In praise of Maine’s dead zones

This story was originally published in July 2023.

It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, and my friend Parker and I are waiting for the wind to drop.  We’re camping on a remote island in Upper Pierce Pond, Somerset County, trying to dodge wet summer weather and catch a few of the pond’s famed landlocked salmon. The shoreline around us is undeveloped and the other islands empty — we’re the only people around.

It’s one of the rare dry days of late. A front has pushed through, the morning fog blown out, giving way to blue skies and cooler, drier air. The island’s pine trees sway and shush in the wind, a hypnotic sound I’m familiar with, having camped here nearly every summer since I was a teenager.

To the east, waves build and whitecaps unfurl in white streaks. From the west, a loon calls out, and the call is lost on the wind.

We’re standing at the picnic table, tying new leaders onto our 5-weight fly lines. I’m barefoot with pine needles between my toes, a bit worried the evening hatch might not happen in this gale. Parker, on the other hand, is optimistic that the pond will calm off before dark. I hope he’s right, but it’s not looking good. My Old Town canoe, a 17-footer, forest green and with a newly busted back seat — rotted from overuse — rests on the island’s small sand strip. Waves lap at its sides. Black Swallowtail butterflies gather on the gunwales, flitting their wings and absorbing sunlight.

This is one of the longest days of the year, and it’s amazing how slowly it unfolds as we wait for evening. There are few distractions, few unnatural sounds, save for the occasional outboard fixed to a square-stern canoe — guides and anglers from Cobb’s Camps, puttering around, trolling deep for trout or salmon.

There’s no cell service here, no Wi-Fi network to join. Pierce Pond — like many of Maine’s remote waterways — exists in a dead zone where cellphones are useful only as cameras and clocks. I haven’t used mine except to record audio of loon calls at night and a video of a thunderstorm that rumbled through yesterday. I typically keep my cellphone on my person, and even now, tying a small Elk Hair Caddis to 4X tippet, I find myself occasionally stopping to pat my pockets, searching for my phone, growing frantic when I don’t find it. Then I remember that it’s safe in my tent, and that even though I’ve likely missed calls, texts, and emails, I can’t access them until I’m back in civilization.

When I was younger, I’d search this same island for a high spot, for some secret location where I’d snag at least a bar of cell service. I never found one. I remember the tangible feeling, a kind of angst, that someone was trying to reach me, that I was needed somewhere else. When I’m in dead zones like this one now, I still feel a subtle but present anxiety in the first 24 hours: I’m missing out on something — some vital text message from a loved one, or world-changing event that everyone else is responding to.

But after a day or so, that same anxiety begins to dissipate. My senses awaken. I can actually feel them sharpening: echoing loon calls, mosquitoes needling my ankles, wind in the branches overhead. I search stillwater for insects, for the distinctive rings of rising salmon. I smell the forest, the rain, the damp pine needles. Time slows. My blood pressure drops and I am not thinking of the next thing I need to do.

When I mention my cellphone policy to my undergrad students at the start of the semester — phones away except for emergencies — I can almost see their eyes glaze over. They’ve heard this plea hundreds of times. And yet, even after my speech, every time there’s a lull in the action, a few open seconds, students pull their cellphones from their pockets.

My fear for my students, and for myself, is that our over-attachment to phones and media platforms creates the illusion that life exists outside the present. I don’t mean to preach — I am just as guilty. I often remind myself to put my phone away in social situations; I get sucked into scrolling and keeping tabs on the lives of others and curating my own social media image, just as my students do. The danger, I think, is not just distraction but a kind of distortion that pulls us out of the only life we get to live, which is now, here, in this moment.

By five the wind has diminished, but it’s still iffy for fly fishing. Parker heats pasta with mushrooms and garlic in a skillet over a Coleman stove. When it’s ready we eat from flimsy paper bowls, using the only two plastic forks I’ve remembered to pack. Parker wonders what’s happening back in the real world. I tell him it’s probably best we don’t know. We eat quickly, then set kindling in the firepit for when we return from fishing. Soon we’re pushing the Old Town off the sandy patch and paddling into the breeze.

Over the next few hours, the breeze doesn’t relent. We search for sheltered coves, calm areas where mayflies might hatch, but the wind is swirling. It seems to come from every direction. Light fades in miniscule increments, until the horizon above the western mountains is a dusky purple. More loon calls. Mosquitos. We try the west shoreline, near a stream that rushes in. We try another cove, but the wind follows us everywhere.

Parker is fine to call it a night, he says, but I have one more spot to check. In the lee of our island, an area not much wider than a couple of picnic tables, we find a handful of floating mayflies. It’s nearly dark. The mayflies are brown and newly hatched, resting in the surface film with their wings tented above them. I slow the canoe. Parker grabs his fly rod.

A fish rises and takes a mayfly. Parker makes a few casts, misses a strike. He casts again at a fading ring. When he sets the hook this time, a fat, mini football of a salmon leaps into the dusk. I net the fish but it’s too dark for photos, plus my cellphone is back in my tent. We consider keeping it but we’re both full from dinner, and we have to take off first thing in the morning. Parker removes the fly and releases the salmon.

Back at camp, we light a match to the kindling and sit and watch embers lift and float away. There are no other light sources, just the fire building and the faint specks of stars through the trees. The loons are talking again. Parker and I are yawning and it’s not even 9:30 p.m. It occurs to me that we are synched with the cycle of the day, with no screens to pull us away.

In the morning we break down camp, fold the tarp, and pack the canoe with our belongings. It’s a short paddle to the takeout. Thankfully, the wind is behind us.

There’s a spot just past North New Portland, on Route 16, heading south, where cell service returns. It’s on a straight-away just past a campground. I know the spot well. My cellphone is charging in its holder on my dash, still set to airplane mode. I know once I reconnect the screen will brighten with notifications, voicemails. The road is bumpy, and my truck needs new shocks. I open the driver’s side window, let the cooler morning air come in. There’s fog lifting and patches of blue sky overhead. I anticipate the feeling of a hot shower, of sleeping on a proper mattress after two nights on a thin mat.

At least for a little while longer, I ignore my phone completely.

Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated the route traveled on through North New Portland.