Three Days on the Border

Friday October 10 – Monday October 13, 2003 (Columbus Day Weekend)

By David Gaylord and Amy Orlandi

This trip as is the case with all UMOC canoe trips met at the Kanoe Barn on Friday before setting off on what would be a 10-hour drive to Northern Maine. Characteristic to most outing club trips, we had an array of culture that included individuals on exchange from Germany, Texas, and Miami. Like many trips this one was eventful from the start and was marked by car trouble even before the trip began. Everyone was made a little bit nervous when Lisa who was one of the drivers rolled into the parking lot only to report that her car had a tire, which was rapidly losing air. Fortunately Lisa’s tire problem was easily resolved with a quick trip to purchase a new tire. Eventually the cars left Umass not to return until Monday. After getting stuck in some Boston traffic the cars finally made it into New Hampshire and then into Maine. The next major event occurred while traveling on route 9 up in Maine when an unidentified animal ran across the road in front of one of the vehicles. The consensus of everyone in the car was that the animal was none other than a bear cub!

Finally around midnight the cars reached Sunrise Canoe and Kayak an outfitter which would provide the fourth and final canoe to be used on the trip. At this point everyone exhausted from the long drive set up tents and went to bed to rest up for the three days of paddling that lay ahead. The next morning everyone woke up to await the arrival of Mike the 8^th and final member of the group. Upon his arrival cars were once again loaded up and the group drove the final distance to the Saint Croix River marking the border between Maine and New Brunswick, Canada. Since the put in spot which section was cleverly named “Kill-me-Quick Rips” consisted of some class II+ whitewater the trip leader Al Howcroft decided that it would be wise to paddle the first section without gear in the boats and drop all the equipment off at the side of the river further down to be picked up later. After a brief instructional session for the four new paddlers the canoes set off, it would truly be a crash course in how to paddle for the new paddlers. Al’s decision to not paddle with gear in the canoes proved to be wise when David barely made it by the support beam for a bridge by scraping it on the way by only to end up with his canoe wrapped broadside around a rock in the middle of the river. Somehow, probably only through Al’s quick instruction he and Kelly managed to stay in the canoe and get paddling again. After a stop devoted to lunch and picking up the gear, the canoes set off again on what would be a short 6 mile paddle to a campground on the Canadian side of the river. This would prove to be the first of several international border crossings that would occur throughout the weekend.

Upon arrival to our first campsite, we were happy to see the male/female signs that indicated that there was some type of outhouse nearby. After following the arrows, we discovered a single toilet placed at random in the middle of the woods, with no enclosure. To ensure some type of privacy, the group then decided to set up a system that proved highly efficient. A paddle placed pointed upward underneath the outhouse sign indicated that the toilet was occupied, and if the paddle was pointed down, the toilet was free. Once camp was made attention turned to more important matters such as finding out the score to the Red Sox/ Yankees playoff game that was being played. Amazingly even in the Canadian wilderness they still get the Red Sox, even though the walkman had to be held in different positions in order to get reception. However, the excitement of finding the game quickly turned to disappointment as the Sox ended up losing. However, the despair of the Red Sox loss was quickly forgotten as two canoes went out to stargaze and enjoy some full moon paddling. When the last canoe returned to land everyone was already in bed having turned in for an early night.

The next day was marked by the need to make up for ground that was lost by only paddling six miles the day before. All in all the day went smoothly with steady paddling throughout and all enjoyed some beautiful weather and gorgeous fall foliage. The river was quick moving with stretches flat water mixed in between periods of some small rapids characterized by some low water and many rocks. On several occasions David and Amy both ended up beaching on rocks in the middle of the river. One of these incidences occurred in a section of the river named “Little Falls”. On the map this set of rapids was recorded to be a class III. Heading into the rapids as Norell and Amy’s canoe followed the path of one of the experienced canoes, they got caught on a rock. The current was flowing pretty fast causing the canoe to shake and also for Norell to loose her paddle. Their canoe was soon freed and a spare paddle was used to tackle what was left of the rapids. The two remaining canoes heard the girl’s troubles from around the corner and thus decided to stake out the rapids before entering them. They cleared the rapids with no troubles and Sascha was able to rescue the lost paddle.

Another dramatic moment occurred when Amy’s canoe got seriously stuck on a large rock. David who had been following her line closely ended up realizing this but too late in order to be able to avoid the rocks and instead decided that if he was going to get stuck he may as well attempt to free her by knocking her canoe of the rock. This was successful but also put David’s boat onto the same rock that Amy had been stuck on and put Amy’s canoe onto a second rock. This resulted in both canoes being beached within several feet of each other. Amy ended up getting freed first with David’s canoe also getting back into the water after some struggle; the only problem was that his canoe was in a position such that the best way to run the rapids was by going backwards since there was no room to maneuver the boat to face the next direction. Fortunately both canoes made it through without any more serious problems. After that there were no more rapids for a while and several of the new canoeists switched positions to try stern paddling for a while.

This lasted until the next class II rapid was reached. The boats pulled over for a while before the rapid so that Al could give instructions for the best way to run the rapid. He said that the best way to run it was 10 feet from the shore and that it had a one and a half foot vertical drop during which the canoe would nose dive. His description of the rapid turned out to be scarier then it really was especially for Amy who was given a fright when the only parts of the description that she heard was “10 feet” and “vertical drop”. Needless to say, she jumped quite a bit and snapped to attention fast when she heard that. After the rapid, camp was a short ways down river and the canoes pulled in on the Canadian side of the river after 17 miles of paddling. However, this still meant that the group had covered less mileage then had been hoped for by the end of the two days and would result in a 5:00 AM wake up call the next morning to paddle the remaining 9 miles to the car and then drive all the way back to Amherst. This resulted in another early night for most people with all but a couple people turning into bed shortly after dinner.

During the night it began to rain for the first time all trip and would continue to do so until Monday morning. This meant that everyone had to get up in the morning darkness in the rain, eat breakfast, take down camp and then set off on the river. To assist in this pre-dawn wake-up our trip leader Al belted out songs that included “Morning has Broken” and even made up his own rendition to some classic hits, one with lyrics that went something like “hot chocolate is the key to a good tomorrow”. Fortunately, we got off to an early start and the rain began to lift during the latter part of the paddling shift. The last major excitement of the trip came at the very end when the group had to paddle through some heavy winds across a lake that made for some very treacherous and the most difficult paddling of the trip. The waves on the lake proved to be quite a challenge to paddle. In the end Al actually decided that it would be easier and safer to circumnavigate the lake then to paddle directly across. There had been no swimmers up until this point, and I’m sure everyone wanted to keep it that way. During this lengthy period of arduous paddling, Amy thought it would be interesting to teach Sasha, the German exchange student on the trip an American classic, “Take Me Out To The Ballgame”. She did this however without teaching him the melody, which made for a humorous version of the song. After a somewhat lengthily period of arduous paddling the canoes successfully made it to the take out and the cars. At this point everyone congratulated each other and changed into some nice and dry clothes for the long drive home.

Overall, the fearless group of 8 accomplished their goal of paddling 33 miles of the St. Croix River. All of this was completed with only minor scares and getting stuck in a few tricky spots on the course down the river. The group was able to spend one night in Maine, and to the pleasure of our exchange students in the group, two nights were spent on Canadian territory. The fall foliage proved to be at its peak, providing for a colorful and gorgeous weekend throughout.