Fifty Years Later A Brotherhood Reunites on the Katahdin

July 24, 2025 Edition

By Emily Patrick

   It was a beautiful day for a cruise on Moosehead Lake aboard the historic steamship Katahdin- despite some billowing clouds in the distance Captain Rocky Rockwell said he didn’t quite trust. Rocky would know; you see, he’ll be the first to tell you he knows where every rock in the lake is because he’s hit them all. Still, despite all my confidence in Rocky’s weather predictions, it turned out to be a gorgeous day full of story-telling, laughter and brotherly bonds that are still going strong, despite the passing of five decades since all the men on this special cruise had last been together.

   Moosehead Lake had a history of log driving going back generations when growing environmental concerns and political pressure ended this way of life forever in 1975. Because of this long history, it’s hard to find a native Greenvillian whose father or grandfather or great-grandfather didn’t work “in the woods.”

   As the cruise departed from East Cove, I overheard a gentleman saying working on the drive was the “best summer job I ever had.” That man was Jeff Glover, who told me he used to sleep inside the third window there (pointing down the deck) on the 1976 picking crew. That “best summer job” he ever had consisted of three 11-hour shifts, after which Glover would head straight to the post office for his check, which was promptly cashed and spent in its entirety at the Long Branch. This makes the next story perhaps the most unbelievable of them all:

   Frank Hanscome was another character on the cruise whose photos you may see in this edition. He worked on the drive for a time, but was a police officer towards the tail end of it all. He says during that time he, “…didn’t get called to the Long Branch, so it must have been ok.” I think another explanation is more likely. Rocky later points out as the stories are flying, “We can all lie now because we don’t remember.”

   Rick Johnson then joined the conversation, a former deckhand on the Kate for three summers who worked with both his father and his grandfather on the drive. Later, I was introduced to his younger brother, who didn’t work on the drive at the same time but still had earned a “green shirt” distinction nonetheless and was a real-life war hero.

   Another gentleman shared with me his regrets he didn’t work on the drive, but was part of the ’76 picking crew. He hadn’t made it home from college in time for safety training to be part of the official last drive crew in ‘75, but instead was dropped off in the middle of a forest fire via float plane by Charlie Coe with little more than a radio and a prayer. “But log driving was too dangerous,” he said with a grin.

   Though Rocky is Captain of the Kate these days, back then he was just one of the wild young men working the drive. 50 years ago, Captain Walter Gary was at the helm. Walter is joined on the cruise by his sweet wife of 60 years, Wanda, his daughter, Rachel, and Rachel’s husband and kids. Walter’s grandkids don’t find the cruise all that exciting, until they’re reminded grandpa used to spend all week out on the boat working long hours before he could come home to his family.

   While they ponder how grandpa kept in touch with grandma without Snapchat, I ask Walter to recreate the professional photo that was taken in 1975 with him resting one arm on the wheel of the Kate, a pensive, faraway look on his face. Walter recreates the moment perfectly. I take a few snapshots and then thank him, and it’s then I realize Walter isn’t just acting the part- it takes him a few moments to snap back to the present. Though I wonder what thoughts or feelings or memories had Walter so entranced, I don’t ask. I sense it’s something I couldn’t begin to understand, something between a man, a machine, and the father we all must answer to sooner or later…Father Time.

   The entire day is a mystical mix between the past and the present. Throughout the day, I continually find myself caught between a sharp awareness of where I am today and the distant memories that somehow directly connect. As I’m standing in the galley line, I’m listening to a green shirt I haven’t had the chance to chat with yet make small talk with his wife. I notice the last name Murray on his name tag and his striking resemblance to a man to whom I owe my love of and knack for writing. “Excuse me, I’m sorry,” I start. “Are you by any chance related to Dale Murray?”

   “He’s my brother,” he says. I explain to him how I work for the local newspaper, and that’s why I’m on this particular cruise, and that I perhaps wouldn’t be writing at all if it wasn’t for his late brother’s wisdom and encouragement. It makes us both emotional.

   Just a short while later, I’m in the Captain’s box as a handful of men read off the names of those who worked alongside them on the drive, but have since passed away. I’m left breathless as that same man whose brother had such an impact on me unexpectedly reads my grandfather, Bill Martin’s, name before he passes the mic. I hurry back to the stern where the commemorative wreath has already been tossed over the side and watch as it floats quietly away towards Big and Little Spencer.

   Getting into Spencer Bay with the Kate was no small feat- in fact, aside from the crew’s shakedown cruise in June, it was the first time she had seen that part of the lake since the drive ended in 1975. Spencer Bay is notoriously shallow and hard to navigate, peppered with rocks and logs. I know this, because growing up I spent many summers on Spencer Bay at Casey’s Campground, which is now private land. I watch as the Kate glides past that familiar shoreline I spent so many days combing as a child and regret I’ll never be able to share its magic with my children. It reminds me of another issue I’ve been wrestling with recently in my work for the newspaper- Moosehead’s changing landscape and private versus public land use rights.

   As if on cue, Moosehead History Director Luke Muzzy takes the mic and points out all the land we see behind us and to the sides as we float in Spencer Bay is now under conservation and is never going to change. Ironically, all of this land has the same footprint as it has always had, despite changing hands so many times over the years. It has been conserved because of its importance to the area’s timbering history while the area’s logging industry came to a halt, in part, because of concerns from conservation groups.

   Despite the odd feeling hanging over the ship that day, a sense of entanglement between past and present, it’s an overwhelmingly joyful day filled with stories and laughter and sweating cans of Last Log Drive. I learn new things about people I’ve known my whole life, and learn old things about new people. Captain Rocky sums it up best as he skillfully parks the Kate back in East Cove despite an unusual and strong south wind fighting us all the way back to port: “This is the first time that we’ve been together in fifty years, and it will be the last time. That’s what makes today so special.”

   As I stand on the Kate’s top deck and take one final group photo of this absolutely spectacular group of men, I feel both the heaviness of the moment and an uplifting joy. Though we can’t stop the wheel of time from turning, we can always celebrate our legacy and we can always retell our stories and the stories of those who came before us. And, I realize as I step off the Katahdin and the outside world starts to seep back in, there are some people and places that blur the lines between the past and present. The steamship Katahdin, in all her glory, is certainly one of them, a proud relic of the past that still serves a vital role in the region’s economy to this day.

   Still, I sense something more ancient and primal was at work: Moosehead herself is one of those vortexes, a place where people in the present can feel the pulse of the past, where anyone can rent a small vessel from Northwoods Outfitters and get a sense of what Henry David Thoreau felt when he first slipped a birch bark hull into the same inky water…a place where a young log driver can blink and at once be an old man with as many ailments as stories, and then blink again and be in the company of old friends that make him feel like a young kid all over again, if only for a day. It’s part of the magic of Moosehead, and something we must strive to celebrate…and protect.

   Special thanks to the Moosehead Marine Museum for all of their hard work and hospitality, and to the men both alive and beyond the veil who worked on Moosehead’s log drives. You are not, and will not, be forgotten, for it’s on the back of your hard work and sacrifice we stand today.