Some people like Portland. Some like Port Clyde. Bar Harbor. Others Kennebunkport, or Pemaquid.
With me, it’s Vanceboro.
I don’t know if you caught it, but there was a sad, sad, Vanceboro story in the Aug. 22-23 edition of the BDN. The population had dwindled down to 130 and they had to close the school and bus the schoolchildren 20 miles away. Sad.
Vanceboro had its 15 minutes of fame in 1915 when a German spy (honest) blew up the bridge to Canada. He was caught within, oh 15 minutes, and did very little damage. At its peak, it offered jobs in the Maine woods, at the clothespin factory or the leather tannery. Now they’re all gone, especially the spy.
I had more fun in Vanceboro than I ever did in Portland, Port Clyde, Kennebunk or Pemaquid. You probably never heard of the place unless you decided to drive to Canada along Route 6 out of Lincoln. If you did, you crossed the bridge over the prettiest river you have ever seen, the St. Croix. The St. Croix, the actual border between the two countries was “discovered” by Jefferson Phil when he took a motor trip to Canada. He also “discovered” Musquash Lake and a wonderful group of cottages.
We were such a dull group, the Upside-Down Canoe Club, that Phil became our “idea man.” With his Maine Guide leadership, we took many trips to Musquash, Vanceboro and the St. Croix. After too many trips on the raging rapids on the St. John and Allagash rivers, we found the St Croix to be pleasant, safe and shallow. Shallow was vital because we took many canoe virgins on the river. We didn’t lose one. Hell, Phil once took his entire family on the St. Croix. Unfortunately, the wind blew up and he had to get out and pull the canoes down river behind him, like Humphrey Bogart in “The African Queen.”
On my first trip with Blue Eyes, when we got to Little Falls, I asked her what she wanted to do, crash the rapids or walk around.
“We came all the way up here,” she said, so crash we did.
My least favorite trip over the falls was with the late, great Waldo Walt. I was so concerned about the safety of others (I swear) we crashed through the falls to make sure they would be all right. Well, we got hit sideways by a hidden, spring-loaded boulder, an act that dumped us at the very top of the falls. Lore has it that you float down, feet first in such a situation. We bounced our Irish keisters off every boulder on those falls and had bruises for months. The other canoes went through without a scratch. I still have the disaster photos on my desk, as a permanent reminder.
We partied up and down that river and at the Musquash cabins. Some days, the St. Croix would be your bathtub, with only one or two other boats on the water. Other weekends, like Canada Day, it would find the river filled with Canadian boaters and tubers, some with minimal bikinis. That was better, in so many ways.
We adopted Loafer’s Lodge early in the game. It was about halfway from Vanceboro to the falls, and a natural resting spot. One day we stopped there and it was jammed with Canadian revelers. The party was getting wild, and I asked someone if they were afraid of the cops.
“These are the cops,” I was told.
We loved Loafer’s. Phil, the idea man, found the owner and we used to rent it. On the second trip, I started checking out the cabin’s photos. I was astonished to find a picture of Bud Leavitt, the BDN sports editor standing next to a man we like to call Ted Williams, “The greatest hitter alive.” They had shared a fishing trip to Loafer’s, which made the spot even more special. That river became home.
In recent years, after 9/11, the border guards got more serious. One year we showed up with Christmas wreaths to start the campfire. They couldn’t figure that out. They asked if we were going fishing and I said, “never, waste of time.” I forgot that Phil and Walter brought their best fishing gear. I doubt if it was a coincidence that one guard came to visit at Loafer’s and stayed for an hour, watching the river. Sort of. Being a wise ass, I asked him if he expected someone to swim the 50 feet across the river from Canada with a load of dope. He was not impressed.
You won’t believe this but within two weeks someone was arrested swimming from Canada with a load of drugs. Now the border guards tell us if we use the camps on the Canadian side of the river, we could be prosecuted for “illegal entry.” But their camps are much, much better. We ignore the warning, natch.
Now they tell us that the new owner of Loafer’s Lodge will not rent to strangers. I can’t blame them. I wouldn’t rent to us, either.
But that’s one less reason to visit Vanceboro, population 130.
Sad.
Emmet Meara lives in Camden in blissful retirement after working as a reporter for the BDN in Rockland for 30 years.