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Log inRiver drivers history comes alive
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River drivers history comes alive
by Outspoken on Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:01 am
River drivers history comes alive
By Nick Sambides Jr.
Staff Writer Bangor Daily News
TOWNSHIP 3 RANGE 12 - The first floor is restored. The second is at least halfway done. More than 50 lumberman's tools, photographs and other artifacts are ready for display.
David and Luisa Surprenant’s dream is almost realized.
Known as the Boom House, the former river drivers’ boardinghouse will open as a museum in two or three weeks after three years of restoration. Its goal: to memorialize the epic logging and river-driving history of northern Maine.
"It will give people an opportunity to see what went on here. It’s history," David Surprenant, 42, said. "Where I grew up, outside New Bedford, Mass., there’s this huge whaling history that was almost lost and over the last 20 to 30 years, it really came back. People realized what they were missing."
The museum is at the south end of Chesuncook Lake about 35 miles northeast of the Greenville and about 17 miles south of the Surprenant family’s Chesuncook Lake House, a wilderness inn.
"We are hoping that we will have tours of the lake from that point, so basically people can drive there and we will bring them to the village," Luisa Surprenant, 41, David’s wife, said Wednesday.
For the Surprenants, Peter Vigue and other history buffs, the restoration is more than business. A 60-year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Cianbro Co. construction, Vigue helped save several state paper mills. The restoration fits his appreciation of Maine’s primary manufacturing enterprise.
"I think the wood products industry has played a very significant role in the economic history of the state," Vigue said. "It’s important to recognize that we are in a state of transition but also to recognize that we can learn a lot from the past."
http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=168011&zoneid=500
(Photos By Bangor Daily News/Kevin Bennett)
(Bangor Daily News/File Photo)
By Nick Sambides Jr.
Staff Writer Bangor Daily News
TOWNSHIP 3 RANGE 12 - The first floor is restored. The second is at least halfway done. More than 50 lumberman's tools, photographs and other artifacts are ready for display.
David and Luisa Surprenant’s dream is almost realized.
Known as the Boom House, the former river drivers’ boardinghouse will open as a museum in two or three weeks after three years of restoration. Its goal: to memorialize the epic logging and river-driving history of northern Maine.
"It will give people an opportunity to see what went on here. It’s history," David Surprenant, 42, said. "Where I grew up, outside New Bedford, Mass., there’s this huge whaling history that was almost lost and over the last 20 to 30 years, it really came back. People realized what they were missing."
The museum is at the south end of Chesuncook Lake about 35 miles northeast of the Greenville and about 17 miles south of the Surprenant family’s Chesuncook Lake House, a wilderness inn.
"We are hoping that we will have tours of the lake from that point, so basically people can drive there and we will bring them to the village," Luisa Surprenant, 41, David’s wife, said Wednesday.
For the Surprenants, Peter Vigue and other history buffs, the restoration is more than business. A 60-year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Cianbro Co. construction, Vigue helped save several state paper mills. The restoration fits his appreciation of Maine’s primary manufacturing enterprise.
"I think the wood products industry has played a very significant role in the economic history of the state," Vigue said. "It’s important to recognize that we are in a state of transition but also to recognize that we can learn a lot from the past."
http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=168011&zoneid=500
(Photos By Bangor Daily News/Kevin Bennett)
(Bangor Daily News/File Photo)
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Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
