Maine 2014 - Gone Fishin'!

Friday

The drizzle starts shortly after hitting the Maine Turnpike with everyone else from Massachusetts on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend.  A sign a little later helpfully informs us that the Fire Danger is LOW today.  Whew.

This is our third family trip to Maine, and as the previous two have been fun (too much at times, see K'Port 2010), we sign on immediately when our friends the Kafka-Gibbons family (Paul, Patty, Gabe, and Charlotte) invite us to join them on their annual trip to Lakewood Camps, a fishing and sporting camp in the Rangeley Lakes region.  They promise to outfit us with fishing gear, and great plans are made to ensure waders and fishing instruction for all who want it.  Bring entertainments and layers and flashlights, we are told.  Patty also notes that while fashion is not a priority, liquor is. 

To get to Lakewood Camps “(since 1853),” you drive and drive and drive some more.  On the Maine Turnpike you might see something like this emblazoned on the back of a car:  "Ass, grass, or cash, nobody rides for free."  Keep classy, Maine.

Once off that big highway, you wind through the global village that is central Maine:  Poland, Naples, Paris, Norway, etc.  It is a bit like going skiing, in fact it is almost all the way to Sunday River, although not quite as cold (see Bethel Maine 2012).  At some point you turn right and think you are really in the middle of nowhere, and then you realize that in fact you can get here from there. 

(To pass the time we are listening to Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  I hope that I can someday use the phrase "he gnashed his teeth at me in devilish fury" because it is such a perfect articulation of the idea of teeth-gnashing.) 

Then after you drive some more, you finally get to a dock with a small parking lot, and Tom is there to greet you and stow your gear on the launch and ferry you across the lake.  You will see a loon, that is pretty much guaranteed, and it will be the first of many.

Eventually you will see the camp, and land at the long dock and you might just think to yourself wow, it is now not only wet and rainy but cold and windy.  All your bags and coats and boots and Monopoly and fishing gear and bikes and the aforementioned booze, is toted up to your cabin while everyone smiles through the drizzle and seems genuinely happy to be here.

Our cabin is named Welokennebacook but is known as Welly because who knows how the Indians actually pronounced that.  It tilts a bit to the left, but the K-G’s cabin is held together by a giant cable running through it.  The cabin to our left dips rather alarmingly in the middle.  If you want to play marbles, go to the main lodge, where things seem to be on the level.  

The digs are, um, rustic, but in a real camp way.  There is a big room with tables and chairs and the Franklin stove that we may want to get going STAT, and a little bathroom and two bedrooms.  There are copies of magazines about fly fishing lying around, and reproduction posters from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Game that say things like "GEE MISTER!  WILL THERE BE ANY WHEN I GROW UP?" and showing a scrappy boy with a stick fishing pole asking this question of a well-dressed fly-fisherman who has a basket loaded with fish and a scurrilous look upon his face.  You might almost say he is gnashing his teeth at the poor wee lad.

I note ladies in skirts in the old-time pictures hanging slightly askew on the wall of Welly, so clearly fashion was something of a priority, once. 

Isabel is immediately enchanted with the whole place.  She gets to hang out with the big kids, including the super cool Charlotte, and she can dash around outside to her hearts content.  She and Charlotte explore, discover squadrons of hummingbirds, start a puzzle, and go kayaking after dinner. 

You don't need to go out in a kayak at dusk to hear the loons, you can hear them from your bed, it is that quiet here.  But it is very nice to float out a bit in the gloaming and hear those stunning birds chortling and calling mournfully in the gathering darkness.  You might even think you are unearthing that inner peace that folks say is to be discovered in just such a pursuit.  Until your son bumps his kayak into you and starts bickering with his sister. 

Saturday

If I went outside right now, would I actually spot the woodpecker who has been working so furiously, if with indeterminate rhythm, on the outside of the cabin next door since 5 a.m.?  Possibly.  But that would require putting on more clothes.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing, considering that it is about 45 degrees in here.  IN here.  But that in turn would require removing oneself from one's cocoon of blankets and pajamas in front of the fire (which one just made, yes, I am an awesome backwoods mom).

But there is also that inside-of-an-oyster early morning light over the lake, hills emerging out of the mist, sunrise business going on so out I go camera in hand, and hooray, spooked that woodpecker! 

Only half an hour until the electricity comes on. 

Here's what the little sign on the wall has to say about the Franklin stove.  "This Franklin Stove is an invention by Ben.  He told us it works best with the doors closed, less smoke and more efficient use of the wood.  He said no lightening [sic] would strike your camp if you place some paper on the grates, add some cedar kindling on top, and then some hard wood.  If you should burn only cedar, lightning may come your way."  He's right, as it turns out.  Well, I don't know about the kindling, but I can speak for the doors-closed bit.  This thing is cooking now.

Oh my god he is back.  He is like that woodchuck in Caddyshack.

You’d better get up before the bell if you want breakfast.  Bells are rung at 7:30 (breakfast), 12:30 (lunch) and 6:30 (dinner).  At dinner the night before you can order bag lunches, which consist of a giant sandwich on tasty homemade bread, some fruit, and a couple of the best molasses cookies ever.  One expects a good molasses cookie in Maine, but these are real winners.  Meals are generally hearty New England fare - prime rib, haddock, turkey, and such, but the glory of this kitchen are its pies.  With pale, thin, Crisco-only crusts (so says Whit, owner and cook of Lakewood Camps), last night's blueberry was a perfect purple pile. 

But we’re here to fish, not ruminate on the food.  Fishing, I'm told, is a bit like skiing.  Equipment intensive (I would venture even more so than skiing since wild animals are involved so not only is there stuff to wear and stuff to catch fish with, there is also stuff to keep fish in, like magnetic nets).  At breakfast you'll see folks who've already been out and caught fish.  Everyone is dressed in shades of khaki because apparently fish can see colors, so they would know you were out to get them.[1]  Except for blue, which might confuse them into thinking you are the sky.   

A lot of time fly-fishing is spent trying to think like a fish.  (You might be wondering, like I did, what is the other kind of fishing called, if this fly-fishing.  Just “fishing,” apparently.)  Fish are smart, you are told (they know you are not a friend).  But also dumb (they think your blue shirt is the sky).  They are strong, but also lazy.  They don't keep bankers' hours, but they're out there whenever you are.  They are in the still water, but near the fast water because that is where the food is.  They are hungry, but not today.  They know you are there, but they don't because fish are dumb.  And so it goes. 

Basically you look at the water and try to “read it,” which remains a bit of a mystery to me, and then you cast and cast and cast and hope that a fish takes pity on you as a beginner and bites.  If you are fortunate enough to have Paul as your instructor, you get lots of encouragement and have the great pleasure of seeing your son, who looks very handsome and tall in waders, cast like the picture on the cover of a 1950s-vintage outdoors magazine.  Is he a chubber in the making?[2]

I did ask what new fisherpersons are called, you know, like greenhorns, or swabs.  There isn’t really a term but fry was proposed.  I am totally fry.

But here’s the really great thing.  You are standing in a cold rushing river, and YOU ARE NOT WET.  Fishing is wicked equipment intensive but the best of all are the waders since they mean you can practically frolic among the boulders and never get wet.  It is quite fantastically fun.  And there are birds everywhere.  I'm told that people see God on the river, or find themselves, or become otherwise transformed.  I can report that none of those things happened to me but I really did enjoy it.  

After all that effort and your molasses cookies you might need a nap.

The day is yours to do with what you wish, and while most fish, others, such as Isabel and Charlotte, might build a survival shelter in the woods.  At 6, however, anticipating that 6:30 dinner bell, you might gather on one or another cabin's front porch for cocktails.  If you are thinking ahead you will have already started your fire so that your cabin is toasty by shower-time and bed later.  Then after a giant dinner you can break out the Monopoly board.  But you'd better be ready for bed by 9:30 because that is when the electricity is shut off and not even the water runs.  So you build your fire super-high before you go to sleep and it is still cold in the morning so you have to get up and start all over again.  

Izzy is particularly fond of wrapping herself in a giant blanket and plunking down in front of the fire for a good read.  Clever girl.


Sunday

At Lakewood Camps you rise not necessarily with the sun but with the g.d. woodpeckers at 6:06 a.m.

The sign board in the dining room at breakfast states the choice of dinner entrees, and after much discussion about the relative merits of each choice, you place your order.  Today it said BRINED ROAST TURKEY or HONEY BAKED HAM.  Under that were two drawings, one of a pig, the other of a turkey.   Under them it said 'decafe or regular joe.'  I ordered Regular Joe the turkey while Peter is looking forward to ham from Decafe the pig.

No fish again this morning but I'm pleased to report that I've developed a little blister just below my right ring finger, and my right arm is feeling a little fatigued from all that casting.  While not yet at the point where I have actually caught a fish, I'm feeling pretty chuffed about my progress.  I tried a Crazy Eddy for a while.  Turns out that Crazy Eddy is not the guy across the river but a kind of fly.  This is one that you use in rapids, apparently, as it looks like a wounded – not dead, per Gabe, but wounded – minnow.  Bill wonders if it has Xs for eyes, or perhaps just one X since it is not dead, but wounded.

At lunch we chatted with another family who come here regularly, the beautifully-coiffed Melissa Lee and her husband Duncan who has the vaguely maniacal intensity that signifies a hard-core outdoorsman.[3]  They told us about the trip they have planned for later this year, to fish 140 miles south of the Arctic Circle.  Apparently you drive for 20 hours, the last ten on logging roads with only intermittent strips of tarmac built by Chinese logging concerns, then you get on a float plane where the non-English speaking pilot shows you the EPIRB button in case the plane goes down and he is out of commission.  Then you are at the camp but to actually fish you take a boat across the lake and hike another hour to get to the fish which are in fact the same kind you get here in the Rangeley Lakes region but about four times bigger.  Not my cup of tea but that Duncan sure does have an extraordinarily accommodating wife and son. 

Bill and Patty are happy to have found kindred canoeing spirits in one another, and take a long sunny paddle across the lake while Izzy and Charlotte help wash potatoes in the kitchen for dinner.  KP!  The boys take a muddy bike ride which ends with leaps into the cold lake, and only one iPhone casualty.  You can join in any of this, or not, and if you do, your book and reading glasses will be right where you left them on the porch when you come back because it is that kind of place. 

I don't think I've mentioned the birds, except for the g.d. woodpecker and the crooning loons on the lake.  There are your usual gulls and Canada geese, and any number of woodland birds chirping away.  I believe I saw a merganser while fishing.  There are also swift houses all along the dock and those attractive blue-backed fellows swoop and soar overhead as a pack of kids hang over the edge catching chubs.  If you sit on the porch of the main lodge you may feel like you are coming under attack from the hummingbirds who buzz around and fight and dive onto the feeders and in and out of a nearby cedar like Spitfires over the British Channel.  This time, I know our side will win.

Maine really proves the adage about the weather changing every ten minutes in New England.  This weekend we have had cold, fog, gentle rain, driving heavy rain, wind, hail, warm sun and cloudless blue sky, and even a double rainbow over the lake.  

Monday

The morning is spent packing up and preparing for the long and pretty boring drive home, and wheedling molasses cookies out of Whit. 

I think we did all experience that sense of inner discovery that going to the woods is supposed to engender.  Here’s what we learned:

Peter has the makings of a fine fisherman, and displayed remarkable equanimity when faced with the potential destruction of his phone by freezing cold lake water. 

Isabel has a new bestie in Charlotte and learned how to wash potatoes and really really really loves Lakewood camps, so much that she cried this morning and made Bill swear that we would come back next year.

Speaking of Bill, the raging after-dinner Monopoly game revealed that he is a capitalist pig-dog slumlord rail baron.  Who knew?

As for me, I like fishing.  I would go out right now if I could, but what would I do if I caught a fish?  I haven't had that lesson yet!  Besides, the waders are kind of cold, having sat out on the porch all night.  I think I'll stay here by the fire a little longer.

---

[1] Fifty Shades of Khaki could be the name of an erotic novel set in a fishing camp if that weren't so incongruous I can't even finish this sentence.  

[2] Chubber:  super-outdoorsy-type, wears ragg socks and hiking boots with shorts and is a member of the Outing Club wherever he goes to college.  I don’t know if there are female chubbers, but Nat Crane, director of William Lawrence Camp is the archetype.  This term may or may not have been invented by my parents, but it was certainly popularized by them. 

[3] Duncan is not a chubber.  I can’t really explain why but if you saw him next to Nat Crane you’d understand.