Paddling and camping on Students Island

Friday, May 29, 2009

By Marty Basch

How would you spend two nights alone with your sweetheart on an island?

Stroll the sandy beaches hand-in-hand? Laze on a hammock with an umbrella

Not us. We battled strong gusts that made setting up the tent a long, exhausting prize fight. We cooked over a campfire in the rain thankful the wind kept the black flies away. We couldn't see the full moon through the clouds and wore fleece hats and gloves to stay warm.

It was a blast.

Students Island

Western Maine's Students Island is a rustic three-season find where friends and families return, often making reservations one year in advance to pitch a tent on the same precious plot of land near rippling mountains hugging the Mooselookmeguntic Lake horizon.

The mile-long island south of the village of Oquossoc in the Rangeley Lakes Region is part of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Preserve, a collection of wilderness camp sites along one of the state's largest lakes. Some sites are on the mainland and are reachable via a short walk from parking on a dirt road. Boat is the way to reach the others.

Spartan digs

The sites are touches of wilderness with no electricity or water. Do your business in a one-holer. Trash is carry-in, carryout. If you need it, lug it there.

Weather does what it wants, when it wants. My partner Jan Duprey and I had a small window of opportunity and booked a tent site on the island's northern grassy tip with a roof shelter over a picnic table to offer more protection in case it rained. The forecast was spotty rain showers, gusty winds and high temps in the 50s

A short paddle in our loaded canoe with everything from two buckets of firewood to a one-stove burner (just in case) found us facing stiff wind, white caps and huge swells to a wooden wooden step ladder with a steep incline. Off-loading wasn't easy, tossing gear up on shore as the wind roared. We set up camp in the rain as the wind threw good punches and lifted the tent where it wanted. The bout tired us. We opted for adult beverages and a quick meal of nearly thawed shrimp before retiring for the night and starting our campfire cooking challenge.

One Pan Jan and her lists

Confession time. Jan's a chef with the nickname One Pan Jan earned during a 1998 long-distance bicycle trip. Phooey to hot dogs and burgers. This woman can wrap it in foil, put it over a fire, and, voila, it's al fresco comfort food.

Her key is the chef-tested term mise en place. Essentially, have your ingredients out and ready before cooking.

For camp site cooking, everything is stored in an insulated bag at home and ready to travel.

The spice shelf, also in a plastic bag, includes:

1. salt

2. pepper

3. hot sauce

Hot drinks are in another:

1. coffee

2. tea

3. hot chocolate

4. sweetener

5. creamer

A ladle and tongs are necessities. Certain items have multiple roles. Newspapers are read, used as place mats and finished as fire starters. We freeze select beverage containers, say orange juice, and the frozen beverage is first a backcountry refrigerator and then consumed as it thaws. Ice has lasted, double bagged, for nearly 36 hours in certain weather conditions.

She's also a mise en place camper. Our tent, sleeping pads and sleeping bags are housed in one bag. Clothing is compartmentalized according to use. It's nice to know where everything is before you need it.

Time to explore

Under spitting showers, frisky wind, elusive sun and an autumn-like feel, we explored.

To burn off breakfast we hiked the island on a 2-mile loop trail discovering the stands of white birches with their tender limbs, camp sites with even more breathtaking vistas and that we were not alone.

We came upon a man with a leaf blower on the island's southern tip. He was the maintenance man, a former school teacher, preparing the sites. During a pleasant chat, we learned of the occasional moose and deer on the island, and that The Birches Hotel once called the island home but it burned in 1925.

The hike made us hungry. There was leftover shrimp. At first we tried it in foil, but it tasted too smokey, even with cocktail sauce. So, I threw it on the grate and grilled it. Better flavor. That was the appetizer to toasted ham and cheese pita bread sandwiches.

Another hiking loop of about a mile headed inland to muted Mooselookmeguntic views and along plentiful blow-downs, odd-shaped trees, ledges and black flies since the forest provided wind protection.

Happy hour

Island happy hour came with gin and tonics garnished with precut lime slices. For entertainment, I broke out the saxophone (canoes can carry lots of things). No Paul Winter, I played alone without a woodpecker rhythm section, loon chorus or moose bugling. We knoshed on rolled ham slices with mustard and relish thus completing our three meal slow-cooking challenge.

On the last day, the weather broke with clear skies and sun. We fueled our paddle back to the mainland with campfire cooked potatoes and bacon contemplating which site to chose for our return visit to Students Island.

One Tank Away

Oquossoc is:

*178 miles from Newburyport, Mass.

*171 miles from St. Albans, Vt.

*272 miles from Tiverton, R.I.

There is no web site, but the phone number is 207-864-2003 and it is generally open from early May through mid-September.

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