Bourbon and Branch
When none were to be found on maps, our canoeing party has given names to many of the memorable points-of-interest along the Saint John River. The impulse behind these improvements is not vanity, like Mr. Sedgwick Steele’s naming a swamp after himself. Rather, precision in place-names is handy for describing and planning our itinerary as we paddle along. It’s more precise to say something like “Let’s take a break before we run the Rock Garden” than to say “Let’s take a break before we come to those rapids a few hundred yards below the fork of the Northwest Branch – you know the ones I mean.” Names like “Rock Garden” stick because they are useful and memorable.
Another new place-name is the “Ravens Reach,” the stretch of river between Moody Bridge and Rocky Rapids where a trio of ravens is often seen. Yet another is Deer Island which acquired its name on our first trip in 1980 and which marks the rapids above the Northwest Fork. There are two islands side-by-side. The other island is “Other Island.”
Marking the end of the deadwater below Knowles Brook, a welcome sight is the Boulder, an isolated more-or-less round mass of stone higher than a man’s height in mid-channel. Arriving at the Boulder frequently requires fighting a headwind because the deadwater’s direction-of-travel faces the prevailing northwest wind. A hundred yards or so past the Boulder a paddler can relax his efforts as the current picks up, the river turns northeast into the lee of forest and carries him toward the fork of the Northwest. Come to think of it “The Wind Tunnel” would make a nifty name for this particular stretch of deadwater between Knowles Brook and the Boulder. In my memory the Wind Tunnel is always chilly and breezy, the sort of stretch that prompts you to wear your gloves and screw your hat on tight.
Speaking of deadwaters, another memorable deadwater is “The Long Goddamned Deadwater,” an endless series of serpentine loops of the Baker Branch amid Sweeney Bog, above the head of Baker Lake. This stretch is invariably the monotonous anticlimax to the steep run from Fifth Pond, a run that can be a sweet Class II ride when the water’s flowing or, when shallow, miles of lifting-and-dragging while twisting and pounding wet sneaker-shod feet on the slippery rocks. In either case, when one hits The Long Goddamned Deadwater one is impatient for relief, the nearest example of which consists of the cool bubbling brook, campsite, and expanse of bug-free sky further along at the head of Baker Lake. First, though, the discouraging paddle through TLGD leads one to suspect that its water possesses an eerie quality of hull-slowing viscosity. In the TLGD the paddler’s efforts to maintain speed are constantly frustrated by momentum-killing changes in direction.
The cheeriest place-name we’ve
invented is “Nine O’Clock Brook.” It’s a cold rivulet that gurgles amid
river-smoothed rocks, tufts of dark green grass, a canopy of swamp ash and
cedar, and the sound of rushing river. Below the brook’s mouth is an eddy wide
enough among the rocks in the rapids to turn a canoe in order to push upstream
and snub ashore. One can find this spot depicted and unnamed on the survey map
of 1962 as the outlet of a tiny bog nestled into the east bank of the river at
1100 feet above sea level, just above the confluence of the Southwest Branch.
The consistent coolness of the brook’s flow and the small area it drains
suggest that its source is a large spring.
Generally, when we’ve jumped off at Baker Lake and encamped at Foss Brook for the first night of a Saint John journey, we arrive at Nine O’Clock Brook on the following morning about nine o’clock.
The happy scene at Nine O’Clock Brook is a sort of Valhalla for old coots, their red and green canoes pulled onto the riverbank, the tumblehome sides (the canoes, not the old farts) reflecting the glint of June sunlight on flowing water. Between the beached boats and the small brook a few convivial gentlemen repose, looking properly picturesque in plaid shirts and broad-brimmed hats, all holding a drinking cups. They are enjoying bourbon mixed with the cool water of the small brook. The sun shines upon them, the breeze cools them, and the long June day is full of promise.
Partly a response to the
constraints of canoe travel on volume and weight of baggage, bourbon and branch
became the preferred cocktail of our group of Saint John
canoeists.
One year, at the outset of our canoeing adventures a generation ago, we brought several cases beer and ale, which led our bush pilot, Clair Moreau, to experience some difficulty in taking off from Portage Lake. The trees were higher than usual that day and our first couple of attempts at liftoff were unsuccessful. I imagined the newscast that would describe our fatal crash: “Investigators say that the small Cessna floatplane carried an excessively heavy cargo of Ballantine Ale. The impact of the aluminum cans made physical identification of the passengers impossible, but papers found in their baggage ….” Besides, in the absence of freezing weather or quantities of ice, canned brewski is warm. Somehow, hot beer on a hot day doesn’t seem appealing.
Same problem with the Dry Martini, or the Harvey Wallbanger, or Sex On The Beach for that matter. Any drink requiring ice on-demand and volumes of mixers or storage space isn’t efficient for travel by canoe. Simplicity is the thing. And so we decided that the more concentrated sort of bourbon, concentrated in both flavor and proof, provides the ideal sort of drink for the wandering canoeist. There are other satisfactory cocktails, of course. The older guys in our crowd prefer Canadian whiskey, which they call “rye” in a linguistic throwback to the Prohibition era. Real American rye whiskey is good, too. A favorite method of preparing rye is to leave a few strips of the inner bark of roundwood, or mountain ash [Sorbus americana], in the bottle for a day or so. The bark imparts a pleasant almond flavor to the whiskey. This infusion is called an Adirondack cocktail.
High-test dark rum, preferred on winter trips, is often welcome on a cold day, too. Rum as a usual, however, becomes cloying after a while.
Bourbon seems perfect as a usual. Good bourbon has a complexity of flavor that retains interest, round after round.
One might ask, isn’t nine o’clock in the morning a bit early to break out the hooch? No, not on a sunny day in June. We’re not intending to get drunk, you understand, not with many hours of paddling and fishing and camp chores ahead. The portion in our brass cup is somewhat greater than symbolic and somewhat less than strong, one finger but not two. The point is that for at least one glorious day of our responsible nose-to-the-grindstone year we don’t have to finish our spinach before we eat dessert.