East Mountain Strider

The Chase

So…. It was a cool July morning and MY Wife Colleen and I were carrying a heavy 18 foot canoe and camping gear up a grassy embankment that was the side of an earthen dam in the northern Maine wilderness. And I was remembering that it was 35 years ago, almost to the day that I got married.

Back then I was a long haired kid who dated my curly haired Irish sweetheart around for 4 years before I got up the courage to ask for her hand.

See I AM very indecisive, and Inner Shy person, and she was outgoing energetic and very spontaneous, (so I guess that explains the 5 kids 2 dogs and a cat that we have now),

We couldn't decide on something special for our 35th wedding anniversary, (and I couldn't remember what we had done the year before or the year before that, so this had to be memorable) So she asked Me if I had a special memory about someplace. We were an outdoorsy camping canoeing couple, so I assumed she meant the wilderness adventure that I was day dreaming about. I always wanted to relive that old canoe trip I’d done with my Dad down the Allagash river when I was little.

( so she said why not. Romantic and alone for 10 days would could be better.)

The Dam: Remembering Dad

As we lugged the heavy cook stove, lanterns, food bags over the Dam, … I remembered that when I was 10 my dad became an assistant scout master and was able to bring me along on the big troop canoe trip. It was a great time, I looked up to my dad a-lot, he was a great trout fisherman, smoked a pipe, wore a brimmed Guide hat, he could cook over the open fire, and solve any problem. Because he was a scout master I was included on this trip like one of the older boy scouts.

The Dam: River Guide Guide

As my wife and i carried our Sleeping gear, tent, clothing bags up and over the dam and repacked the canoe, I remembered back to that first trip, The troops river guide told stories around the camp fire. The guide had told us all about the history of the river. Back in 1840's the loggers had dammed up the lakes to make them higher than the natural flow, now they all flowed into one north river instead of multiple smaller south streams. This made it possible to float the logs the 90 miles north towards the Canadian boarder and the logging mills rather than trying to hall them out along muddy wilderness paths.

There were even rumors of some old steam engines and tracks left behind where they did all of the work to hall the logs into the lakes.

Colleen and I had paddled hard to get across those lakes, and here a few days into the 100 miles, we'd start our river trip in earnest.

• Starting chase rapids

We pushed off into the chase rapids fed by the cold water coming out of the lake bottom at the base of the dam that would bring us quickly down into the Allagash river system, a the wild untamed river, with no roads and no people for the rest of the 100 miles.

AS WE floated and paddled, I remembered that wonderful first trip as a 10 year old, Jig Fishing with worms from the middle of my dad's canoe, wandering their shores looking for frogs and turtles among the cat tails. Standing next to a camp fire and watching the northern lights in the night sky. They shimmered with reds and greens like fingers slowly reaching towards the horizons, And The mist on the lakes in the morning make shapes that floated by!! Like the old Indians that probably also paddled this same currents, And when my Wife and I rounded the first bend in the river, and I pulled pulled really hard to avoid the bank,

• I didn't remember the water being so fast.

And then as we crashed through some standing waves

• I didn't remember the water being so so high

And the river bounced us back and forth,

• I DIDN"T rember being so Scared!!!

Suddenly Colleen was yelling

Right or Left !! Right or left

There was a huge bolder in the middle with the current churning and piling up on it, The river waves were coming at us from both sides, and we were headed straight for it and FAST, I just needed a moment, just a moment….

CRASH, we were under water,

I was clawing my way back up to the overturned canoe, I heard banging, grinding, scraping, pulled my legs up as I could feel rocks smashing my feet, when my head reached the surface, I saw our packed bags going down the left side of the boulder, And I was shooting down the right side of the boulder hanging onto the canoe, our only hope me and the canoe Zipping

Right past Colleen who was hanging onto the boulder and crying,

I washed down and down leaving her behind and around the next bend in the river, finally I was able to pull myself and the flooded canoe to shore, quickly tying it off, with fear and urgency, I worked my way up along the roar of the river hoping and worrying what I would find

Colleen had washed off the boulder and was on the far bank, she was pulling and crawling up the far side trying to get into the woods, I called over , yelled over the turmoil of the churning waters, She didn't turn,

she wanted nothing to do with the river, she didn't even want to turn around,

I finally convinced her that 90 miles of black, dark main wilderness forest was a death sentence and not the way you'd like to go. So crying and slipping and falling she floated and scraped her way along the shore down to the eddy in the river where I was.

The EDDY

I picked her up and we held each other tight, tighter and longer than ever before, we survived. And in those moments, something had changed, The day was brighter, warmer, and time we had together was more precious, more scarce than before. Packing up what we could find and paddling away,

but We Both saw things differently,

We saw a moose with her calf in the shallows, and paused just floating by, to watch them graze and nuzzle,

and watched quietly when we saw a mother Loon back, black and white speckled, push her little chick onto her back to protect her,

And when an Eagle skimmed the surface of the water just yards away from our canoe, I looked into its deep golden yellow eyes, we both held our breath.

That Night

That night, around our own camp fire,

I held her close again,

I knew that we had changed,

changed together, bound in a different way,

I traced her smile with my finger and I knew,

and now had wonderful anniversary memories that would last forever.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The End =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Following is Notes for the True Tales Story Teller:

The Dam: It was a cool July morning and MY Wife Colleen and I were carrying a heavy 18 foot canoe

• 35 years ago, anniversary, love

• Long haired .. curly haired Irish

• Indecisive and shy vs spontaneous and outgoing (5 kids... )

• No plans for anniversary, and couldn't remember last years, ... so it had to be special

• ? she asked what would be special

• The Dam : heavy cook stove, lanterns, food bags over the Dam, …

  • I remember that when I was 10 my dad

  • Smoked a pipe

  • Trout fisherman

  • Outdoors-man

• The Dam : carried our Sleeping gear,

  • Remember river guide

  • Around the campfire and watching the northern lights

  • The loggers 1840

  • Paddled hard

• The chase : packed and pushed off

  • Remember that time as a little scout,

    • Sitting in the middle of my Dad's Canoe and fishing

    • mist on the water in the mornings like Indians,

    • Frogs and turtles

• Rapids pace:

  • Standing waves,

    • water so high

  • the rocks

    • water so fast!!

  • the river bank

    • SO SCARED !!!

• The crash: big rock, current from both sides

  • Right or Left, BIG ROCK

  • under water, to the surface

  • bags and gear left

  • canoe banging, legs bashing, right

  • zipping, leaving colleen behind crying on the rock

• Around the bend

  • tie off canoe, afraid and worried

  • found her, left, climbing bank

  • nothing to do with the river

  • crying and got back in, slipping and falling,

• The connection

  • Met in the eddy

  • Hugged, changed

  • Brighter, warmer,

• Saw things differently, specially

  • Moose - drifted slowly

  • Loon - Quite

  • Eagle - Held our breath

• night camp fire,

  • held her, traced her smile

  • changed together, bound together

  • and now had wonderful anniversary memories that would last forever