Quintessential Maine Paddling in the Grand Lakes Region
A Weekend in the Downeast Lakes Region
“ Beautiful campsites on a great mix of large and small lakes. Like Nate, I can’t wait to come back for salmon and trout fishing!”
If you were to close your eyes and picture the Maine wilderness, I’d bet you picture a burly guide navigating the rapids of the Allagash or that same guide sitting at the local haunt telling tales of the bear they hunted last season. Happily, you wouldn’t be so far off describing parts of the Downeast Lakes Region, a swath of land about a four-hour drive from Portland.
The area is home to an astounding quantity of natural resource riches including several of Maine’s largest lakes. It also housed the largest (and now defunct) leather tannery in the world during the late 1800s. Currently the area is home to the highest concentration of active Registered Maine Guides in the state: most of whom would love to take you canoeing, fishing, and hunting to your heart’s content. This is where our story takes place and where you should plan your next adventure!
Before you go: Check out the Visitor’s Guide/Maps and the Downeast Lakes Water Trail
Day 1: Cars, Kayaks, and Canoes
The adventure would have begun on the road to Princeton, Maine from Portland, but James and I started the night before. We had taken a small detour to kayak camp on Ram Island, a small but mighty island a few miles off the coast of Machias. We had some unfinished business from our previous paddling trip that got rained out.
After waking up on Ram Island, we kayaked back to the mainland and headed for the Million-Dollar View Scenic Outlook, though not before stopping at the Danforth farmers’ market, which is the best spot in the area for fresh meat and produce. Bonus tip: if there are enough preorders, the seafood vendor makes an appearance! If it’s not a Friday when you’re passing through, you should stop at Knight’s Thrift Way for your provisions.
James grabbed a good looking breakfast sandwich here, and I tucked into a thicker-than-necessary PB+J post roadside-stopover. With food needs met, we set off. There are two places to stop on the scenic byway: one with a view of Katahdin on a clear day, and one with a view spread across a number of the region’s lakes. They are 5 minutes apart and well worth the short detour. The stop was a quick rest for us before heading toward the office of the Downeast Lakes Land Trust (DLLT). We were excited to find the small and mighty team enjoying a frozen treat from the Pine Tree Store across the way from their office with several community members after a forestry tour. It’s one of many ways Nicole, Sarah, and Danielle connect to the land they fight to preserve and conserve.
DLLT manages 57,703 acres of protected lands in the area, including much of our eventual canoe route. The common thread of our discussion was a fierce love of and desire to protect the area’s natural resources as well as contain the recent outbreak of variable-leaf milfoil destroying the waterway habitats of the area. It was likely brought in by folks who didn’t wash their boats before putting in here: a mistake costing the Trust upwards of 100,000 dollars this year alone. DLLT doesn’t have many of the same oversubscribed tourism troubles that much of the rest of the state sees, but there is still plenty of work to manage these lands.
Pro tip: Remember to follow leave no trace principles, even in lightly trafficked areas!
There were smiles all around describing their favorite pockets of the Trust, some of which we got to see first hand. We thanked them for their time and headed for Weatherby’s to pick up our canoe. Weatherby's is famous in the area for hosting delicious dinners for guests of the lodge and those just passing through. In addition, the lounge area and store are fun to poke around. The cabins looked lovely, and James and I decided to bookmark the place for a fishing trip: perhaps next season. The kind folks at Weatherby’s shuttled us a short way to the public boat launch on Grand Lake Stream for our 3-mile paddle to our first campsite.
It was a rather wet evening, so we made quick work of setting up camp. I chose a hammock with a rain fly because it allowed for more dry ground space to eat under and reorganize gear. As was true for the most part on this trip and others we’ve taken, we kept food simple: mostly dehydrated and just-add-water meals. It is important to find a few options you really like. One of my favorites is the Peak breakfast skillet.
Day 2: Beautiful Solitude
This was our long canoe day. We woke up early to heavy rains and thunder but were underway by 8:00a. To our surprise, we only came across two boats on the water the entire day, though we had been informed most of the tourism is guided fishing, and the “pickin’s” are slim in the summer when the fish head for deeper, colder water. We sat in the quiet of the birdsongs, the wind bouncing off the water, and the trees softly swaying as we chatted and paddled.
We took lunch on a small bank by our second lake of the day and made camp by lake 3 of 6. Some highlights included a small cliff jump into the lukewarm water from Caribou Rock and an unmarked portage across a blocked culvert. All told, we reached camp by 3:30p and were able to set up, swim, dry off, read, and nap, all before dinner. The mosquitos were more intense than I’ve ever experienced, so we were in our respective sleeping quarters immediately thereafter.
Day 3: Cheers to 30 miles
This was our toughest canoe day. Thankfully, James and I have great friend-and-travel chemistry, because we were wading through knee deep muck with leeches and the like for a portion of the day. This is the only segment of the trip not recommended for families or new recreationists, in our opinion, however the narrow and shallow waters proved to be beautiful in their own right: lots of reeds, untouched forests, and up close views of frogs and fish.
The awesome folks at Weatherby’s shuttled our car to a campsite on Third Machias Lake (a huge favor they are only able to do during slow times), and we were off the water by midday to return the canoe. On our way out we spent a minute chatting with the folks at Weatherby’s about the resort and the rhythm of the season, and we explored the property a bit before taking off.
Our final stop after 50 miles of dirt roads to reach Route 9 was a quick beer and lunch at Airline Brewing, a gem in Amherst, Maine based in a century-old furniture makerspace. The mussels were good, the beer was thirst-quenching (we both chose a refreshing wheat beer called Schoodic Sunrise), and James punctuated the trip with a peanut-butter-stout float. We left happy and humbled, feeling the high of an outdoor adventure, and I couldn’t stop thinking how truly spot on the Downeast Lakes Land Trust slogan was: Forests and Lakes – For People – Forever.
