July 17, 2010
The Allagash Wilderness Waterway in northern Maine is one of the great canoe-camping rivers in America. It flows for 92 miles through some of the wildest country left in New England, emptying into the St. John River on the Canadian border.
Kevin Slater in the stern navigating the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in northern Maine
If the great rivers and mountains of New England speak to you, summon you, soothe you, then the Allagash is one of those places you have to experience. I’ve paddled all or part of the waterway three times, but until a couple of months ago, I hadn’t been on the river since 1975 – way too long to be away from the ‘Gash. My account of the latest Allagash trip appears Sunday, July 18, on the Travel section cover of The Hartford Courant.
Our trip in late May was typical river travel, which is to say, unpredictable. Weather, as always, was the master, determining more than almost anything else what a day would be like. You pay attention to the weather when you are canoe camping. We didn’t have rain, but we had wind in our faces, and we adjusted. Sometimes you just don’t paddle as far as you planned.
Our group of seven was led by Kevin Slater of Mahoosuc Guide Service in Newry, Maine. We traveled in grand style, late 19th Century style, in wood-and-canvas canoes Slater built himself. Our meals were prepared from scratch over wood fires.
Meanwhile, I got my first good look at the Allagash in 35 years. Unlike so much of the rest of the U. S., it was comparatively unchanged, as if Gerald Ford was still president, as if decades of the nation’s suburban sprawl were erased. Thank goodness that the Allagash, a nationally-designated and state-administered Wild and Scenic River, is still a linear waterway of connected river and lakes, cradled by forest, forever protected. Woods and water and wildlife and almost nothing else. We need more of that.