Fort Kent Library Vacation!

R-2016-9-28 

So here I am, back in civilization.  I couldn’t have chosen a more relaxing civilization.

It’s day 2 of my glorious Library Vacation!  My first one of these was ages ago, when I stayed over with a librarian friend for a week, went to work with her, and discovered this to be the polar opposite of a bother.  I had forgotten how completely lovely these are. 

Yesterday I wandered around Fort Kent and got the lay of the place, then found myself on the University of Maine’s campus.  It’s rather small: I was halfway across it before I realized it.  But I soon found the library, which seems to be much the same vintage as Frostburg State’s, where I went for a semester.  This library, unlike the small public library in town, has the glorious hours of 0800-2300, and way more visitor computers.  Score.  I have found my haunt for the next couple days, I thought.

So yesterday was devoted to checking in and clearing up the email inbox, going from 1300 unread emails to 60, which entailed about four hours of staring at the screen.  My eyes weren’t used to it, so that was about all I could manage for the day.

I then went for a walk along the St. John and Fish Rivers, which intersect near the Blockhouse, then aimed to finally fulfill my pizza-and-beer fantasy, but hit a snag when they were cash-only.  Gotta love small towns, though, the pizza place accepted an IOU and a promise to come back and pay it off as soon as I got an ATM to agree with me, or my friends came to town to loan me some cash, whatever happened sooner.

So with these adult-issues adventures, I don’t feel like I’m that far off the Trail.  This trail was by no means total wilderness, and there were only a handful of days where I went without seeing another human.  I feel I should be a little more shell-shocked, slightly sad to leave sleeping under my tarp and sitting by the fire and feeling the pulse of the river and leaving the loons and the beavers behind in exchange for a cheap hotel room.  The wilds of the Trail were great, don’t get me wrong, but the part that I appreciated and embraced the most was the freedom, the self-sufficiency, the simple cause-and-effect of your decisions deciding the consequences and, subsequently, your next couple days.  The environment factored in, sure, but if you read the weather or the Trail wrong, you got exactly zero sympathy.  Adapting was the only option.  Scrappiness was the only virtue.

And that principle, thankfully, doesn’t end here at the Trail terminus.

I paddled the miles, which was the surface-level goal.  But more importantly, and fulfilling the larger goal, I feel ready to take on life beyond the Trail.

Day 29 – Attean Pond, ME, to Jackman, ME

U-2016-9-18

Start: Campsite on Attean (At-TEE-an) Pond.

End: Campsite (a generous term) on Big Wood Pond, near Jackman, ME

On the Way:  Attean Pond, Moose River, Big Wood Pond, Jackman

Miles: ~(-2).  Milepost: ~520.5

Weather:  Rainy and cloudy in AM, cleared up by sunset, which was cotton-candy pastel.

Map: 10

Whelp, the best-laid plans.  My Zero-Mile day (technically a negative-mile day since I’m camping off the Trail) wasn’t nearly as productive as my time in Island Pond.  That was a hard day to beat, though, plus it was a weekday.  Sundays are tougher for getting things done.

Jackman styles itself the "Switzerland of Maine."  In that it's close to stuff, I guess.

Jackman’s wee library, literally a shed in front of the High School, is only open Wednesday and Saturday 1200-1600.  No chance of visiting it today.  But I did stumble into the Historical Society Museum, where I made insta-friends with Mike the friendly curator, an old-time Mainer with a predilection for military paraphernalia.  He was extremely excited about a recently-donated WWI trench knife, and he had great stories about catching trout with his bare hands in Attean Pond.  He also told me that I camped right across Spencer Lake from an old POW camp.  Creeeeepy.  Anyway, this museum was a gem of a find, and Mike let me use his Internet and print off some trail updates, and check email.  He also had what can only be described as a “fan binder” of previous Through-paddlers who had passed through, most prominently the Read Family that he’d spotted toting their canoe up the road earlier that summer.  He scanned my maps, and I owe him a thank-you note and link to this blog.

The fabulous Historical Society, a High School turned firehouse, then high school again, now stuffed chock full of fascinating local artifacts.

A model trapper/hunter's hut set up outside the museum.

It was cozy inside!  I'd live in one.

I called my friends at Ecolablahblah in Rangely.  My oatmeal pal picked up.  Turns out I remembered incorrectly, and they don’t actually stock The Book.  She had a 1^st edition copy that Katina had sent her for perusal.  She was eager to gift it to me, but I declined, saying it wasn’t going to be immensely useful.  Then my pay phone minutes ran out.  I must send her a follow-up email to explain how grateful I was for the offer, and that I made it through alive.  The mail logistics would also have been tricky: They’d have to get it to Rockwood in less than 2 days at my current pace, and there’s no other convenient Trail town for at least 2 maps.  Ah, well.  As I wrote in my postcard to [my pal in Cambridge and former roommate] dRachel: Fuck it, we’ll do it live!  Sir Ernest Shackleton didn’t have guidebooks!  NEEEEW GOAL!

So tomorrow will entail climbing out of this mosquito-ridden little ATV bog trail where I’m camping for the evening across Wood Pond (where the map listed a campsite, but it either lied or I got there too late to find it), paddling the ~15 minutes back into town, visiting Bishop’s Motel and perhaps the general store for new socks (mine are disintegrating—this evening I put my foot through one of them like it was made of a wet paper bag instead of wet merino wool) and breakfast.  The Motel is where I shipped by box, so I’ll repackage it and send it off at 0900 at the PO, along with my postcards. 

Altogether, today was a day of gluttony, some humdinger mosquito bites, looking at history, and a pleasant read with a pint of local ice cream down by the section of the Moose River that I’ll be blazing down tomorrow.  Last day of Zero-Miling: Now we fly on to Fort Kent!

Things Learned: 

+ Generally a good idea to stop at local historical societies.  Between this one and the one where I spent a fascinating afternoon in Thames, New Zealand, I’ve seen some really cool stuff.  For example, today I learned out the existence of a device called a “weaning muzzle”: basically a halter with spikes near the nose.  Even the most patient mother isn’t going to let you nurse with that on…

Trail Magic: 

+ Back home, Alice my Warrior Bunnies costuming assistant seems on top of things.

+ I had the hamburger equivalent of poutine today: an open-faced patty covered with gravy and eas.  It was calorically resplendent.  I regret nothing.

+ I set a rough pick-up date with Hannah and Zach: October 1.  I can do it!

Day 17 – Brighton State Park, VT (Zero Day #2!)

T-2016-9-6

Start: Brighton State Park, Island Pond, VT

End: Brighton State Park, VT

On the Way: Island Pond Village

Miles: 0!

Map: 6

Weather: Clear with one sun-shower.  Rain overnight would be lovely!

The Island Pond NFCT kiosk.

My Zero Day here in Island Pond was wonderfully productive, or at least it felt that way:

+ I got up at a luxurious 0930 in my hammock (strung up next to Spectacle Pond, night and taut, the way I like it),

+ did a gear shakeout,

+ walked into town along the railroad tracks singing my favorite Hadestown tunes and had lots of blackberries along the way, [Hadestown is a gem of a musical, recently restaged in New York, and full of earworm numbers…]

+ retrieved my box from the convenience store and some lunch (too late for a greasy-spoon breakfast although I was sporting a mighty craving for eggs),

+ repacked my box and sent it off along with some cards to various folks back home,

+ and even had time to whip up some Warrior Bunnies sketches and send them to the WB 

crew.

Some on-the-fly costume sketches, done on scrap paper in the comfort of the Island Pond library.

Hopefully the designs go over well: I’d really hate having to make and/or find full fur suits for all ten bunnies in that show.  [In the original Warrior Bunnies installment, there was only one bunny, and he was in a hilarious yet very hot-looking white fur onesie.]  I apparently now have an assistant who can do small tasks before I get home.  Good to know…

Also just did something pretty neat: I paddled an entire river, the Clyde, upstream from its mouth at Newport to its source at Island Pond.  It was down to a little trickle at the end, to where it was a little four-foot track through the cattails barely wide enough for my paddle and clogged by lots of beaver dams.  It was novel to pull the boat overtop them at the start, but it got really annoying really fast.  I have a feeling that hopping in and out is less of a nuisance when one's paddling a canoe.  Bailing out the Guinness-dark river water from the boat has got to be easier at least...  This town used to be the halfway point on the Grand Trunk Railroad of Maine between Portland and Montreal.  Portland's harbor doesn't freeze in the winter like Montreal's does, so it used to be quite a lifeline.  Between the lumberjacks and the railroad men, this town used to be quite the raucous stopover.  The old hotel from the time is still here: you come into the town by paddling under it.  They say some rooms still have the original wooden floors that are pock-marked from the climbing spikes that the lumberjacks couldn't be bothered to take off indoors.  Yet to see any of that hopping nightlife: I'm in my hammock with my paperback by the time the sun sets...

I was already travelling pretty heavy once I’d retrieved my restocked food and 5mm neoprene socks (water’s gonna be the first thing to get cold, I reasoned), but the library had a free book cart sitting by the entryway, and I couldn’t resist picking up a Garrison Keilor paperback, Wobegone Boy.  I’m a sucker for Garrison’s writing, I must say, so while I’ll be sad to finish American Gods and say goodbye to Neil, I’ll be glad to have the next one right on hand to jump into.  I have some Vonnegut waiting in my box—Breakfast of Champions, which is one of his barely-a-narrative titles—but I crave something that’s not quite so…cerebrally quirky and challenging when I’m reading before bed on this trip.  Garrison is the dry old officer at the back of the vanguard, wanting to see us all home after the battle.  Kurt is the wild-eyed berserker at the front of the charge, gore dripping from his sharp-edged satire.  In other words, he’s thrilling, but not what I need on this campaign.

Brighton State Park is pretty swanky, complete with a Nature Center, horseshoe pit,
playground, and--only in Vermont--Zen garden.

Cool idea: lending library with games and books and sports equipment!

A day of beaver dams and rapid that would, under normal water levels, probably be a blast and a half awaits tomorrow.  But with current water levels, it will probably be agonizingly scratchy.  I’ll get up early, eat my oats, pack up camp, give my shoulder a quick rinse in the 50-cent shower from heaven, and get back on the water.  Maine awaits.

Things Learned:

+ You don’t have to be the quiet type to be a librarian.  My goodness, the stamina these two Island Pond characters had to keep up their whirlwind chat was amazing.

+ I’m not doing so hot, cash-wise.  Time to buy less, cook more.  I have about $65 cash in hand, and ATMs from here on in are going to be scarce…

Trail Magic: 

+ Cheap energy bars on clearance at the gas station!  And home-made postcards at the local outfitters!  I found a good one to send to Brambleberry: a really bad but very earnest attempt at an oil painting of a moose.  His expression can only be described as “embarrassed.”

Captured After the Return Home

Day 8 – Cumberland Bay State Park, NY (Zero Day #1!)

U-2016-8-28 – 

Start: Cumberland Bay State Park

End: Same, Cumberland Bay State Park
On the Way: Saranac River, Plattsburgh, Cumberland Bay

Miles: 0 (Milepost: 148.5)

Map: 4

Weather: Overcast, with maybe 30 minutes of downpour!  YES!  MORE!  PLEASE!

I’ve had to do it numerous times in my life, but I don’t think it will ever get any easier to kills time in a small town.  I mean, heck, I grew up in a town of 300, so I should have this ingrained, but when I don’t know whose land is whose and that I won’t be taken for a vagrant for stomping around the neighbor’s woods, it’s tough.  My combined wants of avoiding police suspicion, avoiding attention from creepy strangers, and avoiding spending lots of money always make it a super-awkward time.  Not to say I don’t have things to do: I could easily occupy myself with an entire day of reading or doodling or Internet or napping.  It’s just doing it for a whole day in a combination of parks, coffee shops, and library (when it’s open, booo Sunday hours…) that attracts unwanted attention.

Chocolate and books and lounging in the riverside park.  (Also, note how incredibly low the Saranac is: no way would I be getting a boat down there!)

The Co-op had Taza chocolate--made near where I live in Somerville, MA!

Anyway, it was a boring 0-mile day, waiting for the PO to open.  I don’t want to do another of these for a while: just makes me anxious, since Maine awaits and the deep of autumn is coming.  Tomorrow, I’ll paddle back across the Bay to Plattsburgh, lock up the boat at the dock near the NFCT kiosk, jet over to the PO to open it at 0830 sharp, dash back to the boat before all my gear is lifted (hooray, urban docks), then head out into the waves of Lake Champlain at the exact wrong time of day.  If it’s too dangerous, I can always park along the shore and wait for ~1700, when the Lake generally calms down across the board.

Chatted with Teton some more, since he also wanted to wait another day to do an early morning assault.  He’s got lots of good long-distance trip experience and tips to go with them.  He’s also writing a weekly column for the Portland, ME, newspaper while on the Trail.  Talk about multi-tasking and living the dream.  I oughta pick his brain about how I can land that kind of gig…

Its officially been one week since I embarked from Old Forge.  I want the next couple of weeks to go just as smoothly.  I can’t help but think of folks at home.  Brambleberry seems to be ticking along.  This weekend was orientation at MIT, and it feels weird not to be there in black, leading freshmen astray.  dRachel, my former roommate, is starting grad school in Hawaii and must be feeling even stranger.

Things Learned:

+ You can spend a lot of time quibbling and worrying about beta information and its accompanying data.  Sometimes the impetus of just hitting the Trail and gathering momentum will serve you much better.

+ Plattsburgh likes to think it’s real historically important.  Every other block had a placard about what British atrocity happened there during the War of 1812, or so-and-so war hero lived here.  At the same time, they have a bronze statue of Samuel Champlain literally towering over his native guides, discovering the Lake.  How one has the nerve to “discover” something a group of people lead you to is beyond me.

Oh, Sammy.  Your biggest assets were having a gun along and being European.

English gardens maintained outside of the British Officers' Quarters.

The house had a commanding view of the river and Lake, which is presumably why it was selected.

Trail Magic:

+ Met an Ecuadorian bricklayer named Luis.  He asked me why I didn’t shave my legs.  I asked if he was “a local” and he said, “No, I’m not crazy.”  As in, he’s not loco.  It was a funny moment.

+ The library left its wifi on, so I sat outside underneath the "closed" sign and tried to interpret water level charts via the screen of my Smartphone.  Not very successfully.