That mystery is solved later in the day when a veteran Golden Road visitor informs me that logging trucks don’t travel the road on weekends. While Peter Frank drives I keep an eye out for log-laden trucks and brawny lumberjacks, but I don’t see any. It is not paved in gold or yellow brick (not so surprising), but it is paved for the first 30-plus miles from Millinocket (pleasantly surprising). Some first impressions in the opening miles: the roadway is wide and often straight. Either way, the name invokes images of grandeur. We’re just minutes from the eastern end of the Golden Road.ĭepending on what version you hear, the Golden Road earned its name because the private road cost Great Northern so much to build (the legend is one million dollars per mile), or because it offers a direct passage into one of the largest patches of contiguous forest in the United States, creating new access to the natural riches of northern Maine for the timber industry. The biggest spectacle is the cab of the logging truck jutting out of the second-story façade of the Pelletier Loggers Family Restaurant, which was founded by a Millinocket family which has hauled timber on the Golden Road for generations. It’s late morning, and only a few other cars and people are out and about when we drive through downtown Millinocket. We pack the four-wheel-drive station wagon with a cooler of drinks and food, and drive 70 miles north of Bangor, while Peter Frank’s agreeable old hound, Sparky, happily snoozes in the back seat. What’s the real story? One sunny Saturday, Peter Frank Edwards, my frequent partner on road-trip adventures, and I decide to see for ourselves. The mixed bag of details about the road intrigues me. We used to drive that in a morning to get more beer!!” “It’s only 40 miles from Caribou Lake to Millinocket. “You people need to get out more,” he posts in an online forum. One man contends that the Golden Road-built by Great Northern Paper and open for public recreational use-is more like Sebago Lake than Siberia, and that its length and dangerousness have been exaggerated. A few ask if they’ll need to bring extra tanks of gas-or even survival kits and compasses in case of GPS failure. Some express concern about the dangers of driving into such a broad and remote wilderness. Online, I find conflicting information about the road from various travelers and Mainers. Adventures along the infamous logging road from Millinocket to the Canadian border.Īccording to the maps in my well-worn copy of the Maine Atlas and Gazeteer, DeLorme’s iconic guide to the state, the Golden Road is a town-less thoroughfare in the North Maine Woods that stretches for more than 90 miles from Millinocket to the province of Quebec.
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