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Passing through

Most people don’t get a lot of blisters on their feet when paddling a canoe. But most people also don’t portage a canoe 120 miles over the course of one trip.

Susan Storch and Mary Duk, who live near Hoel Pond by Saranac Inn, aren’t most people. Storch said Duk was her business assistant until one day Duk asked about a dusty old canoe sitting in Storch’s garage. The pair have been paddling partners ever since.

“We’ve been paddling together a long time, at least since 2000,” Storch said.

Storch and Duk have taken on paddling challenges in the past, including doing the 90-mile Adirondack Canoe Classic six times.

But the 90-Miler pales in comparison to what Storch and Duk took on this summer. They decided that they wanted to through-paddle the entire Northern Forest Canoe Trail, which stretches 740 miles from the Adirondacks to the Northern tip of Maine.

Between Old Forge and Fort Kent, Maine, the trail passes through four states and Quebec. The NFCT is the paddling equivalent of the Appalachian Trail.

Storch and Duk said they wanted to through-paddle the whole thing, which means not skipping any parts. If you leave the trail, you go back to the same spot to start. With that in mind, they set out from Old Forge but decided to make some adjustments when they got to Long Lake. Specifically, they had wanted to bring Duk’s 14-pound dog with them, but said the dog wasn’t up for the trip, which can take well over a month of straight paddling to complete.

“We intended to start out originally in May, but got delayed for one reason or another,” Storch said. “We started on June 9, and we planned to go from Old Forge to Saranac Lake in three days and then take the lessons that we’d learned and make changes and start out again.”

“(But) after the first three days, it was clear the dog was too cold and too wet,” Duk laughed.

“We restarted once someone could watch him, which was June 22,” Storch added.

Once the dog, named Habi, was taken care of, they went back to Long Lake to restart the trek. Thirty-three days later, they were proud completers of the NFCT, joining a list of fewer than 100 people who have through-paddled the trail.

“We were 33 days on the actual trail, and we were another two days for blisters and three days for weather,” Storch said. “When we were on Lake Champlain, there were small craft warnings for two days. And when we were in Jackman, Maine, there was a tornado watch one day, so we stayed in.”

This summer’s weather tended to be hot and dry, which makes for nice weather but can prove difficult for paddling.

“There’s no way to get around 55 miles of carrying,” Storch said.

“In our case, because of the low water, we portaged 120 miles. Hence the blister days,” Duk laughed.

“If there wasn’t enough water in the river, then we had to find our way around, which was usually by road,” Storch said.

“That’s kind of the amazing part,” Duk added. “I thought for sure I’d have a thrown-out back or shoulder problems or knee problems, but it was just the blisters. That’s it.”

Both women said the blisters were worth it for what they dubbed the trip of a lifetime. There were plenty of people, places and wildlife to add to the pleasure of their voyage.

“The Penobscot River had amazing evergreen forests and these enormous boulders in the water,” Duk said. “And the water was just so calm and smooth. It was just amazing.

“We also saw our first moose in the Penobscot, so that was exciting.”

“Susan’s motto is to always keep the boat moving,” she said. “So at lunch time, one person paddles and one person eats. So she was eating her lunch and I was paddling near the shore of a lake, and I just saw these huge antlers squeezing their way out of the dense forest and this enormous moose just started eating at the edge of the water.

“And he looked right at us. He didn’t care that we were there,” Duk laughed.

They said they saw quite a few moose including young ones and many tracks along roads. They also said they saw about an eagle a day once they hit Maine.

Storch said the Moose River in Maine was her favorite spot. She compared it to the beauty of the Adirondacks.

“You start in our wilderness and end in the Maine wilderness,” Storch said. “And in between – Vermont, Quebec and New Hampshire – it’s a little bit more civilized because you’re going through farms and towns.”

Storch and Duk said they had no problems with other people and were pleasantly surprised by the number of offers from strangers for rides, sleeping accommodations and showers.

“I think one of the main things for me on the trip was, every state we were in, people were curious about what we were doing,” Duk said. “(They) were offering rides, water, use of cars, places to stay. It was amazing.”

Although they had no issues with people or wildlife, the trip wasn’t without its perils. Storch said at one point their water filter slowly split apart at the seams and forced her to walk about a mile out to a hut to pick up a few gallons of potable water.

There were also a couple of hiccups the trail threw their way.

“We’re not whitewater paddlers, and there’s whitewater up to class 3 and 4 on this trip,” Storch said. “We knew we could get around those; there’s usually a way around.

“We did beautifully until the next to the last day when we rounded a bend and came upon a rapid that wasn’t marked on my map and we flipped the canoe.”

Although they weren’t injured in the capsizing, it did take them a while to get out of the situation.

“I lost a nice Canadian paddle, and Mary said she thought it had gone home,” Storch laughed, “because by that time we were on the St. John River and Canada is on the left.”

With the through-paddle ticked off their list, Duk and Storch said they were unlikely to do the NFCT again but are already looking forward to more long-distance paddles.

“I’m pushing for a trip that would be from Saranac Lake back up to Lake Champlain and then down through the Champlain canal to the Mohawk and Hudson (rivers), and then the Erie Canal and then onto Watkins Glen and through the Finger Lakes,” Duk said. “But I haven’t figured out the mileage yet.”

Storch also said she believes they are the first pair of women to complete and trail and register their trip, although she said she thinks another pair of women have completed the trail but didn’t register.

One hallmark of a good backcountry trip is that you still want to be friends with your partner when the trip is done. Storch and Duk went into the trip with a bit of an advantage since they’ve been paddling together so long, and admitted that they had nothing but minor disagreements along the way.

“We sat out (a storm) in someone’s campsite, and it was a brutal storm, and then it passed by,” Duk said. “And there was a big debate if we should go on, but it was just a debate, not an argument.

“We went, and we had a fantastic time.”

New York work

The NFCT has been expanding its footprint in areas where the trail passes through in last couple of years, including hiring Saranac Lake resident and NFCT through-paddler Mike Lynch as the New York state outreach coordinator. The organization takes on “trail” work like signage and improvements to the 40-plus miles of carries.

One such project took place locally over the summer at Indian Carry. In August, six volunteers used lumber provided by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to build 60 feet of boardwalk through a wet area. The Adirondack Land Trust originally protected the carry in the 1980s and provided funding for the project.

“The new bog bridging at Indian Carry provides a more durable and wheel-able footpath that will help avoid trail widening and erosion especially under muddy conditions,” Sandy Tarburton said in a press release about the work. “Thru-paddlers traveling from Old Forge to Fort Kent, Maine in one trip tend to use two-wheeled carts when they can, which makes portaging weeks’ worth of gear more convenient.”

The NFCT said the property the carry is on is historic and that the group is merely helping to continue a centuries-long tradition.

“While the exact location of the trail has moved over time, a carry has been in use in this area for centuries. Archaeological evidence indicates that Native Americans had a temporary settlement at the south end of Upper Saranac Lake. They used a carry to connect the Saranac and Raquette River watersheds via Stony Creek Ponds,” the press release said.

“In 1850, pioneer settler Jesse Corey built a hotel on the settlement and hauled canoes and people over the carry. In 1912, new owners closed the trail to public use resulting in the Tupper Lake Herald reporting, ‘old guides and canoeists are not happy about the closing of the old Indian Carry – the Adirondack guides have long come to regard this as public domain.'”

For more information on the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, including guide books and maps, visit www.northernforestcanoetrail.org.

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