“So lovely was the loneliness of a wild lake.”

Edgar Allan Poe

 My husband and I got into kayaking back in the late nineties thanks to the encouragement of a Maine neighbor who had been a whitewater kayaker guiding river rafts. He steered us toward more stable touring kayaks for enjoying our lakes and rivers up here in the western mountains. We bought two fourteen-foot Perception Spectrum sit-in touring kayaks. Built of sturdy polyethylene plastic, his is yellow, mine is granite colored, and we still use them.

Through the years, we have paddled them on a multitude of local lakes and rivers, many with Abenaki Native American names, in and near Rangeley Maine.

Rangeley Lake, the body of water we have a view of from our house, is about seven miles long and 4 miles wide with a shoreline of about 37 miles and we’ve explored most of it by water. We’ve launched from our HOA beach and paddled south to Greenvale Cove, north to the town cove, and west to Maneskootuk Island. We’ve paddled Hunter Cove, a great place to see herons and loons, by entering from a nearby launch near a bridge and we’ve explored the South Bog islands at the northern end of the lake from both the Oquossoc marina and (with permission) from the L.L.Bean property on the west shore.

Beaver Mountain Lake (Long Pond) lies to the south of Rangeley Lake along Route 4. In fact, its outlet, Long Pond Stream, flows north into Rangeley Lake. The boat launch ramp where we put in is just off to the right side of the road. It’s a smaller lake of just over 500 acres and it’s easy to paddle the whole shoreline in a couple of hours. A marshy area on the southwestern end is a popular moose-feeding spot and we’ve seen mergansers skittering along the water in the stream at the northern end.

Mooselookmeguntic Lake, which is just across a land bridge from Rangeley Lake, is much larger with 57 miles of shoreline. We’ve put in at Haines Landing on the northeast shore, at a boat launch on the west shore, and from a campground on the south shore, from which we’ve paddled out around Toothaker and Students islands.

Cupsuptic Lake, which is directly connected to Mooselookmeguntic, used to be a separate body of water dissected by a short, narrow river. They were joined when the water level of Mooselookmeguntic was raised fourteen feet after a dam was built in 1850. We’ve put into Cupsuptic Lake by turning south from a boat launch on the Cupsuptic River and also via the boat launch on the west shore of Mooselookmeguntic.

Upper Richardson Lake is west of Cupsuptic on the south side of Route 16 and we’ve used the boat launch at the northern end. The lake is long and narrow (about 14 miles by 1 and ½). We’ve paddled to Upper Dam on the northeast edge and past the home of Carrie Stevens who revolutionized the world of fly tying at the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century. She had a shop at the home called Rangeley Favorite Trout and Salmon Flies. Her most famous fly was called The Gray Ghost and one of the trails at nearby Saddleback Ski Area is named after it.

Continuing further west toward the New Hampshire border, Lake Azizcohos lies on the north side of the road. The shoreline is mostly undeveloped. The lake is narrow but 18 miles long and was created by a dam on the Magalloway River, the lake’s main inlet and outlet. We’ve put in at a public boat launch by Black Brook Cove Campground at the southern end. From there, we paddled around an island and explored a couple of coves on the eastern side where we found large pieces of driftwood that we loaded on the kayaks and brought home for outdoor decoration. One time, we decided we wanted to explore the northern end but didn’t want to paddle so many miles up. Instead, we checked the map and took some logging roads toward the upper eastern shore. We got lost once but luckily a truck came by and set us right. On the way, we passed an inscription on a granite memorial stone. It read, “THIS WW2 MEMORIAL IS DEDICATED TO THE CREW OF THE B-17-J 43-38023 WHICH CRASHED ON THIS LOCATION ON 11 JULY 1944 THEY GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THIS COUNTRY.” The names of the crew were listed as well. When we finally reached the lakeshore, we saw Bosebuck Mountain Camps across the way on the western shore and we launched our kayaks to explore the northern end of Azizcohos.

Lake Umbagog is a little further west along Route 16 and lies in both Maine and New Hampshire. It’s fed by the Magalloway River coming from Azizcohos in the north and the Rapid River coming from Upper Richardson to the east. (A cabin on the shoreline of the Rapid River close to Umbagog was the home of Louise Dickinson Rich, author of the book We Took to the Woods published in 1942. It was set in the 1930s and was described as "a witty account of a Thoreau-like existence in a wilderness home.”) Lake Umbagog is almost 11 miles long and is part of the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge. We’ve put in on the south shore from a public boat launch at Umbagog Lake State Park, paddling around to observe some of the wildlife, including bald eagles. The lake is the source of the Androscoggin River which runs southeast to the Atlantic Ocean.

When we head east from Rangeley, we come to huge Flagstaff Lake which has 147 miles of meandering shoreline. It’s extremely shallow in places, especially in drought years.  We’ve put in from the bridge in Eustis near the lake’s midpoint and also from the extreme southern end near Carrabassett Valley. The lake has a drowned ghost town beneath the surface which was created in 1950 when the Central Maine Power Company built a hydro dam on the Dead River that feeds into it. It enlarged the lake and flooded the village of Flagstaff and several surrounding towns.

In addition to the larger lakes, we’ve paddled smaller rivers, lakes, and ponds as well– the Kennebago and Cupsuptic Rivers, Lower Richardson, Little Kennebago, and Loon Lakes, Haley, Dodge, Gull, Sandy River Ponds, as well as Chain of Ponds near the Canadian border.

Paddling has given us, not only exercise but also a peaceful way to explore the beauty of wilderness areas. While our muscles work, our minds destress.