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07/01/2009
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BUDGET CUTS ORDERED
Many happy returns in Richmond
Tax woes land on Whitefield
Rapist denied new trial
AUGUSTA MINDING A MINE
SPORT OF KINGS Falconry a blend of dedication and commitment
COLLEGE HOCKEY: Maine rallies but falls short against Boston College
COLLEGE ROUNDUP: Colby women win season opener at home tournament
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from the Morning Sentinel
WEDDING BURGLAR JAILED
Youths talk Turkey Day
Plenty of free Thanksgiving meals available
Turkey prices make for happier holiday
Kennebec County Superior Court
POLICE
COLLEGE HOCKEY: Maine rallies but falls short against Boston College
COLLEGE ROUNDUP: Colby women win season opener at home tournament
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from the Morning Sentinel
Gil Whitney's story doesn't begin with the black bear in the middle of Flagstaff Lake.
No, it begins much earlier than that. Back when the trip was first getting its steam. That's when Whitney thought the trip was over nearly as soon as it began.
"I was about ready to drop a dime and call somebody," Whitney said this week, just days after becoming the first person to complete the entire 740-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail on a solo kayaking trip. "I thought I was going to have to go home."
A 67-year-old retired trucker from Lakeville, Whitney was just 10 days out from the start of what would be a 57-day trip from Old Forge, N.Y., to Fort Kent. He hit some rapids in the Saranac River, and his kayak overturned. Whitney got his legs under him, righted the kayak and dragged it to shore.
Suddenly, he realized his paddles were gone. So, too, was the spray skirt that helped keep his cargo dry.
"I walked in from where I was, and there was a road about a hundred yards away," Whitney said. "I walked down, saw a little house and knocked on the guy's door. I told him I had a little problem."
The man drove Whitney to the nearest supply store and he bought two more paddles and another spray skirt.
And his trip for the history books was back on the water.
Whitney, who only started kayaking last summer, didn't set out to set any records or to prove anything to anyone. He did it for the simple reason that the small inner child in all of us cannot ignore.
"I just did it because it was there, and I thought I'd do it," said Whitney, who admitted the trip was more strenuous than he'd expected, in large part because so much of the paddling through New York, Vermont and New Hampshire is upstream.
The seed was first planted in Whitney's head last summer, when he and his grandson, Thomas, were paddling the Allagash Wilderness Waterway.
"While we were up there, we met a guy that was doing (the Northern Forest Canoe Trail) in a canoe," Whitney said. "I thought, that sounds interesting, you know. All winter, I got online and looked stuff up trying to find information about it.
"My doctor didn't think it was such a good idea. He thought I was right off my rocker."
But that didn't deter Whitney in the least. And on May 1, he dropped a brand new Old Town Cayuga kayak into the water at Old Forge, kissed his wife goodbye and started paddling.
The flip into the Saranac aside, the most difficult part of the trip was a three-mile portage in New York where Whitney had to drag his vessel over a rocky path -- physically taxing labor he later realized he didn't even have to contend with. The route had since been redirected to a nearby road that Whitney did not know about.
He slept in an ultralight tent, with nothing between him and the ground but the tent and sleeping bag. A T-shirt stuffed with a rolled-up change of clothes served as his pillow. He lived off oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar for breakfast and freeze-dried packaged food for dinner, food he prepared with a small wood-burning campstove that heated water at a not-so-blistering pace. Powered by pine cones and twigs, it took five full minutes to bring just four cups of water to a boil.
On Lake Champlain, as he tried to cross back into the United States from a small stretch of the route that extended into Quebec, he was stopped by U.S. Border Patrol agents who wanted to see his passport.
"At least they didn't ask for permission to board the ship," quipped Whitney, who may have lost four inches off his waistline but lost absolutely nothing off his fastball while he was gone.
Though it was a long, isolated journey, Whitney said he never felt lonely -- and only once was he ever really concerned about his overnight safety.
"I didn't get (lonely), not where I drove trucks so much before. Being alone didn't really bother me," Whitney said. "I was in Plattsburgh, N.Y. -- that was only night I was worried about what was going on all around me. I was really close to the city, and being in a tent all alone like that, that was the only time I was worried at all.
"There's not many towns along the way. They say there is, but there's actually not. There's just 40 towns over 740 miles, so they're not very close, you know."
Along the route, he saw deer, moose, beaver, bobcats and lynx. Oh yeah, and one bear.
One bear swimming right in the middle of Flagstaff Lake.
"I saw something in the water and I had my grandson with me, because he was doing a small section with me," Whitney said. "I told him I was going to speed up a little and see what it was. I thought maybe it was a moose, but when I got closer it wasn't big enough. I thought maybe it was just a log bobbing up and down. I got a little closer, maybe with 10 or 15 feet, and it turned its head.
"I saw the ears and nose, and I realized it was a black bear. I said, 'Thomas, it's a bear,' and as soon as I said that, its feet and shoulders came out of the water and he turned and was gone. Man, can they move on water. You've seen how fast they can move on land? Well, they can do the same in the water."
Seems Whitney could move fairly swiftly in the water himself.
One thunderstorm, a spill into the Saranac and a bear sighting later, Whitney made it -- finally pulling his kayak onto shore last Saturday off the St. John River in Fort Kent.
And he'd encourage anyone to try it on their own, too. Says he'd even consider a similar trip somewhere else.
"Just go ahead and do it, but just make sure you wear a life jacket is all I'd say," Whitney said. "You know, you can always drop a dime to call somebody if you can't make it."
Travis Barrett -- 621-5648
tbarrett@centralmaine.com
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