be faced with things that don’t line up as planned or just need to go a different way. Fluidity is the order of the day.
So we brought three poles instead of the whole bunch and hit the water. They ended up holding up tarps more than propelling boats, but they did it well. We managed to cross Chamberlain – which can be intimidating at 17 square miles – and arrived at Chamberlain Dam in the late afternoon.
What ensued was typical of the early part of our expeditions: We were late enough in the day, about 3 p.m. that some people were tired and not wanting to continue on the water. After all, we’d already paddled about seven miles. People wanted to wade, to play, to fish, to eat. We did some of all of that.
The question to continue vs camping right there came up, which always factors in lots of parameters. The need to make distance, the energy level of our group, and many other things, including the oncoming threat of a late afternoon thunderstorm. We pulled it back together to carry gear and boats over the dam, but as this was travel day one not everybody got immediately with the program. Mir (aka “the doctor”) ran excitedly up with an admirable brook trout, the true fishing prize of this water. Caught between admiration for the fish and criticism for not being part of the effort to move gear, I took charge of the fish and urged him to participate. A cardinal rule of camp life is that when we are working on a group task we should ALL be participating, but this rule is learned through repetition and example and so we just got back with it.
As we all got back in the roll to Eagle Lake I saw a dark front moving in, and so we knew we would have to hustle to the first campsite available. We made it to Breezy Point just as we were hearing rumbles of thunder, and got everybody off of the water.
Stewardship
It had been our plan to connect with the Northern Forest Canoe Trail work crew on their campsite improvement effort for the Lone Pine Campsite on the north end of Eagle Lake. After a side trip to admire the abandoned locomotives and Tramway Carry between Eagle Lake and Chamberlain, leftovers from the early days of logging in the area, we checked in with NFCT Allagash crew leader Ethan Israel and intern Brodie Bard at the Island work project, making a plan to meet the following day.
After a leisurely camp at Zeigler site (complete with a side trip to fly fish an incoming brook), we made sure to return the following day promptly at 9 a.m. to put in a half day with the work crew. I meet so many people caught up in the attractions of outdoor living and recreation, who enjoy the fun and frivolity of what they are doing and the beautiful places that they are doing it. But I think it is so important for people to understand the volunteerism and resources that go into making and maintaining these amazing routes available for public benefit.
Read about the rest of the trip in Youthful Adventures on the Allagash: Part II
It is a good lesson for our youth to see and participate in this work, and they were welcomed with open arms. I’m glad to report that our workforce of 11 kept buckets of gravel moving as fast as they could be put away. Also, our participants got to meet and work with some older volunteers from the NFCT, the Appalachian Mountain Club, and an older Maine couple from Moosehead lake. This is how stories and ethics and values are passed on along the river. By noon we had moved approximately 60 buckets and so we picked up camp and resumed our journey north.
