"It was on the 6th of September of 1759 that I reached by twelfth birthday."

That is the first line of one of the great books about the cabin country of Maine.

Your Scribe is referencing "Arundel," by Kenneth Roberts, written in 1930.

(An aside: The line is not as famous as "I once owned a farm in Africa," but "Arundel" was never made into a film with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep.)

Arundel is about Benedict Arnold's plan in 1775 to travel from Brunswick to Quebec to capture that Canadian city from the French.

This was the "good" Arnold, a colonel in the colonial forces before he turned turncoat.

"Arundel" is considered an historical novel, and to me it is one of the most compelling for those interested in the outdoors.

Several hundred men from the colonies gathered near Merrymeeting Bay, built canoes, organized supplies and headed up the Kennebec River for one of the longest paddle-and-portage expeditions in New England history.

Several thoughts on the trip, which is still memorialized by historical societies in Maine:

- The communities through which they traversed are well known today, including Gardiner, Hallowell, Fort Western (Augusta), Fort Halifax (Winslow), Norridgewock and Skowhegan.

- Arnold's group started in September, but hit cold weather fast. They approached Quebec in late December, which means they had at least eight weeks of real cold. Those guys were tough (or stupid).

- The book carries wonderful passages of canoeing, camping, portaging and hunting and fishing. That was real outdoor living, with starvation and hostile Indians adding (greatly) to the challenge.

- Author Roberts is adept at noting how skillful the Maine Indians were at living off the land, and how difficult it was for most colonists.

- On a personal note, "Arundel" is the first book that was read to me as a child (that I remember). There was no Goldbug or Dr. Seuss - I got the unvarnished tale of life in the woods, and this adventure story has always stuck with me. That first reader was my grandmother, Edith Carter, of Rochester and Canandaigua, N.Y. She eventually lost her eyesight, and moved to an assisted living home in Kennebunkport (now the Captain Lord Mansion, a popular guesthouse). So she finished her life very close to Arundel, the area after which the novel is named.

So there it is - no farm in Africa but a rambunctious adventure tale of central Maine.

Let them have Redford - we have Kenneth Roberts, one of the great historical novelists of his era or any other.

E-mail this entry to a friend