Down East Latch Strings/Chapter 9
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ome of the passengers seated themselves in the hotel coaches waiting at the Lake station and whirled away to Greenville, but the most of us betook ourselves to a neat little hotel a few rods up the road, where dinner awaited us—something we were extremely anxious shouldn't wait
any longer.
"I never was so hungry in all my born days!" Prue confided to me, careless of her idioms.
Perhaps the hunger helped our appreciation, but let us give the cook the benefit of the doubt, and simply record our entire satisfaction with that dinner; and then, in better frame both of body and mind, we went out to view the land and the waters thereof.
Only a portion of the lake could be seen, the remainder lying behind points and islands, but this part was promising. Clouds had gathered, but would frequently break, letting the sun strike through and brighten the gray surface of the ruffled water. Straight up the lake, cutting off the view, rose the shapely broad hill on Moose island,—warm, deep, lively blue in color, through which a peppering of dull orange shone. The projecting headlands, and the islets grouped in front of its base, were vivid orange and yellow, where"What is there in this neighborhood to interest visitors," we ask a comfortable looking lounger on the wharf.
"Oh, slathers o' things! Greenville’s got two large hotels and they are full of city folks all summer. No better place now for the lake fishin' than right here,—sometimes they'll bite here when they won't nowhere else. Then there’s lots o' ponds and troutin' streams within a few miles, like Gerrish's pond and Eagle stream and the Wilson ponds—calc'late you've heard o' them?"
Baily said he had, often. I, who can not tell a lie, tried to look one, rather than confess ignorance.
"Well, they're three miles off to the east'rd. It's good walkin', or, if you want to take your lady with you, you can go in a carriage to the new hotel on the stream betwixt the two ponds."
"Is the fishing as good there as it used to be?" asked Bally, as if he had been accustomed to spend all his vacations in that vicinity.
"Yes, yes. Sure to get trout, especially in July and August when the fishin's dull on the lake, but you've got to let your bait down to deep water. No jumpin' at make-believe flies for those fellows! It's mighty pretty up there, ma'am, kind o’ cosied down in among the mountains as snug as you please; and you'd enjoy goin" up to the upper pond—the carry, you know, and all that—if you ain't used to it.
"Greenville's a great place for ladies a-goin' picnicing and fishin' and campin' over night all round this end of the lake; and one of the jolliest ways is to hire a little steamer and go up to McFarland's, or down to some of the islands, or may be across to Squaw brook. I never did see folks have such a good time as some of those Boston or New York people do when they go off on a trip o' that kind. Green? Lord love ye! but they don't care—never seem to mind it a bit, just ask foolish questions, and carry on, like a passul o' children out o' school,”
"That's about what they are; and I dare say we'd behave as badly as the rest of them," laughs Prue. "But tell me—does any body ever climb that great mountain?"
"Big Squaw? Oh, yes. You go over to Squaw brook in a boat or canoe and then pole up as far as yon can,—'taint far,—and from there a path has been bushed out up to the top. Same fellows call it easy to get up, but I should say it was pretty durned hard work, myself. You certainly do see a heap o' country when you get up there, though—lots o' mountains away up on the Allegash and over in Canada and down Rangely way. Well, good day, ma'am—hope you'll have a pleasant tine up to Kineo."
Moosehead lake is the largest of the hundreds of inland seas with which "down east" is provided. It is twice as big as Winnipesaukee, but has not the breadth in appearance (save at one or two points) of even that irregular pond, being elongated north and south, indented by promontories, deluded into prolonged bays or winding coves, and beset with islands, so that in several places it comes near losing its continuity. The length is 38 miles, and the width from one to fifteen. It is 995 feet above the sea, from which it is about 100 miles distant, but its bottom, in some places, is almost at sea-level. The shores, until recently covered with solid forest. are being cleared here and there for farming purposes, since excellent soil exists in several districts. This, however, does not detract from the general interest of the scenery, which can never lose the essential wildness that is its charm, so long as the irreclaimably stony islands, the towering mountains and the rock-infested rivers that make its grand surroundings remain; and when they disappear the lake itself will go with them.
Though innumerable hill-brooks and boggy dells drain thither, and many good-sized ponds overflow into its capacious basin, only one large river—the Moose—contributes its flood. The outlet of the lake is the Kennebec river, which pours out from its western side, at the broadest part, just north of the Squaw mountains, where a most substantial dam has been built for lumbering purposes.
Meanwhile we have started. The steamer is a fine double-decked side-wheeler, which pushes along at a good rate, and we are in every way comfortable and happy. At first there are many birch-covered rocky islands, but these are soon left behind and we get out into the round expanse of Sebamook. Greenville, every house painted white, appears behind us at the head of its bay; and near it, on the eastern shore, are several farms, but elsewhere unbroken woods down to the very edge of the water, with hardly any beach or bare rocks in front. Soon we are out far enough to get sight of the whole mass of Squaw mountain. It is well worth looking at,—a rude, uncivilized, worthy representative of the Maine highlands. Eastward, a more distant group of elevations occupies a large space, and sends spurs down to the shore which is itself ten miles away. There are the Lily Bay mountains, and the lofty groups named White Cap, Baker, Spruce, Saddle-back, Elephant-back, and others that stand amphitheatre-wise around the head of Pleasant river. They make a noble group of rugged peaks, cones and frusta, which were recalled when afterwards we gazed upon the huge upheaval that surrounds old Chocorua. The picture is best between Moose and Sugar island, for after the latter has been passed, though more peaks in number come into view, the "composition" is less admirable. This was one of the most beautiful mountain-pictures we saw anywhere in Maine.
On Deer island is a hotel of good size; and here several gentlemen loaded down with guns and fishing tackle left the steamer, and two of the many canoes lashed outside the guards were let lightly down into the water by the deck-hands, who handled the graceful things "as though they loved them." These gentlemen told us they intended on the next morning to paddle over to Kennebec dam, where the September fishing is particularly good. There is a hotel there, and many persons visit it every year, going by special boat, for it is out of the path of the regular steamers.
Having passed through the narrows between Sugar and Deer islands, we enter the broadest part of the lake, where it is fifteen miles across from Kennebec dam to the head of Spencer bay, the latter locality notorious for its fishing and duck-shooting, and the most remote and solitary part of Moosehead. Into it flows Roach stream, outlet of the large pond of the same name, at the foot of which is Davis's hotel; but the way to get there is by a buck-board road from the tavern on Lily bay at the mouth of Worth brook, to which the people at Greenville often resort for a day's excursion. Good trout-fishing can he had on Roach; but even better is assured to adventurous sportsmen who follow the logging roads over to the Big Lyfort and other secluded ponds at the head of the West branch of the Pleasant river. These ponds lie right under White Cap, amid savage scenery.
Directly north of the extremity of Spencer bay, two miles, is Spencer pond, to which a canoe can easily be taken. This pond lies at the foot of the dome-shaped hill-top that had been sticking up above islands and capes ever since we started, and, now that Sugar island was passed, came out in full view, with a mate equally big and isolated. Lofty, clean in outline, unencumbered by foot-hills, spurs or neighbors, they hold the eye by their singularity rather than their beauty. But be- | An image should appear at this position in the text. If you are able to provide it, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images for guidance. |
Mount Kineo, Moosehead Lake.yond them, like a turquoise wedge laid upon its side above the tree tops, is visible for a moment the monumental Katahdin. In that far-away peak it is purely beauty and sentiment which hold our admiring gaze.
Presently the lake contracts, and straight ahead, seen partly over the water and partly beyond the low shores on the right, the crags of Kineo grow darkly into larger and distincter form, till the grand headland stands fully revealed before us, with the green lawns, the white birch-groves, the cottages, warehouses and vast hotel, the steamers and sail-boats, that make the Mt. Kineo House like a bit of Bar Harbor dropped down here in the woods.
It is the next day. A discussion is in progress in the music-room of the hotel. A young man in flannel suit and slouched hat, is speaking with a metropolitan decision:—
"No—I will do anything reasonable, but not that. You may ask me to tramp over to where Rangeley's ripples are throwing kisses back to the moon—"
"Hear! Hear!" shouts a listener.
"—but climb Kineo? No!"
So Prue and I go up the mountain alone, starting soon after luncheon. Formerly, the only way was to row around the peninsula, and then ascend a long path of easy grade. Nimble climbers had a way of scrambling down the south front, just back of the hotel, which made the return (for them) far shorter and dispensed with the boats, but no stiff-jointed or rattle-brained person, nor any woman ever came down that path.
In '86, however, Mr. Dennen built a set of ladder-like stairways up the steepest part of this old line of gymnastic descent, and above that, where the cliff was a little less sheer, fastened a chain, like a hand-rail, by the help of which any ordinarily active and surefooted person can mount to the brink of the rock. Prue made light of the difficulties, and scorning my help scrambled up the rocks, using hands and knees, saplings and chain, all the time bewailing low seared she was, but never stopping nor turning back, so that I paid little attention to her complaints.
A fine panorama southward and westward was spread before us from this first ledge—an excellent chart of our whole steamboat-course the day before; but as soon as we get our breath we turned our backs upon it and trudged up the well-trodden path leading alone the margin of the cliff to its much higher extremity at the eastern face. The path was not always an even ascent, however, nor is the summit of the rock as level as it seems to be from below. On the contrary there are two great depressions. The woods were dense, but beautiful, fragrant, and still, and the moss was thick enough everywhere, especially in the hollows, to make a most grateful carpet for our feet. At one spot, half way, we obtained a broader view westward than even the summit afforded, but did not pause, until at last, with a sudden emergence from the cedars, we came to the brink of that great face of the rock looking down upon Kineo bay and the beaches.
It almost took our breath away! Prue sat right down and fairly squealed whenever I moved a step. But after a little, she gingerly advanced and learned to look down the purple walls that fell so sharply away from where we stood. For, though I could have made a running leap which would have dropped me seven hundred and fifty feet into that trembling mirror beneath us, yet the brow of the crag was so rounded off, and treegrown, that it was possible to go quite near the verge, without serious danger; and I know nowhere in the east that such a sense of the grandeur of height can be experienced as here, 
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Moosehead Lake, from Mt. Kineo.safety of her perch among the rhododendrons. Then we seated ourselves upon the tip-top point and prepared to enjoy the view. Prue, wrapped in my overcoat, lay upon the warm rocks, while I sat in her lee and jotted down the main features of the landscape.
Eastward, the world is comparatively open, and the few mountains are isolated and distinct. Little Kineo, bun-shaped, as seen from here, stands prominent, and beyond it are the high wooded hills towards Lobster lake. Directly east, the most conspicuous objects are the two Spencer mountains, reared out there in the level woods, without a foothill. The nearest (Kokadjo) is a three-sided pyramid, even and sharp; the further one (Sabolawan) is more massive and irregular,—in reality a long ridge, seen "end on." To the left of Kokadjo, the northernmost extremity only of Katahdin is visible—a great disappointment to us, who had hoped to see it all. North of it, away over toward the head of the East branch of the Penobscot, half-sunken summits indent the sky with faint notchings.
From the Spencers, southward, there is little to speak of until we get down to the Lily Bay group, over the left of which a pure dome is revealed, which I take to be White Cap. Southward of that are massed the peaked company whose grandeur I have described as we saw it from the lake, and which neither loses nor gains in this new arrangement. A crowd of high hills shut in that end of the lake, the whole southern half of which lies out-
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spread before us as in a chart. Islands so big that we thought them a part of the mainland when we sailed past, now are seen encircled by water. Every bay and cove and inlet, and each little island is plain at a glance.
The lake is vitreous and gleaming like ice, and resembles a cameo, whose form has been carved out of the rough epidermis of forest down to some pearly layer underneath. Across it comes the boat from Greenville, like a white bird at the apex of a triangle made by its ever-widening wake; but it is only by long watching that we can see that it moves. Little cats-paws, turning up the blue under side of the wavelets, ruffle the lustrous surface, and by the progress of patches of this deeper color we can trace where some swift zephyr sends across, or a current is blowing steadily. I am aroused from my revery by my companion's voice, soft, almost sleepy. "Yes—what is it?"
"Did you say that Mt. Kineo is a mass of pure flint?"
"Yes, or pretty mach the same thing. That's what the Indian word meals—arrow-head stone. The whole slate was supplied with material for sharp stone implements from this place. It's the biggest chunk of hornstone in the world."
"Well, Theo, I was just thinking, you know, that if, some day, that big mountain of iron down at the furnaces, should march up here and pitch into Kineo, how the sparks would fly!"
I decline to laugh, by word or deed, and my wife doesn't seem to demand it, but contentedly nestles into her coat again, and lets her eyes rest in serene delight upon the scene.
Northward, the lake is spread out, keystone-shape, with equal distinctness, and an almost interminable plain of forests, with a few little summits far away as boundary marks, This unbounded forest in every direction forms, indeed, the dominant and memorable feature of the view. As the breadth of the ocean held our gaze on Mount Desert, so here we are held by the expanse of woods. The color is dingy green, and the surface is as uniform and dense as a grainfield. Formerly, the white pines—Sauls of their race—towered up singly or in sparse groves here and there far over the general level, as the standards of an army are lifted above the crowding spears; but these are cut away even from the highest hills and all the remaining trees have the dead level of their mediocrity unbroken. Isolated rocky summits (like our own) sticking up here and there, seemed truly islands. This similitude of the great heaving forest and the sea was intensified moreover by the sound which came up to our ears from all sides—a steady, droning, rustling threnody; a dull suppressed booming, like that of distant surf, yet unlike it; varying with the shifting of the light wind, but never ceasing nor losing its impressiveness. It is the gossip of millions of clashing branches and tens of millions of rustling leaves, and if in a quiet day like this its tones are still powerful, how mighty must be the roar when the storm is hurtling among those pliant tops. It is the harp of the North Woods, vibrating in gentle tones to a zephyr's touch to-day; but capable to-morrow of resounding with what diapason notes!
Westward, the view is not so satisfactory from here (because of the bushes) as from a point farther back, and after strolling about among the rocks and hoary old trees, and drinking from the spring, which bubbles up at the very top, we slow!y return along the woodland path. Here and there it is dim, the shadows are dense, the thickets would make excellent ambuscades. Prue remembers that she is in the wilderness. She has heard a good many bear-stories of late, and walks on tiptoe, with her eyes open, ears pricked up, and skirts gathered in both hands ready to run instanter. Yet she goes ahead—apparently courting the bears, which I try to explain by a reference to that animal's well-known propensity toward hugging, and get snubbed for my pains.
By and by, we come out on the verge of the cliff where the west shines in our faces with sunset smiles. Squaw and the Little Squaw, down at the foot of the lake are black with absolutely unbroken forest; it must have been a large campfire which old Kinneho could see from here. Just across the lake from us is an extension of Kineo called the Blue Ridge, which is one rim, while Squaw is the other, of a vast shallow basin, whose endless forests hide Indian pond, both the outlets to the Kennebec, and a dozen streams; but the background all the way round is filled with the mountains at whose feet lie the Rangely lakes, and along whose farther crests runs the Canadian line.
The sun sinks rapidly. The mountains sway and tremble in the dancing level beams that gush through their passes (for now the sun is half gone), distinguishing each range by some separate color-effect, ineffably soft and rich, while the whole west is veiled in a greenish coppery-mist hardly separable from the glowing sky.
With fast deepening gloom the foreground darkens to greenish-black or dead brown or indigo, and the forested heights far away in the south and east are suddenly dyed in transparent crimson, while the waters between become as a sheet of polished steel.
I am not writing a book about hotels, but here at Moosehead lake the Mt. Kineo House is the whole settlement. Stores, stables, steamers—everything are part and parcel of the property. Nothing could be more fortunate in the way of a site. Right at the side of the huge rack, a few acres of almost level and fertile soil stretch out into the lake, inviting a landing. On this natural location the hotel has been built, but the present building is the enlarged successor of two lesser ones which have been destroyed by fire. "This new hotel," in the succinct statement of its Manager, Mr. O. A. Dennen, "is planned on an ample scale and believed to be second to none in construction, general arrangement and convenience, as well as in its provision for the security and comfort of its guests,"
That's just like any popular watering-place, you say. Precisely; but one might not expect to find such polish in this wild region, and hence I am particular to make the fact plain.
Otherwise, there is a great unlikeness between Moosehead and other watering places. There is no driving for instance. Sailing is another lake-side pleasure little practiced here. Social pleasures take a subordinate place, though the large music-room of the hotel, with its polished floor and airy space, is an ideal place for dancing and by no means left deserted; and though the club house (the very pink and perfection of log cabins) is the prettiest amusement-room the summer tourist of a sun shines upon. Nor does the management trouble itself to entertain the guests by elaborate preparations for their amusement, though it will give sound advice and furnish every material means to carry to success any plan for recreation. The situation, in fact, is much like that of the traveller at the Missouri stage-station, who if he didn’t like corned beef could help himself to mustard. Here are the woods and the lake—shooting and fishing. You are welcome to both, or you can take your choice. Nevertheless Cupid is rewarded, as well as the Dryads and Naides. A writer in Harper's Magazine some years' ago appreciated the case most thoroughly. "Your fishermen," he observes, "may be silent all day while casting his fly, but not so when he has laid his day's sport triumphantly upon the piazza, the envy of unlucky fishermen, and eaten his supper. The walks in the twilight upon the piazzas, the groups of friends clustered here and there, the peals of laughter from the adjoining rooms, the universal stir and movement of the place, the free intercourse of the guides with the sportsman, the admitted privilege of anybody speaking to anybody if he chooses to, the chattering at every available point, make a joyous life whose like can hardly elsewhere be found. It looked dismal at first to interest one's self in this lonely spot of the creation, with mountains and forests as your companions; but each day it is less so. The place grows upon you; the common feeling is, 'It is unlike any place I've been in before. You eat more and more heartily as the days go on, and grow healthier and jollier; and the great world goes on without you, and you don't care if it does. It is impossible to bring your cares up here into the wilderness. Old men find that they can be young again, and young men have the spice and fun of recreation without dissipation. And so it happens that the people who have the capacity of enjoying themselves in close intercourse with nature come to Moosehead again and again, and those who have to be entertained came but once."
There is no need to go far away for this fishing—some of the best catches on record have been made within hail of the hotel; and Table rock, off Cliff beach, in Kineo bay, always rewards the angler who takes his stand upon it late in the season. Kineo Bay is the favorite terminus of morning walks, and its sandy or pebbly beaches form the most delightful of picnicing grounds or camping places, for visitors often hire tents and camp-outfit and spend their days and nights al fresco, taking their meals at the hotel. There you can lie all day in your tent, or float in your birch-bark, teasing the patient echo or studying the lights and shadows on the noble cliff—the purple, violet and black, the silver high-lights where water drips, the hoary tone of lichens and moss, and a thousand changing niceties of color and sunlight,
If you prefer wider excursions, yon can paddle or be paddled in the canvas canoes which have pretty well superseded their birchen prototypes (this boat of poetry and romance is not wholly gone, however); or one of the swift steam launches will take you and your canoes together over to a dozen favorite fishing places on the western shore, or clear up to the northern end of the lake if you like,—a trip which will give you a magnificent view of stately Katahdin. Kennebec dam, the western outlet and Churchill stream, with its bead-line of tiny ponds; Brassua lake, Moose river and Brassua stream; the mouths of Tomhegan and Socatean rivers; and Duck cove, on the eastern shore, are the best-known localities.
For beginners, at least, the aid of men familiar with canoes and lake work generally, is necessary both to enjoyment and safety. Probably nowhere in Maine can a better company of these be found than those under patronage of this community. "Most of the guides understand all that can be known about fishing. It is one of the strong points in their profession, They invest but little in novelties. They are not confined to the fir. A stick, a hook, a worm, make their equipment, and you always count on their success. Many a minister, apostolic with his rod if not in his commission, and many a lawyer, have the same tact in catching trout. They know how to do it. They can no more impart the skill to others than you can make the divining rod work with unfitting lands. The birch skiff shoots out from the Kineo pier at 9 A.M., or earlier, often wives and daughters accompanying the fishermen, and go to the famous fishing pools, returning at night with the brilliantly spotted game, which is saved for breakfast the next morning. . . Guides and fishermen rapidly assimilate in appearance as the days go on, till you can hardly tell the bronzed faces, one from the other, and are forced to confess the truth of the saying that dress makes the man—certainly makes the distinction which we too often ascribe to birth and fortune."
Baily did our trio entire credit. Perhaps it was the fact that I, who care nothing for fishing, though I enjoy following anglers in their wanderings, sharing all their preparations and results, was with him: or it may have been the attraction of Prue’s bright eyes which quite captured the guide if it didn't the trout; but at any rate Baily got two fishes on his hooks at once and fought them for forty-two minutes by the watch (it was rather a ticklish place on the western side) before I could get the landing net under their shining bellies and fetch 'em into the canoe. After he had been at it fifteen minutes or so, skilfully managing the cord that swished through the water as the span of captives darted hither and yon, I asked him how long he intended to keep it up, and was amused by his grim reply.
"I propose," said he, through his teeth, "to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."
We had a fair basketful of good fish already, but these two were worth any half dozen of the others; and having got them we went straight heme. Then wasn't it a proud young man who watched them weighed in the centre of an eager circle of envious men and admiring women, and saw them tip the beam at seven pounds! And then Baily put his rod in the scales, and let every body see that it weighed just seven ounces.
"That's good work!" came heartily from a Philadelphian just back from a camping trip up Moose river; "but on single fish I still lead I guess," and he held up one five pounds in weight.
That was champion day for the season, but a few catches every year equal it, though no such giants are ever taken here as nose around the rocky hollows in the Androscoggin lakes.
"Are the trout decreasing here?" we asked.
"Not a bit. More fish were caught this year than ever. The waters are too big and far-reaching to ever feel legitimate fishing injuriously; besides, we have a hatchery here at the house which has turned loose hundreds of thousands of young trout and a heap of salmon, but I'm sorry to say we have never seen any salmon come back. It's a mystery what becomes of them."
But Moosehead lake does not limit the desire of most visitors. The ambition of an explorer enters into a man when he gets on the edge of these great solitudes, and as he looks over the map at the hundreds of
connecting water-courses, and then cones to know how capable is a canoe in the hands of his guide, if not in his own, a longing arises to get still farther away into the wilderness, which, if not wholly trackless, at least seems to be so. These woods and waters have been a ranging ground for choppers and sportsmen for a century, but you must look sharply, except at the habitual "carries," to notice any marks of humanity. Maine can repeat Ænone's lament to Ida:—For short trips, near by, there is choice of many secluded and enjoyable places on the winding shores of the lake, or in some of the communicating ponds, I have mentioned, or in the nearer parts of the West branch of the Penobscot, which passes the northern end of the lake at a distance of only two miles, and is reached by the Northeast carry, a steamboat landing at the head of the lake. The voyage down this West Branch to its mouth will well repay one, and many not only go out of the woods that way, but make the trip and return by train to Moosehead from Oldtown. Many men of renown have done it and testified to the great satisfaction it gave them. Thoreau makes it the subject of one of the most entertaining chapters of his Maine Woods, and Theodore Winthrop believed that "a breathless dash down the Penobscot" might create in him a more sensitive vitality; and so he and the painter Church came up here to the old Mt. Kineo house, were carried across to the West Branch by the old lumberman's ox-tramway, of which they have left so comical a reminiscence, and were set adrift on that voyage to which we owe that enchanting book, Life in the Open Air. "To the lover of scenery," says Hubbard, "the tour down the West Branch offers perhaps more attractions than any other in that part of Maine. There are, to be sure, many carries to make, but the wildness of the river, the picturesqueness of the lakes within access of it, and the grandeur of Mt. Katahdin, which continually discovers some new feature, together form a combination of enjoyments seldom to he found."
A week is long enough for this run if you do not do much fishing or hunting beyond what is permitted by ordinary camping-halts.
The upper Penobscot may also he explored, and many fine fishing and camping places will be found. This part of the river is reached by the Northwest carry to the Seboomook meadows, where many years ago James Russell Lowell met the man whom he admired so much, and whom in his elegant essay A Moosehead Journal, he styled "an A. M. and LL. D. in Wood's College,—Axe-Master and Doctor of Logs." The old Canada road runs along the stream, up its middle branch and thence over into Quebec, and it is possible by its help to penetrate the forest and climb some of the great rude mountains of that remote corner of the state. The St. John lies in that direction, also, rising in the almost imperceptible water-shed which divides the rivers of the northern, from those of the southern half of the state. "The country is an archipelago of lakes,—the lake country of New England. Their levels vary but a few feet, and the boatmen, by short portages, or by none at all, pass easily from one to another. They say that at very high water the Penobscot and the Kennebec flow into each other, or at any rate, that you may lie with your face in the one and your toes in the other. Even the Penobscot and St. John have been connected by a canal, so that the lumber of the Allegash, instead of going down the St. John, comes down the Penobscot; and the Indians' tradition, that the Penobscot once ran both ways for his convenience, is, in one sense, partially realized to-day."
The more direct route to the St. John, however, is to go down the West Branch of the Penobscot to the head of Chesuncook, and then up the Umbazookskus and over a carry to Chamberlin lake.
There is good fishing, and a fine chance fer sport with the rifle in all that neighborhood, which would make an excellent objective for a limited excursion.
Resuming our eastward route, the canoeist bound for the St. John or East branch of the Penobscot, paddies up the Umbazookskus, where, according to the Indians, moose were always numerous. Meadows new form the hay-fields of the Chesuncook farmers, and moose are less often seen than deer or caribou. Navigation in the upper part of this stream is likely to be obstructed in low water, but a team can always be obtained to haul canoes and luggage over the infamous Mud carry, the unpleasantness of which may be relieved, if the sportsman goes ahead of the baggage wagon, by a shot at ducks on the borders of Mud pond.
This book cannot go into details of the cruise down the succession of lakes which lead to and along the Allegash. From Churchill lake a troublesome series of wadings, carryings and short floatings, through Spider and Munsungan lakes, leads over to the head of the Aroostook, after which that river can be descended to the settlements without much difficulty. This is an old-time trail of lumbermen and fur-traders, but is reputed the least interesting of all the northern Maine water-paths. It is possible from Spider lake, also, to go down the Musquacook, but the excursion has little to recommend it.
Below Churchill Lake the Allegash is more river-like, all the way to the St. John. It is only a few miles down that river to the first of the farm-houses, which gradually increase in frequency. Twelve miles below the month of the Allegash, the St. Francis, forming a part of the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick, comes in, and may be ascended to a settlement only 20 miles by road from the Intercolonial Railway. Thirty miles farther on is the Madawaska, another tributary from the north, at the mouth of which stands the town of Edmundston, This river may be ascended by canoes to the Temiscuate lake region, in Quebec, which is well settled and only a short distances by stage roads from the St. Lawrence river and the railway on its bank. Or the round trip from Edmundston and back can be made in a week or ten days, under very pleasant conditions.
Edmundston will be the end of his voyage for the average canoeist, as the remainder of the St. John runs through a settled region,
This is the present terminus of the New Brunswick Railway, by which the lower-river towns and seaports of the Province are reached,[1] or, one can change at Grand Falls—a fine cataract—to the railroad, and came straight across the state via Woodstock and McAdam Junction to Oldtown or Bangor.
This round trip from Moosehead lake down the St. John and back to the Mt. Kineo house can be made in two weeks (omitting, of course, the side-trips) and will not cost for one man and his guide over $100.
The two or more guide-books to the waterways of this northern wilderness are so circumstantial and complete in their descriptions of each and all routes, and accompained by so minute maps, that experienced canoeists would find it entirely feasible to go without a guide; but this is inadvisable in any case, and would be wholly wrong on the | An image should appear at this position in the text. If you are able to provide it, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images for guidance. |
Katahdin, from North bay (Moosehead.) part of a novice. There is no reason why, under proper arrangements, ladies should not form a part of any of these expeditions, but they must be women of the right kind.
The entire camping outfit necessary can be procured at the Mt. Kineo house before starting, and stores can be supplemented at various points, especially on the St. John trip. The guides recommended by the managers of the hotels at Moosehead lake are to be relied upon, and the needful expense and length of the journey can be calculated accurately in advance. Guides of the sort one wants ask from $2.50 to $3.00 a day, and provide a canoe, one small tent and the usual camping outfit for two persons. As to a good guide I adopt Mr. Farrar's description: "a guide who wields a strong and skilful paddle, who knows how to handle a setting-pole, who can shoot straight, a good cook, an excellent story teller; one strong, wilful, cheerful, courageous…But a cross-grained, lazy slouch, hired because you can get him cheap, is dear at any price."
A few words remain to be said about the ascent of Katahdin. The allurement of this "distinctest mountain," the hub of state and beacon for her remotest sons, is very great. Those who have read the fascinating stories of Thoreau, Jackson, Hamlin and others (not the least of whom is a gifted woman, of unknown name, whose story of how a party of ladies made the ascent, will be found in the volume for 1853 of Putnam's Magazine) must long to plume themselves on being among the few who have reached the grizzled summit.
The attack from the West branch of the Penobscot, either by descending it from Moosehead lake or ascending from Mattawamkeag (a railway station on the Maine Central 75 miles east of Bangor), I have already indicated.
- ↑ The routes and resorts through all this region are explained in Ticknor's Guide to the Maritime Provinces; and a capital general account of the country and its resources for sporting and holiday pleasure may be found in a little book entitled Open Season and Resting Retreats, published a few years ago.