August 2012 - Pour Le Pays Sauvage!

Archive for August, 2012

Long Pond Jackman Maine

360 degree view – click and scroll side to side;

With fall quickly approaching we wanted to take a quick getaway before it was too late. After a very busy summer we decided that a camp on a lake was what we needed. We did a few searches and came up with some ideas and narrowed it down to the somewhere on the Moose River in Jackman with plans of climbing Kineo on Moosehead Lake and paddling some of the Moose river.

Recently we got a dog that did not have the best past and we’ve been working with him to give him the good life he deserves and he’s been doing fantastic. We had plans to board him for the couple of days we’d be gone but we were ambivalent about doing it. Then we talked with someone who had a bad experience where we were planning to take him and that sealed the deal – we were going to have to scale back our plans and the dog was coming along on vacation. I’ve done my fair share of canoeing and camping in Jackman, but I had never heard of The Last Resort, which you can check out here and that’s the place we decided on. You can also find them on facebook here. As far as a remote Maine camp on a lake goes this place is idyllic. The cabins are on Long Pond and spaced well with good vegetation buffers so you barely know there are people next to you. There are lots of trails to explore, canoes/kayaks to rent, and the log cabins are very nice with porches overlooking the water. If you’re looking for the log cabin on a lake Maine remote vacation this is the place, and we’ll be returning at some point in the future.

Posted by fuck0500 in Canoeing, Fishing, Maine Life

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Gramps Garage

While randomly passing by somewhere today I smelled my Gramp’s old garage and a wave of nostalgia washed over me. I’m not sure how one would even describe it to someone and come close to getting it right. How do you describe a combination of fresh air, cigarette smoke, firewood, gunpowder, whiskey,chain saws, deer meat, gardening tools, work boots, and wood smoke combined and steeped in lots and lots of time. I’ve read that smell can be a strong trigger for memory, and I instantly remembered poring over old pictures, listening to stories, shooting guns, looking for deer, fishing…but most of all I remembered wanting to be here…in Maine. Exploring whats around the next bend in the river or the next rise of the trail. Jumping at the explosion of the flushing grouse. Throwing out a lure and seeing the line instantly tighten with a fish.

Centerfolds from Playboy magazine hung on the walls as did the names and dates of his friends who had passed. In those days in Maine drinking during the day was an accepted practice, and the estate caretakers and gardeners would often congregate at Gramps garage for a drink at 9 am which was morning break. I would sit with them, a child some 60 years their junior and listen to all their stories, taking everything in. Ted Donnell, Clyde Carter, David Hyde, Tony Hamor, Elmer Green, Hap Haskell, Waldo Damon, Donald Bryant, Ralph Young, and Hughie Wright were part of the crew that would visit his garage. As I sit here today I can still hear and see them in my mind. Before 9 am Gramp would say he was having “apple juice” but after 9 he would call it a snort. You can read more about Gramp here.

I’m not religious but I always had a deep respect for how our town’s minister handled funerals. When Gramp died he took the time to grieve with us and learn some of Gramps stories and special quirks. The minister knew of Gramps garage, and after the funeral quietly handed my mother a piece of paper with a quote from Frederick Buechner.

Only God is Holy, just as only people are human. God’s holiness is God’s Godness. To speak anything else as holy is to say that it has something of God’s mark upon it. Times, places, things, and people can all be holy, and when they are, they are usually not hard to recognize.

One holy place I know is a workshop attached to a barn. There is a wood-burning stove in it made out of an oil-drum. There is a workbench, dark and dented, with shallow, crammed drawers behind one of which a cat lives. There is a girlie calendar on the wall, plus various lengths of chain and rope, shovels and rakes of different sizes and shapes, some worn-out jackets and caps on pegs, an electric clock that doesn’t keep time. On the workbench are two small plug-in radios both of which have serious things wrong with them. There are several metal boxes full of wrenches and a bench saw. There are a couple of chairs with rungs missing. The place smells mainly of engine oil and smoke–both of wood smoke and pipe smoke. The windows are small, even on bright days what light there is comes through mainly in window-sized patches on the floor.

I have no idea why this place is holy, but you can tell it is the moment you set foot in it if you have an eye for that kind of thing. For reasons known only to God, it is one place God uses for sending God’s love through.

Frederick Buechner’s Beyond Words, p. 156

Posted by fuck0500 in Hunting, Maine Life

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Just A Short Walk in Maine

It was supposed to be just an ordinary everyday walk with the dog after work in a place where we’ve walked many times, but today ended up with two firsts. The first and biggest mystery happened shortly after we got into the woods. In this particular place I walk up an old grown in woods road, take a left into a growing up woods cut and loop around back to the old woods road in a big circle. It’s an interesting area with lots of wildlife sign. Except today, when I turned to go into the cut the dog did a weird jump. I called him back and he jumped weird on the way back too. It appeared that he didn’t want to touch a particular place on the ground. So, I tried to make him walk over the spot and he would have nothing of it, running in the opposite direction to the end of his leash and sitting. I coaxed him over asking him what it was and pointing to the ground. He slowly came over and did a big stretch to take a little sniff at the ground and again off in the other direction. So, I got down on all fours and had a sniff for myself – kind of something musky but I couldn’t get much else. Nose just isn’t good enough I guess. I think its the first time that I’ve seen a dog scared of a smell before. He was acting like a horse does when it smells a predator, all antsy and nervous. Here is the spot he wouldn’t cross;

So now I was a little nervous. I’ve seen bear sign up there but nothing recently and I’ve seen no evidence of bear baiters. The area does look very “catty” though – between the cuts are dense fir/spruce thickets that look like great travel ways for bobcat. Looking at the foreground of the picture you can see that the ground is scratched up a bit, here it is closer;

It kind of looks to me like a bobcat scrape. From the Bobcat trappers guide “Scrapes made with the hind feet in soil or ground litter serve as intentionally constructed visual markers and are normally made at important activity areas in the home range. These hind feet scrapes usually take the form of two parallel groves which together form a mark that is somewhat rectangular in shape. Scrapes are normally about 4-6 inches in width and 10-12 inches in length.” I’ll never know for sure what he smelled out there, but my best guess is it was a bobcat, and he didn’t like it.

So with that puzzling around my brain we headed up the trail a ways, and I was looking down thinking about what he smelled when an owl took off from a branch directly above my head and flew down the trail and into a big pine. I once came across a saw whet owl crossing a fir thicket to look up and see him staring at me with those big eyes, bobbing and weaving trying to figure out what I was, but this one was big, and completely silent flight. It was amazing. I only got a look at the rear end and wings and he had lots of barring. Scared the bejesus out of me. I tried to spy him in the pine but it was too thick to see.

Further up the trail the dog stopped and looked into the woods – I figured he was after another squirrel until a brace of partridges exploded from the underbrush. A bit rattled now we carried on and when we looped back I was looking for the owl in the pine and he was right back where he was the first time and we jumped him again. If only I’d seen him first to get a picture. He was overlooking two small trails – waiting to ambush something I guess. So, a simple after work dog walk turned into a pretty cool adventure. Just a short walk in Maine.

Posted by fuck0500 in Maine Life

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Why Dog Stays with Man

One of my first experiences with a dog was my neighbor’s dog taffy – when I was five I followed him into the woods and I got lost. I managed to find my way out, but not before giving my parents some considerable grief as to my whereabouts. My grandfather always had a beagle, and the beagle was always named Bullet after the dog in the Snuffie Smith comic strip in the paper which was his favorite. I wasn’t allowed to have a dog as a kid but when I was old enough I got a beagle and named him Bullet – actually his full name was HEF Bullets Legacy after my grandfather and his dogs. I wanted to hunt rabbits with him and I joined a Beagle club here in Maine. The club had two 50 acre enclosures where they had field trials and you could take your dog in to train. Bullet quickly learned the art of running a snowshoe hare, and I love to watch and hear him do it. You could tell by his visual clues and sound how “hot” (close) the scent was. We’d begin by me telling him to “hunt ‘em up, where’s the rabbit” and he’d circle in and out of the thickets with his nose loudly searching for scent (if you’ve had a scent dog you know what I’m talking about) Suddenly he’d find something interesting and would pause tail erect and take it all in and then in quick steps search around for more scent until he picked up a trail. The would go on in fits and starts until suddenly the tail would go from erect to a wag – the faster the wag the hotter the scent until it got hot enough for that first bay – a high barrooo — beagles are pack dogs and are judged by how they hark in to that first bark. The bays would continue as long as the scent was good, increasing to a chop (or almost a scream) in intensity if the rabbit got into sight or was really close. I used to get out ahead and watch for the rabbit – it was funny some of them seemed to love the chase as much as the dog by seeming to tease them – the rabbit would sit with it’s ears twitching until the last possible moment, in sight of the dog, before running way ahead of it. Others stayed on the move at an easy pace. Being the youngest member of the club I was selected to be the guy during the field trials that picked up the dogs that had been selected by the judges to be picked out of the final “pack”. Each dog had a number on it and I would have to go running along with the pack in the thickets to find the right dog and bring him back to his owner. Participants in the trial are allowed to sit in a gallery and not allowed to talk to their dog or leave the gallery. I can remember one field trial when the rabbit ran almost right through the gallery and we were all waiting to see our dog and who was the first dog out of the woods? Ole Bullet popped out, let out a tremendous bay and ran through us quickly followed by the pack. One of my proudest moments. But I digress – this story is about dogs, not beagle field trials.

I’ve had the privilege over the years of having several breeds of dogs each with their own quirks and mannerisms. I remember one particular winter years ago of sliding down parts of a mountain with Spencer the Great Dane who got a tremendous thrill out of the activity and would run up to slide again, or “fishing” with Tucker the Dogue de Bordeau who loved to chase leeches and fish, although he never did catch one.

Years ago I was in a situation where I had to give away my dog. It was heartbreaking for me and I have never fully forgiven myself for having to do it, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had a dog. Though I’ve often thought of having another I began to give it serious thought a while back. It was very important to me to adopt one from someone that was in a similar situation as I had found myself years ago. I’ve read that dogs have a way of “finding” their owners and Lincoln found us via an afterthought checking ads one day and reading of someone that had to give their dog up.

He’s fit in wonderfully and is smart, playful, and quick to learn. He’s shy/timid in new situations but gains confidence with encouragement quickly. I suspect that’s because he wasn’t exposed to a lot when he was a puppy -on our first trip to water he didn’t dare to get his paws wet stretching his neck out over the water to get a drink – but since then with lots of trips to water and lots of encouragement it was so much fun to watch him “get it” and take his first swim instead of trying to walk on the water. He has a particular and singular hatred for red squirrels – I’m not sure what one ever did to him other that run away, but he is rather obsessive about sniffing them out and trying to get them…he’s taught himself well too, he’s pretty efficient at finding them. In the video below towards the end he gets distracted from chasing a bone to sniff out a squirrel.

I’ve read that in the afterlife you will see/interact with the dogs you have had in your life. I suspect it is based on an old Metis legend of why dogs stay with man, which you can read here;

Why Dog Stays with Man

I trust my log will be steady. These old legends have been told/lasted a long time. You never know if they’re indeed true.

Posted by fuck0500 in Maine Life, Uncategorized

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The Penobscot Man

Fannie Hardy Eckstorm wrote The Penobscot Man – a woman who so eloquently summed up the rugged individuality of Maine and it’s people in just a few short sentences when she wrote;

The question is sometimes asked why a state like Maine, so sparsely settled, poor, weak in all external aids, can send forth such throngs of masterful men, who, east and west, step to the front to lead, direct, and do. We who were brought up among pine-trees and granite know the secret of their success. It comes not wholly by taking thought: it is in the blood. Here are stories of men, the kind we have yet a-plenty, who die unknown and unnoticed; and every tale is a true one, — not the chance report of strangers, the gleanings of recent acquaintance, the aftermath of hearsay, the enlargements of a fading tradition; but the tales of men who tended me in babyhood, who crooned to me old slumber-songs, who brought me gifts from the woods, who wrought me little keepsakes, or amused my childish hours, — stories which, having gathered them from this one and that one who saw the deed, I have bound into a garland to lay upon their graves. Such tales are numberless; choice becomes invidious unless rigidly limited, and therefore, since the old West Branch Drive is no more, I have chosen solely among its members, and have strung these tales, like beads of remembrance, upon one thread, — of which we who love it never tire, — the River. These are stories told with little art. In the long run, the books that lie closest to the facts have the advantage. It is lovely to be beautiful, but it is essential to be true. The events are actual occurrences; the names, real names; the places any one may see at any time. Yet each story is not merely personal and solitary, but illustrates typically some trait of the whole class. Their virtues are not magnified, their faults are not denied; in black and white, for good or evil, they stand here as they lived.

We who were brought up among pine-trees and granite know the secret of their success – I say we do indeed!! More powerful and inspiring words have rarely been written about the ruggedness and individuality of a Mainer. If you love Maine and it’s people, have camped in the North Maine Woods, or paddled any of Maine historic rivers you need to read this book. You can read it for free here. This book epitomizes for me the aura and mystique of the Maine woods, it’s rivers so rich with history. It reminds me of paddling and walking up some unknown brook flowing into Chensuncook Lake far enough to find an old rusted out lantern on a hot summer day…a lantern that evidently was supposed to stay there as I forgot it at our next campsite. It reminds me of lazily paddling down a small stream in the North Woods scanning the bottom and pondering the history of the area – if this place could talk, what would it say? This book is what Maine is, and what it’s people are.

The story of lugging Sowadnehunk reminds me of a winter I spent trapping with my friend Peter and we would often test each other crossing thin ice and the like – one of us would have the stones to try to cross, and if successful than the other would have to try too. I can remember crawling across the thin ice of a flowing stream to spread out weight, rather than taking the long walk around.

And what about Joe Attean? You may remember him as one of Thoreau’s guides, but do you know of his death driving the last of a season’s logs down the river on July 4, 1870?

“One thing everybody knows, – there were men in that boat that could not swim; there are such in every boat. The others leaped and swam; these clung to the boat. And Joe Attien stayed with them – not clinging as they did, buried in water, not crouching and abject, waiting for the death that faced him, not a coward now, never, but paddle in hand because the water ran too deep for a pole hold standing astride his sunken boat a big caulked foot upon each gunwhale, working to the last ounce that was in him to drive the sunken wreck and the men clinging to it into some eddy or cleft of the log jams before they were carried down over the Heater and that thundering fall of the Grand Pitch…one remembers him always as standing high in the stern of his boat dying with and for his men.

They found his body floating in Shad Pond just down river. They removed his log driving boots and hung them on a pine-knot of a tree. According to Maine legend those boots still hang as a tribute to Joseph Attean former Chief of the Penobscot Nation and hero of the Maine woods. All of these places are still here as they were then. It has always been my dream to find a “kings pine” or a pair of caulked boots hanging from a tree near the river, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Posted by fuck0500 in Maine Life

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Panic

Like the brake and the accelerator being floored at the same time.

That’s the best definition I’ve ever seen for what panic is like. Although the duration of a panic attack can vary greatly, it typically lasts for more than 10 minutes, is one of the most distressing conditions that a person can experience, and its symptoms can closely mimic those of a heart attack. Typically, most people who have one attack will have others, and when someone has repeated attacks with no other apparent physical or emotional cause, or feels severe anxiety about having another attack, he or she is said to have panic disorder. The Ancient Greeks blamed the woodland sprite, Pan, for panic. He would follow people through the forest, causing frightening rustling noises in the bushes until the travelers would be running blindly in fear, resulting in cuts, scrapes, and contusions. Today, we know panic as “ a discrete period of intense fear or discomfort that is accompanied by at least 4 of 13 somatic or cognitive symptoms… often accompanied by a sense of imminent danger or impending doom and an urge to escape…or desire to flee from wherever the attack is occurring.” These symptoms include;

palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate
sweating
trembling or shaking
sensations of shortness of breath or smothering
feeling of choking
chest pain or discomfort
nausea or abdominal distress
feeling dizzy, unsteady, lightheaded, or faint
derealization (feelings of unreality) or depersonalization (being detached from oneself)
fear of losing control or going crazy
fear of dying
paresthesias (numbness or tingling sensations.
chills or hot flushes

Typically what happens is you have a distressing panic attack and it scares you so much that you begin consciously or unconsciously “monitoring” for all or one of the above symptoms, and whether real or imagined you are so afraid of having another that the symptoms manifest themselves, your monitoring brain picks up on and your off to another episode of panic.

I know this because I have panic disorder. They say that we all have something to live/deal with in life and panic happens to be mine. I’ve felt what its like to die hundreds of times. Interestingly while jotting down notes to talk to the doctor about I apparently have a pattern of attacks every 5 or 6 years. I remember my first one vividly but thinking back through the years it really wasn’t the first – it was just the first one without a specific reason. For example I can remember meeting the Dean of Forestry in the University I went to while I was still in high school and I remember being so anxious and nervous during that meeting that I was unable to really listen to what he was saying to me. But, it went away when I left, which for me is the key difference to actual panic – you have a primary need to escape what situation you’re in and yet when you do the panic tells you to escape the new situation – in affect there is no escape.

My first panic attack was August of 1989. It happened the day after I rushed a friend to the hospital who had cut themselves with a razor blade and there was blood everywhere. When the Dr. asked me if I wanted to watch it get sewn up I said sure – and immediately fainted when he spread the cut open. Panic arrived the next day without any warning while I was a passenger in a car and was acute, severe, and debilitating. I remember sitting up and saying “WTF is going on!!” It felt like the brake and the accelerator inside me were being floored at the same time. It left me debilitated and worried, and I soon had another, and then another and quickly spiraled out of control. I finally sought help and through a combination of drugs and therapy I was able to recover.

For me it was particularly confusing because I usually listen to what my body and brain are telling me – for example I was once camping on the upper Allagash River in Maine with a couple of friends. The trip we had planned down the river to the take out at Allagash Village had taken a lot longer than we had planned and when we arrived it was nearly dark and spitting rain. We decided to stash the canoes there, drive back to camp, and pick them up in the morning. While walking the canoe into the underbrush I had a clear image of a wasp nest appear in my mind with the feeling of worry and upon stopping noticed that had I taken one more step forward I would have stepped on a very large wasp nest. I think these sort of things happen to us more that we think of or are conscious of and for me it was very confusing to have my brain tell me there was danger when there wasn’t any. One of the things I learned over the years was for those who suffer panic at one time in your life, usually when you were young, panic helped you in some way. I thought about that for a long time, and one night it popped into my head when it was that panic helped. I was about 5 or 6 and my parents had let me walk downtown from our house alone for the first time, a freedom that I relished and did not want to lose. Halfway through the ~ 1/2 mile walk somebody’s loose dog ran to me and began barking loudly behind me. I was terrified as the dog and I were about the same height, and I panicked. I turned around looked that dog in the eye and drawing from the primeval force within all of us I began barking at the dog and advancing towards him…the dog began to back up and I intensified my vocal tirade until he turned tail and ran, with me chasing him. Psychologically speaking I suspect that was the seed that grew into later episodes in life. The disorder also runs in families, and my maternal grandmother had it.

What to do if you have a panic attack?

Rational thought goes out the window when you are in the middle of an acute panic attack. But try to tell yourself that it can’t hurt you. Panic is characterized by racing thoughts that fuel the attack like a breeze to a forest fire and you’ll want to tell yourself that this isn’t panic – I’m dying, I’m having a stroke, call 911….but it’s panic, and it can’t hurt you. Your sympathetic nervous system, fueled by adrenaline has highjacked your parasympathetic nervous system…to get it back – breath. Concentrate — breath in (1234) hold it (1234), and let it out (1234).

Obviously if you’ve never had a panic attack before you need to get checked by a doctor to be sure that it isn’t a medical condition and be sure that you’re really not having a heart attack.

It never ceases to amaze me all the things that I do that would cause others anxiety and yet still have this disease. How is it I can race down a Class III drop in a canoe and a month later perhaps not be able to drive a car? It’s all in how you think I guess. A large percentage of alcoholic are self medicating for anxiety….and for me, a couple of drinks at night shuts down my brain so I can sleep. Benzodiazepines work well for me to get back on track when panic has thrown me off kilter.

I guess I’m writing about this because after a panic free 6 years, I had a massive one last week. I knew what it was, and that has helped me in recovering….I haven’t had a major second one..but I have had lots of little ones. The last few episodes over the years a few days of benzodiazepines put me back on track and free from panic. It’s like a reset – the panic happens and you’re off kilter…a few days on being back on kilter through the help of medication resets the brain into normalcy.

If you suffer from panic disorder know that you’re not alone – there are plenty of people that have it, and plenty of people that have it that won’t admit it. It happens to the best of us and you can recover from it and continue to do all the things you want to do.

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Evolution of a Canoeist

Who can long watch the ceaseless lapping of a river’s current without conceiving a desire to set themselves adrift?

Mark Hubbard

I could hear the sound of the rapids ahead as the current of the river pulled us forward against all my instincts to be heading in the opposite direction. We were on the upper West Branch of the Penobscot River on a boy scout canoe and camping trip and I was all of 11 or 12 and about to experience my first quickwater. It was late July and of course the little rip we were about to run was probably barely quickwater, but I was terrified and to my young mind this was the equivalent of some first descent class V drop and it took everything I had to steel myself and steer us around the little rocks poking above the river as we went thru, watching the bottom whizzing by. I also however remember the immense feeling of satisfaction after looking back at the rip and thinking Wow…we just put a canoe thru that. Thinking back now it really was a big boy trip that we took that year. Hitting Chesuncook Lake in record time, we extended the trip by going up to Caucomgomic Lake – upstream to Round Pond and is a trip I hope to repeat one day. That year the call of the rugged north country was awakened in me.

Then suddenly, as easily as jumping into a swimming pool I fell in up to my waist. The canoe scraped down my back bending me in half and shoving my face into the mud. The boat ends rested on the ground completely covering me. I yelled out in pain but also from the indignation and humiliation. I kept yelling hoping for help but mostly raging against the canoe, the camp, my parents for sending me, and the whole god-forsaken, bug infested, nation of Canada. I yelled for 5 minutes but no one came. When finally I’d yelled myself out something has changed. I’d accepted the indifference of the canoe and wilderness and was resigned to the fact that if I was going to get across the portage I’d better just do it myself. I rolled the canoe off me dug my boots out of the quagmire and straining with everything I had flipped it back onto my head. When I arrived minutes later at the lake I was well on my way to self reliance.

I was introduced to paddling at a very early age by my parents, I can remember lots of paddling, fishing, and camping trips as a kid, and once I got into the boy scouts I was taught paddling in earnest and got to go on lots of canoe camping trips which were always my favorite. Scouts taught me what a canoe could do – before our West Branch trip we all had to tip a canoe in the cold water and successfully get it back to shore swamped, dump out the water and re-float it. We learned as well the techniques to get the water out of a canoe that has swamped in the middle of a lake by using a second canoe for the task. We also learned gunwhale pumping which taught me balance, and what the limits of a canoe are.

After graduating college I started to get the itch to do a big river trip like we had done in Scouts, and I decided on the Allagash as the river I wanted to do. All that summer I worked a side job painting and saved up enough to walk into the Old Town Canoe factory and get myself a boat and a couple of new paddles, and spent the winter planning my adventure on the Allagash. My big concern was the whitewater, and whether or not I’d be able to handle it. I ran the river in ’97.

Running the Allagash was amazing, and I remember feeling that the whole world was now open for me and shortly thereafter I entered my first Kenduskeag Stream Race, and I was instantly hooked.

The paddlers of these skinny racing canoes must take on everything the river throws at them including standing waves, rock gardens, big drops, and portages. Most importantly they have to do it all while paddling fast and remaining afloat. The fastest canoe will usually be the one that has paddled closest to the edge of disaster without sinking. Welcome to the world of downriver racing.

Peter Heed and Dick Mansfield

I enjoyed everything about canoe racing – you needed to be tough, both mentally and physically – paddling your lungs and heart out of your chest hoping for enough energy for the upcoming rapids – running the portage so hard you just plain old ran out of air. It’s tough to describe the allure of the paddle. I think that part of it is downriver racing boils life down to it’s simplest most intrinsic form. It’s primitive, competitive and primeval tying us into our basic roots of travel. And where else in life are you availed of the opportunity to know instantly if you have made the right decision? You read the river, make your choice based on what you see, and then instantly know whether or not you were right (made it through) or wrong (swamped). I think a quote from RM Patterson in The Dangerous River sums it up well-

There is something beautifully final in certain phases of river travel; you make your decision and pick your course and after that the rest is all action. You are committed and there is no turning back – you must make it or swamp. The result is a supreme peak of physical effort and a split-second awareness of changing water. A mentally sort of cold excitement and exhilaration – a high point of living.

RM Patterson

After a race when everything is packed up and the canoe is back on the truck and you’re sitting down for a big steak and a large beer, there is not much that compares.

I tried kayaking a couple of times, but I’ve always been a bit of a canoe purist for a couple of very simple reasons – first being if I want to get a better glimpse of the rapids ahead to see the perfect route I can just stand up and take a look. Second, my wet exit is pretty easy – if the canoe flips I fall out..I don’t have to do an eskimo roll, or worse, undo a spray skirt and try to extricate myself from the craft.

Knowing what to do in a canoe opens up all of Maine and it’s vast network of canoe routes and history.

The above is all a preface to say this; For years I have wanted to make a short film about canoe racing in Maine for the Banff Film Festival.

Here is a trailer if you’ve never been;

I truly think that a canoe racing film that is done right would have an excellent chance. The problem that I ran into was financial…Banff has certain submission requirements and the camera to satisfy those requirements was out of reach for me. I sent letters to a few businesses that I thought might be interested asking for sponsorship in exchange for advertising – there was some interest, but money was largely an issue for them too.

This past winter I also came to the realization that I was mortal and not getting any younger when I started having some pretty bad back spasms, and although I’m much better and on the mend, I realized that the day I’m not able to do this anymore is coming, hopefully much later than sooner, but it’s coming. I further realized that the dream of making, producing, and submitting a film is probably not going to materialize into reality. So this year I researched and purchased a contour headcam and a bottle of advil, and made a movie for myself. I was so looking forward to capturing the usual heavy water in the Kenduskeag Stream Race in Bangor that it’s rather ironic that when race day came the water levels were at historic lows. LOL – after all the races I did when the water was high. That’s the way life goes though eh? …make the best of it.

So, a caveat about the film. I made it for me, something I can watch and enjoy. Some of the clips are older and some of them new.

So, here is what I came up with – this embodies what downriver racing means to me – in the words of RM Patterson – A high point of living.

Update – I discovered the National Paddling Film Festival which will accept the format I can provide – I’ve sent them a copy of my film, and I hope it makes it through the pre-screening process – judging is in February…fingers crossed.