Paddle Slowly and Enjoy the Blue

"Mark's Canoe Shop"

I am a true blue fan of CBS’s hit television drama NCIS, and I confess that Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, played by Mark Harmon, seems like a hero I know. For the past 11 seasons, Gibbs has been constructing boats and other wooden masterpieces in his basement to steady his hand and focus his thoughts. Gibbs’ private “wood shop” has become a fascinating place that thousands of viewers like to visit every Tuesday night. Building a boat by hand, naming it, and giving it away, is a powerful act of love. Over the past 11 months, my son, Mark, built a canoe out of cedar wood and synthetic fabric for his dad in his spare time. On July 25, 2014, he drove down Washington Street with that long, light canoe tied to the roof of his Chevy Impala as his dad stood waiting in front of our house. It was a Kodak moment, and it was purely nonfiction! Sometimes the people we know and love stand taller than all of the action heroes we watch on TV or see in the movies. When Mark pulled into our driveway and told his dad the canoe was for him, he was way taller than Gibbs!

The hand-made canoe arrives at Lake Nequasset

Without a doubt, Bath, Maine, inspired Mark to build a boat. Mark was with Joe and I when we first visited Bath during a February snowstorm, and, of course, we went to the Maine Maritime Museum. At the museum there is an interactive tugboat exhibit, and we rang the bell and pretended to steer as I told Mark about his grandfather’s experience working on the tugboats of New York Harbor after WWII. Across from the museum’s gift store there is a display case with a ship’s engine and a photograph of Steve McQueen playing Jake Holman in the motion picture “The Sand Pebbles.”  As we read Jake’s quote about the beautiful sound of an engine in motion, I told Mark about my dad’s service on naval destroyers in the Pacific and the North Atlantic as a chief in the engine room, and my brother’s service as a naval officer in the Indian Ocean, the North Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. Mark is a high school math teacher, and he listens better than anyone I know, so it’s not surprising that he absorbed the naval history of our family that day and saved it to his hard drive. 
 

Boats and blue water surround Seguin Island

Later, after buying our Maine house, Mark returned to Bath in July, 2013 to help celebrate my birthday, and four of us took a boat ride to Seguin Island to picnic, hike, and take in the blue view! On a perfect birthday, we vowed that all July birthdays from that day forward would be celebrated on a boat, surrounded by blue water! I have always liked the color blue, but in Maine it is becoming my go to color! (Our painter, John Ater, advised us to paint the ceiling of our covered deck a sky blue because it is a Maine tradition, and I am so glad we did!) What’s astonishing about our July 27, 2013 commitment to blue is that Mark silently promised to build a boat to insure our future happiness! He began his canoe project two months later with the help of his colleague, an experienced boat builder and a phenomenal wood shop teacher!

Lake Nequasset

Even before Mark arrived with his birch colored canoe, Joe and I began scouting out sites that would be good for launching a 14 foot, lightweight boat. Thanks to a helpful neighbor, we discovered Lake Nequasset, which is located in nearby Woolwich and happens to be the water supply for the city of Bath.  As Bath and fate would have it, Woolwich was originally called “Nequasset” after the peninsula's 425 acre lake. The lake was named by the Abenaki Indians, and its wealth of fish, plants and surrounding timber encouraged early settlement. Edward Bateman and James Brown (no relation to “The Godfather of Soul”) purchased the land from the Abenaki tribal leader known as “Chief Robinhood” in 1639. Perhaps the area residents thought the prices were too high at the local trading post and the chief was really a noble bandit. I support the theory that history is a mixture of myth and fact in equal measure. History tells us, however, that beautiful Nequasset endured more than its fair share of violence and heartbreak one hundred years before the Revolutionary War. According to the history books, warriors attacked a trading post, which belonged to the Hammond family, on August 13,1676 at Day’s Ferry. The warriors burned, looted, scalped, and captured members of the family living and working by the Kennebec River. Nequasset was attacked again during King William’s War and again during Dummer’s War in 1723. The last recorded conflict on this striking blue and green peninsula occurred in 1758 during the French and Indian War. In 1759, Nequasset became a district of Georgetown and was renamed Woolwich after a city in England. If only the French and Indian War had been the last war, we wouldn’t have to worry about the alarming news reports we hear today from around the globe. And that is why paddling Mark’s canoe on Lake Nequasset is so extraordinary. It’s like taking a spoonful of sugar with your morning coffee or afternoon tea! Paddling a canoe makes swallowing the news a whole lot easier! I believe Mark’s birch like canoe reminds us all of the Native Americans who used to paddle on Lake Nequasset hoping to maintain their balance with nature and their way of life. Ironically, Mark's birthday is August 13, and he is a peacemaker!

The canoe is successfully launched!

By chance, when Joe and I viewed

 Fish Ladder Restoration Project underway at Nequasset Dam

Lake Nequasset's boat launch for the first time, we saw a crew of men working on the lake’s dam. Later, I discovered that they were part of the Nequasset Fish Ladder Restoration Project, and I became even more interested in the history of the lake. According to a Times Record article published last December, the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust (KELT) received grants to the sum of $50,000 to support outreach, planning, design and management of the restoration project that will replace a 58 year old concrete pool and weir style fish ladder on the active alewife run at the Nequasset Dam. Alewives serve as food for striped bass, bluefish, haddock, halibut, seals, and whales to name just a few sea creatures that benefit from the safe passage of this fish which spends most of its life at sea but returns to fresh water to spawn. An improved passage for the alewives also helps to maintain a strong connection between our ocean, rivers and lakes. Last but not least, alewives are the preferred bait for spring lobster fishery. As we all know, lobsters and Mainers go together like a coke and a smile, but who knew that a favorite spot for local fishing and canoeing was also the number one priority for KELT and its commitment to fish ladder recovery along the Kennebec! One quiet ride in Mark’s hand-made canoe certainly taught me a lot about nature, and balance, and the beauty of a timeless form of transportation! It was fun to go native in Woolwich! And after an afternoon of paddling, we returned home to Washington Street for a barbeque topped off with a black raspberry and vanilla ice cream cake from Witch Spring Hill. Birthdays don't get any better than that!

P.S. Since Mark gave the canoe to his father, you may be wondering what Mark gave me for my birthday. Mark knows me well, so he gave me a dozen muffins from his favorite local bakery in Somerville, MA to share with the family. Sugar times 12 equals happiness in Bath and everywhere!