The River Runs North — Thinking Out Loud

Getting to Pelletier’s campground this June where our outfitter was based required us to travel along the US-Canada border from Fort Kent. While the border was quiet, shut down due to the pandemic, the Canadian influences were ever present.

As we pulled into the campground, our guide Norman L’Italien met us enthusiastically. Short in stature, closely cropped grey hair hidden under his green baseball cap, he set us straight to work getting the canoe off of our truck. We were prepared to do most of the heavy lifting but were a bit skeptical when he told us that we’d need to get our canoe atop the two already strapped down on the van.

Norman nimbly scaled the ladder directing us to lift and slide the canoe toward him on his precarious perch. With the bow resting at an angle to the outer boat, the stern supported by the two of us, he performed a guide’s equivalent to the “clean and jerk”; and like an experienced power lifter, he swung the canoe perfectly into place as he’d probably done a thousand times before. After getting our arrangements in order and gear stowed, he reviewed our route with us, suggesting portions to avoid and marking hidden springs for fresh water. And noting our canoeing experience and desires to start our 5-day journey with a run of the Chase Rapids, Norman whimsically offered his final bit of wisdom, “Well, at least you’ll get to dance with your partner right away!”

While my partner was experienced in such “dance” moves, I was awkward and out of sync. In those couple hundred yards of water below the Chamberlain Dam, my partner Rich described the two strokes I’d need: draw and cross draw. I practiced once or twice and off we glided toward the rolling and boiling water.

Morning reflection, Round Pond, Allagash waterway

When you canoe the Allagash River there’s an immediate realization that you’re moving downhill. Interestingly, the horizon line of the river is below your feet as you dip the paddle and push water behind you moving northward into the welcomed silence of nature.

Following my partner’s lead, I learned quickly to read the water, find the “V” in the river, duck by guard rocks, and scout the sleepers waiting below the surface. We made the best choices we could in the moment, sometimes scraping boulders and other times confidently taking on water while riding the heavy waves.

As we glided into Bissonette Landing where our gear awaited us, the adrenaline pumping in my veins melted into the background of the vast silence surrounding me. I began to exhale for the first time in 18 months, finding the joy in solitude. I wondered what lay ahead in the 60 miles of paddle strokes and the rhythm of moving from place to place each day.

Reflecting back now it occurs to me that planning this trip in the dead of winter had been respite enough, but that there had been moments when it seemed Rich and I would never reach the water. As leaders in independent schools, we needed the buoyancy of hope in imagining this new journey, and found the potential draw of a shared experience gave us strength, comfort and urged us forward toward the Allagash.

This trip was our off ramp, a way to decompress and find meaning in experiences unlike any we’d faced in our lives. It was also my way to reflect upon all that had become of me and the upside down world. And now here we were finally in the Maine woods absent of the hectic pace and disruption of technology; our cell phones had no signal and, for the first time in memory, we had turned them off stowed them away.

In the evenings we sat in our bug tent after dinner and just watched. The changing light in the clouds, the sounds of the loons and eagles, the movement of the water was all the entertainment we needed. Through these shared observations, we talked, laughed, and enjoyed the silence.

Entertainment for the evening, sunset on the Allagash

I’ve been blessed to have a few really wonderful long-lasting relationships. These few have always felt “easy” with little pressure involved, an opportunity to pick things up where we’d left off. I had a friend to ski with a couple friends to fish with and a wife with whom to share the day to day. Maybe I’m not alone and other men experience friendship this same way. But for the first time, in the darkness of those early days of “flattening the curve”, I realized that the work for me to stay connected with others mattered as much as actual time spent together. In the past, the hardest part of friendship had been arranging the schedule, juggling kids, or waiting for optimal conditions to arise; more often than not, a friend and I would figure something out last minute and enjoy our time together. But I would always think in the car ride home that I wished I’d connected with my friends more frequently. Often those drives would leave me thinking I might have shared more about my life or inquired deeper into theirs…

During the pandemic when texts, emails and calls were all we could manage, I began to understand that those efforts to stay connected were as meaningful as getting to a final destination. I saw the act of friendship as a vital part of me, not something to ignore or feel awkward about. In committing to this trip - the planning, the expense and the conversation - I recognized that the work of friendship, was an important element I had been missing.

And as the trip came to an end and we loaded the truck for the 6 hour drive back home, I wondered, once this was all behind us in this year or the next, would we remember how much we all needed each other? Would we realize how much we depended upon our friends, family and colleagues? Would we find the discipline and commitment to do the work of friendship?

As the virus continues to course through our communities and country and my time on the Allagash becomes more distant I will need to tend those connections and friendships I’ve made to help keep me afloat and moving down the river.