There is a sadness that comes with the end of a canoe trip, especially one as fulfilling as this. It started the day before, thinking about “lasts”; the last day, the last supper, the last breakfast etc. You just try to remember. Inevitably, the last day arrives and you make the best of it.

Unaffected by the overnight rain, we rose to coffee and buckwheat pancakes. The maple syrup had been exhausted, but we experimented with different jellies as toppings for our breakfast. We broke camp for the last time (sigh), handed our gear and wannigans (much lighter now) down the steep embankment to our canoes. We made the easy trip to our take-out trying to remember what we had experienced over the past week.

However poignant the “lasts” have been, it is always a welcome sight to see your ride waiting for you at the take-out. By now, we ere pretty good at loading and unloading our stuff, so we made pretty short work of packing up and getting on the road. We knew we had a 5-hour drive back to Moosehead Lake and were starting to concentrate on our travel plans beyond that.

At base camp, we each were given an Allagash Canoe Trips tee shirt and the group posed for one last photo. It had been a wonderful seven days and a memorable experience. Jani and I are glad we came.

Seventh Day in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway – A Gallery

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