Radio Script #1236

Little Talks on Common Things
March 30, 1980

This program has often spoken of the great river of Central Maine, the Kennebec, and mention has from time to time been made of the Saco, the Androscoggin and the Penobscot. It is time that we said something about the big river that is largely in Canada, but has long stretches that form part of the boundary between Maine and the Canadian frontiers.

In 1894, a full 86 years ago, J. W. Bailey wrote a small volume entitled “The St. John River in Maine, Quebec and New Brunswick.” It contains much interesting information about the river valley that is just as pertinent today as when it was written nearly a century ago.

We cannot guess why the writer selected two particular rivers with which to compare the St. John, one in Canada, the other in the U. S. Those rivers were the Saguenay and the Hudson. He said that those two rivers, plus the St. John, provide more varied and delightful scenery along their banks than do any other of the numerous rivers east of the Mississippi.

While having less populated banks than the Hudson and less spectacular falls than the Saguenay, he tells us that the St. John presents both varied and delightful scenery as well as a variety of people. For its first 75 miles it passes through a great, expansive forest where the abundant wild life includes moose, caribou, bear and beaver. Even when it leaves the forest, for many miles the river passes few settlements, and even those few are separated by long stretches of water with uninhabited banks. Not until it has flowed more than a hundred miles does the river encounter any settlements that are connected by road.

Then come stretches of farmland, inhabited by French Canadians, some of whom are descendants of Acadians expelled from Nova Scotia in the middle of the 18th century. Almost halfway between the river’s source and its mouth, says Bailey, is Grand Falls, the steepest drop in the whole river. He says that there the French tend to become fewer, and the population changes to those of English, Irish and Scotch descent.

All along the way the St. John has been taking in water from numerous small streams, from the south in Maine and from the north in Quebec. One such stream indeed has its source in a small pond near the St. Lawrence river, but not near enough to be north of the divide, so that its waters flow south into the St. John, not north, into the nearer St. Lawrence. Another major tributary is the Madawaska, the outlet of Lac St. Jean.

In the area, says Bailey, the caribou were becoming scarce, and moose were less plentiful than a half-century earlier; but. on the other hand deer were multiplying. Bailey predicted that in a few years moose might become scarce along the St. John as were buffalo on the prairies. How wrong he was is attested by the prevalence of moose nearly a century after he wrote the book, Bailey tells us, however, that in 1894 the area had plenty of bear and no closed season on them. Though they denned up in the winter, all of the rest of the year a hunter could get one any day he chose.

The writer notes that it is soon after crossing the Maine border that the St. John is joined by the Allagash, a river that is entirely within the State of Maine. It is the first of three sizable rivers that enter the St. John from the Maine side. The other two are the Fish and the Aroostook. In 1894 the most remote settlement on the upper St. John was at Seven Islands where the first cabin put up there by a white man had been but in 1825, Bailey reminds us, that the actual number of islands was 13 rather than 7, and he says that in 1894 there were several of those self-contained farms with no contact with the outside world except by way of the river.

While even today, few outsiders know the St. John above the Allagash, the Allagash itself is one of Maine’s foremost tourist attractions. The so-called Allagash Trip is a canoeing venture that has been enjoyed by visitors from allover the nation. Every year boys from Maine’s numerous camps are conducted over the length of the Allagash. My own son first took the trip as a boy camper and later as a camp counselor he conducted younger boys on several Allagash trips. So enchanted was he with the experience that and and his wife canoed the Allagash on their honeymoon.

The trip takes the traveler to several big lakes – Eagle, Chamberlain, Churchill – before going onto the river itself. One first encounters the works of man at the dam, sluiceway and canal at Chamberlain built by lumber interests in the 19th century – then come the falls. around which canoes are frequently carried, especially by the boy campers, because the rapids were dangerous to run. Not long after Bailey wrote his book, an energetic French-Canadian lumber operator built a railroad to Chamberlain to get out the timber.

Not far from its junction with the Allagash the St. John is joined by the St. Francis. Rising in a lake only a dozen miles from the Canadian city of Riviere de Loup, it runs for 75 miles before entering the St. John and and pours a large quantity of water into the larger river. Even before it is joined by the Aroostook, the St. John has been made a major river by its reception of the Allagash, the St. Francis, the Madawaska and the Fish rivers. Even larger than the St. Francis, the Madawaska runs for 110 miles. The Town of Madawaska was first a lumbering center, and today has become the site of the Fraser Paper manufacturing. Not far away is the Canadian city of Edmundston. Between the two places in 1894 were people of whom Bailey who wrote: “The merry Frenchman seldom overworks to earn more than his daily need of pork and vegetables, yet the soft of his fiddle and the tappings of his dance, wafted by the evening breeze, add much to the charm if not to the earnings of the Madawaska Area.”

Another large town in the region is Fort Kent. I know it well, because it was there that I picked up my son and his canoe when he ended his Allagash trips. My first experience with Fort Kent had come earlier when I was traveling the state for a textbook publishing firm in the early 1920’s.

With half a dozen other traveling salesmen, I was staying overnight at the town’s little hotel, when early in the evening we were told, “Ice is out of the Allagash”. We soon joined the local population at the St. John bridge and soon the first ice cakes began to appear. Shortly they came down the river, in profusion, tossing high in the rushing water and pounding against the flooring of the bridge. It was indeed a splendid sight.

Over the stretch of 25 miles from Grand Falls to Andover, N. B., the St. John is rough and filled with treacherous rapids, presenting a challenge to the most adventurous canoeists. It is in that stretch that it is entered by the Aroostook, the last of the Maine streams to join it. It is at Grand Falls that the St. John ceases to be the boundary between the two nations, and from there to its mouth it is entirely in Canada.

It was the region between Fort Kent and Andover that contained most of the territory that caused the so-called Arroostook War, the only conflict between the U. S. and any part of the British Empire in which no shots were fired. Although we have more than once mentioned that controversy on this program, let us now take time to see what Bailey said about it: “Pending the long-delayed settlement of the boundary dispute between U. S. and Great Britain, the Aroostook Valley became the prey of trespassers who removed large quantities of timber. To protect its public lands, the Maine Legislature authorized the movement of militia into the region to act against the trespassers. In 1839, some 300 soldiers went to the region near Masardis, then moved north toward Fort Kent and Madawaska. Their leaders were captured by Canadians and jailed at Frederickton. That precipitated the Aroostook War. The dispute was not settled until 1842 when it was ended by the Webster-Ashburtcn treaty.”

From Andover to Woodstock, fifty miles, the river passes through fertile farmland – the potato country, similar to the soil on the other side of the border in Maine. Another 63 miles takes it to Frederickton through a number of canyon-like openings with steep slopes on each side. On the way a long stretch of rapids is called Meductic Falls. Just before reaching Frederickton the river passes Mayville, a town of which Bailey says: “This is thoroughly a one-man town, much like Pullman in Illinois. Its conspicuous growth has been due to the enterprise to Mr. Gibson who controls its big lumber trade and its cotton factory. Impressive are the huge brick walls of the cotton mill, backed by the green of a vast forest that extends to the distant horizon. Indeed, from the edge of the forest, to where the International Railway crosses twenty miles away, there is not a single habitation. From Frederickton to the ocean the St. John runs its last 65 miles.”

Tourists know chiefly the reversing falls near the city of St. John. Bailey says of them: “These are not falls in the ordinary meaning of the term. They result from the narrow and shallow outlet of the river through which the big tides of the Bay of Fundy pass in and out twice every day. The rushing flood tide pouring in tremendously makes the current seem to be going upstream. The ebb tide causes a reverse action.”

In the area between Frederickton and St. John were located, even in Bailey’s time, two large game areas, one of them even crossing into Maine. Long after Bailey wrote, the area developed one of the largest military training centers in Eastern Canada, prominent in two world wars, and still a summer center for maneuvers of Canadian troops. It is this area that is said to have the best moose hunting in all North America; as well as the noted salmon fishing on the Merrimachee River.

Bailey also tells us a bit about the settlement of the St. John Valley. He says it was the expulsion of the French from Grand Pre in Nova Scotia that made the northern St. John predominantly French speaking. In 1755, that expulsion, made famous by Longfellow’s “Evangeline” caused many of the fugitives to cross the Bay of Fundy and settle near the mouth of the St. John. But, only eight years later in 1763, came the Treaty of Paris, ending a long series of was between Britain and France, and putting all of Canada under British control. Influx of English speaking immigrants from across the Atlantic, as well as many Tories fleeing the American colonies during the Revolution caused the French settlers from Grand Pre to move further and further up the river, until they and other French from Quebec became the predominant population between Van Buren and the Allagash.

It was and still is an important North American river that J. W. Bailey wrote about in 1894. And we will close this over-the-air account of the St. John by pointing out that crossing the river at Hartland, N.B. still stands the largest covered bridge in the world. And with that we say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1980