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

paddlemaking.blogspot.com

September Trippin'-Upper West Branch PENOBSCOT!

September 6th-12th Lobster Lake to Umbazooksus Stream on the Norther Forest Canoe Trail.

How do you follow up a run on the Allagash, it's moose, it's diversity, it's natural beauty? More Maine river! Only this time we bring enough beer.
I'm thinking two nights on the remote Lobster lake fishing, cooking and talking rivers, nature and art. We roll in with a canoe full of fresh vegetables, fine cuts of game and beer on ice along with passages from Thoreau's "Maine Woods" to prepare us for days of river alone with the moose. From Lobster lake we head up upstream to the Penobscot, the upper west branch. We make camp the first night at Thoreau Island, where the author himself camped along with his Penobscot Indian guides. Im thinking fresh grilled trout pulled from the very river we dine near on a bed of pea and pancetta faroah. Food snobbery seems fitting for such priceless ambiance.

Our days never require a hard paddle, moving a mere 6-10 miles a day. "Lazy" is the pace I imagine. We have five nights to do what could be done in 3. Yes, we have time to chill, time for long drawn out chess games and ideas for collaberative installations that'll never come to fruition.

From Thoreau Island we paddle to the one of the numerous campsites near or on Big Island. Big Island isn't really that, it's a small island in the middle of the West Branch offering the river a road block that creates our only quickwater and class I rips. After fish tacos and many cans of coors we continue on toward Chesuncook Lake. The winds at Chesuncook lake might make crossing to Gero Island, where we camp our final night or two, difficult. A little planning and an early start should put us on the island with no problems. From here we wind down the trip, begin having the conversations of how little time we have in life and what our next trip might be before we head into Umbazooksus Stream and our take out in the North Maine Woods.

For now, we have only the featureless map, a few google image searches and a month of desire.

Packrafting The Parker River

"The Parker River Wildlife Refuge is 4,662 acres of upland and wetland habitat with sandy beach and dune, shrub, thicket, bog, swamp, freshwater marsh, saltwater marsh and associated creek, river, mud flat, salt panne" and some dude with a coors between his feet.
The idea comes across my mind quite often to packraft the Parker River, find the perfect perch (seen below), sling a hammock, listen to the tide drag barges of marsh debris along its banks and the sound of piping plovers wings tap tapping on the water as they scurry off

"The Parker is a feeding, resting, and nesting habitat for migratory birds. Located along the Atlantic Flyway, the refuge is a vital stopover for waterfowl, shorebirds, and songbirds during pre- and postbreeding migratory periods."

The Parker river isn't "wilderness" but its blocks away. The quiet you feel on the Parker is tangible. The birds, whether you're an aficionado or not are amazing, almost as amazing as a beer and a hand rolled cigarette, your legs hanging over the edge of your boat, your feet skimming the surface of cool water.

photos by Rick Beaty

All Under The Cloak of Mosquitos

Fire making, let alone gourmet meal making, gets tough under the weight of dense camp drenching clouds. Cooking over steaming, sand-buried coals, with the knuckles of wind at your face SUCKS.

On The Saco River, in a late August storm, sand and rain in nearly everything, thanks to the wonders of foil, we managed to pull off a couple seasonal vegetable courses to remember.

Fire Roasted Beets with Chives, Fresh Parsley, Coarse Salt and Dark Green Olive Oil, steam bursting out of the foil when you first pry it open. STOP. Picture that. Really. Picture it. Pulled from the coals, small pocky char-marked beets........................ Now crumble Feta over that. Yea.

Mexican Street Corn. Simple shucked fresh sweet corn, butter and crema (crème fraîche), wrapped in foil with salt, pepper and lime, buried in coals. finished with more crema, queso seco (or parmesean) and dried chiles.

With each reaching cloud the darkness

set in deeper over camp.

The night moved in on us,

made the river groan and rise and our stomachs turn.

The water level rose up on our sandy beach

which would easily be swallowed if the rain continued

the rain continued

coming down hard on our wind bent fly tarp,

our gear and wood tucked in its belly.

we had to build a fire

had to cook

had to build a fire in the rain

in wet sand

all under the cloak of mosquitos.

B.H. took to the task

Dug a wide hole down to the dry sand

propped split logs up

hung the wet husks of corn

strung like a curtain around the fire to shield the wind.

even created shelves within the fire place

for multiple heat zones

with channels for air dug into the sand

feeding it from underneath

we had a fire

a good fire

and a bed of cooking coals quick

despite the rain

photos by Rick Beaty & Bryan Harland

Camp Kitchen

This camp kitchen is like the "Letherman Multi Tool" of culinary underbosses.

1 GSI Telescoping Spatula & Spoon

1 Lexan salt and pepper shaker (full of ground chiles)

1 GSI Extreme Cookset

2 Orikasa Folding Dining Sets

2 ultra lite cutting boards

2 light my fire sporks

1 snow peak Giga Stove

1 Brunton Optimus Multi Fuel Stove

1 small tupperware of kosher salt

1 small tupperware of fresh cracked pepper

1 small tupperware of adobo,

1 small tupperware of pico de gallo spice mix

1 medium bottle of extra virgin olive oil

1 small bottle white truffle oil

My own chef's knife wrapped and taped in cardboard

My favorite tongs

The smallest cheese grater I could find

2 MSR Camp-towels

1 small bottle Dr Bronner's All-In-One Soap

1 2 gallon bladder

1 small backpackers folding grill

2 cheap throw away sponges

Look At These Beauties.

http://www.merrimackcanoes.com/index.html

We Got To Do This!

Theres a whole mgazine devoted to canoe and kayak sailing?
http://www.canoesailingmagazine.com/

or how about an ultralite handheld sail?
http://www.quiversail.com/quiversail/home.html

http://dory-man.blogspot.com

Small boat lovers will love the Dory-man.

The Dangers of Canoe Camping Deficiency.

Recently my doctor prescribed either a trip to the Caribbean or the sun equal to sitting in the stern of a canoe for a week or longer.

Canoe Camping Deficiency rivals all but schizophrenia in neural imbalance disorders. Symptoms include or can lead to depression, vitamin D deficiency, heart disease, chronic pain, Fibromyalgia, hypertension, arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, PMS, Crohns Disease, cancer, MS and other autoimmune diseases.
The American Society of Anesthesiologists released a report in October of 2007 that stated approximately one in four patients who have chronic pain issues were also found to have experienced low levels of Canoe Camping.
According to the Canoe Camping Council, if you are someone who completely avoids the sun you will need to take approximately 4,000 units of Vitamin D per day. You would have to drink 40 glasses of milk a day or take 10 multivitamins a day to get the required amount of Canoe Camping.

the Saco Underbelly

Believe it or not, beyond the puking teens pissing from their canoes, there is still a loud quiet floating past the beaches and banks of the Saco River. When the sun begins to set on you, stretching the tops of trees across the river in shadow, the sun leaving you there in the dark with the river, there still exists a sense of timelessness.

Canoe The Glendale Narrows, L.A. River?

I remember climbing down the green rebar ladders, the ends of tree branches wrapped with old tee-shirts, doused in lighter fluid setting out to explore the tributary tunnels along Verdugo road in Glendale, kicking up water from the anemic trickle that is the LA river on a hot California summers day. Never did we think to lower boats down underneath the Glenoaks Bridge. Never did I expect to see the LA River in the May issue of Canoe and Kayak.

"A dozen intrepid Angelenos successfully navigated kayaks and canoes down the full length of the 52-mile L.A. River (from headwaters at Canoga Park to estuary in Long Beach) in a three-day exploratory expedition, demonstrating that the whole river merits a determination as a "traditional navigable water"

http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=125188&Itemid=30

Biologist Heather Wylie hit with suspension over LA River kayak trip.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/10/remember-the-mu.html

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1117

http://www.the-la-river.blogspot.com/

photos by someone else