Maine

Launch Day: St. John Valley students embark on the Allagash

FRENCHVILLE — The paddles are officially in the water. On Tuesday morning, a historic journey began for 34 eighth-grade students from the Allagash Wilderness Waterway gateway communities of Fort Kent, Frenchville, St. Agatha, and Madawaska as they launched the 2026 Youth on the Allagash expedition. Following a thorough orientation and gear-up...

The next generation of wilderness leaders: High schoolers conquer the Allagash

Eight high school students from Ashland and the St. John Valley just proved that the future of the Allagash is in excellent hands. Emerging from the North Maine Woods this past weekend on Sunday, May 31st, these motivated young paddlers successfully completed the 2026 Youth on the Allagash Advanced Leadership...

Advanced Leadership Trip 2024

The successful AWWF Youth on the Allagash (YOTA) trips were expanded in 2023 to include an Advanced Leadership Wilderness Trip. Guided by Canoe the Wild, the leadership trip was a fully outfitted multi‐day paddling and camping trip for high school students from the St. John Valley. Priority was given to...

The Telos Cut

An excellent article on The Telos Cut was written by Elizabeth Bennett and published in the Memories of Maine Magazine Winter 2022 edition. Excerpt: In the 1840s, the need to drive logs down the Penobscot River and into Bangor was so strong it motivated wheeling and dealing, sparked violence, pushed innovation,...

AWWF Congratulates Al Cowperthwaite on Four Decades of Service to the Maine Woods

AWWF President, Bob McIntosh, visits North Maine Woods, Inc offices in Ashland ME to congratulate Al Cowperthwaite on his pending retirement and to meet the incoming Executive Director, Tom Pelletier. Dear Al, I write on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway Foundation, the “Friends of the Allagash,”...

Get Your Limited Edition Allagash 50th Anniversary Print Today!

The Allagash Wilderness Waterway (AWW) celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2016. In honor of this milestone, the AWW offered 500 signed and numbered prints of Mark McCollough’s painting of a family paddling below Allagash Falls. A number of these limited edition prints (24 by 20 inches) are still available from the Maine...

You Won’t Believe the 1859 Supply List at Chamberlain Farm on the Allagash River

Even Henry David Thoreau stopped by in 1857 to buy four pounds of brown sugar About halfway up the eastern shore of Chamberlain Lake, nestled behind a point of land once called Apmoojenegamook Point (now Hog Point) sits an old farmhouse. The building is all that is left of a thriving...

One of Maine’s Greatest Rivers Needs Your Support

Kids from St. John River Valley Strike Out on the Allagash

Since 2017, the Allagash Wilderness Waterway Foundation has worked with partners to provide opportunities for local youth to build wilderness skills, explore the Waterway, and learn about its history. This fall, we again partnered with Chewonki and local schools to provide multi-day, fully funded guided river trips to 16 youth from the St. John...

Dark Skies and the Milky Way Aren’t the Only Reasons to Paddle the Allagash

Allagash Wilderness Waterway (AWW) is a spectacular 92-mile long river and lake area like no other waterway in the eastern United States. To those who are willing to get off the beaten path and unplug from technology it offers remarkable natural beauty, an opportunity to experience solitude and escape from...