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Monday, August 12, 2002
River police make presence felt
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||||||||
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The Four-Part Series: Saco River: Source to Sea | |||||||||||
FRYEBURG — Larry Kiesman remembers a time when he could float for a week down the Saco River from Swans Falls to the bridge in Brownfield without seeing a soul. At the time, Kiesman, now 81, was a 7-year-old boy growing up along the river, just above the Route 302 Walker's Bridge in Fryeburg. "The river was our playground," he said. "We swam here, we fished here, we camped here, we hunted here. We did everything here on the river." Those days of seclusion on the Saco are long gone. Over the past 30 years, Kiesman's favorite section of the Saco has become one of the state's biggest outdoor attractions, and one of the most popular recreational canoeing spots in all of Maine. On a typical weekend in the summer, it's not unusual for up to 7,000 people to head downstream from Fryeburg. In this border town famous for its annual fair, catering to paddlers on the Saco River has become its own industry. But with the increased number of canoes has come an increase in social problems - particularly trash, rowdy behavior and alcohol-related arrests - that has upset landowners, merchants and environmentalists and led to new efforts to police the river. Last summer, it seems, was the breaking point. That July, a group of intoxicated canoeists tried to pitch their tents on the shore of the Indian Acres boys camp. After a confrontation with counselors and police, two members of the group were arrested. Another group of drunken paddlers, angry about fees charged for a campground, threw picnic tables into a bonfire and assaulted an employee demanding the money. Later that month, a canoeist who had reportedly been drinking was found dead, floating in the river. "We basically said we need to claim our own back yard," said state Rep. Kevin Muse, R-Fryeburg. "The river has become a floating barroom. We have to change the basic attitude of what's acceptable conduct on the river and make it safer." Enter the Saco River Task Force. Made up of canoe renters, campground owners and conservationists, the task force went to work altering the Saco's reputation as a party haven. They raised money for an airboat and also a shallow-water motor for the Fryeburg Police Department. (continued...)
Town residents, meanwhile, approved spending $10,000 to pay for extra manpower hours to patrol the river this summer. Before the vote, a police officer was lucky to get on the river once or twice a summer. This year, on July 6, paddlers were treated to the sight of a police officer cruising upriver. Some stared in disbelief, some waved with beaming smiles and some scoffed when Officer Wayne Brooking took the inaugural ride. "They're surprised because they didn't think we can get out here," Brooking said as he maneuvered the metal boat through two-foot-deep water. "And for the most part, they've been right. This is the first year in a long time we've had so much enforcement presence. We're just out here this year pretty much to be seen. We're out here so these guys camping know we can get to them." Easy paddling What makes the section of river between Fryeburg and Brownfield so popular is that it takes the least effort to paddle. That, and its natural beauty. Besides the one set of rapids at Walker's Rips, the water in the summer typically moves a gentle 3 to 5 miles an hour. Mostly, it takes wide, easy turns around the sandbars. Beginning paddlers have no trouble making it down this section of the river in the summer. There are some bridges along the way, and just a few camps, but for the most part there are no houses or clearings to clutter the forest. Besides being the most popular section, the river all the way to Hiram is also one of the best preserved. The Nature Conservancy owns 1,400 acres just above Walker's Bridge at the foot of Mount Tom. The group is also in the process of acquiring another 1,700 acres around the Boston Hills, a few miles below the Brownfield Bridge. This section of the river is also home to the most significant wetland wildlife habitat in the entire river corridor - a 2,785-acre state-owned wildlife management area known as the Brownfield Bog. A natural floodplain forest, the biggest in New England, begins in Bartlett, N.H., and continues 50 miles downstream until it reaches the dam waters in Hiram. For thousands of years the river here has been doing the same thing - flooding in the spring, scouring and flushing the land clean. Even when the Saco changed course in 1819, after the diversion of its main stem into a canal that nearby farmers dug for flood control, the floodplain forest remained. "There is a hydrologic dynamic here that hasn't changed for hundreds of years," said Stefan Jackson, director of the Saco River Project for the Nature Conservancy. "The river has been unfettered, so it's been allowed to maintain its natural dynamic." The flooding, which in a typical spring reaches 9 to 10 feet, accounts for the lack of development along the banks of this section of the Saco River. "What we keep finding is the river's rejuvenating power is phenomenal," Jackson said. "It's a place where humans can thrive because of this floodplain that scours and cleans out the land." It is also a place where critters thrive. This section of the Saco River is home to three rare dragonfly species - the ringed bog haunter, the midget snaketail and the extra-striped snaketail. It is also home to beaver, moose, deer and bear. Wildlife sightings are easier to find in the floodplain forest below Brownfield, where the crowds of canoers drop off. The river continues to move through this section, but not with the same consistency as it does farther north. At times it is downright deep and flat and the wind that cranks upriver has more effect on a canoe than the current. The sandbars also appear less frequently, leaving less room for camping. Despite the people, the trash they leave behind and the waste they deposit on the banks, the water in this section gets the highest rating the state can give, AA. Jackson gives the floodplain forest credit for this. "The Saco River is the ideal and perfect natural water filter," he said. People welcome While there are some who would rather keep the people out of such a natural wonder, Kiesman, a state fire warden who calls himself the river's primary guardian, will hear none of it. Kiesman wants people to come here to experience the magic of the Saco River. He wants them to soak up the wilderness, the water, the sand and sun. "The Saco is one of the prettiest rivers in the damn world," he said. "I want the public to be able to enjoy and utilize this river. It's important for people to get out and commune with nature. It puts them a little closer to God." What he doesn't like are the small fraction of paddlers who ruin the experience for others by dumping trash on the shore, leaving human waste uncovered, building campfires without a permit and partying late at night. "Overindulgence in alcohol is a big part of it," Kiesman said. "The hand fits a can of beer better then it does a canoe paddle. Pretty soon they don't know if they're in a raft or canoe or flying carpet. And some of them will get nasty. They get mean. Now they are seeing law enforcement officers out there and they're going to behave better. I think it's a great thing." While it's too soon to tell whether this summer's enforcement efforts have worked, folks like Kiesman, Brooking and Brian Tripp, a state game warden, are encouraged. Tripp joined Brooking for the first patrol in early July and gave out a $100 ticket to a man with no life preserver on the boat and another ticket to a youth fishing without a licence. "People on this river understand only two things - jail or money," Tripp said. "The typical response is just to ignore us because we'll just go away. We're trying to make that not happen." Annual pilgrimage Bob Stringer, from Boston, is happy to see the police on the river. Stringer has floated the Saco every summer for the past 15 years. He said there have been times when he has witnessed crazy, out-of-control rowdiness on the sandbars. But, he said, even without the police the parties seem to have toned down, compared to 15 years ago. Despite numerous travel pieces on the Saco in Massachusetts and Maine newspapers, he said the crowds just don't seem as thick. "In the old days there would be lights up and down the river . . .," he said as he sat at the campfire one night. "It was bumper-to-bumper canoes." Whether crazy or calm, the crowds have never deterred him from making his annual pilgrimage to the river. He says he has too much connection to the place. "I slow down to the river's speed," he said. "The relaxation, the comfort, the beauty. Regardless of what idiots may be on the river, I can take a deep breath and know I am with the Saco's rhythm." Over the years he has camped everywhere on the Saco, but these days Stringer prefers the sandbars of Fiddlehead Campground for his overnight stays. Glacial outwash has peppered the river here with wide sandbars, which, unless posted, become overnight rest areas for the floaters. They all used to be free, but four years ago, the 3 1/2 miles of beach downstream from the Route 5 Canal Bridge became a pay campground. For $8 a night, campers at Fiddlehead Campground get porta-potties and they can leave their bagged trash on the beach instead of taking it with them, a luxury new to the Saco River. Eric Root, a co-owner of the campground, also does something that was unheard of on the Saco River a few years ago. He asks campers to quiet down if their music is too loud, or their party too late. As a result, Root said he is seeing families return to the river. "You can't just close (the river) down," he said. "On the other hand, you can't have gross misuse either. It's true we've had incidents of violence and grossly inappropriate behavior. But we're working on it. What I say is their continued ability to use this site is not continuing that behavior in that way." Staff Writer Giselle Goodman can be contacted at 324-4888 or at:
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