Introduction.
On page 31 of Canoe and Camera I made the following foot-note, in mentioning the fourth tour from Moosehead Lake through the Maine Wilderness: “Still another trip can be made from Churchill Lake through Spider, Echo and Mansungun Lakes to the waters of the Aroostook, leaving the woods at Caribou, Maine. But the scenery is uninteresting, and the difficulties will not compensate one for the labor endured, while woe betide the tourist if the water is low.”
I little imagined, as I penned this paragraph from hearsay, that the following season I should so thoroughly acquaint myself with its “difficulties,” and learn from actual experience the beauties of its scenery.
Yet, in the autumn of 1880, while putting in order my well-worn camp equipage with no definite plan in view, a letter from my friend and fellow traveller, Colonel G., gave this fortunate direction to my fall trip. This letter informed me that the year previous he had discovered a region unknown to the sportsman and tourist, yet accessible by canoe from Moosehead Lake, and was rejoicing in the title of the “Pioneer of the Aroostook.” I could not, therefore, be the first to explore this route, and so, accepting second honors, began immediate preparations for the trip.
The oldest inhabitants of Maine may have known a drier season than that of 1880, but the reader will perceive in the following pages that a cart, rather than a canoe, might have been used in the exploration of the greater portion of this unknown region.
The Author.
Hartford, Conn., 1881.