It is so much the more desirable at this season to breathe the raspberry air of Maine.

August 3. Monday. 

This was the midst of the raspberry season. We found them abundant on every carry on the East Branch and below, and children were carrying them from all sides into Bangor. I observed that they were the prominent dish on the tables, once a low scarlet mountain, garnishing the head of the table in a dish two feet across. 

Earlier the strawberries are equally abundant, and we even found a few still deep in the grass. Neither of these abound about Boston, and we saw that they were due to the peculiar air of this higher latitude. 

Though for six weeks before leaving home we had been scarcely able to lie under more than a single sheet, we experienced no hot weather in Maine. The air was uniformly fresh and bracing like that of a mountain to us, and, though the inhabitants like to make it out that it is as warm there as in Massachusetts, we were not to be cheated. It is so much the more desirable at this season to breathe the raspberry air of Maine. 

It was P. who commonly reminded us that it was dinner-time on this excursion, sometimes by turning the prow to the shore. He once made an indirect but lengthy apology, by saying that we might think it strange, but one who worked hard all day was very particular to have his dinner in good season.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 3, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("We started early before breakfast, the Indian being considerably better, and soon glided by Lincoln, and after another long and handsome lake-like reach, we stopped to breakfast on the west shore, two or three miles below this town. . . The small river emptying in at Lincoln is the Matanuncook. . .. So we paddled and floated along, looking into the mouths of rivers. . . .At Piscataquis Falls, just above the river of that name, we walked over the wooden railroad on the eastern shore, about one and a half miles long, while the Indian glided down the rapids. . . .We were not obliged to get out of the canoe after this on account of falls or rapids, nor, indeed, was it quite necessary here. We took less notice of the scenery to-day, because we were in quite a settled country. the river became broad and sluggish, and we saw a blue heron winging its way slowly down the stream before us. . . .The Olamon River comes in from the east in Greenbush a few miles below the Passadumkeag. . . .The Sunkhaze, another short dead stream, comes in from the east two miles above Oldtown.. . .Opposite the Sunkhaze is the main boom of the Penobscot, where the logs from far up the river are collected and assorted. . . . We landed opposite his door at about four in the afternoon, having come some forty miles this day. . . P. wanted to sell us his canoe. Said it would last seven or eight years, or, with care, perhaps ten; but we were not ready to buy it . . . This was the last that I saw of Joe Polis. We took the last train, and reached Bangor that night.")

Payt-gum-kiss

August 2. Sunday. 

August 2, 2017
(Avesong)

At a small river coming in from the south a few miles below Nicketow, the Penobscot is crooked and the place is called Payt-gum-kiss, or Petticoat, according to P.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 2, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("Sunday, August 2. Was a cloudy and unpromising morning. . . .Nicketow is called eleven miles from Mattawamkeag by the river. Our camp was, therefore, about nine miles from the latter place. . . .We reached the Mattawamkeag at half past eight in the morning, in the midst of a drizzling rain, and, after buying some sugar, set out again. . . .As a thunder-shower appeared to be coming up, we stopped opposite a barn on the west bank, in Chester, about a mile above Lincoln. Here at last we were obliged to spend the rest of the day and night, on account of our patient, whose sickness did not abate. . . .we camped in the solitary half-open barn near the bank . . .lying on new-mown hay four feet deep. The fragrance of the hay, in which many ferns, etc., were mingled, was agreeable, though it was quite alive with grasshoppers which you could hear crawling through it. This served to graduate our approach to houses and feather beds. In the night some large bird, probably an owl, flitted through over our heads, and very early in the morning we were awakened by the twittering of swallows which had their nests there.")

Botanizing the East Branch

July 31. 

Friday. 

This morning heard from the camp the red-eye, robin (P. said it was a sign of rain), tweezer-bird, i. e. parti-colored warbler, chickadee, wood thrush, and soon after starting heard or saw a blue jay. . . . 

I saw here my sweet-scented Aster macrophyllus (?) just out, also, near end of carry in rocky woods, a new plant, the halenia or spurred gentian, which I observed afterward on the carries all the way down to near the mouth of the East Branch, eight inches to two feet high. 

I also saw here, or soon after, the red cohosh berries, ripe, (for the first time in my life); spikenard, etc. 

The commonest aster of the woods was A. acuminatus, not long out, and the commonest solidago on the East Branch, Solidago squarrosa. . . .

P. said that his mother was a Province woman and as white as anybody, but his father a pure-blooded Indian. I saw no trace of white blood in his face, and others, who knew him well and also his father, were confident that his mother was an Indian and suggested that she was of the Quoddy tribe (belonged to New Brunswick), who are often quite light-colored. . . . 

[Below Bowlin stream] I got  one (apparently) Lilium superbum flower, with strongly revolute sepals and perfectly smooth leaves beneath, otherwise not large nor peculiar. 

On this East Branch we saw many of the small purple fringed orchis (Platanthera psycodes), but no large ones (P. fimbriata), which alone were noticed on the West Branch and Umbazookskus. 

Also saw often the Lysimachia ciliata, and once white cohosh berries, and at one place methinks the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum (?) with the other. . . . 

On a small bare sand or gravel bar, I observed that same Prunus which grows on the rocks at Bellows Falls, whose leaf might at first sight be mistaken for that of a willow. It is evidently the Prunus depressa (sand cherry) of Pursh, and distinct, as a variety at least, from the common allied one (P. pumila of Pursh), which is not depressed even when it grows, as it often does abundantly, in river meadows (e. g. Edmund Hosmer's on Assabet). The leaf of the former is more lanceoate-spatulate, and I have never seen it in Concord, though the P. pumila is very common here. Gray describes but one kind. 

Jackson, being some miles below this, in the East Branch, the 6th of October, twenty years ago, says, "There are several small gravelly islands covered with a profusion of deep purple beach plums, but since they had been frozen they were found to be taste less and insipid." We did not see any of these.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 31, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("We had smooth but swift water for a considerable distance, where we glided rapidly along, scaring up ducks and kingfishers. But, as usual, our smooth progress ere long came to an end, and we were obliged to carry canoe and all about half a mile down the right bank, around some rapids or falls. . . .I cannot tell how many times we had to walk on account of falls or rapids. We were expecting all the while that the river would take a final leap and get to smooth water, but there was no improvement this fore noon. However, the carries were an agreeable variety. So surely as we stepped out of the canoe and stretched our legs we found ourselves in a blueberry and raspberry garden, each side of our rocky trail around the falls being lined with one or both.. . . For seven or eight miles below that succession of " Grand " falls, the aspect of the banks as well as the character of the stream was changed. After passing a tributary from the northeast, perhaps Bowlin Stream, we had good swift smooth water, with a regular slope, such as I have described. Low, grassy banks and muddy shores began.. . Soon afterward a white-headed eagle sailed down the stream before us. We drove him several miles, while we were looking for a good place to camp, for we expected to be overtaken by a shower, — and still we could distinguish him by his white tail, sailing away from time to time from some tree by the shore still farther down the stream... . We at length found a place to our minds, on the west bank, about a mile below the mouth of the Seboois, ...in a very dense spruce wood above a gravelly shore... .")

Arrive by stage at Moosehead Lake

July 23. 

Thursday. 


Some fifteen caribou were taken by one (?) man about Moosehead last winter. . . . [Mr. Leonard, of Bangor, a sportsman,] said that the horns of a moose would spread four feet, some times six; would weigh thirty or forty pounds (the hide, fifty); squirrels and mice ate the horns when shed. (They told me that the horns were not grown at this season.) . . . 

[Leonard told] also of some panthers which appeared near a house in Foxcroft. . . . 

I observed from the stage many of the Fringilla hyemalis flitting along the fences, even at this season, whence I conclude that they must breed here. 

Also, between Monson and the lake, the now very handsome panicles of the red elder-berry, so much earlier than the black, the most showy objects by the roadside. In one place the tree-cranberry in a yard, already reddening, though nowhere else after was it nearly so early. . . . 

There were two public houses near together, and they wanted to detain us at the first, even took off some of our baggage in spite of us; but, on our protesting, shouted, "Let them go! let them go!" as if it was any of their business. Whereupon we, thanking them for the privilege, rode on, leaving P. behind, who, I knew, would follow his canoe. 

Here we found a spacious house, quite empty, close to the lake, with an attentive landlord, which was what we wanted. A bright wood fire soon burned in the ample barroom, very comfortable in that fresh and cool atmosphere, and we congratulated ourselves on having escaped the crowd at the other house. 

Fogg, the landlord, said that there was scarcely any hemlock about the lake. 

Here was an Indian who came to talk with Polis, who made canoes, had made those two for Leonard. . . . He said that he used the red cedar of uplands (i. e. arbor-vitae ?) for ribs, etc.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 23, 1857

See The Maine Woods. ("Early the next morning (July 23) the stage called for us, the Indian having breakfasted with us, and already placed the baggage in the canoe to see how it would go. . . . When we reached the lake, about half past eight in the evening, it was still steadily raining, and harder than before; and, in that fresh, cool atmosphere, the hylodes were peeping and the toads ringing about the lake universally, as in the spring with us. It was as if the season had revolved backward two or three months, or I had arrived at the abode of perpetual spring. We had expected to go upon the lake at once, and, after paddling up two or three miles, to camp on one of its islands ; but on account of the steady and increasing rain, we decided to go to one of the taverns for the night, though, for my own part, I should have preferred to camp out.”)

July 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 23

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.” 

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

A Maine guide and outfitter.

July 22. 

Wednesday. 

I am struck by the appearance of large canoe birch trees, even about houses, as an ornamental tree, and they are very enlivening, their trunks white as if whitewashed, though they rarely escape being barked and so disfigured more or less by mischievous fingers. Their white boles are in keeping with the fresh, cool air. 

At a mile and a half north of Bangor, passed the spot, at Treat's Falls, where the first settler and fur-trader, one Treat, lived. . . . 

We wanted to get one who was temperate and reliable, an older man than we had before, well skilled in Indian lore. I was warned not to employ an Indian on account of their obstinacy and the difficulty of understanding one another, and on account of their dirty habits in cooking, etc., but it was partly the Indian, such as he was, that I had come to see. The difficulty is to find one who will not get drunk and detain you wherever liquor is to be had. Some young white men of Oldtown named Pond were named as the very ones for us. But I was bent on having an Indian at any rate. 

While we were talking with Polis, a young, very dark- complexioned Indian, named something like Nicholai Orson, came up, and Polis said, "He go with you." We found that the latter wanted to go very much, said he knew the country and all about it. But I said, " We don't know you." He was too dark-colored, as if with African blood, — P. said they did not mix with them, — and too young for me. 

While I was talking with him, Thatcher took Polis aside and in quired the other's character, when P. frankly told him that he wouldn't do for us at all, that he was a very good fellow except that he would get drunk whenever he had a chance. . . . T. said he would get away from Nicholai with as few words as possible. So T. saying to N. that if we wanted him we would call again in a couple of hours, we departed. . . 

A light india-rubber coat is useful, but you cannot work in it in warm weather, for your underclothes will be just as wet with perspiration as if dipped in water before you know it, and, beside, I wore off the rubber against the cross-bars behind my back. You could not wear india-rubber pants in addition unless you sat perfectly still in cool weather. The only india-rubber bags we could find in Bangor were no better than a canvas bag, the rubber rapidly cracking and peeling off, letting in water and dirtying the contents. They would have been an imposition if the seller had not admitted that they would not hold water, and asserted that he could not make one that would. Doubted; far better ones could be home-made of good india-rubber cloth. 

Called on a Mr. Coe, part proprietor (?) of the Chamberlain Farm, so called, on Chamberlain Lake (spoke of it as "our farm"), who gave us some advice as to our outfit. Said he should like to have the making up of our packs, thinking we should take too many things. Told of one who, having to walk a few days through the woods, began by loading himself with some fifteen pounds of shot. The rule is to carry as little as possible. Advised us to go on foot, carry but few supplies, and replenish at the different camps we might find. 

He hastily scribbled this memorandum for us : —

“Axe 

Canoe 

Blankets 

Fry-pan 

Teakettle 

Dippers 

Tea 

Salt 

Hard-bread and pork 

Pepper 

Matches 

Ammunition and lines and hooks 

Camphor “

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 22,1857

He hastily scribbled this memorandum. See July 19, 2018 (“For such an excursion as the above, carry and wear: . . .”)

July 22. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 22

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024