 
Brian
Wiley is President of the Maine Snowmobile Association and an avid antique
enthusiast. He helped Bob Brodeur a lot with his Pioneers Reunion, and also
accompanied us through most of the trip riding a Super Voyager, until he had
to cut it short and go to a M.S.A. meeting.
Our cooking crew was Gene Nice and Richard Eaton both of whom are from
Millinocket. Gene was a member of several of my father’s earlier
expeditions. Gene and Richard were an unreal help in that they traveled ahead
with the food on modern sleds and did all the camp heating and cooking-and
when I say cooking, I mean cooking! I will elaborate on that later.
The rest of the crew were all from Millinocket. This included Paul
Firlotte, Shorty Budreau, my brother Reid, my brother Wayne and his son Jeff,
and myself. I was looking for a couple good guides to keep us out of trouble
and I knew I couldn’t do any better than Paul or Shorty. They know as much
about Maine’s Allagash as anyone, if not more. Along with my brother Reid,
they rode new machinery and kept us on good trails, good solid ice, and out of
the slush. This was no easy task and they did a good job.
Wayne drove an OE-16G Voyager that was my fathers for two or more of
the trips. He found it in very sad shape at a sporting camp two years ago and restored it. Jeff drove a
‘65 10 horsepower Mustang that his father also restored. Jeff is young at
19, but he’s an antiquer at heart, and really enjoyed the trip.
I drove a very unique Polaris Sno Traveler that comes with quite a
story. It’s a 1963 OE-16 Bull Cat that was bought after the ’63 trip by a
gentleman named Hazen Blanchard. Hazen was a good friend of my fathers and
knew dad liked to experiment. So a few days prior to the ’64 trip, Hazen
brought it to my father and they put a Volkswagen engine on it. Now it may
sound strange, but it really worked great. It was quite an engineering marvel,
complete with three speeds forward and reverse. Hazen used the sled that way
for years. In the process of inviting pioneers to the reunion of 1984, Bob
Brodeur and I discovered that Hazen still had the sled in Southwest Harbor,
Maine. Hazen is a great guy and at the young age of 73 was more than enthused
over the reunion. In the process of talking to him I asked if he would allow
us to paint his Bull Cat and put it on display at the reunion. At this time we
had only three restored. He graciously agreed and Bob and I took it home and
went to work. To make along story short, Hazen was so impressed with the
restoration that he gave me the sled for our museum project. I drove it for
him and my Dad on “ Allagash 85”.
Well so much for the introductions, now lets get on with the trip. We
scheduled it for Sunday February 17th and preceded it with a supper
and dance on Saturday night the 16th. Paul Doherty and C.J. Ramstad were our
guest speakers and you can’t do much better than that. Paul showed us a
slide presentation of the early trips to get us in the mood for the next day.
This reaffirmed my thoughts that we really could make it. C.J. showed an
excellent show of A.S.C.O.A. events.
Finally Sunday morning, February 17th came to be after a
long sleepless night. About now I was pretty nervous. Our destination Sunday
was Nesowadnehunk Campground. Here we could stay in the Baxter State Park Rangers
camp that the other expeditions had used so many years ago. This leg would
take us roughly 40 miles through much of the same trail they went through,
including Baxter State Park. I told everyone we would leave the Northern
Timber Cruisers Clubhouse at 9:00 am and I meant it! If we had to preheat or
anything, then we would just have to start early enough to get ready by 9 am.
With 40 miles to cover by dark I felt an early start was essential. Some of
the machines didn’t have headlights. Luckily everything went quite well and
C.J. and I jumped on my Bull Cat to lead the pack at precisely 9 am. Everyone
was raring and ready to go. Excitement was high as the 10 antique sleds and
out guides rattled out of the Northern Timber Cruisers parking lot just
outside Millinocket. I was out front and Wayne brought up the rear to pick up
the pieces. He’s a little more competent at picking up pieces and putting
them back in the proper places - I can make them shine better than him though.
Anyway, we proceeded probably about a half-mile when my Bull Cat started
running rough and quit. C.J. said, “What the heck was that?” I said a few
choice words that can’t be put in print
and proceeded to explain to my new friend C.J. in graphic detail exactly what
the blankety blank thing did. It has a rod on the fuel pump that was hanging
up, and I thought I had gotten it fixed several weeks before. Meanwhile, Wayne
is back in the N.T.C. Clubhouse dooryard changing a spark plug and setting the
points on jack Sevigney’s sled, which as I had mentioned before was the
original spark plug. Now to say the least, a beautiful start had turned to
crap in a hurry.
|
