Grand Lake Stream sits only a short canoe ride from the Maine/New Brunswick border. For centuries, anglers from all over Maine, New England, and points much further away have come up to explore this remote tip of the country. They are rewarded with smallmouth bass, brook trout, and the much-coveted landlocked salmon. There are plenty of options and ample breathing room in which to explore, too. With 11 interconnected lakes, there is more water than woods.
This wild, idyllic setting is where Randy Spencer is fishing guide, author, and chronicler of oral history. All three come together in his most recent work, Written on Water.
Written on Water is a fishing book. But it assumes that genre in the same way that A River Runs Through It is a fishing story; or To Kill a Mockingbird is a crime novel. People are at the forefront of Spencer’s narrative. The woods, the water, and the fish are characters, too – albeit in a supporting capacity.
“Among the guides,” Spencer says, “we have this saying that it is all about the context. All we have to do is get out of the way and let people enjoy the view.” He’s witnessed magic happen among the incredibly diverse clientele that comes up to experience the Maine woods. “I see the same story play out over and over again. Without fail it repeats itself: that level of decompression. The beauty of our natural resources gets to someone who is wrapped up tight. To watch this happen to someone? It startles them. They’re spoken to in a way they haven’t heard for a long time, or, they are just hearing for the first time.”
Those stories, and the stories of the people who heard that voice decades ago and chose to stay in Grand Lake Stream, are the stories in Written on Water.
Collecting local history and putting it into a book grew out of Spencer’s work alongside the local Passamaquoddy tribe. “For about a decade I worked for the tribe that lives adjacent to Grand Lake Stream. I conducted studio interviews with tribal elders. They shared their own life stories along with those they had accumulated, passed down through oral history. I also pored through over 100 hours of archival interviews. For some of these, it was the first time a person had heard them.
“I heard – I saw the power of oral history.”
It was not a great leap to apply this power to the angling culture of Grand Lake Stream. Again, the region has a large and historic footprint in the sporting heritage of America. “I was constantly hearing these wonderful stories from the old guides,” Spencer says. “It was everything: their experiences, poems, and songs. The kinds of things you’d hear around campfires late at night. I thought that it would be a real shame for these stories to be lost.”
In just under 200 pages, Spencer shares 13 such stories. He captures the atmosphere of a rural hamlet and its environs, where the northern lights and anticipating ice-out make greater waves than whatever the cable news networks are perseverating on. Where, in his words, “people are usually just concerned about what is going on right here, right now. Usually, that includes ‘How’s the fishing?’ and ‘How’s the hunting?’”
Written on Water is a delightful book that any angler or outdoorsman will enjoy. It has a much broader appeal though, as it is an endearing collection of stories from a different and refreshing kind of place. There are plenty of people who would do well to unwind by escaping, even if just vicariously, to the little general store in Grand Lake Stream to hear about its residents, their stories, and what makes the view worthwhile.
Learn more, and pick up a copy of Written on Water, at Rivercliff Books.
Meet Randy Spencer at his personal website.