Winter Walk for the Wild 2005


Journal Story of our Snowshoe/Toboggan Trek January 27, 1981 - February 16, 1981 Greenville to Allagash Written by Alexandra Conover
If the weather holds just right, and Ice conditions are reliable, you can walk from Greenville, Maine, at the very foot of Moosehead Lake, to the upper end of this waterbody in about three days. At this point, either Northeast Carry or Northwest Cove have been reached. And if you made a choice of these coves, and followed one of Maine's numerous riverine highways, another three weeks of good waterway conditions and a sizeable amount of walking could bring you to the cities of either Quebec, Bangor, Augusta, or to the village of Allagash, Maine. We chose the latter.
It was midday as we pulled our laden toboggans over the wind-packed snow of Northwest Cove. A small stream entered here, Carry Brook, memorializing the nearby overland route of travel between the West Branch Seboomook and Moosehead lakes by Indians, traders, trappers, loggers, and now recreationists like ourselves. Traces of the old carry trail invisible to us we brought our toboggans off Carry Brook at the rivermens' graveyard on the right bank, and briefly followed a roadway. Soon the frozen white surface of Seboomook could be seen through the trees.

Even in the wind, the few miles we walked that afternoon were easy ones. A pair of red foxes crossed the lake just upwind of us, periodically turning their heads to watch the uncommon passage of toboggans and humans over their hunting territory. An hour before dark the sleds were unpacked, a waterhole chiseled through the ice, the wall tent pitched, the airtight stove lit and roaring, stewmeat was cooking and biscuits baking. So ended the fourth day of what was to become a twenty-one day snowshoe trek from Greenville to Allagash Village via the waterways.

Pittston Farm was a notable historic landmark that we soon encountered. A number of large, well-constructed houses and barns sat comfortably on a rise above the floodplains of the South and North branches of the Penobscot river. Entering here, they form the West Branch of the Penobscot, the waterway that made timber and later pulp, Maine's number one industry.

Once a full-scale farm, Pittston raised hay to support the horse teams, and potatoes and vegetables for the lumbermen. During the 1940's the place was retrofitted as a prisoner-of-war camp. Presently it is a base of operations for the High Adventure outings of the Boy Scouts of America.

At about this point, my left arch decided it had had enough of lake and ice walking. Though the ideal gear for the weather conditions we were experiencing, both leather/canvas mukluks and light rubber overboots provided no arch support, and allowed my already flat arches to stretch beyond their limit. We holed up for a day.
The next day a warm spell hit, rain came flying and we had to sit tight. But, during that night, you could hear the trees pop as they refroze. By morning, travel was again possible on the now icy-topped river.

We finally reached Abacotnectic Bog (Big Bog) and at the far end discovered a skidder clearing trees down to the streams edge. Though many of the cutting operations we saw in the days to come seemed to be proceeding legally, we were to see a repetition of this unresponsible practice.
Nearby we located the old Fifth St. John Canal which is human-made, once used as a sluice for logs to drop from the St. John watershed into the Penobscot. It was very overgrown and difficult going, but by evening we were camped by Fifth St. John Pond. The next day broke sunny and cold, and we had to take to some logging roads to circumnavigate the quick open water flowing out of the lake. This stream is known as the Baker Branch of the St. John river and is one of its main tributaries. It was initially small and winding with many fox and coyote tracks upon it. It was a trackers paradise. One day as we were rounding a stream bend we spotted a meadow vole myopically scurrying out from shore onto the light snow layer of the stream. We stopped to watch, commenting that based on the types of animal tracks we had been seeing, this was the wrong place for a vole to be. No sooner said, when a flashing yellowish streak of what first appeared to be a wisp of marsh grass, tumbled and wound its way circuitously towards the vole - then snatch - and the vole was whisked to shore. When all motion ceased, we made out the form of an ermine on its haunches with the vole in its mouth. Its dark, shining eyes matched its tail tip color. It dropped the vole and lightly bounded along the shore until it was in line with us. It stared a few moments and then returned to its meal, which it carried away and out of sight. The next day we simultaneously spotted ahead of us a snow-shoe hare high-tailing it for the openness of the stream's course with a marten behind it in close pursuit. The reddish-brown creature spotted us half-way out on the ice and continued his bolt, this time for the opposite shore where he disappeared. The rabbit continued in a somewhat bewildered manner to hop about on the stream and eventually was lost to view around a bend. Garry and I, being totally non-plussed naturalists, neglected to extract the purposeful rabbit-iron during this drama. Other animals we saw included pileated woodpeckers, black-backed three-toed woodpeckers, redpolls and pine siskins, snow buntings, pine grosbeaks, Canada Jays and brown-capped chickadees. We watched a mink dashing along the shore, an otter cleaning itself beside an air hole, four deer in the early morning sun, three foxes, all of a lovely blonde-red hue, and two coyotes traveling together, one dark and long-legged, the other much lighter in color.
Nearly every other night we would listen to the coyotes yip yowl and yodel. One night we heard foxes give their far less musical screeching and barking calls. With the coyotes and foxes mating at this time of year, as well as the owls, the nights are full of sounds and quite euphonious if canine howls and avian hoots don't unnerve you. Sometimes we were able to walk on the wind-packed snow surface, other times we were snowshoeing laboriously through the deep, clinging snow, and occasionally we snowshoed along quite easily on a river surface that had shallow snow cover mixed with drifted pockets. And then there were days when we would have traveled best with either ice creepers or skates - neither of which we had. On these times our toboggans rattled along behind us, nearly frictionless.
The glare ice was not only difficult for us but it can mean bad times for the deer. Occasionally they will venture out onto the ice, come onto a glare area and lose their footing. Each leg goes out perpendicular from the body and they are unable to regain their footing. A deer in this predicament is easily victim of exposure and scavenging animals such as the foxes, coyotes, and ravens. We found two such cases along the way. In the first instance there was only hair and a few bones to suggest the deer's fate. However, the other deer we found became a particularly notable occurrence. It was late in the day, the light level dwindling fast, and we knew we should have made camp at least an hour previously. However, as the banks on both sides of the river were precipitous and the forest growth thick, we had kept moving, searching each bank for a suitable flat area. Just as we were seriously wondering what we were to do, Garry spotted a deer, a dead one, near the far shore. Our immediate cares forgotten, we hastened to it discovering an entire carcass, exhibiting only the smallest amount of scavenging. This had been done by the ravens, their tracks numerous. An eye was gone and a patch of hair had been removed from the back. Other than that, she was intact. In fact, she was still partially unfrozen, which indicated that she had died not too much earlier in that day. Each leg was flat on the ice, her head turned to one side, resting on her front leg. Getting out a knife, we removed what meat we felt we could consume for supper. As I was doing this, Garry, staring toward the shore pointed and sounding surprised said, "Look, there's camp." I looked up and sure enough, a dark clearing showed amongst a substantial stand of white birch on a small area of level land. We set up the tent in that opening, keeping a number of trees between us and the river. We arranged it, however, to have a clear view of the distant fallen deer. Our hopes were to keep watch of the carcass through the moonlit night, and to witness whatever might visit. Though the deer was left untouched that night, we felt honored to partake of the gift we found and humbled by the occurrence of the campsite that thereby appeared to us. It took us five days longer than expected to reach Moody Bridge where the American Realty Road crosses the St. John river. When we finally arrived there, we found our food cache intact, but the weather was turning 'soft'. That meant another layover day, not desirable for already being behind schedule. In addition to the commitment of meeting, clients in Jackman on the 21st of Feb., we had arranged with our friends the Faheys to be met in Allagash Village on the 15th. This meant that we had four days to walk seventy-two miles.
Up until this point we had been averaging eight-mile days, so the prospect of eighteen-mile days was unrealistic. As luck would have it, warden pilot and friend Jack McPhee dropped out of the skies and was able to land his plane on the river here. We discussed the options with him. We could somehow hitch a ride on the Realty Road to Ashland (84 miles to the east), ending our trip abruptly but guaranteeing that our business responsibilities could be met. We could gamble with the weather, hoping that the thaw we were experiencing would cease, allowing things to freeze solid. By some severe stretching of the imagination, the easy traveling might enable us to reach Allagash in time. On the other hand, if it snowed, it might take us two weeks to reach our destination. The only thing certain, once we left Moody Bridge, there was no other place to be met-except at Allagash. We would be committed - with our clients at stake.
We decided to have Jack tell Mick and Eunie Fahey to meet us on the 18th, leaving us just enough time to prepare for the Jackman trip once we got home. We would gamble with the weather. Jack flew off with this message, and we waited to see what kind of weather the next day would bring. In the morning the wind was howling down the river and the ice was 'talking'. Even without a thermometer it was easy to discern it was cold. We broke camp and headed for Allagash. And then the diarrhea struck. First Garry was attacked, then I, then a relapse for Garry. We later discovered that the water of the Northwest Branch drained the dairy towns in nearby Canada. For three days we walked, made camp, broke camp, walked, pushed on, nearly unsuccessfully ignoring the complaints of our inner regions. The cramps and the inconvenience were so miserable that in between spells all we could do was laugh about it. But somehow, we were making excellent time. By Feb. 15th, the original take out day, we found ourselves at the head of the famed Big Rapids, only a days walk from Allagash Village. But what we didn't guess was what lay ahead. The weather had remained cold until that day. The early morning sky looked thick with moisture and the air was unseasonably warm and heavy with the smells of a thawing landscape. We broke camp quickly and for the first mile found the going easy. When we rounded the corner to Big Rapids, it seemed that the entire river had been torn apart, opened up. Large surface ice floes were already grating and grinding their way downstream, gaining speed as they reached the wider sluices and open water. It seemed unbelievable, for minutes ago we had been traveling on eighteen inches of firm white ice. There was no choice but to lug our gear up the steep bank and try to make our way along the tangled shore. Once again, luck was with us, and after a short struggle, we found ourselves on the tote road that traverses the left hand shore. After a short while the road left the river entirely, climbing steadily. Three miles later we were at the rivers edge again, immediately below the last pitch of Big Rapids. And, miraculously, the river swallowed itself. As far as we could see, there was a firm ice field, bank to bank.
The first civilization we had seen since leaving Greenville, nearly two hundred miles south, emerged on the high bluffs just upriver of where the stormily debated hydroelectric dam could be built. Dickey is comprised of a smattering of small boxy colorfully painted houses, nearly every lawn displaying a chronologic array of snow machines and cars (whole or in part). A woman waved to us from her porch, seventy-five feet above us. Later, downstream by the bridge, a resident, exhibiting the features of Scotch-Irish descent, came out to us on his snow machine accompanied by his golden retriever, Bud. His opening comment, as he stared not at us, but at our toboggans, was, "This is weird!", his tone rendering the statement objective.
Then came a flood of questions, followed by a spirited and articulate monologue concerning the Dickey-Lincoln Dam project. The topic was introduced by himself and he summarized it before zooming off to take his children skating. "This is our home. We like our river." And though our recent travel through this area could only be called a visit, we had begun to feel what this man expressed. We like this river. And it certainly is the home of not only humans, but of many forms of life.
TOP
Contact Us For more information regarding the trip, sponsorship opportunities, media enquiries, or just to say hello please e-mail us. Garrett and Alexandra have a volunteer who collects their email and forwards it to them. Please remember that Garrett and Alexandra do not have email themselves and will respond via snail-mail to your e-mail correspondence. Should you still wish to send them email please remember to include your snail-mail address in your message.