A month ago Your Scribe was motoring on the Old Canada Road, which goes from Skowhegan to Canada.

Pictured here is a fine (albeit modest in size) monument to the journey of Benedict Arnold. He fought for the colonialists before becoming America's best known traitor, and led a small army up the Kennebec and Chaudiere rivers in 1775 to attack the British at Quebec.

He started about this time of year, and he had to build 200 bateaux and canoes before he left. Most of the bateaux, hastily made of green wood, sank.

Because they were traveling north as the winter approached, they had a terribly difficult time as recounted in Kenneth Roberts's wonderful book, "Arundel." Diseased, exhausted and short of manpower, they attacked Quebec Dec. 31, 1775, and were repulsed.

Arnold was a prominent Yankee general at that time, but in 1780 he switched sides and tried to hand the fort at West Point to the British. The plot was foiled. He managed to elude capture, and settled in London. He was a merchant there until his death in 1801.

My other reason for being interested in this area is that many Canadians came south on this route in the late 19th and early 20th centures to work in the mills of Maine. Unlike most European immigrants, they often went back to their homes for visits and R & R.

During Prohibition, there was a lively commerce in moving whiskey down this thoroughfare because Canada had not banned alcohol.

I learned about the Old Canada Road when talking to French-Canadian immigrants for my book, "Quiet Presence: Stories of Franco-Americans in New England."

It was published in the early '80s and I still get letters and emails from those looking for extra copies. There aren't any, I regret to say.

The Old Canada Road near Caratunk is developing into a growing tourist area, for many canoeists and rafters enjoy sport on the Kennebec near the Forks.

When I think of the upper Kennebec, though, I don't see hedonist adverturers navigating a historic and beautiful waterway. I visualize the struggling army of Benedict Arnold - and I wonder how they made it from the coast to Quebec in the dead of a cold winter.

I know we have tough outdoorsmenn in Maine today, but those guys were REALLY tough.

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