Nine Mile Bridge: Three Years in the Maine Woods

by Helen Hamlin

In this critically acclaimed Maine classic, first published in 1945, Helen Hamlin writes of her adventures teaching school at a remote Maine lumber camp and then of living deep in the Maine wilderness with her game warden husband. Her experiences are a must-read for anyone who loves the untamed nature and wondrous beauty of Maine's north woods and the unique spirit of those who lived there. In the 1930s, in spite of being warned that remote Churchill Depot was no place for a woman, the remarkable Helen Hamlin set off at age twenty to teach school at the isolated lumber camp at the headwaters of the Allagash River. She eventually married a game warden and moved deeper into the wilderness. In her book, Hamlin captures that time in her life, complete with the trappers, foresters, lumbermen, woods folk, wild animals, and natural splendor that she found at Umsaskis Lake and then at Nine Mile Bridge on the St. John River.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Book Club, Environment, Historical, History

254 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Theresa RavenHawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my paternal grandmother's book. It was actually first published in 1945. This was about her first husband I believe. I admire my grandmother's writing. She passed away on December 13th, 2004. She is loved and missed. The book gave me an excellent picture of what her life was like before I was born. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of their cribbage games. I love cribbage. I have followed her path and written an autobiography of my own.

[Michael Wing · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was hauled up to the North Maine Woods for an appropriate place and time. Time never made it, so I read it now and love Hamlin's prose of her real life experience as a first-year teacher in Churchill Dam. More later. This is later. Finished it this morning. Though not YAL, I would strongly recommend it to a senior considering the Maine woods as a work place, especially those woods less settled. Hamlin's view of the forests, the people, and the waters around the Allagash region is dramatic and uncomplicated. Her voice is so sincere and rings true of the balance between the environment and those who live there. She marries a warden, Curly Hamlin, and learns the trails, trials, sled dogs, deer, and seasons as they come, a love story of sorts. I will keep in on the front shelf at home.

[Sara Regan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another fascinating account of American life from a vastly different era. This one is about the inner workings of mid 1940's lumber camps and game law as seen by one of the few women to know both, in the remote North Maine Woods. The review describes a "unique spirit" of the people who lived in the region back then; this book truly brings to life a hardiness and humor that almost seems fictional. Most Mainers who work the land (or the sea) still have that spirit. The details are the key to this book, such as the homemade Maine State Seal that Helen and her husband make for their tiny cabin to hang over the door, and the birch bark they peel, dry and use as paper for their letters. Helen paints Indian canoes at the top as her letterhead. So charming! Tripping over fuel cans stored in the bedroom, trying to rehydrate tobacco cans, hunting partridges, spiffy alpine duds giving out within months (or weeks) from all the heavy duty action. The hunts for game poachers are also quite exciting; perhaps not much has changed in that regard. This book definitely made me want to visit the North Woods. After black fly and mosquito season.

[Joani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considering my love of wilderness and nature books, I don't know how I could have missed this Maine classic. I enjoyed reading Hamlin's three-year 'adventure' in the Maine woods, beginning in 1938 when she married her game warden husband, Curly. The author's beautiful prose was entertaining and informative and offered interesting insight into the skills and knowledge that enabled this young couple to survive northern Maine winters. I found myself quietly laughing my way through her anecdotes and marveling at this young couple's industriousness and creativity. While I obtained the book through our library, I will likely purchase it. It's a delightful read and one I would enjoy revisiting, especially during one of our Maine winters.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after a camping vacation in the area of northern Maine where this book takes place. Not only is it interesting to get to know how Helen Hamlin lived at Churchill Depot and Nine Mile Bridge, but also to know more of the history of that time and place. The boarding house where she lived when she first arrived is still standing and the lakes and streams are still beautiful and wild.

[Patrice M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this one by chance on the library's paperback rack. Originally published in 1945, and then republished in 2004 upon the author's passing, this is a great account of living in the wilds of Maine on the Canadian border. I enjoyed the detail Helen provided of her experience. The complete picture of winter at 40 below zero with 5 feet of snow outside and not another human around for 15 miles.... made a snowy NH March in 2018 MUCH easier to survive !

[Emily Kosnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not learn that existed until my grandmother passed away. My great grandfather is featured in this book. If I recall correctly "the homliest man" she ever met. She does credit him with an encyclopedic memory. I am so happy to have this little family treasure.

[Anya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. it always takes me back to where I grew up in northern Maine, and specifically to Grampy Camille's stories. He lived in all these areas right after Helen Hamlin, and it is magical to be transported back there.

[Jamie Dacyczyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent memoir about a woman who worked in a northern Maine logging camp as a teacher before marrying a game warden and living with him in the woods for a few years. Unfortunately, I've already read My Life in the Maine Woods: A Game Warden's Wife in the Allagash Country, which I found much more charming for some reason. With this one, although the auther did have some nice nature writing, I found her tone over all to be more....surly? I don't know what word I want, but it just wasn't as a pleasant over all as Annette Jackson's similar memoir.

I also skipped or skimmed over some chunks of this book: the beginning that took place in the logging camp because I found the French-Canadian dialect jarring to read (and I just wasn't that interested in the squalid camp setting), as well as several chapters about training sled dogs, which I just found unpleasant to read as a dog lover.

So, overall, a decent memoir about life in the Maine woods, but not my favorite.

[Dory · Rating 5 out of 5]

A straight up pleasurable read about a by-gone era in the North Maine Woods. The years that Hamlin chronicles are at the end of the Depression, although the book was originally published in 1945, following years of global upheaval. This makes her descriptions of the woods in all seasons and its people somewhat nostalgic even at the time it was written, let alone all these decades later. She was an adventurous, hard-working, humorous, and creative woman. I’d love to have known her.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book immediately after finishing Louise Dickinson Rich's We Took to the Woods. Both autobiographical, they were written in the early 1940s and focused on living isolated in the north woods of Maine. While Nine Mile Bridge complemented We Took, the writers' styles and content were quite different. We Took to the Woods was poetically almost lyrically written. Helen Hamlin, on the other hand, was very direct, no nonsense and narrative in her approach. Humor was infused into both.

Commonalities: Their experiences with men in the logging camps (quite unlike the stereotype that most of us have of lumberjacks), the sense of isolation yet absolute feeling of safety in the environment, & the strong family of "neighbors" who may have been many miles away and, with the limited technology of the day, not in connection a lot of the time but who would come to one another's aid at the drop of a hat.

Hamlin left Ft Kent, ME, as a 20 year old to teach in a lumber camp and continued her adventure when she married a game warden and lived with him for three years in "the largest wilderness in the continental U.S." Hamlin did a remarkable job of allowing the reader to understand the difficulties of her life: endless chores in numbingly cold temperatures punctuated by the joys she felt fishing, hunting, playing poker with strangers passing through, and hot baths & culinary treats when they went Outside to the Quebec town on the border. (I do wish, though, that she would have told us more about what her teaching curriculum entailed since she explains that she was sent there because she spoke fluent French and was to help the children become bilingual, yet the devoutly Catholic families chose to Church school them.)

The story is written in an era when women knew their place. While she practiced "female" skills--canning, washing, knitting --- she was no "girly girl"! She pitched in to help skin hunted kill, lift heavy canoes, and sleep in vacant shelters with missing windows, no heat, and vermin. Sometimes her banter with her husband and the chauvinism he displayed annoyed me, although, again, I recognize it was true to the period.

In a time when we couch potatoes lament taking the dog on an around-the-block walk & most cannot finish a 5k run, it is incredible to realize that the game warden and others covered 30 miles a day in 30 below temps, in wet clothes and with only a lunch and snack packed to nourish them.

Both of these books gave me a newly-found appreciation for those who lived in The County and surrounding areas during days past & make me wistful to realize the changes (plane accessibility, modern accommodations, the logging industry) that have transpired since Ms. Hamlin lived near Nine Mile Bridge.

[Patience Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book, Nine Mile Bridge, was highly recommended to me by a Michael Wing in my Young Adult Literature class this past summer. It is nonfiction and written in 1945 by a maverick woman schoolteacher, Helen Hamlin. She wanted more than anything to teach in the back woods of Maine. She followed her dream and became the first woman to teach in Churchill a part of North Western part of Maine so remote that her parents drove her there via Canada. Needless to say it was a very sparcely populated area and here she chronicled her life for three years. As one can imagine the pace was somewhat slow as this is a far cry from the "fast lane". Her story was entertaining to me because I enjoy the woods of Maine and being outside in nature. I also learned alot from how she and her game warden husband lived a simple life where they hunted and managed to meet their needs in very basic and imaginative ways. I personally would not want to live so remotely but it was fascinating to live their stories vicariously. I learned about trapping beaver, canine first aid, ice out with a vengeance, taming sled dogs and more as I sat in the comforts of my home! I particularly admire women who are so brave and survive the rigors of nature. Moreover, she and her husband worked well as a team which was heart warming.

[JoAnn Plante · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It was a true story of someone, who survived in the Maine woods. The author also gave tips and tricks about outdoor living and gave some insight into what it's like to live in the Maine woods for months at a time. She talked about the food she ate and how she prepared it. She also talked about the neighbors and the entertainment they had. It was so refreshing to read about life through the eyes of a real person. She remarked on the sounds and smells of the woods and all the animals that lived there. Her descriptions of other people in her book is humorous and she vividly describes how they looked and sounded. She even writes in a french dialect, so the reader can hear the words as they are read with the french accent. This is one of the classic Maine woods books to read.

[Christopher Sprague · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book, though I suspect it won't appeal to everybody. Starting in 2004, I have made many trips up to this area in the fall to go hunting and fishing. In recent years we've stayed at a camp on Musquacook Lake, which is mentioned several times in this book. It's a wild and remote area, though it was far more so when this book was written. If you've ever spent any time in the North Maine Woods, paddled the Allagash, it just wondered what life used to be like up there, I cannot recommend this highly enough.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not the best writing, this is a great story of Helen's three years in the wilderness in Maine with her husband and her dogs as the her only companions during the long, incredibly hard winters. This is a classic of stories of Maine as life in remote places there used to be lived, and a particulary unique story at that. Well worth finding this book.

[Ruth Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was given to me to read by a Maine resident. I enjoyed reading Helen Hamlin's account of her life in a Maine's backwoods settlement and of life in a remote lumber camp in the late 1940's. Helen writes about everyday life activities while living with her game warden husband in the scarcely populated region and how they passed the time in the wilderness.

[Mark Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book 20 plus years ago and rediscovered it when visiting my parent's cabin in Maine this past summer. I got around to reading it again after Christmas and the story is as compelling today as when I first read it. Maybe even more so as our society has become hyper-connected. If you want to see Maine as it should be, then this is the quintessential Maine story.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read and provides a picture of how remote northern maine was--and still is in some ways. Helen worked as a teacher in a lumber camp and then lived in the woods with her husband, who was a game warden. It's all about life in the Maine woods.

[Suzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me only 3 days to read. It was very interesting to me since I had just spent the previous weekend camping in the area she writes about. Not much has changed.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful memoir of life in the Maine woods. Great read.

[Janet Lord · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very worthwhile tale of a school teacher living in a lumber camp in the North Woods of Maine.

[Linda Holway · Rating 4 out of 5]

it was a good read, I really do appreciate living in the times I live in

[Tarah Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect look at life in the Maine woods - the way they used to be.

[Sophie Peabbles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being from Maine, this book was tons of fun to read. I loved hearing names of towns and rivers that I have visited, and hearing about the history of an amazing state.

[Russ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a period piece, an evocative memoir, recounting three years in Helen Hamlin’s young adult life in the north Maine woods circa 1935-40, teaching school at a logging camp (Churchill Depot on the Allagash) and living as a game warden’s wife (first as Umsaksis Lake on the Allagash, then at Nine Mile Bridge on the St. John River). The account is journalistic, anecdotal, and personal - fitting for the remote wilderness milieu. Hamlin is self-aware of the transitory moment about which she’s reporting: the woods are changing, logging is on the decline, civilization is encroaching, and war is coming. She chose the experience of living close to nature as a backwoods wife, and writes as a “living historian” for the benefit of “civilized” city folk like me. The tone is almost nostalgic at times, the tales sound occasionally “tall”, but the raw lived-experience comes through with authenticity.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here’s the perfect book to read (or re-read) during Maine’s bicentennial celebration of statehood. Hamlin, born in 1917 in Fort Kent, Maine, was a rugged adventurer who chose to take her teaching degree into the depths of Maine’s north woods back in 1937. After a year, she married a game warden and spent two more years (including snowbound winters) in isolation that makes our current quarantine look like a party.
Highlights include the surreal beauty of snowscapes, care and dependence on sled-dogs, insider views into the early logging industry, spring ice-out, frontier medicine and innovations for survival, and much more.
Hamlin’s writing style is spare, direct, and highly readable. Her love of the outdoor life and meeting physical challenges emanates from the pages. An excellent immersion into another place and time, worthy of note.
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[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was full of vivid details about very rough living in the northern Maine woods pre WWII, but it contains almost no reflection. There are only a couple of references to being lonely or bored or "woods queer." There is a passing reference to being pregnant with her first child, but no subsequent stories about the delivery. Logging was a very dangerous occupation, but there are no accounts of anyone dying or being maimed; it's all kind of flippant. And finally, a bit of google stalking reveals that Helen divorced Curly in 1947 and remarried, but there is no hint in the book of unhappiness. It's all one barely amusing anecdote after another.

[David Hardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finishing this book. Reminds me of L.D.Rich books in a way. I bought the book to give to my sister who likes biographies of women. Thoroughly enjoyed the book. A vivid glimpse of what life was like in the Maine woods at that time. Not surprising that this book written in 1945 has been republished and is still selling. Says something about the allure of Maine particularly in a day when reality has become like bad fiction.

[Eunice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book and I want everyone to read it. She's a clean, funny and self-deprecating writer but also observant of details and deep respect and love for nature. That all comes through in her book. It's a very interesting perspective on life in N. Maine in the 40's without being being too historic or too "in my day...". Hamlin just writes what she sees and experiences with honesty and color.

[Dave Scamardella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, but I am biased. I worked in the North Maine Woods for a couple of years right out of college. I enjoyed reading her tales of Curly chasing after the poachers from lake to lake, me following along in my DeLorme Maine Atlas and Gazeteer! I also lived in Fort Kent the first year, which is the author's hometown. Best small town in America.