290 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 19, 1910- 
Down the Penobscot, Up Kata.hdin 
By PALMER H. LANGDON 
K INEO, and the Northeast Carry at Moose- 
head Lake, are the usual starting points 
for a canoe trip down the Penobscot 
River and a climb of Katahdin, Maine’s highest 
mountain, for at Kineo and the carry may be 
obtained the first requirement of such a jour¬ 
ney—a guide. It is the guide of course who 
personally conducts the trip, furnishing the 
canoe and securing the provisions. The guide 
on this trip was one 
Angus Miller, a French- 
Canadian voyageur, who 
in the summer and fall 
piloted city folk through 
Maine’s woods, lakes 
and rivers, and the rest 
of the year carried sup¬ 
plies to- the lumber 
camps with his batteau 
or sledge. He is known 
as the smartest boatman 
on the Penobscot, and 
among his varied other 
accomplishments is also 
a good cook. 
This guide and his 
“sport” as city men are 
called, who tour the 
Maine forest, found 
themselves in a heavy 
downpour of rain as 
they packed canoe and 
provisions aboard the 
wagon that was to take 
them away from the 
last signs of summer 
civilization on Moose- 
head Lake over to the 
West Branch of the 
Penobscot River, where 
the summer hotel has 
not as yet disfigured 
the forestscape. Rain 
has no terrors for pon¬ 
cho-covered canoeists, 
and by 9 o’clock this 
wet September day the 
canoe had been launch¬ 
ed and started on the 
first stretch of the 
eighty-mile canoe jour¬ 
ney. 
The first impression 
of the back country was 
that of a land which 
had been stripped of its 
noble forest growth. To 
be sure, the banks were 
lined with trees, and 
there were woods in 
every direction, but they 
looked to be the kind 
that the lumberman had 
left; all that were worth 
taking had gone to the 
sawmill. Still it was a 
wilderness, though a 
marred one. and as the 
party paddled on through the ceaseless rain and 
down the shelterless river, they could think they 
were alone on the continent, for nowhere could 
be seen habitation or habitat. The river itself 
gave plenty of variety by ever changing from 
dead water to current or to rapid. Shooting 
the rapids is ever a joyous pleasure to every 
lover of a canoe, as well as bringing forth the 
utmost skill of the canoeist. On approaching a 
Shooting the Rapids. 
on Katahdin. 
KATAHDIN VIEWS. 
Monument 
The Giant Boulders. 
View of Katahdin from Dacy Pond. 
The Rocky Ridge of the Hunt Trail. 
The Summit of Katahdin. The Stone Boat at the Carry. 
Courtesy "7 he Crescent. 
rapid the guide would arise, pole in hand, to- 
view the situation, and when he had sighted the 
main opening and the course of the tortuous 
channel, he would thrust the frail craft into the 
rushing current, then guide her through the nar¬ 
row rocky passageway, at times using his pole 
as a brake, then as a paddle, swinging in every 
possible direction to get down stream without 
putting a hole in the frail canoe. To the pas¬ 
senger sitting in the bow it was a most delight¬ 
ful sensation to dash down the leaping, foam¬ 
ing, surging w T aters. The more rapids the merrier. 
After ten miles of paddling and poling the 
party came to a small clearing and a dwelling 
on the river bank, which proved to be a lumber¬ 
man’s hotel and which, 
could also take care of 
hungry city visitors. 
After dinner there was 
a repetition of the morn¬ 
ing’s ten miles, when the 
river broadened out in¬ 
to Chesuncook Lake, or, 
as the guides termed it, 
’Suncook. A, short dis¬ 
tance down the lake was 
another lumberman’s 
hotel, a place that was 
sort of a go-between a 
farm house, a lumber 
camp and a wayside inn, 
but which furnished very 
good quarters for the 
tourist, so the party ar¬ 
ranged to stay there 
over night, having al¬ 
ready made twenty miles 
of the eighty that were 
before them. 
In the morning there 
was a sort of return to 
the everyday ways of 
traveling, for a steam¬ 
boat has been put upon 
’Suncook, and so instead 
of paddling over the 
eighteen miles of the 
lake, the present pro¬ 
cedure is to carry the 
canoes and paddlers on 
the steamer. And a very 
small steamer it is, about 
large enough to have a 
licensed engineer and 
pilot, and reminds one 
very much of all the 
steamboat rhymes. When 
the engineer, who was 
also the owner of the 
steamer, collected the 
fares and charged eight 
dollars for one passen¬ 
ger, or two dollars a 
piece for a party of 
seven, everyone realized 
that the steamboat was 
a n up-to-date-cost-of- 
living craft. 
Coming down the lake 
the mountain climber 
gets the first view of his 
quest — Katahdin. Far 
off to the east was the 
great clump of moun- 
