1091 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The Loaded Canoe. 
The Lumber Camp Bateau. 
UP AND DOWN THE CAUCOMGOMOC 
THE BREAK INTO CAMP LIFE CAN BE TAKEN BY DEGREES ON 
THIS TRIP, ONE OF THE PLEASANTEST IN THE STATE OF MAINE 
W HEN Thoreau, in 1853, in his classic the 
“Maine Woods,” mentions the Caucom- 
gomoc region, he says: 
“We had designed to go on at evening up the 
Caucomgomoc—but some Indians of Joe’s ac¬ 
quaintance gave so poor an account of the moose 
hunting, so many had been killed there lately, 
that my companions concluded not to go there.” 
And if Thoreau were to paddle his canoe up 
and down the stream to-day he would probably 
have the same complaint of no moose, for man, 
in his bullheaded destruction, has not only shot 
away the moose from the Caucomgomoc region, 
but from the entire wilderness of the State of 
Maine, and the State’s Legislature, scenting the 
doom of moosedom, has ordered a four-year 
closed season on moose—that the monarch of 
the forest may be saved to the Maine woods— 
the caribou has already walked over the border. 
Though the moose have dwindled to a remnant 
and the caribou have gone, the woods, lakes and 
streams are still there, though in a degree 
dwarfed and mutilated, and if Thoreau should 
return, he would find a canoe trip on the Caucom¬ 
gomoc both fascinating and refreshing—like the 
other canoe excursions into the depths of the 
Pine Tree State, several of which have been de¬ 
scribed by the writer in Forest and Stream * 
As usual, in paddling through Maine waters, 
the natural starting place is Kineo. Manager 
Judkins, of the Mount Kineo House, has a list 
of over one hundred guides. For this par¬ 
ticular outing the services were secured of 
Guide Baxter Smith. The break into camp life, 
however, can be taken by degrees for the cus¬ 
tomary practice is to take a steamer from Kineo 
to the North East carry—stay over night at 
Winegaret Inn—which is a lumberman’s hotel in 
winter and a tourists’ resort in summer—then in 
the morning haul over to the Penobscot River, 
where canoe transportation and camp life gener- 
By Palmer H. Langdon. 
ally begins. Though even then tent life may be 
deferred further, for about every canoe puts into 
the settlement at the head of Chesuncook Lake 
to mail letters at the last post office, and (if the 
camper is wise) to invest some silver in the 
famous doughnuts which are obtainable from the 
postmistress. If the city sport is still reluctant 
to try tent life, he can get comfortable over¬ 
night accommodations at the post office. By this 
time the sport may also be imbued with some of 
the spirit of Judge G. V. Leveritt of Boston, who 
has spent his thirty-ninth season in canoeing and 
camping in the Maine woods. As we came down 
the river we noticed his tent pitched on the banks 
of the stream. 
Guide Baxter Smith was ready for sleeping 
under canvas, wishing to tarry only long enough 
to take lunch at the half way house on the Pen¬ 
obscot and get a stock of potatoes from Ansel 
Smith at “Suncook.” With the stowing of the 
doughnuts and potatoes, the twenty-foot canoe 
was surely loaded with four hundred pounds of 
campage and four hundred pounds of humanage. 
The dunnage weight was divided into twenty- 
four packs, besides paddles, pole, dip net and 
fish rods. 
Hardly had we set out on the morning of Sep¬ 
tember 7, 1915, when the guide remarked that 
there was “no water this year.” In the East 
Branch of the Penobscot there was not enough 
“iuice” to float a canoe—the West Branch was 
all “dinamite” and “auto-mobiles.” The pulp mill 
was building a dam there with the consequent 
destruction. 
“No water” in the Maine woods was a shock 
to expectations when the Atlantic coast had been 
deluged with a flood of rain during the summer 
months. 
But there were the dry rocks in the Penobscot, 
and it was with difficulty in places that the canoe 
could be poked down to Suncook Lake. In fact. 
Joe Smith, the venerable mail carrier whom one 
always meets in going or coming on this stream, 
reported a specially dry and hazardous paddling 
season. It was a pleasure to note, however, that 
even with lew water the United States mail was 
still carried in a canoe and the lumber supplies 
in a bateau. Fortunately for the tourists’ de¬ 
lectation the river would not float a power boat. 
All the way down the Penobscot’s banks sur¬ 
veyors’ marks were noticed and the guide ex¬ 
plained that the new dam was to raise the water 
to the level of the marks—and then he ex¬ 
claimed, “I have not a word to say against them 
’mobile roads, but the way the corporations has 
treated the water flotage is enough to turn a 
man against the State of Maine.” And then he 
pointed to a mass of tangled dead snags on the 
river banks and said the new water level in¬ 
creases the height of the dead wood. “Look 
there,” he said, “see them trees on the Ceme¬ 
tery point? Well them and the cemetery will be 
washed under when the new dam gets in its 
work.” 
And then as we left Chesuncook Lake and 
pushed up Caucomgomoc stream we were con¬ 
fronted with absolute desolation—a shore of 
bleached snags—the result of killing the timber 
by overflowing the banks—and all that the wood 
pulp companies could float down a greater quan¬ 
tity of logs to be ground into paper stock, a large 
quantity of which goes into the making of “yel¬ 
low journals.” 
Apparently, the only hope to save the fine ever¬ 
green forests from the hopper of the pulp mill, 
is for some genius to develop a new base for 
the making of paper, but the experts tell us that 
this development is still a hazy dream, for every 
base besides wood that has been tried for the 
making of paper has failed, and the authorities 
say that only when wood pulp becomes extreme¬ 
ly scarce and costly will the paper men be com- 
