To the editor:
I had no plans for an addition to my previous letter on walking treasures in the Star City, but this morning while walking a sound came drifting over the lightly fog-laden air that took me back to my childhood.
Back when my brother and I were 6 to 10 years old — you know, that time of life when many things were magical — my father would pack us up in the VW van and head for the “wilderness” every spring. At this time, the wilderness to my brother and me was called the Allagash.
We would travel what seemed like miles into the woods, through and over impossible-to-navigate muddy roads, to Little Fall Brook Lake. To my young mind, this was a whole new, strange world. The lake’s edge was reached by slogging quite a long way through sometimes knee-high mud where we found locals’ boats called scows.
Once on the lake we were treated to excellent fishing as well as glimpses of the local wildlife, such as moose who often waded into the lake for their food. Such forays often left them with clumps of “seaweed” dangling from their antlers. This was a comical ight, yet at the same time I thought how much like aliens from other planets they resembled, just chewing their “cud.”
Towards dusk I heard a sound that all at once filled me with a sense of wonder and melancholy. Seeing my reaction my dad pointed to a rather large bird on the surface about 50 yards away and told me it was a loon.
This was a memory that emblazoned itself on my mind and it was this sound that came floating over the rooftops near Mantle Lake that morning. So beautiful, and yet kind of mournful, but it was a Presque Isle treasure that transported me back to a time when the world was new — at least to me.
Clare Kierstead
Presque Isle
