A Critical Bibliography for Saint John Adventurers

A Bibliography for Northern Maine Canoeists

Canoe travel

On the Saint John the canoe has been the principal means of transportation on the river since the development of the bark canoe hundreds of years ago. My three favorite books on canoe travel are listed here. One, Pinkerton’s Canoe is an out-of-print little classic that challenges a fellow to develop basic skills in preference to modern gadgetry. Second, Calvin Rutstrum’s North American Canoe Country is an absorbing combination of practicality and romance. Third, Davidson’s and Rugge’s Complete Wilderness Paddler, is in-print and justly popular among canoe trippers.

I also refer to other sources if one wishes to delve into the background of the subject. For a study of the era when the canoe was an economically vital means of transportation, Germaine Warkenton’s Canadian Exploration Literature: An Anthology 1660-1860 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993) is a heavy-duty browse. A lighter read is John Rowland’s Cache Lake Country, a personal account life in the back-countrywhere the canoe is the chief means of transportation. The Canoe and White Water by C. E. S. Franks is the youthful effort of a polymath well worth the trouble to track down and read for its range of topics – historical, scientific, and personal – related to canoeing. For those interested in birchbark canoes, Adney’s and Chappelle’s Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America is the bible.

The Booklist

Pinkerton, Robert E. The Canoe: Its Selection, Care, and Use New York: MacMillan, 1914

Canoe tripping as it once was. Pinkerton, better known for his history of the Hudson’s Bay Company, wrote a brief handbook of wilderness tripping as practiced a century ago. Reading it challenges the present-day canoe tripper to forgo fossil fuels, synthetic fabrics, and processed foods in favor of more basic skills and tools. I hope someone reprints this book; it anticipates much of the traditional Northwoods approach that Garrett Conover covers in Beyond the Paddle. Pinkerton knows what he’s talking about -- he notes, for instance, that running downstream with a setting pole is perhaps the most subtle canoeing skill -- and the grainy photographs (Canadian woodsmen from Central Casting in beat-up Peterborough canoes) are a hoot. The book is especially useful on the subject of efficient packing.

This book was published as part of a series of instructional handbooks by Outdoors magazine beginning around the turn of the century. The do-it-yourself movement represented a change in fashion for fishermen, hunters, and campers. In the nineteenth century few gentlemen, wholly dependent on the skill and labor of guides for comfort in the woods, would dream of making a fire, cooking food, or portaging a canoe. Sporting books from this earlier era feature the gentleman author killing trout and moose while the guide does all of the heavy lifting. (A pioneer example of this genre is Adventures in the Wilderness, by Boston clergyman W. H. H. Murray, published in 1865. An interesting Maine example is Thomas Sedgwick Steele’s Canoe and Camera -- Two Hundred Miles Through The Maine Forests published in 1880.) Then self-sufficiency came into fashion. A younger generation, encouraged by the contemporary impulse to explore the fast-disappearing remote places of the earth, and enabled by the easy availability of the new-fangled canvas-covered canoe, travelled further afield as active participants. No longer a commercial enterprise, exploration became a means of personal challenge. Camping and canoeing skills became fashionable, and the era of recreational canoeing began.

The story of the Hubbard expedition exemplifies the beginning of the recreational era. In 1903 Leonidas Hubbard, a young editor of Outdoors magazine, organized an expedition to traverse by canoe the unmapped interior of Labrador, taking Dillon Wallace, a friend from New York with little camping experience, and George Elson, a Scots-Cree guide from Moose Factory, near James Bay. Hubbard competently organized the expedition, but he had little practical experience and no direct knowledge of the country. Almost at the outset, the trio unwittingly ascended the wrong river in their new Old Towns. Eventually Hubbard starved to death after the three men failed to find the portage to their intended downstream route. Wallace wrote an excellent and popular account (The Lure of the Labrador Wilderness Post Hills, Vermont: Chelsea Green, 1990), thereby offending Hubbard’s widow, Mina, fueling the controversy that will forever haunt the Hubbard expedition. Could Hubbard have planned better? At what juncture should he have acted differently? In 1905 Mrs. Hubbard and Wallace returned, leading rival expeditions, to complete Hubbard’s planned route. This fascinating story is told by Davidson and Rugge in Great Heart -- The History of a Labrador Adventure (New York: Vintage Books, 1975). Both Great Heart and Lure of the Labrador Wilderness are worthwhile books.

Despite its unhappy outcome, the Hubbard expedition popularized the idea of canoe-travel as a personal challenge.

In turn-of-the-century Maine, the completion of the Bangor and Aroostook railroad opened the north country for sportsmen and amateur explorers, bringing employment to canoe makers, guides, outfitters, and sporting camp operators. As part of its effort to attract this new variety of tourist-adventurer, the railroad published In the Maine Woods annually from approximately 1905 to 1950, and a sampling of these volumes may be found in most large Maine libraries. These yearbooks contain advertisements, lists of registered guides, maps, photographs, and accounts of popular routes, particularly the Allagash, Saint John, the Penobscot branches, and Mount Katahdin trails. Of particular interest for Saint John canoeists are accounts of the trip written by Warren Moorehead (the archeologist who first identified the “red paint” phase of prehistoric native Americans) and Chief Henry Red Eagle (also known as Henry Perley), a popular Indian writer from Greenville.

Rutstrum, Calvin. North American Canoe Country – The Classic Guide to Canoe Technique New York: Macmillan and Company, 1964 [reprinted Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000]
Of the many talented writers who have interpreted the experience of canoe travel, Rutstrum is perhaps the greatest. Never simple or condescending, he knows when to be practical and when to be lyrical. If I had to choose just one book to explain both the techniques and attraction of canoe travel, this would be the book.

Davidson, James West and Rugge, John. The Complete Wilderness Paddler New York: Vintage Books, 1975

Davidson and Rugge developed their interest in the Hubbard expedition after traveling to Labrador and northeastern Quebec as canoeing adventurers. This book, a composite account of a canoe trip down Quebec’s Moisie River, remains the best how-to book on the subject of canoe travel, conveying the feel of a big trip. The authors manage to cover all aspects of wilderness tripping with clarity, humor, and practicality. Twenty-years later, their approach is somewhat dated (what? no GPS receiver? no satellite link so we can follow your trip on the web?) and charmingly idiosyncratic (as, for example, carrying Kelty frame packs……but they make a good case for them), but their theme is timeless: bring equipment you understand, know how and why to use it -- and don’t forget to have fun. We can’t argue with that. If you want just one how-to book about canoe travel, this one is it.

Franks, C. E. S. The Canoe and White Water Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977

This book represents the sort of approach we admire. The author manages to cover history, hydrodynamics, paddling and camping techniques with an evident fondness for canoeing-related subjects and with the authority of an inquiring mind who clearly has paid attention during his own expeditions and his scientific and historical research. As the title suggests, the book is particularly good on the subject of navigating in rapids.

Before leaving the subject of canoe travel, I should mention the late Bill Mason, the Canadian painter and film-maker who is the most recognized and beloved canoeist of our time, thanks to his trademark red Chestnut wood/canvas canoes and his low-key getting in touch with nature as seen by the First Peoples attitude. His artist’s eye and photography skills enabled him to transform the canoeing manual from a specialist’s handbook into a glossy picture book suitable for the coffee table. Mason’s Song of the Paddle and Path of the Paddle (on canoe camping and canoe navigation, respectively; published by Northword Publishing) are well worth browsing. Mason’s instructional film on negotiating rapids (Whitewater, Canadian Film Board) is available on video. It provides an excellent introduction to the subject, and is far easier to understand than a book of diagrams and text. Come to think of it, I’d recommend Mason’s video – in preference to any book -- to anyone seeking to learn to paddle in the rapids.

History

It’s hard to imagine any thoughtful person canoeing the Saint John who doesn’t wonder that so large a river can remain so apparently remote. Why are there no convenience stores and paved roads in a vast area completely surrounded by vigorous commercial enterprise? In a sense the upper Saint John area is twice a frontier. First, there is the historical phenomenon that settlement patterns have followed rivers upstream, and the upper Saint John is very far up. Second, a barrier to post-settlement development has been the international border across the course of the river. Transaction risks (tariffs, differing tax policies) and an official reluctance to undertake public improvements seeming to benefit another nation have discouraged much of the potential cross-border lumber trade in the region. Both of these aspects of the Saint John are discussed in Richard Judd’s history.

Like the curious incident of the dog that didn’t bark in the night, much of the history of the upper Saint John is the story of why the region never developed beyond its status as a frontier, despite human ingenuity in overcoming geographic and political barriers.

The history of the lower Saint John is essentially the history of New Brunswick. Of the river in particular there are a couple of older Canadian histories of interest only to the more studious, W. O. Raymond’s The River Saint John and Esther Clark Wright’s The Saint John River, but these have little to do with canoeing or the upper river.

Judd, Richard W. Aroostook A Century of Logging in Northern Maine Orono: University of Maine Press, 1989

This well-written history is most relevant history for anyone interested in various places in the Allagash-Saint John region, such as the California Road, Seven Islands, and Nine Mile Bridge, and it’s a well-written and coherent account of the subject. Providing a practical understanding of lumbering in all its aspects, this is the book that relates the present-day geography of Aroostook to its economic and social history. After reading this book you realize how many ghosts you pass along the river.

Hilton, C. Max. Rough Pulpwood Operating in Northwestern Maine 1935-1940 Orono: University of Maine Studies, Second Series # 57 (1942)

Hilton himself figures in the history of Aroostook logging -- he designed for King Lacroix’s Eagle Lake and Umbazooksus Railroad the bridge that spanned the north end of Chamberlain Lake. This matter-of-fact little book describes the old style of Maine logging (winter cutting/spring driving) before horses and hand tools passed forever into obsolescence. Pen and ink illustrations of axes, saws, booms, and boats make this a good companion volume to the logging history listed above.

Hardy, Fannie Pearson. Tales of the Maine Woods: Two Forest and Stream Essays Orono: Northeast Folklore XXXIV, 1999

Eckstorm, Fannie Hardy. Indian Place Names of the Penobscot Valley and Maine Coast Orono: University of Maine Studies, 1941

Eckstorm, Fannie Hardy. Old John Neptune and other Maine Indian Shamans Portland: Southworth-Anthoesen, 1940 (reprint Marsh Island 1970)

Eckstorm, Fannie Hardy. Penobscot Man New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1904 (Juniper Press reprint, 1978)

In a class by herself, the accomplished Miss Hardy of Brewer wrote much more than local history. Familiar from infancy with the Penobscot tribe, Eckstorm knew both of Thoreau’s Indian guides, and has some interesting things to say about Thoreau in Penobscot Man, a collection of her articles for the Atlantic Monthly. Old John Neptune, an account of the Penobscot tribe, contains some interesting mention of native canoe use, including a fur-trapping journey from Old Town to the north side of the Saint Lawrence. Maine Indian Place Names shows the extent to which the geographical imagination of the woodland Indians revolved around the canoe. Who would have thought a place name dictionary could be so fascinating? -- every page features a canoe route, most of which are long-forgotten. The Penobscots, and other tribes eastward, named almost every place from the perspective of canoe travel; Eckstorm provides an oblique glimpse into a world in which the canoe is the family car. For me, Eckstorm personifies frontier Maine - a childhood friend of her Penobscot neighbors, grand-daughter and daughter of fur traders, a witness to the heroic age of the Penobscot log drive. While her work is not directly related to the Saint John area, she is our closest literary link to the lost world long ago invaded by the advance guard of lumbermen. The closest analog from the Saint John River is George Frederick Clarke’s Someone Before Us - Our Maritime Indians (Fredericton: Unipress, 1968). Clarke’s book is a meandering account of his relations and travels with Maliseet companions near his home in Woodstock, New Brunswick.

Personal accounts of life in the Aroostook woods

As the history of life along the Saint John becomes familiar to us, we learn that no one ever stayed here long. For the Indians, the Saint John served as a major highway, but it was too barren and too far from the more habitable seacoast to provide year-round subsistence. In the historic period, farming for lumbering operations along the river was profitable only so long as the alternative cost of hauling potatoes and hay was prohibitive. After the Second World War the bulldozer ended the river’s usefulness to the lumbermen. Almost overnight the banks were abandoned, and the sites of schools, barns, smithies, dams, and bunkhouses grew first to raspberries and then to spruce. A mere century of tenuous year-round occupation had ended, and in a few years the people who can claim to have been born upriver, beyond the end of state highway 161, will be gone too.

Hamlin, Helen. Nine Mile Bridge New York: W.W. Norton, 1945

This book is not as famous as We Took to the Woods but it’s similar. Local color at its best. Life at Nine Mile Bridge, not so very long ago, but how remote it was!
Update: This book is recently republished – here’s the link: islandportpress.com

Jackson, Annette. My Life in the Maine Woods - A Game Warden’s Wife in the Allagash Country New York: W. W. Norton,1954

The author was born at Seven Islands (upper Saint John). An interesting personal account.

Lowrey, Nathan. Tales of the Northern Maine Woods:The History and Traditions of the Maine Guide Orono: Northeast Folklore XXVII, 1991

Lowrey provides a good account of guiding in Aroostook County before the advent of the outboard motor.

Narratives

Thoreau, Henry David. The Maine Woods New York: Bramhall House, 1950

Among wilderness enthusiasts, Thoreau is widely respected as the ancient authority of the Maine woods. Thoreau’s account remains the original travelogue of the Allagash region, and at least partly the source of its mystique. The difficulty in accepting Thoreau as the original authority on the Maine woods is his radically unbalanced approach. Thoreau was both naturalist and misanthrope, and the result is a book that exalts nature and slights society and culture, leaving the reader with an incomplete conception of the Maine woods as they existed in Thoreau’s era. Thoreau has little sympathy for the human subjects of his narrative, and even his attempts at filling in the characters of his Indian guides fail to make them little more than curiosities. His proto-ecocentrism continues to influence debate over Maine’s forests and rivers.

Springer, John S. Forest Life and Forest Trees Somersworth, New Hampshire: New Hampshire Publishing, 1971

Springer was a literate Maine lumberman who described lots of interesting lumbering activity that Thoreau failed to find picturesque, and therefore ignored. First published in 1851. Real life in the woods in the Thoreau era. Thoreau looked at pines and saw Nobility; Springer looked at pines and saw Utility.

Hubbard, Lucius H. Woods and Waters of Maine Somersworth, New Hampshire: New Hampshire Publishing, 1971

The typical sporting gentleman’s travelogue seems to have been intended for comfortable dullards who sat in fireside armchairs and dreamt of shooting the last caribou.

For example, Thomas Sedgwick Steele who wrote Canoe and Camera (1880) and Paddle and Portage (1882) is the self-absorbed hero of his narratives, for whom guides serve only as fetchits and animals only as targets. Steele concerns himself with depleting the fishery and naming ponds after himself, and omits much of the detail that provides historical interest to the modern reader.

On the other hand, Lucius Hubbard’s book (published 1881) stands loftily above other Maine examples of the backwoods travelogue. The observant Hubbard and his party carried from the Allagash Lakes to the Musquacook Lakes, then down the Musquacook Stream and back into the Allagash, an impressive trip.

Even more than Thoreau, Hubbard is an engaged participant in his story. He paddles. He works up a sweat on the portages. A good read and highly recommended.

Fiction

Smith, Edmund Ware. Tall Tales and Short Lyon, Mississippi: Derrydale Press, 1938 (reprint Derrydale, 1991)

Smith, Edmund Ware. The One-Eyed Poacher of Privilege Lyon, Mississippi: Derrydale Press, 1941 (reprint Derrydale, 1991)

Smith, Edmund Ware. The One-Eyed Poacher and the Maine Woods New York: Frederick Fell, 1955

Many think the Poacher is the most accurate fictional representation of the old-time Maine woods type. Smith’s details of woods artifacts are based on his first-hand knowledge. The Poacher is an unforgettable creation of comic fiction, whose style haunts every old-timer’s campfire stories.

MacDougall, Arthur, R, Jr. Dud Dean and the Enchanted Manchester, Maine: Falmouth Publishing, 1954

MacDougall, Arthur, R. Jr. Dud Dean Yarns Bingham, Maine: The Bingham Press, 1934

MacDougall, Arthur, R. Jr. If It Returns with Scars Bingham, Maine: privately printed, 1942

Respectable and patient as the One-Eyed Poacher is impulsive and profligate, Dud Dean always manages to merit catching the biggest trout by virtue of his skill, tact, and humility. MacDougall (late pastor of the Bingham Congregational Church) provides a nostalgic view of village life and trout fishing as it never quite was. These stories are as gentle and unpretentious as their hero.

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