Paddle and Portage from Moosehead Lake to Aroostook River, Maine

On the 11th of September I landed at the Mount Kineo House, Moosehead Lake, fully equipped for a voyage of over four hundred miles through the wilderness of Maine to New Brunswick. Colonel G., my comrade adventurer, having arrived a few days previous, had engaged the guides, canoes, provisions, and other accessories, so there was little to do save discard the habiliments of civilization.

Two days after, on the morning of the 13th, we started from the Kineo Dock on the little steamer Day Dream for the northern extremity of Moosehead Lake, at which point we were to bid adieu to civilization and traverse the remainder of our route alone by paddle and portage.

As the steamer cast loose from the wharf, our interested friends ashore gave us a farewell cheer that echoed across the waters of the lake. In these realms of adventure, everybody is one’s friend. Friendship is spontaneous; good feeling reigns supreme, and people that we did not know united with people that we did know in their signal-tokens of “Godspeed”—or, at least, we thought they did. As we passed up the lake, fashionable ladies and gentlemen waved their handkerchiefs upon the piazzas of the hotel.