The word “Allagash” means different things to different people, but for most it is synonymous with wilderness, a strong but slippery idea, irresistable to a writer. So when the Natural Resources Council of Maine asked me to write about the 60th anniversary of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, I said yes, even though I was busy and the deadline was short. As I dug into my files, first the hard copy folder, I found notes from the early aughts, an interview with NRCM executive director Brownie Carson, newspaper clippings and more notes from public hearings I don’t remember attending. When I turned to my digital files, I discovered I had written this same story for NRCM 20 years ago, on the 40th anniversary of the Waterway!
Recollections of writing about rivers are vague when compared to the more visceral memories of the experience of rivers. And so I do remember, vividly, paddling the Waterway in 2007.
Rest in peace, Gerry.
