TOGUE POND

Very few people have heard of Togue Pond. It's about twenty miles from Millinocket. Hmmm, haven't heard of Millinocket, either? Let me step back a bit.

My family was originally from the Boston area. In the Boston area, the rich people went south and vacationed on Cape Cod, the poor people went north and vacationed in New Hampshire or Maine.

You guessed it. We went north.

In the late 50's my parents told us that we were going to vacation for a whole week in northern Maine. To us, Maine was a place of infinite wonder, danger and adventure. We had heard tales of large animals chasing innocent campers, snow in the middle of July, mosquitoes the size of small airplanes and fish that were big enough to drag you from your boat if you were unfortunate enough to catch one. It was a place that was, in many ways, off the map, barely inhabited and certainly, uncivilized.

And we couldn't wait to experience it. 

We counted the days. The day finally came when we loaded up the 1957 Plymouth station wagon with the six of us and we headed north in the automobile caravan with the rest of Boston's poor people. Back then the main highway, Route 95, was only completed as far as Portland, Maine which meant that the remainder of the trip would take place on two-lane country roads. The day was long and miserable, especially for my parents, having to deal with four kids, two of which were already wearing their bathing suits and the other two who had their fishing poles in hand. As I recall, it was late afternoon when we finally saw the sign that said "Togue Pond Camp". We had arrived.

Truth be told, it wasn't a camp at all. It was a group of about ten cabins that were at the waterfront of beautiful Togue Pond. They served food in the rustic main lodge but my family was in to roughing it - bringing supplies and canned foods from home. In each cabin was an ice box...a true ice box, a white wooden one that smelled like old milk. The ice box itself had little or no insulation, just a metal boxed-in section into which you placed a block of ice every few days. The ice was obtained from an ice shed on the lower pond. I was amazed to see how the ice was obtained and stored. The owners of the camp cut ice from the pond in the dead of Maine's winter and stored it in the shed. In the shed there were several feet of sawdust which insulated the ice from the upcoming warmth of summer. The use of an ice box was not the only step back in time. The accommodations themselves were quite spartan. There was no electricity in the cabins; light was provided by kerosene lanterns. Cooking was accomplished by use of a primitive stove. Water was provided by a hand pump situated in the area of the kitchen sink. Importantly, the pump needed to be "primed" with a small jug of water in order to properly pump water from the well.

From the minute we arrived there, a world of adventure was within our reach. The best thing about it was that our parents let us experience it on our own. For a seven-day period, we were youthful adventurers, hiking, swimming, fishing and learning the ways of the outdoors. And, yes, we learned to cope with the swarms of mosquitoes and black flies which were, and still are, a trademark of the great State of Maine.

We returned to Togue Pond two more times, the last of which when I was fourteen years old. After that our family moved on to other experiences.

Often times in the many years since we vacationed there I have attempted to dredge up some specific experiences from Togue Pond. Each time I have come up blank. I have even gone so far as to search the Internet for some scraps of information about the place. These have also proved to be fruitless. There are times that I have even gone so far as to quietly question whether the place even existed. I quickly dismissed that question.

To my siblings and me, while we may not remember much of what actually occurred at Togue Pond, we all recognize that it played a powerful part in the people that we have become.

We grew up there.


Readers, enjoy your day.