Day three started with a calm morning of birds chirping and smooth water as we broke down camp, loaded the canoes, and headed to Churchill Dam. It was a bit chilly that morning as we motored in a line across Churchill Lake into the Heron Lake basin where the headwaters of the Allagash River begin it's journey to the St John River on the border of Maine and Canada. As we entered Heron Lake just past the narrows where High Bank and Jaws campsites sit, we were treated to a bull moose sighting on the west shore! The water was a bit on the lower side as we made our way through the shallow area of Heron Lake to Churchill Dam/Depot.
As we pulled up to the landing at Churchill Dam and began to portage our gear to the staging area for the ranger, we took a few minutes to explore the dam and the Churchill Depot museum. The museum contains several relics from the early logging days along the Allagash Waterway as well as several native artifacts, including stone tools and arrowheads. We then met with one of the rangers stationed at the dam to check in and load our gear into his truck for the portage down to Bissonette Bridge, this way we can run Chase Rapids (class I and II) with empty canoes. Empty canoes make navigating the rock fields and shallow water of the rapids much easier and also prevents anyone from having a yard sale of gear in the event of a canoe upset. It takes about an hour and a half to run the rapids to Bissonette Bridge, where we would stop for a break, to re-hydrate, and load the canoes back up. The rapids run went off without a hitch, despite lower water. Last year's trip came with three out of four canoe's upsetting in the rapids, this year all five canoes made it through without incident!
As we exited the river into the delta at the southern end of Umsaskis Lake we were greeted with a bit of a headwind. The prevailing wind is a northwest wind and with the Allagash Waterway moving north, the wind is often in our face. It took us a little bit of time to get across Umsaskis to our campsite for the night, Ledges. As we approached the large rock face that protrudes off the shore into the lake, we noticed a young moose calf deceased just off shore bobbing in the waves. A stark reminder of the harshness of the North Maine Woods and another reminder to never drink un-filtered or un-treated water in the wilderness. The campsite itself sits up the hill, tucked into the woods and we quickly had camp set up for the evening. We enjoyed a meal of seasoned chicken and rice pilaf with blueberry and apple pie's for desert topped off with cigars and bourbon while sitting on the shore. The sunset was stunning that evening with clear skies and a beautiful view from the top of the ledge overlooking Umsaskis Lake.
