Even today, what with all the modern advances, you never know if the "newest" fly dope will work until you've spent a night in the woods of Aroostook County. The gatekeepers along the entrance to the northern Maine woods used to laugh to themselves when a vehicle full of "out-of-staters" stopped to pick up their out of state fishing and camping permits because they'd already spent the better part of their vacation, before driving on to "the county," shopping at L.L. Beans in Freeport. The visitors had already spent a fortune on all the latest fishing and camping equipment known to man. The gatekeepers could guess almost to the penny, upon seeing the non-Mainers strutting around in all their fishing gear glory, how much money they'd parted with at L.L. Beans.
They were outfitted in the finest clothing that money could buy. Bean's chamois' shirts, the texture of soft, cow's butter, adorned their well-fed bodies and their waterproof pants were made of one hundred percent Merino wool from Canada. Their high-topped Bean's leather boots guaranteed never to get their tootsies wet were de-rigueur for these fishermen. Their state of the art jackets were "Gore-Tex" and were guaranteed to keep them dry even in the strongest rainstorm, or even a small hurricane. Their lightweight goose down-filled sleeping bags were touted as "being the lightest, the warmest and the best that money could buy" and at five hundred dollars apiece, they probably were. Their matching vests served a three-fold purpose; not only did they serve as safety vests but they were also waterproof and flame resistant. On their heads were identical hats that had a myriad of colorful flies for fly fishing hooked all around the khaki bands.
They didn't have just one fishing pole apiece either; they usually had several custom-made poles that came from countries all over the world. It wasn't uncommon to see one from Sweden, another from Portugal and even some hand-made ones from Maine. They'd come prepared for any contingency that they might encounter in the great northern Maine woods too.
They had a thirteen inch AC/DC color television, cell-phones, propane stoves, portable razors, butane warmers for their socks and sleeping bags, portable toilets and even toilet paper with built-in moisturizer. They were going to "rough-it" in the northern Maine woods all right!
Upon seeing all this extravagant fishing and camping gear, some of the old-time gatekeepers would snort in disgust and say, "We've got some more of those sons-ah-whores sports from away, campin up tah tha Reality Road." The only thing the old-timers did admit was that most of these "sports" sure knew how to buy "good" liquor and they'd wait and hope that when the party checked out, they'd donate a few of their "left-over" bottles of expensive brew to the gatekeepers.
Their vehicles were "state-of-the-art" machines too. Usually, they were large four-wheel drive suv's; jeeps or large pickups that were outfitted with pop-up tents and some of them even had global positioning systems in case they got lost. One sport even arrived driving the newest copy of the military vehicle the Humvee. Sometimes, they'd drive up in an old turn of the century Ford pickup that had been rebuilt and was a bonafide antique or on a twenty thousand-dollar Harley Davidson motorcycle. You never could predict what in hell they'd bring for their stay in the Maine woods.
Strapped onto the top of their vehicles were the most perfect canoes that the gatekeepers had ever laid eyes on. The canoes, made at Oldtown Canoes, in Oldtown, Maine had been lovingly handcrafted out of the best woods that money could buy. They had been shaped, sanded and shellacked until they could have hung in the finest museums in the world. They were truly works of art. Even the paddles were perfection, perfectly balanced, sanded smooth as glass and guaranteed not to raise a blister on the palms of even the most uninitiated sportsman.
When asked exactly what kind of fish they were looking to catch, the inexperienced men would look at each other covertly and reply, "Well, trout, big Maine ones, I guess." The gatekeepers would eye their fishin gear and laugh to themselves that the salesmen at L.L. Beans had really outdone themselves this time because half of the equipment that they'd been sold was for deep-sea fishin!
After askin the group how long they planned to stay, the gatekeeper would read them the rules for fishing on private property and issue them a permit to enter the Great Northern territory. He'd then go inside and note the name of the party, the area they were supposed to be campin in and the day they were expected to return on the large calendar that was pinned to the back wall of the gatekeeper's station. Then, he'd call the local warden's office and tell him how many there were in the party and approximately what section of the northern Maine woods they were going to be fishin in. Then, he'd make a mental note and count the days until they returned.
Usually, the "first-timers" never spent the full time that they'd been allotted in the northern Maine woods. It wasn't uncommon to see them come flyin out of the woods like a bat-out-of-hell two or three days before they were due back. They'd pull-up to the gate and screech to a stop in a cloud of dust. The immaculate condition that they and their vehicles had been in when they'd arrived had completely disappeared over the course of a few days and nights and they'd stumble out of their fifty thousand-dollar machines and shake the hand of the gatekeeper like he was a long lost friend.
Their faces usually had a drawn, haggard look and several days' growth of unshaven beard. Their blood-shot eyes told of sleepless nights, unrelenting insects and too much firewater. Their skin, the parts that you could see, was usually swollen and covered with red marks from all the insect bites and poison ivy blisters that they were still scratchin. They smelled to high heaven from not having bathed for several days and the gatekeepers kept moving around in order to stay "up-wind" of them if at all possible. Their neat overloaded vehicles were not so neat any longer and half of their expensive fishing equipment had been abandoned in the woods where they'd been camping.
The "sports" sucked on large mugs of the gatekeepers fresh, hot coffee and related horror stories of insect attacks, thunder storms, wet wood that wouldn't burn, humongous patches of poison ivy, poison oak, musty, foul smelling boots, cell phones that wouldn't work, swamped canoes, uneatable food, wild unidentifiable animals howling all night long and every other imaginable disaster that could only happen while camping in the deep woods of "tha county."
The seemingly sympathetic gatekeepers would hastily refill the large mugs of coffee and wait until they'd wound down a bit and say, "So, I guess we can expect you back about the same time next year?" The fishing trip shocked, sleep-deprived men from the city would look incredulously at the person who'd been fool enough to ask such a stupid question and spit out, "Bloomin Jaysus! If you think that we're ever coming back to this friggin Christly place, you're crazier than we are!"
With that, they'd pile their stinking, bite covered bodies into their filthy, dust covered vehicle and hightail it down the Realty Road towards civilization and the bright city lights at a pretty fast clip, as thought the devil himself was after them, praying all the while that a huge moose or bear didn't step out into the dirt road in front of them.
Copyright (1st Rights) retained by the author, Martha Stevens-David 2008, who can be reached at lmdmsd@megalink.net.
