Pockwockomus Falls
- 1915
- Digital pigment print from original Bert Call negative
- Print Size 22 X 30 in / 55.9 x 76.2 cm
- Frame Size 30 X 37 in / 76.2 x 94.0 cm
“We were soon at the Aboljacarmegus Falls. Anxious to avoid the delay as well as the labor of the portage here, our boatmen went forward first to reconnoitre, and concluded to let the batteau down the falls, carrying the baggage only over the portage. Jumping from rock to rock until nearly in the middle of the stream, we were ready to receive the boat and let her down over the first fall, some six or seven feet perpendicular. The boatmen stand upon the edge of a shelf of rock where the fall is perhaps nine or ten feet perpendicular, in from one to two feet of rapid water, one on each side of the boat, and let it slide gently over, till the bow is run out ten or twelve feet in the air; then letting it drop squarely, while one holds the painter, the other leaps in, and his companion following, they are whirled down the rapids to a new fall, or to smooth water.”
—Henry David Thoreau, “1846 Ktaadn”, The Maine Woods