Winter sunrise on 4th Debsconeag Lake. Chewonki’s Semester School had a group of students venture to Debsconeag Lake for a winter camping trip. They skied in from the Millinocket side, which means skiing across from 3rd Debsconeag Lake, where Mt Katahdin in all of her glory is visible along the way.

The lake awaits its summer visitors!

Evergladiators: Chewonki Women in the Glades Again!

It is the night before our journey begins. We all converge at a little green trimmed stucco and timber framed house in the town of Sunrise, Florida. Two of the Evergladiators have driven all the way from Maine, one flew from North Carolina, and two are sitting in the home of their childhood. As we explode all of our combined gear and food supplies(borrowed and personal), onto the living room floor the excitement and reality that this trip is actually happening set in. After about an hour of bartering and figuring; what to leave behind(many pairs of thick wool socks), what to take(more sunscreen than we think we need), what is our route..etc, a gasp is heard, which is preceded by an, “I almost forgot to show you all my most important contribution!” Out of a small dry bag appears a small, cuddly stuffed manatee: “Our trip animal!” This announcement induces some rapid movement. One member, speechless,runs out the door to the car and another, eyes aglow, quickly scuttles over to a duffel bag. So it is that we meet our other trip animals, a homely hand sewn perched owl, and a humble little blue green frog. The manatee is given a name on the spot, Morris, while the others must await their name-giver’s muse.
It makes sense that when you put a group of Chewonki employees together and a natural space to explore, they will inherently bring along some of that good old Chewonki Wilderness Trip tradition, which turned out to be a foreshadowing for a broader “Chewonki lens” that we
discovered was in everyday use on our seven day adventure in the Everglades National Park Wilderness Waterway of South Florida. On the last day of our trip we all agreed that Chewonki fosters a view of the world that is quite unique, and this view is what we decided to call the “Chewonki lens”, because you can carry it with you and attach it to your regular viewfinder at anytime no matter where you are. This lens, we found, fosters and encourages these practices: seeking out local knowledge from local sources and especially getting to know local ecology, a general sense of collective sharing and caring, and an old school style of wilderness travel.

Here’s how we put this Chewonki lens to use on our adventure:
The first local knowledge that we gained was that trying to find white gas in South Florida is like trying to find that wintry white stuff in South Florida. We must have spent almost two hours calling every store in the book to find it and the resounding response was “What’s that?” So we had to cave in, leave our beloved Colemen stove behind, and rent a propane one.
From this starting point, we later moved on to much more rewarding and interesting local educational gains. For instance, that a Chickee, which is an open wooden platform with a roof, is a Native American dwelling design and that the island of Chokoloskee, is actually a manmade island that is above sea level due to years of shell midden piles that were built by the Calusa Indians.
We brought along a library that contained the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Florida, as well as a paddlers guide, and a book of stories: “Forty Years in the Everglades” by Calvin Stone, “The true life swamp experiences of the author who loves, lives and has
fought to preserve this scenic wilderness…” We also happened to have in our crew two sisters whose grandfather was actually born in Plant City, Florida. It is pretty rare to find a true Floridian in Florida these days. So, with these tools and our curiosity, we were able to totally immerse ourselves into this place by getting to know it as fully as possible.
We created a wildlife sighting list, with an especially long bird list and did things like sit
completely still in a bay for half an hour watching a dolphin heard schools of mullet, while the great blue herons followed in hopes of getting a tasty leftover and a gator lurked along from a distance without a care. We also got some knowledge dropped on us from our fishermen neighbors, that were few and far between, about what they were catching and how the vessel they constructed is what they called a Redneck Catamaran, which consisted of a very small motorboat with two canoes strategically placed on either side of it. It was fun because even though some of us were clearly more interested in the distinctions between a black mangrove verses a red mangrove, while others were more interested in listening to stories read aloud at night in a Florida Cracker accent, we all had the same natural and organic thirst for this local intelligence building.
Another piece of our journey that came naturally and happened organically was creating a sense of community within our group. In outdoor education it always seems that a big part of that first forming stage of a group is giving yourself a name and intention. In our emails to each other in the planning stages we started calling ourselves the Evergladiators, I think this might have been Sarah Hirsch’s brain child, but for whatever reason it stuck and we used it on our first day huddle up. My sister, Sarah Roach the only non-Chewonki affiliated member of the group definitely seemed a little skeptical at first. After dinner on our first chickee, we asked what each other’s highs and lows of the day were(somewhat jokingly but also seriously), and Sarah, after getting an explanation as to what that meant, shared her highs and lows as well. These consisted, as they usually do, of sharing of the most memorable moments throughout the day. Some of these memories brought about images and relivings of uncontrollable laughter while others brought back the feeling of hot and sweaty angst. The trip was definitely a leisurely
paced trip, but it did not come without it’s challenges and frustrations, which of course also help to unite a group.
Many of these challenges would probably have been easily avoided or at least quelled with the use of a GPS system. We talked to several other paddlers and fishermens alike who all thought we were crazy to be out there without a GPS and without a guide! Perhaps they were right. We did take about a two hour scenic mangrove detour one day, where we had to retrace our paddles and set ourselves back on track. Another day we fought low tide mud and oysters, and another we had to navigate through some pretty thick early morning fog. However without these challenges and having to come up with informed decisions using our charts, compass and brains we would have lost a huge component of skill building that never ceases with good old fashion navigation and group decision making. Our Chewonki lens helped to remind us that old school is sometimes the best school. These challenges that mother nature presents are invaluable and are what make wilderness travel such a magical and cohesive learning
experience.
On our seventh and last day right before paddling into Chokoloskee Bay, which is where the
Everglades City take-out spot would end our wilderness travel, we spotted two manatees hanging out in a little mangrove cove. All five of us plus Morris the manatee, Stan the owl, and Fredrickson the frog sat in silence and awe, catching brief sights of that wrinkled whiskery nose and massive body and tail, just feet away from us. There are only between 2,000 to 3,000 manatees left in Florida. This was a perfect ending to our journey. These manatees invoked in us a realization that if we had done it without our Chewonki lens on it would have been a completely different and unfulfilling journey.

Written by Christina Roach
Evergladiators are Emma Mabel Carlson(Chewonki Outdoor Classroom, Wilderness Trips), Sarah Hirsch(Chewonki Outdoor Classroom, Girls Camp 2012), Sarah Roach, Emma Balazs(Chewonki Traveling Natural History), Christina Roach(Chewonki Outdoor Classroom, Girls Camp 2010, 2011, 2012)

Please Join us February 6th from 7-8pm at the home of Jen Matthews and Paul Rich in Providence, RI. Join Girls Camp Director, Abby Burbank and Summer Wilderness Programs Director, Ryan Linehan at the home of Jen Matthews and Paul Rich for a chance to celebrate as well as learn about Chewonki summer programs. Campers, alumni, prospective families and Chewonki friends please join us. Food is provided. We will have a slide show and it is a great chance to learn about our programs. Share Chewonki with friends.
Questions jsmatthews@me.com or aburbank@chewonki.org

1925 Old Town HW Sailing Canoe
Much progress has been made in the restoration of this canoe. One of the challenges with restoration is deciding what to do with damage. Do you replace the wood? do you let it be? Do you splice? Part of the decision making has to do with the intent of the restoration-it is for historical purposes? for functional? How can you be sure to keep the shape of the boat.

This canoe was stored in a garage and like many boats it was gnawed on my animals. At first it looked like the damage would require us to replace as many as 11 Cant Ribs, now that we have stripped all the varnish off and can see down to the wood, it looks like we won’t have to do as many.

See if you can identify the damage on this photo, which is taken from the inside of the canoe looking towards her bow, and shows the animal chewings.

Which ribs would you replace? which would you keep?

The decks on an HW are 16 inches long, which is long, and they are narrow. Ours has some rot at the ends on the decks as well as on the gunwales. Because we want to preserve a lot of the original boat, we are splicing both the decks and the ends of the inner gunwales.

The HW decks also have curve to them, so you will see a larger piece of birch attached, which was then carved down to fit. The birch we used came from the Great Mountain Forest in Norfolk, CT, where they cut and mill it themselves.

1925 HW Sailing Canoe
The bow had a lot of damage. We replaced 3 cant ribs, all in a row, and with that also came the need to replace most of the planking on the port side.

After the ribs were put in, we added more planking in order to finish the ends and get the outside planking connected to the stem to give it strength. Continuing to be concerned about its shape, we clamped the gunwales, tacked in the planking and left in the blocks of wood to keep pressure pushing out on the ribs. It is working. The boat looks correctly shaped.

So much of the challenge is to make sure the boat keeps it’s shape. In this situation we are challenged to keep the bow sides pushed out, they want to collapse in, which would flatten the port side of the boat too much. To help, we put in blocks of wood to press the boat outwards.

You will also notice that the boat is without its seats and thwarts which usually help hold its shape-without the thwarts and seats, which way will a boat tend to fall-do her sides collapse in and become more narrow? OR do her sides collapse out and make her wider?

Caitlin Thurrell was Girls Camp Trip Leader and Yurt Leader in the summer of 2011. An avid outdoorsperson, Caitlin took some time this fall to hike the Long Trail in Vermont. Starting in January she will work full time for Chewonki as an Intern on our Salt Marsh Farm in Wiscaset. The following are her writings from her journey on the Long Trail

The Long Trail

Early in the morning of September 28, 2011, my friend Phil Walter and I stood at the border between Vermont and Canada and looked south. In the coming weeks we would walk roughly 175 miles down the central ridgeline of the Green Mountains to Killington, where the Long Trail joins with the Appalachian Trail on its way south to Georgia, or north and east to Katahdin. Vermont’s high ridge is a complex and varied landscape, climbing and descending through boreal forest, hardwood glens, fragile alpine ecosystems, river floodplain, fields, and settled towns. Walking it last autumn offered a vivid intimacy with the changing New England season, the plant and animal residents of that place, the close, open community of hikers, and also the sometimes conflicting interests of Vermont’s citizens, conservationists, developers, tourists, and businessmen. What follows are several excerpts from the journals I kept on the trail.

Monday, October 3
Today was a slow morning at Corliss Camp, skin dreading the moment of contact with wet clothing. It has rained every day since we began this walk, and both Phil and I stalled, a little, leaving the warm comfort of sleeping bags. Finally dressed, we set out towards Laraway Mountain under flat uncertain skies.

The mountain was spectacular, a gradual three mile climb leading to a lookout over hills to the north and east. The mist at the peak thickened and dispersed, and crows flew through it, wingbeats loud. Continuing, the way became a steep run of rocks and water, and then for a short piece all moss-covered ledge. To the left, a solid slab of rock overhung the trail, dripping water like the fast flow from a rainspout. The sun was showing briefly as I walked behind the rim, and the world was light in yellow birches and shining water.

We ate at the foot of Laraway in a small, grassy field at Codding’s Hollow. There was a crabapple tree growing by the water, the fruit sweetened by frost. Across the road and up we began to see the first scars of the hurricane, trees down and water running everywhere in broken channels. The trail continued for several miles through forest that was once an airy, open beech wood, tangled into thicket by Irene’s wind and flood. We met a man from Johnson out walking, who guessed that we were planning to make a resupply the next day in town. He told us that the Grand Union had been washed out, and offered to drive us right then to a grocery store in the next town over. When we declined, he recommended us to a bakery where perhaps we could buy eggs.

The shelter at Roundtop had a fireplace and vista out behind, overlooking an agrarian patchwork of fields and woodlots and several bright red barns. The sun came bright and brief, the higher altitudes clear, while the fog expanded or receded up the drainages below. We lit a a small, smoky fire with damp wood and ate rice and lentils and popcorn, then retreated as it grew colder and dark to look at maps and plan tomorrow’s resupply.

Tuesday, October 4
I woke early at Roundtop, already feeling hemmed in, the roads to either side a vivid presence in the woods there. Still, it was beautiful in the half-lit blue fog of the morning. Tree shadows all in black silhouette circled the outhouse, showing clear against the violet sky.

The descent into town was pleasant, trails opening up to dirt roads with crabapples over the ditches. We picked yellow-green ones, surprisingly sweet under the sour, and soft red ones from a yard fenced with No Trespassing signs. We walked most of the way along the loud, fast Route 15, stopping at a farm stand for cider and kale. A man in a battered truck picked us up a little less than half a mile from the post office and drove us the rest of the way into Johnson. There were cardboard blueberry flats in the back of the half-cab where I was sitting, and he asked curiously about our cider. He had been pressing apples yesterday, he said. Before we left he offered us a loaf of Jewish Rye from a bag of day-old bread, which he was bringing home to his chickens. We picked up the package we had mailed to ourselves and sorted our resupply on a bench outside the post office. The postmistress offered to take home our recycling for us; all of the patrons who came in to the window asked her about her cold.

The bookstore in town had once been the bank, and the building was old and well-made and shining. We found the next book we would read aloud together, having just finished the first. On the way back out of town we stopped at Edelweiss, the German bakery, and they sold us eggs and a pound of Cabot butter. Lord knows what we will find to do with all of it, but they were so kind! There were posters and photographs of the mountain castle Neuschwanstein on the walls; the man at the counter had been stationed in Germany for three years in the service.

The way south from Johnson began upwards on rough woods roads, the climbing difficult with freshly heavy packs. But as the trail narrowed I found myself breathing more and more easily, returning to the quiet realities of leaves and rain. We arrived at Bear Hollow shelter in time to make tortillas and huevos rancheros for dinner, and shortbread with plumped raisins (there is so much butter) for dessert. Now it’s night, raining hard again, and the wind blowing in the open front of this shelter. We gathered wood for the hope of a fire, but have left it stacked under the porch for the next who come through.

Thursday, October 6
Glory be.

Last night I slept as cold as I have yet this autumn. I woke in the freezing hour before dawn, grateful for the warmth of other bodies to either side. The sun was rising just east of where I could see from my bed, and the light expanded brilliant around the thin, bared birch twigs. One of our sheltermates had already started a fire, and we boiled water for oatmeal as we dressed and packed. By a little after eight we were walking up the ridge toward Whiteface through a day already warming with sun.

We had been warned that the walk up Whiteface was the longest unbroken steep we would come to, and we were prepared for it to be difficult– but the whole ascent was delight, three miles to the summit feeling like nothing, pack-weight suddenly easy, footing sure. October sixth, and there were icicles caught in the moss under the hanging rocks. At one turning a pool of thin, arching ice filaments had frozen in the mud on the trail, like ribbon candy or fountains. I can’t begin to guess how they formed there.

From the top of the mountain we had a view clear back to Jay Peak, tracing out the whole line that we had walked. And from the other side, Mt. Mansfield, and everything coming. Shortly after the peak we came out on the Whiteface shelter and a clear, sunny patch of bright green grass high up on the mountain. We sat, and basked; Phil pumped water, and I felt myself warm through, face south, sheltered from the wind. Looking at the map and distances from the shelter, we began to think on the possibility of pushing past Sterling Pond where we had planned to camp, and on all the way up to the Taft Lodge on Mansfield. It would make our adventure a thirteen-mile day all told, but the walking had been sweet so far, and the sun was good.

On over Morse Mountain, and up to the peak of Madonna, cut with ski trails, where we ate our lunch on the strange, grassy slopes. There was chicory blooming in the weeds; we feasted on the last of the rye, with apples and mustard and kale and muenster cheese. Then down again, up over Spruce Mtn, and down to Sterling Pond, a blue and glassy amazement high up on the ridge facing Mansfield. With rocky shores edged in spruce wood it reminded me of Bubble Pond on MDI, or of the Fifth Debsconeag Lake. A boulder out behind the shelter was grown with rowan and the twining roots of yellow birch; I stood there for a long time, looking. On the way down from the pond we met a man who told us that the sun was meant to hold for five more days.

5.5 miles more: the last was the hardest stretch, down into Smuggler’s Notch and up the other side. The trail was crossed and crossed by thin fallings of water, ground thick with dry and withering leaves. It was a long three miles down to the road; we rested and ate among picnic tables at the Smugglers’ Notch parking lot, already tired, two more miles to go. Crossing the strange paved highway, we began up the eastern flank of Mansfield at last, just as the sun hit the top of the ridge. For the next half mile I walked to hold that fine balance, rising in time with the sun’s descent, keeping the hard-slanting light. Phil walked ahead and I followed a good distance behind, slowly, trying hard to stay with every step. Several times we rested and drank, but mostly we climbed.

At the beginnings of the dusk we came out at Taft, set at the foot of Mansfield’s final slope. It is large, log-built, with a beautiful low door as wide as tall. The porch faces east and the moon was rising in the translucent sky, waxing now to full. Phil set out our sleeping bags while I pumped water at the fast, cold stream. For dinner we made soup, garlic and red onion and kale and herbs from the farm, with one small can of tomato paste (black pepper and tamari for salt), hot and sweet and filling with crackers broken in. No butter, thank god. A lovely couple at the long table by the window made fondue and drank wine, speaking French, much in love. The hut caretaker, Chrissy, sat in a rocking char in blue flannel, reading. Now it is not yet nine and time for bed. We’ll sleep well, I think, in expectation of the dawn.

Tuesday, October 11
Yesterday we hiked from Buchanan, the trail as rough as it ever is, and always is. Six miles down into the Winooski river valley, bottomlands marking the lowest elevation of the trail. The way came out of woods and onto a power line cut, descending the last slope through crabapple trees and climbing, blighted vines of Concord grapes. The apples were small and scabbed and delicious, each tree yielding a different combination of mellow sweetness and the wild, hard sour of feral orchards.

As the afternoon grew later we reached the trailhead of Camel’s Hump, finally beginning the long ascent through tall, mixed woods of sugar maple, aspen, and birch. We crossed Gleason Brook on a neat wooden bridge half a mile in, and followed its way up as it grew wider and more spectacular, running white, pooling, falling over rocks. The trail branched away from the river’s course after another half mile, but we decided to camp by the water rather than continue up the slope to Bamforth shelter. We crossed and strung a hammock in the late afternoon light, the north slope of the mountain already in shadow, the sky still bright. Then returning to the river, we swam in freezing water. That night I cut Phil’s hair.

Rising with the morning we packed camp, ate a breakfast of pumpernickel hardtack toasted with butter, and continued the long climb upwards. Through deciduous forest transitioning to spruce and occasionally the bright, bare rock of alpine clearing we went on, hiking slow, ever upward. A mile from the peak we stopped to rest and eat a little, watching the run of water through moss, balancing the weight of our packs on a fallen birch. I think that I have never seen such beautiful land. Mansfield might be Vermont’s highest mountain, but this long and varied ridge may be my favorite.

In the early afternoon we came out at last on the rocky, exposed hump, peopled with day hikers out to see the expanse of the hills in October. The forest in every direction was a pattern of bright-turning trees, yellow and orange, darkened down to the reds and browns of persistent oaks in the higher elevations. We ate lunch in a cold, stiff breeze from the south and east. The sun is still strong as I write this, but the sky is changing. Today there are horse-tail clouds; the rains will come again soon. I can hear the loud, fast whirr of highway 89, and the train, but here in the high places at least the air is still. There are crows playing in the thermals. Tonight we’ll walk a mile down to sleep at Montclair Glen, and then in the morning over the next ridge, and the next. It is good to sit in this place: to see where we’re going, and where we’ve come.

Friday, October 14
It is wet, and blowing; a proper autumn storm on this mountain. Today was our last short day before Warren, 6 1/2 miles from Glen Ellen, never gaining or losing more than a few hundred feet. But the mist was water held suspended like the thinnest ice, condensing as we climbed to cold, cold rain, and wind blowing hard up towards the treeline.

Still, through-hikers that we met at Montclair told us they thought the trail began to get truly rugged only north of the Appalachian Gap, and I begin to hope they may be right? It was rocky and wet, but level well-graded walking through the boreal forest over the long Lincoln ridge, from Mt. Ellen to Mt. Abraham. So far the Long Trail has been a hard, strange story of sharp pitch and uneven footing, and we had grown used to harder walking there than anywhere. Today’s well cared-for path offered no small relief. Perhaps the only relief: rain came cold and hard and driving in the bare places, as we crossed cuts made for ski trails and gondolas over the peaks. The gusts on Lincoln Mountain caught my pack like a sail, pushing hard against my balance. For a stretch, maybe the rain was sleet.

We walked fast, almost running through the long smooth saddles between peaks. Mt. Abraham had been the Texan fellows’ favorite point along their trip, before Camel’s Hump; it is a place I would like to return to sometime, the conditions being different. As it was we crossed the high, rarefied alpine zone through a thickness of fog textured only by the blowing, white rain. Descending the last mile we came to Battell Shelter, small and dark and open to the wind, which gusts unpredictably from any direction– but the roof is sound, and I am grateful not to be sleeping the night in a hammock or a tarp. We dried ourselves as well and quickly as we could and crawled into our sleeping bags, where we have remained, eating a hot, thick dinner of rice and pinto beans, with cheese and leftover tortillas toasted over the little stove.

Sunday, October 23
Yesterday we woke and walked, and I learned more of the story of Amadeus– Greg– with whom we’d shared the shelter. He was carrying a violin (I hadn’t realized the nature of the case strapped to the outside of his pack) but his bow was, alas, somewhere north of Johnson. I wish we might have heard him play.

We spent the morning skirting the Chittenden reservoir, high up on the hillsides to the east. It was sweet walking, sometimes talking, sometimes silent. Phil whistled, beautiful and wandering. He noticed a burl on a tree down across the path– far gone to rot, but with an amazing red heartwood. Perhaps it is all punk, but I broke it off, and carried it. We’ll see what comes. It was 7.7 miles to Rolston Rest, a lovely open-fronted lean-to, built post and beam. The joints were neat and solid and square, and I had a moment’s pride in Yankee craftsmanship. The log had a message from Matt and Jason, wishing us the best of luck in future travels. It also had an entry from a Northbounder in September: “Tucker Johnson still burned down.” We walked on three miles or so to find that it was true, a sign for the outhouse and a charred clearing standing where the shelter once was. We pushed on. After another two miles I stopped for water, and Phil went on to make camp. He left me an arrow of leaves, and a trail of subtle blazes to the clearing where he strung a hammock between two yellowed beeches.

The day had started with the thinnest strip of clear sky showing away off to the north and west, broadening slowly until the patterns of light and shadows passed over the Adirondacks– until half the sky stood clear (the sun always remaining, though, behind the bank of clouds). We ate a haphazard dinner of everything remaining, and watched it change. The next morning we would walk the short mile out to the road, and the end of the journey. But that night we lay in the warm comfort of sleeping bags and talked through the arc of the trip, all the days and moments that lead up to that place.

Nancy Andrews from Redding Connecticut kindly donated a family canoe. This 1925 Old Town HW model canoe was a gift to her mother in 1925 on her 15th birthday and has been in the family ever since.  The canoe is rigged for sailing and of note is that Nancy as a kid learned to sail on her.
Nancy has entrusted Chewonki Camp for Girls to create a new home for this boat with the hope that others will learn to sail on her and appreciate her history. Thanks Nancy.
At present Abigail Marshall who works on the Chewonki farm and Spencer Gray, a Semester School student, are working on the restoration of the canoe.

To begin the restoration you assess the condition of the canoe. Does she have broken ribs? is her planking in good shape? what is the condition of the gunwales? Decks? In this boat the keel?sail? Rudder? Leeboards?

The boat has some animal damage on the Cant ribs, which are the short ribs at the ends of the boats. Apparently the cedar was attractive to some hungry rodents. We determined that we will need to replace about 12 ribs, 11 of which are the Cant ribs.
Her planking is in good shape, and of great note is that her overall shape is in tact.
The seats, thwarts, keel, stem bands and floor boards have all been removed. We started by removing the old varnish and are now assessing and replacing the red cedar planking.

To assess the planking Spencer and Abigail marked up the bad spots and then using a mat knife cut out the old, and put in the new. Some tools used: wet towel and an iron to shape the wood so it fits into place on the canoe.

Wooden boats and Canoe restoration are underway. We are open for business:

Becca Abuza &  Lilly Betke-Brunswick are veteran Yurt and Trip Leaders for Girls Camp. This fall they went out on their own adventure:

We were going to drive to New Mexico and work in Albuquerque selling empanadas cooked in a solar oven when I decided that I couldn’t leave New England in the fall. I spent the summer staring at the map of Maine in the lodge at Girls Camp, tracing canoe routes with my fork after meals. I’ve been dreaming of long fall paddling trips for many years. We decided to stay in New England, buy a used boat, and go exploring. Lill is a backpacker by nature and I am a paddler, so making our way by canoe around Mount Katahdin appealed to both of us.
After many late nights around the Delorme, browsing the USGS river flow page, and a fruitless midnight call to the LLBean fly fishing hotline, we settled on the details of our canoe route. We planned to paddle, portage, line, frog, and pole from Fourth Debsconeag, up the lakes in the watershed of the West Branch of the Penobscot, down the East Branch to the confluence, and then back up the West Branch into First Debsconeag to Second to Third and back to Fourth.
We began the trip on October 6th and returned to Debsconeag the 7th of November. When we set out we had no idea what Day 25 would feel like. Logging the days was our way of processing the passage of time and our changing angle on Ktaadn. Every body of water and portage trail prompted us to belt a different song, fall in love with a new shrub, and tell the same story in a slightly different way. We recorded many of our thoughts through letters. Here are a few excerpts.

Day 3- Rainbow Lake
I took my journal and camera and walked down the beach, lay on a rock and watched the first hour of a very long sunset. You know the kind that just keep getting better and you take a picture, then another, and another as they last into the dusk – then suddenly the color is gone and it’s just shades of gray blue in the clouds of the darkening sky? It was one of those. I watched it as it was gold and the gold compressed into rays below deep blue billows – then made quinoa/lentil soup as the gold turned to a pink ribbon.

Day 15- Mud Pond
We had heard so many stories but when we got there it was only beautiful. No rain, tears, mud, stress, doom, bugs, exhaustion. Just beauty with a hint of many people passing through this route, a whisper of the height of land between two watersheds.

Day 21- East Branch of the Penobscot
Today we ferried across the river and bushwhacked through a beaver swamp flood plane, through a birch/ash/beech forest, up rocky cliffs edged with dense spruce to the summit of Lunksoos Mountain. We wanted a view of Katahdin and we found it along with the International Appalachian Trail. What a view – honestly one of the best I’ve ever seen of the North Woods – we had a clear view to the side of Katahdin and all of the Baxter hills. We saw the East Branch of the Penobscot flowing from the cliffs on Matagamon where we had come from.

Day 31- North Twin Lake
Another bright moon that makes the constellations stand out. We stood by the shore this morning, counting shooting starts and wondering which stars make up Orion’s dog Sirius. The lakes are so low – 8 or 10ft below normal levels – so points protrude way out into the lakes, making mainland of many small islands. We worked into a cold headwind with lots of white caps for much of the day.

Final morning on trail- Second Debsconeag
And if First Debs was a home in that it was familiar and filled with memories of chocolate chip pancakes First Summer, solos in 2010, bugs and lightning drill this summer, then Second Debs is a home in that I belong here right now. I belong between Minister Stream draining into the lake behind me and the stream from Third Debs draining into the lake in front of me. My sleepy sun-warm face belongs on this granite pebble beach across a patch of alders from my best friend in early November.
The beginning of this trip feels far away. There were leaves on the trees, leaves that became brightest before rain left only the big tooth aspen and oak leaves and then, now, no leaves. I think numbers help me think of the whole trip because feelings and time and place names and sunrises and water and numb feet get jumbled. 33 days. 5 rest days. 21 miles of portages. 3 guys in F350s asking if we needed help during portages on roads. 25 total miles that we paddled out of our way on wrong turns where we had to backtrack. 3 miles of an unplanned portage in the dark because we paddled up the wrong river. 2 rapids that we totally nailed and 2 rapids where we almost swamped. 20 different dehydrated fruits and vegetables. 23 campsites and 10 bivouac sites. 15 bog shrubs identified on one portage. 2 watersheds- up the West Branch and down the East Branch- and one confluence. And now we’re going home, but I am home. Do loons migrate in groups?

Paddle-making by girls started with the Canoe Expedition for Maine Girls (the forerunner of girls camp) a decade ago. Girls make paddles and then can use them on their trips. Additionally campers have used their woodworking skills for birdhouses, Adirondack chairs and spoon carving. Chewonki Camp for girls is now launching into boatbuilding and restoration of wood canvas canoes as part of its woodworking program.
Thanks to the generosity of a donor this program will take place in the summer of 2012. We have had both boats as well as resources donated to Chewonki in order to make this happen. Saturday I acquired 5 wood canvas canoes, including a 1907 Old Town HW model, 1927 Old Town Guide Model, previously we were given a 1925 Old town HW Sailing Canoe and a Sebago Skiff.
Starting this winter we will restore as well as build wood and canvas canoes, both in the off-season and at camp. Now girls will be able to start with spoon-carving, progress to paddle-making, and then learn the craft of wooden canoe building.

Building boats at camp allows girls to see how the traditional craft is made from form to canvas jig.

Part of building is learning the art of caning.

Most canoes are built with cedar wood as it is light, bends and is not prone to rotting. We will use red cedar for planking and white cedar for the ribs.

We look forward to eventually building a fleet of wooden boats to use in our wilderness setting on 4th Debsconeag lake.