Think back on some of your greatest memories of the outdoors. I’ll bet a good number of those things you remember took place in your childhood. They probably weren’t extravagant vacations or all expense paid hunting trips. It probably wasn’t the trophy deer or monster fish that makes you smile the most. You think back on the simple things.
The beauty of a childhood in the outdoors is that those simple things, combined with our wild imaginations, are what truly fulfill us. When Bud Simpson sent me a copy of his book, “Mantawassuk: The Cove”, it reminded me of those simple things we enjoy as kids in the outdoors.
“The Cove” is a collection of stories about Simpson’s experiences growing up in a special little piece of the Penobscot River in Brewer, Maine. Growing up dirt poor during the Great Depression era, Simpson found the outdoors to be a refuge from a tough life. Fortunately for him, that refuge was just outside his back door, where Johnson Brook enters the Penobscot River in an area called “Mantawassuk” by the Indians, and referred to by Bud as “The Cove”.
Most of the stories in “The Cove” revolve around water, and most of those involve some type of fish. Bud tells of his first encounter with pickerel and how he learned to catch them “by hook or by crook”. Bud and his brother Trevor did lots of fishing in the cove and the Penobscot. Oftentimes they had to improvise with crude equipment and fishing tackle, but that was all part of the challenge in the mind of a young, adventurous boy.
Eventually, Bud and Trevor felt the need to become more mobile, and thus began their adventures in boat building. Their first raft sunk, and a cardboard boat covered in wax met with a similar fate. When they began building better rafts, and occasionally borrowing a boat from a neighbor, their horizons expanded far beyond the cove.
Bud had the good fortune of observing Atlantic salmon up close and personal in the Penobscot, and even in the cove. He and Trevor eventually found ways to catch salmon, and they got pretty good at it. One memorable fish took the boys on quite a ride below the Veazie Dam!
“The Cove” was truly a special place for a young Bud Simpson, just like other woods and waters were for many of us growing up. To remember so many of his adventures in this place, and to have the passion to write a book about them, though, is what sets “The Cove” apart from the rest.
Though it wasn’t typical of the outdoors books I usually read and review, “Mantawassuk: The Cove” stands out as a book well worth reading. Simpson is an incredibly gifted writer and his honest, down to earth and often humorous writing style made this a book I highly recommend.
“Mantawassuk: The Cove” was self published by Bud Simpson in 2010.
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