A Week in the Maine Woods

Last September, in need of some personal rejuvenation, I joined NBNC’s canoe trip in Maine’s wild and beautiful North Woods. It was a week-long adventure: two travel days, including on Maine’s legendary Golden Road, and five days of canoeing on the West Branch of the Penobscot, retracing part of the route that Henry David Thoreau wrote about in The Maine Woods. I have a fair amount of camping and canoeing experience, but I had never been on a guided trip, or one with people I didn’t know. Spoiler alert: it was great, and the freedom from having to organize the logistics was truly liberating! That area is really beautiful country and we were blessed with good weather and peak fall foliage. We enjoyed mild temperatures — warm enough to swim one day! — and light winds, only one rainy day, and clear views of Katahdin and other mountains.

I wasn’t sure what it would be like to spend a week in the woods with strangers but the people contributed as much as the scenery, and almost as much as the food, to making it a great trip. I think the fact that we all signed up through the Nature Center predisposed us to be compatible and nature-focused, and Naomi, our NBNC leader, employed her team-building skills from Day One to mold us into a cohesive unit. The Mahoosuc Guide Service espouses a kind of North Woods aesthetic that really enhanced the trip. The guides paddled wood-canvas canoes, and even the fiberglass canoes were tricked out with wooden gunnels. Not everyone embraced the wool felt hats specified in the gear list, but we all used hand-made wooden paddles, and the food was cooked over open fires. Maybe best of all, the head guide, Polly, brought along Olga, her retired sled dog! All in all it was a wonderful experience that I would be happy to repeat — in fact, this trip with NBNC inspired me to sign up to paddle the East Branch of the Penobscot this fall with Mahoosuc Guide Service. I’m looking forward to another week in the North Woods!