Changes in my generation – 2 of 2

Industrial changes in my generation

  Editor’s Note: This is the final installment of a two-part series written by Bev Rand of Sherman and looking back at the changes he’s witnessed in local life over the years.

Another big change in my lifetime is winter recreation. As a youngster growing up, we had skis with a narrow toe strap. No foot harnesses so that you could steer the ski with the toe of your foot. We had runner sleds and toboggans to slide. Riding in a one-horse pung on a Sunday afternoon to visit a relative was common. In the late ’60s, snowmobiles came to this area. Our first ones were ten-horse, one-lungers, that is, one cylinder with ten horsepower. If we rode for an afternoon for ten miles we thought we had gone on a big adventure. These new inventions were prone for breakdowns. In the first days of snowmobiling, we made our own trails. We took the freedom to go wherever we wanted to go. Today, the sleds are bigger, more powerful and can go 100 miles per hour. Snowmobile clubs have been organized throughout the state. The clubs in corporation with the state groom over 13,000 miles of trails in Maine. Locally, Birch Point and Vacationland Estates have as many visitors in the winter as they do in the summer. It has been reported that snowmobilers bring the state over 350 million dollars a season. It was my pleasure to be the president of The Maine Snowmobile Association for two years. I was active in helping to organize clubs, and to meet with legislators in regards to snow mobile laws. We worked hard to get Baxter State Park open for snowmobiles on its perimeter road. In my time, there were some thirsty thousand family members in the 280 clubs throughout Maine. The MSA held monthly directors meetings and encouraged the members to attend. The MSA has been a strong leader in the development of snowmobiling. We organized the Big Valley Sno Club in Island Falls as one of the first clubs in Aroostook County. Many of the members of the MSA attended the National snowmobile conventions held in various cities throughout the United States and Canada. It was in Milwaukee that the Snowmobile magazine presented me with the Snowmobile Man of the Year Award. Thanks to my once neighbor and good friend for sending the magazine the information needed for me to be presented this award. In the first years of snowmobiling, I rode many hours on the trails in Maine. In fact, in two winters I put on 4,000 miles.
The industrial development of our nation changed dramatically our ways of hunting and fishing. My first adventure to a hunting camp was in 1935. The camp, known as Model Lodge, was located five miles in the Maine woods. The tote road was swamped out for horses. Along the side of the road were large spruce fir and hemlock trees the lumbermen as yet had not cut. We had marked our trails on the trunks of these trees. This was done by taking an axe and blazing a mark on each side of the tree. The only road to camp was the winter road used by lumbermen with their teams of horses along with mechanical log haulers. We did have contact with people as we had CB radios that would sometimes get out to the clearing.
Today, the woods have been cut. In harvesting the lumber, a road was made about every half mile either by a skidder or a road for the lumber truck to haul the lumber. This has made it so you can drive a pick-up truck or ATV to the hunting camp. Also, you can do some hunting from those roads. No more following the spotted trails. If you lack something at camp, you can go into town and get it. Today, the hunters often stay in motels and drive to the hunting areas. It is not so easy to get lost in the Maine woods today. In years past, we almost always wore a compass attached to our woolen hunting jacket.
It is the same way in fishing. We used to walk through the woods to brooks and streams. Now we can drive our vehicle to the water sources in the big woods. We do not take the long trips with the canoe and out board motors or camp along the banks of the rivers. One thing that I looked forward to each June, after the potato crop was planted, was to take a fishing trip with my 20-foot canoe and motor up the Aroostook River to Millinocket and Munsungun lakes. Camping beside the river and listening to the well-built and muscled fire warden telling stories about poling the canoes up the river are cherished memories I have of the great Maine woods. On one occasion, he and a fellow guide poled their canoe over the Aroostook falls. A feat that only a very few men have ever accomplished. Most of the fishermen carried their canoes and dunnage around the falls. My first year on the fishing trip was with a trapper, guide and expert canoe man. He taught me a great deal about canoeing, poling a canoe in shallow water, how to build a functional fireplace for cooking hearty meals. These fireplaces would serve nearly as well as a wood burning cook stove found at home. It was his plan to look for dead and dried ash trees before we came to the campsite. He would cut down one of the trees and tow it to the campsite. The good dried wood was always cut down around the camping area, he said. This tradition of canoeing and camping along the river is still popular on the 92 miles of the Allegash River. This is the same trip that Bill Sewall and guide Dow took Teddy Roosevelt on many years ago. These days, fishing is usually on a less arduous sport. Staying in sporting camps, along the river or lake that you can rive to is more of a choice for fishermen. The modernization of our time by developing the four-wheel drive pickup truck and ATVs have made this possible. This also has made it more feasible to drive into the lodges found deep within the Maine woods. Some of the same sites that I once used to mark and walk to are now accessible by pick-up trucks or ATVs and snowmobiles.
The influence of industrial modernization has been significant at Pleasant Lake in Island Falls. When my father and I bought the camp, we did have electric lights. Running water that was gravity-fed from Kellog Spring on the hill a short distance from our camp. That was our drinking water supply. We had no electric refrigerator, but wooden bins built into the side of the stream with covers. The cool, clear water ran through these bins, which kept the food supply cool in the summer months. It made an excellent cooler. My father and I bought this cottage (called camp) in 1944, which included a 125 feet of shore frontage. The camp was of old-type construction with stand-up siding and no studding. Eventually, the fireplace and the chimney tipped the peak of the roof one foot closer to the water’s edge. The camp was torn down in 1964 and a new camp was constructed. The original 1944 camp and lot were bought for $3,000. In comparing with prices today, it is doubtful if a shore lot could be bought for less than $50,000. Today, instead of modest, so-called camps, the owners are now building expensive year around homes. With these homes come play toys, party boats, jet skis and other motorized watercraft. The canoes, rowboats and out-board motorboats are not as popular.
Across the lake at Birch Point is now longer the same as when we bought the camp. Then Joe Edwards had a small residence. He has added rooms, a small store with a sportsmen atmosphere. Out on the point was a dance pavilion where dances were held on Saturday nights. Back away from the dance pavilion there was a large building for ice storage. In February, blocks of ice would be cut from the lake and stored in the sawdust in this building. This ice would be used to make homemade ice cream that he would sell at the store. Campers along the lake could come by boat in the summer to buy blocks of ice for summer time refrigeration while vacationing at the lake. Today, there is a large new lodge with a restaurant and living quarters upstairs with a bowling alley in the downstairs area. The large recreation area where the dance pavilions were located and north of the former store now is filled with 75 camping sites. Today, the third generation of Edwards is taking over the operations of Birch Point. They have made cable television available to campers as well as to residences around the lake. What was once a cow pasture and potato fields on the Walker’s farm is now an 18-hole golf course. A very nice clubhouse has been built with accommodations for the 19th hole. At Birch Point, they often have a Saturday night pit roast or barbecue ribs with a local band playing music. The Fourth of July and Labor Day weekends are full weekends with campers. These are big changes from the past when the emphasis was on hunting and fishing and sitting by the campfire.
Health Care—I received a telephone call from Alvin Jordan who is two years younger than I. He was born and raised on Golden Ridge, but left the area some 70 years ago for the banking business in New York State. He has maintained contact with me through the years. We had a good time reminiscing how health care was provided for us as we were growing up in rural Maine. Dr. Upton had a small office at Sherman Corner. In his office, he had a supply of medicines and on his mantel sat a mortar and pestle indicating that he made some of his own medicines. Alvin told of an experience of going to his office with a toothache. Dr. Upton went into his adjoining kitchen and brought out a can of water and said, “Yup, yup boy” as he always spoke with a stutter, “you can spit into this.” He fastened his forceps upon the aching tooth without anesthesia. On the first try to pull the tooth, the forceps slipped, but on the second try he was successful. Dr. Upton said to the boy patient that there was a second tooth that needed pulling and that tooth was pulled too.  This is one example of how versatile he was in caring for his patients. Dr. Upton was well-known for making house calls in all kinds of inclement weather—in the summer with horse and single wagon and in the winter with horse and pung. Babies were born mostly at home. Dr. Upton delivered a great many, often with the help of a neighbor or so-called practical nurse.
Dr. Harris from Sherman Mills doctored in the area, but on a limited amount as he was along in years.
My own experience with Dr. Upton was when I was in third grade and needed my adenoids out. One Friday afternoon after school, he came to our house to remove them. I remember this operation vividly, as he told my mother to put me on the couch and hold my arms down. He then put his knee on my chest and clamped a cloth saturated with ether over my nose. I struggled but with no avail. My adenoids came out. I went to school on the next Monday, proud of the fact that I returned to school. I had not been late or absent from school in three years. In the fifth grade, I had my first absence from school.
Dr. Banton from Island Falls was sometimes called to Golden Ridge to attend to a patient. He had a Model A Ford converted to a “snowbile” by having runners for the front wheels and elongated tracks for the rear. One time he was called to Golden Ridge and he knew the road had drifted deep on Perry Hill, so he called for a team of horses to pull him over the hill. But when he got up the hill, he pulled the “snowbile” into the field away from the drifted snow and made the trip unassisted.
These doctors were dedicated to their practice. Called day or night, back roads, woods roads, lumber camps, wherever, they would go when they were called.
It is interesting to note that Dr. Upton hardly ever sent out bills. “They will pay sometime,” he would say.
In the later part of my youth, the Milliken Hospital in Island Falls was established along with ambulance service. More doctors were in the general area but they generally did not make house calls. In need of a doctor, you made an appointment and went to the office. Cost would be upward from $3 per house call.
Dr. Hoy, chiropractor, moved into the area in the early ’30s. He did not make house calls. It was by appointment only at his office. He was given the nickname of “punch doctor” soon after he began practice. His son graduated from Sherman High School and went on to school to become a chiropractor.