Nine Mile Bridge: Three Years in the Maine Woods

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 -- from snowbound months in a two-room cabin to sub-zero treks for food to the sheer joy of spring -- 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 20 to teach school at the tiny and isolated lumber camp at the headwaters of the Allagash River. After teaching for one year, she married a game warden and moved even deeper into the wilderness, where she spent her next three years. 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. Islandport Press is proud to reissue Nine Mile Bridge and has enhanced it with a new foreward by Dean B. Bennett, an author and noted authority on the Allagash and North Woods regions of Maine, a new biography of the author and new photographs.