A real guide wire
Robinson knows his way around, through the Maine wilderness
ON THE PENOBSCOT, Maine -- These spring mornings, Wiggie Robinson spends plenty of time in his garden, cultivating with a machine, tilling, planting, and weeding.
Somewhere in the middle of the afternoon, as the breeze rises off the river, he lifts his canoe onto the pickup and drives it into the woods, where he hauls it down the riverbank and, in his own unorthodox technique, paddles out onto the Penobscot, standing up. No small athletic feat in a canoe.
After a few hours fly casting for wild trout, he paddles back to camp, hauls the canoe back up the bank, and resumes the chores of spiffing up a seasonal camp for a new fishing season.
For Robinson, the punch line in the recounting of all this activity comes after he tells about a mild heart attack he suffered last winter, requiring a stent operation, followed by rehab in the gym.
``At the doctor's office, they told me it's important to exercise and stay active," said Robinson, who is 84 years old and still a working fly fishing guide in the North Maine Woods. ``And I wanted to tell them that I do more exercise in an hour in the morning than they do all day."
But Robinson would never speak to anyone like that. In old-school thinking, his ways are gentlemanly. And the fact that he looks, moves, thinks, and speaks like a man 20 years younger go back to these few edicts:
``Stay active, live healthy, and never stop doing what you love."
In one short sentence, that is Wiggie Robinson's life in the Maine wilderness.
Nearly since graduating high school in Millinocket (when he wasn't at work in the pulp mill there), Robinson has been guiding parties on fishing and hunting trips, canoeing, or hiking up nearby Mount Katahdin -- the second-highest peak in New England and terminus of the Appalachian Trail. Married to Joyce, his wife of 60 years, he's still working, though nowadays he does pass many guide requests onto his son.
But the days Robinson cherishes are those they spend together outdoors, fishing and hunting.
``Just last week I went out with my son turkey hunting," Robinson says. ``I don't hear too well, so he was calling [the gobbler] in, and after just a couple of calls, this tom [turkey] came in. That's a sight that just gets the blood rushing, I tell you. A real experience for father and son, and it doesn't get old. In came that bird. Once he saw the decoys, he went right at them and began strutting and fanning. He was right beside me when I took my shot and got him.
``But it's the kind of experience that, if I stopped it, I probably wouldn't go back. You have to keep at these things."
In some ways, it seems a very long time ago that Robinson started guiding hiking trips up Katahdin, but then he notes, the years have a way of slipping by pretty fast. His memory is full of detail, stories of beauty, humor, and, of course, caution. One of the more gruesome tales always stands as a reason inexperienced adventurers should not be lulled into undertaking challenging outdoor treks unguided.
``In mid-October, two ladies came up from Massachusetts," said Robinson, recalling his first decade of guiding in the 1940s. ``They went up Katahdin and got up top and looked down off the Knife Edge at Chimney Pond. One of them, not knowing the terrain, turns to a sheer cliff part way down, thought they could climb down to Chimney Pond. But she reached a point where she couldn't get any further down and she couldn't get back up.
``The other lady hadn't reached that point yet. She scrambled back up and went down the Dudley Trail, and when she found Ranger Heath, she told him what happened. Well, the air was getting crisp; feeling like a big storm was coming when he started up the mountain. He hollered to [the stranded woman] and she hollered back. But when Ranger Heath went up the mountain, that's the last time I saw him alive.
``He got to her just as a storm hit the mountain. Sleet, snow, everything you can think of -- big winds. They just got covered over. We had to wait until the next day, but no one could find them. But one day, a ranger looking through his glasses saw a piece of rope dangling in the wind. When they got up to them, the two were just encased in ice. The ranger had pulled a raincoat over them, but they froze."
Three weeks before that, Robinson had guided three women up Katahdin. One was an opera singer from Boston who came with a friend and her mother. The 72-year-old woman had trouble with the huge rocks at the head of the Cathedral trail.
``There was no going around them, you had to go straight over. I told her, `Look, I'm going to lay down on the rock and put my hands like this [cupping them]. You can step on my hands, step on my shoulders, step on my head, and then the others are going to reach down and help you over.' Well, she wanted to try it, and she did like I told her and went right over that rock.
``Well, she was so proud of herself, and so we went on, and that opera singer was slower than molasses flowing in January. But all the way up Katahdin she was singing arias from the opera. All the way. When we finally got to the top we had a toast to celebrate. We got down the mountain and they had such a good time they paid me $80 -- which was a lot of money then."
The stories go on and on for Robinson -- as does the river in front of his camp, and his long life in the north woods. A new season is at hand, and his vegetables are in the ground while the wild brookies and salmon are strong this year. And despite his 84 years, Wiggie says he never thinks of an end game for his activities.
``I'll put it to you this way, and I've said it to lots of people," he stated. ``You're invited to my 100th birthday party." 