11 miles / 18 km Crow's Nest, Chamberlain Lake - Scofield Cove, Churchill Lake
Fine and cool with strong North wind.
We had a smooth paddle across the bay to the Tramway carry. On nearing the carry we spotted 3 moose grazing in the water. We just stopped and drifted for ½ hour watching the moose blithely unaware of our presence, munching the water weeds.
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Suddenly they were startled and at that moment a group appeared at the take-out having walked down from Eagle Lake to view the old steam boiler.
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The portage was a doddle after the 9 mile hike of two days ago.
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We took time to look at the old boilers and trains from the time of the Eagle Lake Tramway built in 1902 to transport logs from Eagle Lake to Chamberlain Lake.
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At the put-in we met a scout group from Virginia taking things slowly. They were taking out Tuesday from Churchill dam ie 4 days to paddle 40km. They had been flown into Allagash Lake and walked the Allagash stream. Hearing this we were glad we had opted not to do that route.
Just like yesterday, the wind got up again and it was hard paddling all the way to John’s bridge.
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After passing John’s bridge we met Emily, paddling in the opposite direction. She was alone paddling in her self-built wood canvas canoe, on an 8 week trip to the Kennebec. She had just poled her way up the Allagash. She had a modern seal line pack in het boat but also an old cane basket for her food, two Northwood paddles made by her grandfather and a self-made pole. The pole she had started the trip with had broken. It makes our attempt at the NFCT as a tandem pair seem really easy in comparison to what she is doing alone.
We stopped early choosing the site at Scofield Cove since Scofield Point was occupied.
There was a lot of dead wood lying around behind the camping area so made a fire for fun. We have cooked for the whole trip on our Primus stove.
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Tomorrow we need to get up early to catch the Dam release into the Allagash at 8am.
Hopefully the wind will be quiet early in the morning as we still have to paddle about 8km down Churchill Lake to get there.
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