Jon Reisman

The Calais Advertiser and Machias Valley News Observer has a special edition this week, “The New Mainer's Guide to Washington County.” (See center section) As part of that effort, Freedom Studies will delve into my own migration to Maine and Washington County. I am also contributing a small piece on my adopted hometown, the centrally located metropolis of Cooper.
I was born in Buffalo, NY, probably resulting in a genetic predisposition to snow and lakes. After a brief sojourn to Orange County, CA (we literally lived next to an orange grove), my family moved back east to Philadelphia, where I grew up.
In the early 1960s my extended family summered at a camp (“Sunny Gables”) on the west shore of Long Lake in Naples, ME. Soon thereafter, I began attending a summer camp (Takajo) on the eastern shore. The owner of that camp had a longstanding relationship with my maternal grandfather, who had owned Camp Greylock in western Massachusetts and once employed him. There is actually a soccer field at Takajo named after my grandfather. I remember helping to clear it, passing cut logs along a long line of campers.
On Long Lake I learned to swim, canoe and sail, and I took every canoe trip Takajo offered- on the Saco, Ossipee, Androscoggin, Crooked and Songo Rivers and on Long, Sebago, Flagstaff and Rangeley Lakes. In 1969, I was deemed “qualified” to take Takajo’s capstone 10 day “Wilderness” trip on the St. Croix. It was the first of more than a dozen trips I took down the Croix, and my first introduction to Washington County.
In late July I sat in the back of the camp truck (“Tillie”) on padded benches (no seat belts, it was a different time), towing a canoe trailer, packed with ammo cans and wannigans of food and supplies. The trip to Forest City from Naples took most of the day. I am uncertain if we took Rte. 9 or Rte. 6 east; neither was particularly straight or smooth in those days. I most remember thinking that Eastern Maine was an ocean of trees.
Although it was not really a “wilderness”, the St. Croix was a wonderful adventure for this Philly boy, and it cemented my love of canoeing, rivers, and Lakes. The incredible fishing on Spednic Lake was followed by a short portage in Vanceboro, and then rapids. In our aluminum canoes of the day, we called them “rock music”. Multiple days camped at Little Falls fishing and running the rips. Then on through playful otters to beautiful Loon Bay, where a sunrise swim could not be topped. The finale of that first trip was a gusty and gutsy lashed canoe sail down to Princeton and Route1 pull out
In July of 1984, fifteen years after that first trip to Washington County, my wife and I travelled to Machias for a job interview at UMM. I was teaching at Wheaton College, Bryant College (now University) and Fall River Community College and my wife was a special education teacher in Rehoboth, MA (near Attleboro). My wife had grown up in southern Maine (South Berwick), but had never been to Washington County. The closest she had come was a Rainbow Girls trip to Ellsworth, and the blueberry barrens off Route 1 were new to her.
The interview went well, and we had a job offer and prospective lodging in Machiasport on Birch Point in a (very) semi-winterized camp. Little did I know that our neighbor Captain Clark was the grandfather of my soon to be colleague Brian Beal. We stopped at my in-laws in South Berwick on the way back. They were delighted we would be moving back to Maine, but surprised that instead of being 2 hours south we would be 5 hours northeast.
In August of 1984 we moved to Machiasport. My wife, who had been working steadily since we got married five years earlier, loved watching the tides on Larrabee Cove, and was planning on taking some time off to savor the beauty and our good fortune. In early September, I noticed an ad in the MVNO for a likely position in Calais, and convinced my wife that the Washington County job market was not the same as southern Massachusetts. She applied and was hired, and was soon commuting some 50 plus miles each way to Calais.
That winter we began to look for a house. Being a logical economist and in love with lakes and rivers, I focused the search on communities roughly half way between Calais and Machias. It came down to choices in Cooper and Dennysville, and Cathance Lake won over the Dennys River. 36 years ago we moved to Cooper, just as Black Fly season commenced. It was a fortuitous decision, but the logic had one major flaw- after 7 years working in Calais, my wife changed jobs and moved to Machias, where she worked until her retirement last year. We know those 20 miles to Machias on 191 and 1 by heart.

Jon Reisman is an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Maine at Machias. His views are his own. Mr. Reisman welcomes comments as letters to the editor here, or to him directly via email at [email protected].