Canoe Trip and Hurricane Lee
Scott and I ready to begin our canoe trip with Spednic Lake in the background.
Last spring I joined our oldest child, Sheila, in Sweden for an Inn to Inn hike celebrating our 50th and 70th birthdays over a year late due to COVID. Now it was son Scott's turn to do an outdoor adventure with me to celebrate his turning 50 earlier this year in February. I flew to Portland, Maine on Monday, September 11, and met Scott and his wife Kristy at the airport as they had just returned from a trip to Virginia. Their home is less than an hour away in Harpswell, Maine where we would go before heading to Bangor to join Smoking Rivers Canoe Guide Service for a six day canoe paddle down the St. Croix River from Spednic Lake to Kellyland. The St. Croix forms the boundary in this section between Maine and New Brunswick, Canada, so we would have an international experience.
Just leaving Sacramento on my way to Portland, Maine.
Black Bears to greet me at the Portland Airport.
These are certainly familiar critters to me.
Also greeted by a Moose.
Have seen these in Alaska, but not in California.
The driveway to Scott and Kristy's house.
The house that Scott is building doesn't look too different from this perspective than it did when we visited on our cross country road trip in October, 2022, but there has been huge progress since then.
On the right is the trailer Scott and Kristy lived in until March.
The house is just to the left of the driveway out of the picture.
Looking at their trailer with the new construction of their next door neighbor's house just beyond. They had hoped the neighbor would build down the hill a bit, but not to be.
The back of Scott and Kristy's house with siding.
Scott plans to get the rest of the siding up before the winter freeze hits.
Their beautiful new kitchen, almost finished.
Counters and tiled backsplash are soon to be installed.
The master bedroom.
The "painting" facing the foot of the bed is actually a TV!
The downstairs "powder room."
Beautiful upstairs bathroom.
So far this is the only shower installed.
And the not quite finished guest room.
I was the first guest to sleep here.
Looking up to the loft where the guest room and bathroom are.
This view shows that there is still a lot to finish inside the house
- including the circular stairway.
Me on the "elevator" preparing to go upstairs.
This lift has been crucial to the interior construction of the house and is how Scott and Kristy access the shower upstairs for now. Scott is building the steps for the circular stairway that will go from the garage downstairs to the second floor loft and bedrooms out of oak wood he has milled on their property. So far he has enough stairs to reach from the garage to the main floor, but needs to mill more wood to get upstairs, so they will be using the lift for several more months while the wood gets milled, dried and assembled into stairs.
The dock on the bay next to Scott and Kristy's subdivision.
This access to the bay and a mooring ball for their sailboat (currently on land in Virginia) is the reason they selected the property they did.
On the beach by the dock.
Some barnacles on the rock up close.
Looks like a painting of rocks, but it's not.
Rainfall running off into the bay.
Wednesday, September 13, Scott and I headed to Bangor, Maine where we met with Jason, the owner of Smoking Rivers Canoe Outfitter, who explained some of the plans for our six day paddle down the St. Croix. He told us that due to the forecast of Hurricane Lee making landfall near the mouth of the St. Croix river we would start our paddle a little further along the lake than previously planned and that on Saturday we would "hunker down" in a campsite to wait out the wind and rain that was forecast to be pretty intense that day. He gave us each a very large dry bag to keep our clothes and bedding in and then we stayed in a hotel for the night before heading out early Thursday morning with Dan, our river guide, to launch canoes at Spednic Lake, about another two hours away.
Spednic Lake where we would launch the canoes.
Getting ready to unload the canoes and the gear.
Scott and I were the only customers on this trip, so we had an extra special, personalized experience.
Now we're really ready to launch in our rain gear for a pretty rainy paddle to our first campsite.
The cloudiness in the picture is due to my phone camera being in a special dry bag.
Dan, our guide, and Scott getting a canoe down to the water.
One loaded canoe in the water.
We would paddle just a few feet before we had to get out, drag the canoes over rocks and then get back in before we got on our way. Climbing across slippery rocks and vegetation did make me a little nervous, but there was no mishap.
Finally on our way with Dan poling in front of us.
Lots of rain while we paddled.
The water was fairly rough, but we felt very stable in our heavily loaded canoe.
Our planned campsite for the night on the US side of the lake.
US citizens are supposed to camp on the US side and Canadians on the Canadian side, but this site was full of water with no good place to put down our tents so we got back in the canoes and headed across to a campsite on an island that was part of a Canadian Provincial Park. Dan said that in the past no one really cared much about where canoe paddlers camped, but then some years ago because of some bad behavior by some Canadians in a US campsite border agents from both sides started cracking down and keeping folks in their proper places. He said they don't seem to be too concerned now, and we saw no border agents the whole time we were out, but mostly folks stay on the correct side.
The sign for the Canadian side site.
Notice that the red, white and blue symbol of a star on the left and maple leaf on the right are the same for both sites. The campsites on both sides of the St. Croix river and its lakes are maintained by the same international nonprofit organization.
Getting ready to unpack the canoes.
The "kitchen" area of our campsite with tarp up to shield from the light rain.
Another view of the campsite with Scott's orange tent visible.
My tent is to the right of his.
My tent on the east side of the island.
Sign to the latrine.
The latrine.
Gathering firewood.
Other than helping to unpack the canoes and setting up our tents our "chores" consisted of gathering firewood and washing dishes. We were told to only gather "standing dead" wood. I had never heard this before. In areas where I have camped where you can gather firewood the directions have always been to gather only "down and dead" wood. Any down wood in the Maine, and Canadian in this case, woods would be water logged. Scott and I walked around knocking down small dead trees - and I took pictures of mushrooms.
There was quite a variety of mushrooms in this campsite!
Sunset on Todds Island.
Cooking breakfast over the fire.
Dan preferred to cook both breakfast and dinner over a campfire, but on the very rainy days he resorted to a propane stove. Dan did all the cooking. He was a great cook and the food was plentiful! He even did a great job of accommodating my vegan diet. Scott made it quite clear that he was no vegetarian!
Cabins in the woods in this area are referred to as camps.
We took out here to load the canoes and gear back on the trailer to go a short way down river on the other side. We saw a group of Canadians on their end of the dam portaging their canoes over the dam. Smoking Rivers used a shuttle driver to move our van and trailer to this location so we could skip what is named "Rookie Rapids" just on the other side. After unloading the canoes a very short way down river we ate our lunch and Dan gave us a description of what we would face in front of us. In the description of this trip the rapids we would face were referred to as thrilling, but not intimidating. I admit to being a little intimidated as we anticipated meeting our first Class 1 rapids this day.
I was a little nervous about the rapids that were in front of us. This day's rapids were all Class 1, but we did get lots of splashes and even got briefly hung up sideways on a rock.
By Sunday morning the water would cover over the rock visible at the bottom of the picture and the flow of the river would more than double.
Looking down river from the same location.
A beautiful sunset before the rain that was to come.
I was nice and cozy in my tent listening to the roar of the rapids from the river nearby. By 3:00 AM Saturday, September 16, the sound of the rain drowned out the sound of the rapids. Not too long after the heavy rain started I heard a loud crack in a nearby tree and then the sound of a tree falling. It kept me awake for awhile, but then I dozed off and was later aware of the light of a flashlight - I figured it was Scott who had gotten up to pee. As soon as there was some daylight, and the rain had calmed down, I got up to find Scott sleeping in his little chair under the tarp. The top of the tree that had come down just touched his tent. He tried to sleep for awhile when he heard it, but finally went out to investigate, to make sure there were no dead trees near my tent, and then to try to sleep first on a bench of the picnic table and then in his chair.
Top of the tree against the tent - no damage.
If it had broken at ground level it would have done damage!
There wasn't a lot of fall color, but here is some.
Saturday was a long day of trying to stay dry and warm. I went for several walks on the 4 wheel drive road that lead back to Vanceboro. Scott joined me to walk some of the time, but he also crawled in his tent to try to make up for the lack of sleep the night before. I thought about going in the tent which was nice and dry inside, but it just seemed too complicated to get out of wet rain gear and then try to put it on again. When I started to feel cold I just went for a walk and that warmed me up well. On Labor Day weekend at Tahoe when it had been rainy and cold I worried a bit about how I would do in Maine on this trip because even without Hurricane Lee there was a good chance of rain. What I didn't realize was that the temperature would be considerably warmer than Tahoe's highs in the 50s on Labor Day weekend. I think the high on Saturday was in the 60s, and the other days it was in the 70s - not bad temperatures to be out in the rain.
Saturday morning's entertainment was watching the Canadian group go down Little Falls in their canoes. There was some fun and excitement - one canoe got turned around backwards, but, as Dan told us, that's not a big problem - you just go down backwards until the water slows and you can turn around. One canoe got hung up on a rock and the paddlers leaned upstream so the canoe pretty much filled with water, but no one turned over or fell out. Watching them helped me feel a little less nervous about going down this white water.
And another.
We would go down close to our side of the river.
Flooding over part of the 4 wheel drive road about a mile from camp.
The main force of the storm hit Saturday afternoon, and there was lots and lots of water.I spent some time draining puddles near my tent in the afternoon and managed to keep the inside dry.
And a bigger river!
Later in the day a big wave hit me full force in the front of the canoe, and I was the wettest I would be the whole trip. We didn't swamp, but we came close. Scott, in the back had to bail a lot of water! We were grateful for the sunshine to hang our wet stuff to dry when we got to our campsite.
Both of us in the canoe.
The picnic table and spots for our tents were high and dry, but not the latrine!
It stayed flooded until the water receded a bit over night.
Dan told us that this caterpillar was actually venomous.
Mushroom at Loon Bay.
Notice the spikes sticking out?
Apparently brushing against one can cause skin irritation. This one was in the campground, but earlier Scott had seen on on my back and reached forward with his paddle to brush it off. I did have an irritated, itchy spot on one ear that I attributed to a possible insect bite, but maybe it was this.
Note my new high top "Bean Boots" that were recommended by Smoking Rivers. I bought them at the giant LL Bean store in Freeport, Maine the day before we left for Bangor. They were wonderful and only failed to keep my feet dry after the wave hit me on the fourth day of the trip. They remained wet for the duration, but with wool socks I was comfortable. Scott had a boot dryer to dry them out when we got back to Harpswell. I look forward to wearing them in rainy Marin County this winter when we camp host again at Samuel P Taylor State Park. All three pairs of "waterproof" running shoes I have tried in the past have failed to meet my expectations.
Today's anticipation? Another Class 3. This one a 6 foot drop.
Yes, I was a bit nervous.
This international boundary marker was in the front yard of a camp, right next to the "waterfall" we would be going over. Dan pointed out a variety of obelisk international boundary markers along our way. The most interesting one was on top of a very large rock in the middle of the river. When we saw it the top of the rock was out of the water under two feet. Dan said that it's usually 6 to 8 feet out of the water. The river was running VERY high after Hurricane Lee's rain. That would make the upcoming "waterfall" a bit smoother than usual.
We followed him exactly and had quite a smooth ride. But I wish I could have taken a picture of the intimidating signs along the side of the river as we approached it, but I couldn't take my hands off the paddle. "Danger. Waterfall ahead." And also pictures of portaging canoes.
I recognized the Dr. Seuss like Black Spruce sticking up through this forest.
We had seen lots of Black Spruce in the Everglades last fall.
Dan told an interesting story about this cabin. It was built in the early 20th century by a European Opera Pianist. The pianist had fallen in love with an Opera singer, someone considered well above his "class." He built the cabin here on the banks of the St. Croix River anticipating it would be their retreat. But before he finished it, she fell in love with someone else. He spent the next 40 or 50 years of his life until he died living here, and it was said that he was seen by the loggers who were floating logs down the river as he sat everyday out in front of the cabin in an Adirondack chair, and after he wasn't there anymore the loggers saw his ghost. Before constructing the walls of the cabin, after building the floor, he put a grand piano on the floor and built the cabin around it. Dan doesn't know if the piano is still there, but he did see it, in a very deteriorated state, some years ago when he walked around it. If it's still there, it got wet this September.
In a couple of weeks Smoking Rivers would be leading fall foliage trips down the St. Croix.
No, we're not on a lake, the river keeps going through, somewhere.
This mushroom was in the campsite we would have stayed in if rain weren't predicted for Monday night and Tuesday morning. A "signature" experience of Smoking Rivers Outfitters is a sunrise paddle on the last day of a trip to experience the mist over the river, "Smoking River," and to get a better chance to see wildlife. However on our last night and morning significant rainfall was predicted so we would paddle further down the river so that we wouldn't have too far to paddle in the rain on Tuesday morning. After stopping here to make the final decision we paddled on to a lunch spot on the Canadian side, about an hour down stream.
Notice the picnic table in the water?
We went on further down the river to our camp site for a late lunch.
More fall color reflected.
This camp site was on a large, pretty flooded island. Landing here was actually the scariest part of the trip for me as the spot we were trying to land on was flooded so we hit the bank and bounced backwards and got temporarily caught in the current that would take us the wrong way around the island backwards. Dan yelled to paddle up current, and I did, but quickly we stopped when Scott managed to grab a tree. Whew! The current split right at our take out spot.
More mushrooms.
And not much lower than my tent.
I have to say that Monday night, our last night on the St. Croix River, was a bit creepy. We had stuck in sticks at the water level at our last camp site and at this one to monitor the level of the river, and the water level was definitely going down, but it was still high. The forecast called for almost two inches of rain over night and into the morning. And the water that had been higher after Saturday's storm was very close to our tents, because where we put them were the driest spots on our end of the island. After snuggling into my sleeping bag I became very aware of the nearby gurgling water, and it was creepy! I don't think I fell asleep until the sound of the pouring rain drowned out the sound of the gurgling river. So... when I woke up during the night and became aware of the driving rain I had to wonder just how high the river was. At some point I opened the tent door to shine my light on the river to reassure myself that it had gotten no closer. I kept trying to reassure myself that Dan was taking good care of us and that he wouldn't put us in a dangerous spot, but still... those sounds that alternated through the night: gurgling, close river water, pouring rain. Needless to say, it was not a very restful night. In the morning Scott and I found that our tents that we had carefully placed to avoid the evidence of previous puddles had stayed dry. Dan's tent that he had not put up until well after dark was in a puddle in the morning. Good thing it was the last morning!
Scott really hoped to see a Moose, and I hoped to see a Black Bear on this trip. Dan told us not to expect either on this section of the river. Moose tended to stay north of where we were and apparently Maine Black Bears are much shyer and of course less populated than at Lake Tahoe. We didn't see either moose or bear, and not a lot of other wildlife, partly due to the weather. We did see a number of Bald Eagles, some Osprey, Kingfishers, Loons and other birds and one beaver on land as we paddled by it. Dan said that was the first time he'd seen a beaver on the land like that. I imagine its den got flooded out.
It was a great six days of paddling the St. Croix, spending unlimited time with Scott, and enjoying the company of our guide Dan, who I think enjoyed us telling family stories like the "Goldilocks'" party. I'm not putting any more details of that one in print! Dan did tell us at the end of the trip that he would remember us and this trip more than some due to working around and through Hurricane Lee.
The trip, and certainly the leadership of Dan, more than met our expectations! After driving back to Bangor to get Scott's truck, Scott and I headed back to his home in Harpswell. I was glad my flight home to California wasn't until late Wednesday afternoon so that I had time to dry my gear, wash my clothes, pack and play some board games with Scott and Kristy.
Flying home to California after a wonderful Thai meal at Scott and Kristy's favorite restaurant in Portland, Maine. Good trip, good time with family.
Rob stayed in Colfax, hanging out with Strauss and Elsie, and Ruth and Avi.
Strauss letting me take his picture on the windowsill.
Comments
Post a Comment