The engine was barely strong enough to fight it, and progress was slow. The current was more powerful than I’d expected, especially for October when water levels are typically low. A few stars appeared and the channel narrowed. A beaver waddled to the shoreline and swam around the canoe as though it had never seen a human before. The wilderness around it was dense and primitive. Croix was a dark shadow by the time I made it off the flowage and into the river. I got a late start and lost an hour when the propeller hit a rock. With all of the news about growing tension along “the world’s friendliest border,” I thought it would be interesting to travel along it instead of cross it.
Most of the eastern third of the line runs along rivers and lakes, like Spednic, so the best way to see it is from the water. I grew up in northern Maine and had always been fascinated with our “forgotten border.” At 5,525 miles, including Alaska, the northern boundary is the longest land border between two nations in the world. This was day three of a 4,000-mile journey along the United States-Canada boundary. The last thing I saw before falling asleep was a shooting star splitting the sky in two. The Milky Way ran exactly over the middle of the campsite, perpendicular to the stream. Northern Maine gets cold in early October, and I had spent most of the night shivering beneath clear skies and a swirl of stars. Wind roaring through the trees was thick with the dank scent of lake water turning over. The eastern sky was an arc of amber light. When I finally got up, it was 5:30 a.m.įog flowed from the mountains into Spednic Lake.
I barely slept as gusts burst off the lake and rattled the tentpoles. Branches and leaves ricocheted off the tent, and the trees around Diggity Stream groaned. The wind started blowing at two in the morning.