Canoeing On Glass, Lobster Lake

Flesh Colored Poems

There's something about the air in Maine that gives clouds, whether going or staying, the language of incarnation.

Two silent sensations creating a charred alphabet, that against a great mirror, blosoms flesh colored poems in the wind.

These days are the keys and lamp-posts by which we gain access to ourselves.

Bow & Stern

Nothing is as sweet as the burn of a good tequila, in the middle of nowhere, the evening sun on your face, a fire crackling, lakeside.

Ogden Cove, Lobster Lake, Piscataquis County, Maine

The first night on Lobster Lake we woke to the over and over grunting of a moose trampling through camp. The familiar sound we learned from the Allagash startled neither of us. The moose went on into the water and into the woods, and we followed.

Over the coals we grilled Mahi marinated in the simple holy trilogy of olive oil, salt & pepper. Served over scallion, green pea, panchetta and feta farro.
Golite Shangri-la 4+ for 1

Dutch Oven ButtermilkBuscuits

Farro is a firm meaty whole grain found at most specialty food stores, even Whole Foods. It's meatyness is what is all together missing from other rice. Either hot or cold, the snap of it's skin, under the grind of your teeth, not unlike the snap of Tobiko, young salmon roe, is glorious.

It is the perfect outdoor starch. It's hearty, packable, durable, easy to prepare and adorned with nearly anything.

We chose feta, frozon peas, scallion and cookset seared panchetta. A bed any self respecting Mahi would be proud to be supine upon.

It's heritage is italian, (blame wikipedia if I'm wrong). A whole wheat grain more ancient than all others. It looks like an obese mcdonalds fed brown rice, imagine the flesh of peeled spikes or ears of cultivated emmer wheat.

It requires 10-20 min of soaking begore its boiled, like pasta, strained (with a bandana of course), and served with what ever garnish you can dream of.

Add this to your drybag pantry, I promise boners and popping clits under the picnic table.

As for the mahi, it's mahi, slather it in good ev-olive oil, kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper, grill it, skin on. It's hard to fuck up.

Photos By Rick Beaty

Slicing Our Way Through the Entrances and Exits

can you hear the silence?

We put in at Roll Dam headed for Lobster Lake. The pile of gear next to the newly wet empty canoe scrambbled our brains with excitement. You could feel it in your toes and in the maiden mosquito bite, "This is your brain on the drugs of canoeing".

It was a real river. Not an anemic excuse for a river, but the bloated, thick-necked exaggeration of one, and we were about to slide the feminine body of our canoe into its belly, and we did.

The gurgle of water, the drippings off paddles, all of it! Slicing our way through the entrances and exits of one century and the next.

The NOB!

The Upper West Branch of The Penobscot River, Maine!

Photos by Rick Beaty