A trop to a remote area, a personal account By David Field

So, after having a very hectic spring, I cut loose and took a weekend away last weekend.  Yes, it meant missing a Legion double header.  But, I knew that there was plenty of baseball in my future.  So, Friday morning, my friend, Cliff Knight and I headed to our camp in T8R4.  It is also known as the Hawkins Brook Palace.  The locals, the few that are there, refer to it as just “the palace”.  We are talking about a small one room cabin with an outhouse to do your business in.  However, this structure and others before it have been on the property for almost 100 years.  There are still berms from where the original campers had their horse pen.  They used to come in by horse and carriage to hunt and fish. 
 
So, with the history behind us, we arrived around 11 a.m. and unpacked.  We had lunch and then went on a wood mission. We filled the back of the truck shortly with various blow downs and other wood remnants allowed by our lease.  We got back to camp, cut it up, split and stacked it.  So, with a little lactic acid in the arms, we then ventured to Hawkins Brook to see if the brook trout were biting.
 

We parked the truck, dragged the canoe to Pine Knoll Landing as we call it and ventured up Hawkins, back towards the camp.  We portaged around a very tall beaver dam and continued on to a much higher brook than we have been used to.  Finding Staples Trout Hole, Russell’s Hole and the Elm Works Brook inlet were a tough job.  All three spots have produced trout in the past.  We were fishing with earthworms and were only catching the ever abundant chubs.  Disheartened, we paddled back to Pine Knoll.  We followed a very large beaver from Staples Trout Hole back to the beaver hut.  That beaver was very, very large.  We got back to camp and had a simple macaroni and cheese with hot dog dinner.  We finished with an outside campfire and soon our muscles began to ache from the work we had done. 
 
Up early, we managed a sausage and egg breakfast before hitting the brook again in hopes of landing some brookies.  However, after fishing for over three hours, we were skunked.  We packed up and headed back to camp for lunch.  We finished cutting and stacking wood for our fall hunting season.  We did some camp clean up and then headed to a pit about three miles away.  We did some skeet shooting and had some fair sparring between us as to who was better.  We returned to camp to finish the day with a potato and onion in tinfoil combo with grilled moose meat and salad. 

This camp is located three miles from an asphalt road. The cell service is okay, but not consistent.  We have hunted bear, partridge, moose and deer from this camp.  I call it my decompression location.  It is a simplified way of living and ever relaxing.  The photos I have presented remind me of the late Bill Silliker.  As he used to say, “Catch yours in the good light.”