A Limp in the Woods...or not (Day 162)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 162: Monday, September 2nd, 2013
Millinocket Zero Day = 0 miles
Miles to date: 2,181

Millinocket: Don’t Knock It!

Granted, it is Monday, the deadest of days in any tourist trap, but it’s a holiday for frick sake! Millinocket might as well get it over with and take its own life. A long-laid parade; city-wide suicide. It is, by far, the most depressed and depressing of sectors paralleling the AT. I suggest, for their help (i.e., put it back on the map), the following town slogan: Millinocket: Don’t Knock It! A more germane slogan would be: Millinocket: Don’t Bother Knockin.’

Few outsiders bother. Millinocket’s no tourist trap; the streets were devoid of traffic and any sign of a pulse. It was so quiet it felt like a library--a library when closed. ‘OUT OF BUSINESS’ signs hung crookedly inside every shop; each owner had long since departed. Dearly departed. Dust gathers. Huge, lonely houses--each once a home--had been evacuated and left unattended, for vandals and vagrants to take over. Last night, I’d acted as the latter, sleeping in an abandoned dwelling. Why not? The house was enormous--four-storied, four thousand square feet--and had been empty for eons. Its ‘FOR SALE’ sign out front was discolored and coated in rust, marking the passing of time. My kind of place. Home for a night.

The scene reminded me of the Tuareg proverb. Houses are the graves of the living. (As I like to say, life is what’s happening outside.) But here now no one was alive. Every household was left to die when the loggers left (or were forced to leave), and when the paper mills moved abroad. Cheap labor, neighbor.

There’s talk of a new national park nearby--along with a huge financial contribution, eighty-eight thousand acres have been donated to the feds by Roxanne Quimby, co-founder of Burt’s Bees--but remaining locals are reluctant for the change. They’re unable or unwilling to adapt to changing times. (Can a city win a Darwin Award?) I empathize with this reluctance, but parks are one of the things the federal government does well, minus the constant lack of funding, the excessive road-paving, the dearth of bicycle infrastructure, and so forth. At this stage though, it’s easy to see Millinocket needs reinvention, if it is to survive. “It is not,” said Darwin, “the strongest…that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.”

There’s one sparkling element in town. The Appalachian Trail Café. Catering to we Roamans and to the residents who wish to see others--to know others exist--it is often packed. Raucous, even. I’d have breakfast then lunch in one long loiter. I returned later for a malted milkshake and some commerce with the locals. Mad respect to Chris Knight, but it’s hard being a hermit.

Its hard to imagine, but Millinocket was once a bustling burg, thanks to a thriving tree-killing industry. But those jobs, and those times, have faded into extinction, and/or shifted elsewhere. Gone the way of the trees. I was surprised to discover that a Discovery Channel show was once filmed here. Called American Loggers, it chronicled the life and times of local lumberjacks. The show breathed its last gasp a couple years ago, after three seasons. The family featured, the Pelletiers, now run a restaurant in town. I’m guessing it’ll follow the show’s footsteps, straight to the grave. AT hikers are the last hope.

The Appalachian Trail Lodge understands as much and is as busy as the café. Both businesses are owned by one gentleman, a leathery-looking sixty year-old named Paul Renaud. Renaud thru-hiked the AT in ‘06 and decided he liked the area enough to relocate. So far he’s survived doing so. Cheap real estate hasn’t hurt his cause. (Below is a photo of the mansion I squatted in. It’s a whopping fifteen thousand dollars {yes, that’s $15,000}, complete with furniture, a detached garage, an expansive work shed and an extensive yard, mowed and all.)

$15,000!

Anyway, it would rain much of the day, bearing witness that yesterday’s forecast--a chance of rain--was today’s truth. More of the same is expected tomorrow, so it looks like I’ll be hanging on for one more day. Like the few hapless locals I’ve seen. Hanging around, hanging out, hanging on. Any more than one day and I might do a different sort of hanging.

No offense, Millinocket.