Local graduates tackle 740-mile Northern Forest Trail in handmade canoe

By TRAVIS BARRETT

07/16/2008

If you're one of the 40 or so people waiting on a signed photograph from William Hafford and Eileen McCue, they've got a message for you.

"We made it!"

After covering some 740 miles in a span of 51 days in a handmade canoe, from Old Forge, N.Y., to Fort Kent, the Monmouth natives completed the entire Northern Forest Canoe Trail late last week. Both had recently graduated from college -- Hafford from Unity College and Eileen from the Audubon Expedition Institute -- and they offered the trip to one another as a graduation gift.

And they did it all in a wood-canvas canoe Hafford built himself.

"(Survival) consumes all your focus, all your attention, and I think that's one of the great things about expedition trips," Hafford said. "Everything is consequence, and the feedback is so immediate. The minute you decide you don't need a raincoat and it rains, you're soaked. You learn fast -- or you're uncomfortable all the time."

McCue certainly had to hop on the learning curve. She had virtually no paddling experience before plopping Hafford's boat into the water in Old Forge.

"My very limited experience was canoeing with Girl Scouts, a very long time ago," McCue said. "I was worried about my paddling skills -- would I be able to cut it? I hadn't done any kind of training, and I was concerned about that.

"Going into it, William knew so much about canoeing and expeditions, I felt I could learn from him, which is what ended up happening."

The trip started in New York and moved through Vermont into Canada, back into northern New England, across New Hampshire and into Maine. From Umbagog Lake, it was on to Moosehead Lake and then north to the St. John River and Fort Kent.

They met every conceivable condition imaginable, from forecasts of snow when they started to weeks where the temperatures never dropped below 70 degrees, even at night.

They packed lightly, carrying food and gear, repair and medical kits. At different points along the way, they shed unwanted items -- stopping to mail winter clothing, an ax and a camp stove home to Maine -- to continue lightening the canoe enough that portages several miles in length became easier.

Handling the logistics of such two-month trip became secondary to the simple enjoyment of the entire trip.

"One day, we counted 11 bald eagles," Hafford said. "It's just kind of mind-blowing when you're canoeing along and you're like, 'Oh, there's a coyote on the shore.' Then on top of it, you're traveling along these native canoe routes.

"We were right there out in it."

McCue said it was easy to put the mental stresses aside in favor of recognizing the enormity of the experience as a whole. Whether it was paddling upstream for several miles without measurable success or getting caught in heavy downpours of rain, it was easy to alleviate frustration.

"We weren't on this marathon thing of pushing it to get done," McCue said. "When we got to our (physical) limit, we'd take it easy. We just knew it was more important to have a good time -- to have the experience, to take in what we were seeing -- than it was to just move through it."

The pace was deliberately conservative -- though high water levels allowed for easier travel than expected, especially along the Maine section of the route -- as the pair finished up almost two weeks ahead of their estimated Fort Kent arrival.

"There's just a huge difference in logistics in our everyday culture than in an expedition like this," McCue said. "It's just food, water, shelter -- the basics. You have the stresses of not being able to sleep because of bugs or of being in a downpour because you're wet and cold and very tired and just want the sun to come out.

"That stuff never really lasted that long. There was always a way to change it or do something about it."

Both inexperience and practicality led them to opt for the slow and steady approach to the trip route.

"We'd given ourselves until the end of July, but the water was so good and the paddling so good, we were just going along," said Hafford, who encountered two other pairs of paddlers attempting to run the entire route. "It's a very powerful thing (being in a boat you built), but it's kind of the double-edged sword. You're nervous about it in some of rapids, but maybe we paddled too conservatively because of it in some places."

Conservative or not, they found plenty of help along the way, from people who were willing to give them shelter or a warm meal in a small town somewhere to canoe companies running shuttle services along particularly long portages.

When they finally settled back into their home, they immediately ran off dozens of copies of photographs of them with the boat -- and sent them to all the friends, family and strangers along the way who helped them complete the nearly two-month-long waterlogged expedition.

The only words on those photographs?

"We made it!"

"It really restored our faith in humanity," Hafford said. "Not that we're negative to begin with, but people were so willing to help you. We're thinking about laundry and food, and people are coming up to us offering places to stay and places to store your gear.

"It's amazing how phenomenal people are and how excited they get about your trip. And, really, they make it happen."