When you and your family are nine miles from the nearest paved road, and there is no electricity, toilet, running water, refrigerator, automatic heating device or nearby corner store, daily living becomes very different. Such was our "fate" for roughly 30 years on the shores of Aziscohos Lake in Western Maine.
Aziscohos Lake, Western Maine
Any trip to the camp started with buying provisions for the duration or our stay. The nearest grocery store would be at least an hour away - 20 minutes of which meant navigating nine miles of treacherous logging roads. Moose and logging trucks needed to be avoided. No fridge meant a large cooler and blocks of ice would have to suffice.
And if the four-hour trip to the camp meant we arrived in darkness, lugging everything down the hill with only flashlights to guide the way could be a major chore. No electricity meant relying on propane lanterns and kerosene lamps once inside.
Cooking took different forms. A simple propane cook stove boiled water for coffee - heated soup - and fried eggs. Supper involved an outside fire, fueled with birch bark, kindling and split hardwood. Potatoes could be baked in the coals and burgers were broiled on a makeshift grate.
What seemed to produce the most stress was the cooler and the (lack of) proper use of it. As "Cooler Master", I would instruct the wife and two kids to be careful when getting food out of the cooler - but invariably, sliced cheese, cold cuts (feel free to add in any other perishable food item) would fall into the water created by melting ice. My "kids", now in their 50s, still laughingly recall the trauma of me yelling, "Who was in the cooler?"
Bathing with no tub or shower handy meant a cold bath in the lake or standing outside under a plastic bag/spout apparatus filled with warm water. No one quite believes the comfort of that improvised shower, even in cold weather.
Entertainment meant magazines, books, games and a battery-powered radio that consistently was able to receive only one station - WHOM at 94.9 on the dial. The bonus was a station out of Canada, CBC Radio One) that gave us "Finkleman's 45s" on Saturday night's only.
Cold mornings usually meant "putting a little fire in the stove" - as my wife stated it - as she basked in the luxury of the warm bed. The task meant braving the cold air - building the fire with birch bark, kindling and larger pieces of wood - and then waiting for the heat to fill the 16' X 20' structure.
No bathroom meant using an outhouse located about 100-feet from the camp. "Composting" was important to keep odors at a minimum. That simply consisted of grabbing some leaf mold and topsoil and throwing it down the hole. It turned out that I was the sole composter in our foursome family.
I built that camp by myself - in 1972. Cost of materials was only about $1,000.00 and the lot rent was $150.00 per year. Someone else owns it now, but it still stands more than a half-century later. My entire family misses it terribly, but the fond memories remain.
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