Canoe and kayak trips down the river in August and September 2005 provided a framework to write about the river's environmental history. A two-part series about the trip appeared in the Bangor Daily News in December 2005. We are currently working on more publications about the Penobscot River. Stay tuned!

Bangor Daily News articles:
Penobscot River Future Tied to the Past
December 26 & 27, 2005
Part I: River of Islands (pdf)
Part II: River of Dams, River of Definance (pdf)

Current is slow but the river is still pretty high. Cardinal flower along the bank, mostly undeveloped shoreline except for a few homes. The silence is broken by a lawnmower in the distance, on a lawn along Route 116. Wild celery and green strands of filamentous algae in the shallows, in some places ropes of algae, and a benthic algal mat. Hot today, near 90. Quiet.

8-23-05 Passadumkeag to Greenbush, w/EG. 10:30 – 2:00

There are two fishing boats near Craig Island. A bald eagle flies from a white pine on river left, near Fiddler Island. Old logs and timber framing in the river just south of boat launch. A great blue heron at the tip of Grass Island. After Grass Island, a large flock of Canadian geese. Another bald eagle (the same?) and an immature eagle high overhead.

This section of the river is wide and shallow, the current braids around islands. Their edges are sandy, fringed in pickerelweed and ferns, great galleries of silver maple and birches.

8-25-05 Greenbush to Costigan, w/ Melinda Diehl. 12:50 – 2:00

Paddling by White Squaw Island. Fern and silver maples. Lots of logs in the water. There are unnamed islands north of Costigan that are marshy, covered in pickerelweed, Sparganium americanum, bulrushes, etc. Lots of mussels in the sandy bottom.

8-26-05 Costigan to Old Town, w/EG. 11:20 – 2:00

Water is mirror flat. Hot today, the low has blown over. Lots of mussels near boat ramp. River is very shallow, lots of grasses and SAV waving in the current, fluorescent green threads floating in the black. More floating logs—EG calls them deadheads. Took some movies of the underwater plants at the southern tip of Freese Island. Looking back upriver can see remnants of log booms on the west side of Freese. There has been some kind of insect hatch, the river is covered with dead bugs and some are sluggishly flying around. They are small, about ¼-inch, black with gray wings. Kind of like flying ants. A kingfisher flies by. Just above Orson island the ledges begin. Black jagged rocks.

9/7/05 Great Works to Eddington, 12:00-2:15 w/ EG

Put in at small tributary below Great Works dam amid the churning mill noises and swirling foam. We make it through some Class 1 quickwater but portage around the Class II-III where the Stillwater rejoins the mainstem. We chase bald eagles; there is a nest in a pine tree on the Orono side just south of Ayers Island. Two large mature eagles sit on a branch together. The water slows down near the Orono golf course as we enter the impoundment above the Veazie dam. A lone kayaker is on the opposite bank from the Eddington boat launch.

Day starts out clear, calm, and sunny, 70 from the Brewer boat launch. Cormorants mirrored by the water, we pass the mouth of the Penjajawoc. A kingfisher, a bald eagle heading north. The eastern shore is less developed, just across from EMMC is a gravel beach and tall cliffs. We paddle through the Waterworks breach, where currents are strong but tide is high enough to carry us through. ON river left, the remnants of the old Bangor dam are still visible.

10/5/05, Hampden-Winterport, w/ EG

We leave a few minutes before eight in the morning in a cool fog that is supposed to burn off by midmorning. The water is calm, but the tide is against us, and as we would soon find out, so was the wind. Through Hamden and Orrington the river is filled with fog and the churning noises of the PERC incinerator. The condemned buildings of Holtrachem loom over the cove, and we can't see the smokestack but only hear the engine of a trash burning machine. The river just goes by, beneath the humming which lends an industrial feel to an otherwise peaceful reach.