LandWorks Ex 4 Downeast Lakes Canoe Trip Journal.pdf - Maine.gov

home. As we paddled up, the whole staff came down the porch steps to welcome us. Andy
Buckman, Margie and her husband Bill and another guy—Tim.
Lots of wood and canvas canoes on racks, 2 motor boats at dock and two Grand Laker squareback
canoes on wood rails.
Buckman et al very welcoming. Turns out he’d been a camper at Darrow in 1966, when Carl and
I were there. We were invited to lunch and then shown to a rack of photos, hinged like pages of
a book, with year‐by‐year photos of campers. There in photos of trip groups were the muchyounger
me, Carl and Buckman.
We held hands and had a moment of silence before lunch. Then—stories of Darrow. B said he,
in consultation with other traditional canoe camps and programs, had introduced a lot of
traditional techniques that hadn’t been used in our Darrow days.
Everything was now portaged using “tumps” or leather head straps. After lunch we went out to
admire the wood and canvas canoes – and we all single‐carried an 85‐pound canoe using a
tumpline and paddle lashed to the thwarts. Andy demonstrated tying a long tump line on a
wannigan, and we tried it out. Seems he’s a real guardian of the tradition, part of a group that
considers itselfmetaphoric “keepers of the trail.”
Andy showed us a half a dozen books canoeing and canoe‐building, and then gave us a Darrow
bibliography for further reading. Even in his office he had loads of authentic canoe‐life gear.
One was a metal pole tip for poling a canoe. Another was a “bug shirt” with integrated head
net. He even put one on to model it. One the porch was rack of amazing fishing gear, rods reels
and a laminated wood landing net. Andy then reeled off a list of places where fish were biting,
including info about what time of day and what depth to catch them. I asked if any outfitters
sent out adult trips in wood and canvas canoes with tump lines etc. He said one of his favorite
authors had, but stopped for lack of business. Then he said if we contacted him early, he would
outfit and lead a group on the St. Croix or Allagash. Said it would be great to form a group of
Darrow alums.
We left Darrow and headed over to W. Grand Lake. First we stopped at McClellan Point with
the idea of climbing nearby Whitney Cove Mountain. The camp site was not appetizing, so we
made a quick downwind run to Marks Island. Nice big rolling waves coming from behind made
it great fun. The camp site was a bit hard to find – farther out on the tip of the Island than my
GPS waypoint indicated. (It was one I had estimated from a Maine Atlas; it wasn’t one of the
Down East Lakes Land Trust sites, which are marked on the trust’s map with exact latitude and
longitude.) Nice open site on the lee side of the island. After dinner – rice with chicken etc., and
before the banana cream pie dessert, we walked to the windward side of the island. Much
wilder lake there. Finished dinner 9 p.m. Sat in camp chairs around fire. Carl played harmonica.