KINGFIELD — At a recent Maine Professional Guides Association annual gathering, a local man was honored for his lifetime of dedication to teaching young people about respect and love of Maine’s wilderness

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife presented the annual “Legendary Maine Guide Award” to Gardner Defoe, who has spent more than a half century leading canoe trips on the Allagash and Saint John Rivers. The presentation, made April 14 by IF&W Commissioner Chandler Woodcock, is named in honor of Maine Master Guide Wilmot “Wiggie” Robinson, who died in 2007.

“The Department initiated this award to recognize its long-standing relationship with Maine guides – a partnership that’s almost as old as our agency, and that’s 130 years,” said Woodcock.

Strong resident Roger Lambert, and others who wanted to honor Defoe’s work with young people, presented a list of reasons to select Defoe. All nominations were reviewed by a seven-member panel, including the Deputy Commissioner, and several Maine Guides.  

Defoe started Wilderness Waterways trips for young people and adults and guided every summer.  Since 1958, he only has missed a year canoeing the Allagash, he said. Campers came from all parts of the country and were transported by bus to Jackman, near the outlet of the Moose River.  

He began guiding Allagash trips from several locations, often from Little Allagash or Indian Stream. He got exclusive permission from Great Northern Paper Company through their gated access route to the Fourth St. John and Baker Ponds, at the headwaters of the St. John River. He began his guided Wilderness Waterways business in 1960, starting with eight-week camping trips for young people ages 11 to 17. They started their training on Birch Island, learning basic skills before a three-day Moose River expedition.

“I owned Birch Island, and that was sort of a base camp when I started trips in 1960,” Defoe said.

After campers paddled during the day, they would pitch tents, chop kindling, fish, and cook their meals over a wood fire. Advanced campers went on longer trips into remote wilderness. The Allagash  and the St. John Rivers intersect at Allagash Village,  and paddlers could go for days and even weeks without seeing other travelers.  At Allagash Falls, they had to portage 300 yards, moving 32 people, 16 canoes, packs, polls, paddles, and all supplies. Defoe hired people to bring provisions to the more remote sites, because canoes could carry supplies for only eight days. Defoe’s primary goal was to teach young people that they could learn new skills, survive and even thrive in an unfamiliar environment and gain confidence in their own abilities.  

 “The reality of nature is far different from our concept of it,” he said in a 1984 letter to parents. “Without certain tools, skills, aids, and experience, Nature can be a hard lady to cope with — rain, wind, dark, sun, mosquitoes, sounds, all new and eerie.”

The “living room” concept of camping is often different from its living reality, he said.

Many campers learned the traditional skill of canoe poling. Before roads and paddles, Defoe would tell them, Native Americans used ash and spruce saplings to move their dugouts up and down waterways. He then taught them how to stand safely in a canoe, plant a 12-foot pole on the river bottom, and pull the watercraft forward. After mastering the skill of replanting the pole quickly,  the students learned to work with the current to go up, down, and across rivers and streams easily and efficiently.

The guiding business was close-knit, and two of Defoe’s lifelong friends, Chip and Lani Cochrane, continue to honor his special expertise.  In 1965, poling was  recognized as a competitive sport by the American Canoe Association, and Chip has been the National Canoe Poling champion for eight years.  His wife, Lani, is the reigning Female National Canoe Poling Champion, and together, the Cochranes  also have followed Defoe’s  path, running the Allagash Canoe Trips on many of the same routes.

“Chip’s father Warren and Gardner were good friends, and we admire Gardner so much for what he’s done,” Lani Cochrane said.  “He really does deserve to be called a legend.”

Occasionally, Defoe was less than pleased with his staff’s and students’ inability to show proper form as they traveled the waterways.  He kept a daily journal of progress to compile his annual report, and he vented some frustration in one entry from the summer of 1971.

“As we got started down Little Allagash Stream, I was totally taken aback at how poorly everyone was poling, staff included,” he wrote. “We had a short, loud conflab, and things smartened up. Most all of them did an about-face and got their downstream poling legs under them.”

As summer approaches, Defoe says he is looking forward to as many fishing expeditions as possible.  He still plans to visit his beloved Allagash “Wilderness Waterways,” but with smaller groups of friends and family members. 

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