Shortly after receiving my private license and seaplane rating in J3 Cub 98536, equipped with Wollam plywood floats, a wooden cruise prop, and a 65-horsepower engine, I began expanding my wings and range. This was in the summer of 1950. The logbook for that summer shows a number of flights north, many to the Allagash River region of northern Maine with its numerous lakes and ponds and excellent fishing opportunities. This was long before the network of logging roads began penetrating the north Maine woods. If you wanted to reach that region, you had to canoe in, or fly. (Also, long before the establishment of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, which now prohibits airplanes from landing within its borders except at a few designated locations.) One of my favorite destinations in that region was Al and Patty Nugent's Wilderness Sporting Camps on Chamberlain Lake-some 60-odd miles from the nearest highway or town-where I was beginning to do some guiding. But late that summer there was a slight distraction in my life: I got married.
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