The Drift:
Marie Lorenz

We left camp on an incredibly foggy morning. As the boats pulled away from the bank, they seemed to disappear.

We got to know the boats and each other and we watched familiar landmarks roll by as if on film.

We knew there might be some walking, but the difficulty surpassed my predictions. We had to walk around two dams—a two-mile trek with nine boats and hundreds of pounds of gear.

Below Waterville, we saw signs of bridges and dams that had been removed in the 1960s. From here on, the water flowed freely all the way to the ocean.

We pulled the boats up on a tiny island in the river. We hadn't come as far as I had thought we would that day, but I tried to put that out of my mind. It was, after all, a 'Dérive', and the crew seemed happy with our home for the night.

This is the tent that May built. She used driftwood and paddles as tent poles, and it slept six people comfortably.

When the sun rose the next morning, the island was strewn with color; canoes, tarps, backpacks, and campers; all waking up from a sound sleep.

Our mission the second day was to go slower and explore. Some of the boats grouped together in a formation known as 'canoodling'. It was a good day for taking it easy.

This was the stretch of river that I had been waiting for; a strangely inaccessible green belt, situated between Interstate 95 and highway 201. As far as our eyes were concerned, we were paddling through the wildnerness, but if you listened carefully, you could hear the interstate rumbing in the distance. This is my favorite kind of travel; parallel to civilization but invisible.

We finished our trip in Augusta and were met by a crew of vans and drivers dispatched from camp. We performed a song that Luis composed for the occasion. "The Kennebec is like an angry wife..." it began.