One more story about the Weegar canoe. The Bro and I decided we would take a river trip. He seemed to think the Sebois, a few miles west of and roughly parallel to Baxter State Park, would be a fine river to run and would offer good trout fishing possibilities. So one fine day – this was some years back, maybe 1992, when the Bro’s old salmon-pink VW was still running – we headed north. We travelled independently and rendezvoused at the Whetstone Falls bridge, where we left his car. We drove back out to Route 11, up to Shin Pond and in the Grand Lake road to the bridge where we launched, about a mile above the Grand Pitch. In the center of the canoe we piled our tents, cooler, and fishing gear. Off we went.

It was late in the day when we got started, so we made camp at the Grand Pitch, at the campsite on the bluff overlooking the falls. I don’t recall what we fixed for supper, but it must have been quick because we were being eaten alive. We spent a restless night in the tents, then in the dawn packed up our stuff, loaded it into the boat, which we had portaged around the pitch, and pushed away as fast as we could, hoping to outrun at least some of the bugs as we rode the current tdownriver. As if.

The water was lower than we had hoped for. We hit quite a few bony riffles where we had to get out and line the canoe until we reached deeper water. Loaded as it was, the boat was taking a bit of a beating on the rocks, but no leaks developed. The low water was the least of our worries: it was hot as the hinges of Hades, and the bugs were swarming. And every time we stopped to fish in a likely-looking spot, we got skunked. The river, near as we could tell, was fishless.

Murderous sun. Savage blackflies. Long, stumbling passages over the nearly-waterless riffles. No fish.

A bridge appeared. Not the Whetstone Falls bridge where the Bro’s VW was parked, but a bridge, and bridge spelled escape. We hauled the boat up on the shore. There was – think of the luck! -- someone there at that bridge, a guy and a girl. We practically begged the guy to take the Bro downriver to where the Bro’s car was parked. He agreed. I waited there for what seemed a long time until I heard the VW approaching. We piled our gear into the car, concealed the boat in the woods, and headed upriver to fetch my vehicle. I don’t remember that we had much to say on that ride.

That was the only river trip the Bro and I made in the Weegar canoe. The canoe came through the ordeal fine. The canvas skin was streaked in a few spots from sliding over rocks, and a forward rib was cracked slightly from where we had whanged into a boulder in the current, but other than that the boat was unfazed. I subsequently paddled it down a benign stretch of the Androscoggin a few times, but its days of “wilderness” river running were over.