Hey, I found this on YouTube
-thought I'd share on this snowy winter night just for the heck of it...
= new reply since forum marked as read
When I was young we lived up in that area. The rivers had such a nasty odor and there were paper mills all along most of the rivers around the greater Brunswick area.
Weren't there stock car races on that river in the winters? I remember river races but am not sure which river(s).
Man, that was a while ago.
But Mr PotatoChip said he doesn't remember any races. He does however, remember this last log drive and even knew (or rather his dad knew) some of the guys in the video.
The rivers are quite nice now but yeah, I heard that they were terrible back in the day. I think it was the Androscoggin that even caught fire at one point...
Maybe someone else here knows about the races. 
As an aside, I heard that people still occasionally find submerged logs in Moosehead to this day. Apparently, they are worth a lot of money. Something to do w/how the wood has aged in the water, I guess.
Do you have any family still in the area? Maybe they could offer some lodging.
Things are so much better now. At least environmentally speaking. As mentioned earlier, I'm not a native Mainer, therefore didn't experience what you describe, but I believe you. Everything I've read regarding Maine history seems to back up what you are saying. And eew, paper mill towns still stink. It's like a rotten egg/sulpher smell... or something.
But things really do seem to be better overall, imho.
I'm of course not trying to imply that everything is perfect. Far from it. We've got a lot of problems here still. Not the least of which are high poverty and unemployment numbers. Especially in areas north of Bangor and Augusta. The infrastructure is a mess, and need I even mention the idiot Governor we've got at the moment? Ugh!
But the Brunswick/Topsham areas are now quite nice. I was down there a couple of years ago, and was impressed w/what the folks there have done to make it into a nice, thriving, progressive community. I can't remember the name of the place where I ate, but it was some former industrial mill that has since been tastefully redone into a brewery/restaurant. Good food, great atmosphere!
Thanks btw, for sharing your experiences. I love hearing about Maine's past from folks who have lived it.
PS- I look forward to checking out your link! 
go back and visit someday.
The economic woes of that state have been there for a very long time, all of my life for certain.
There were surely many things I do recall, as well, that made it joy to be there when I was. It is nice to know that many of the industrial cities have cleaned up their act as much as they have. I have heard some good things. I am sure that I was there during the ecological turning point. I have been back to some of the cities I inhabited in southern NH in the past twenty years and was favorably impressed by the changes on some issues and unfavorably impressed in others. But I don't live there anymore so I guess it's not for me to say.
I do have a couple relatives in the region whom I would like to visit again, I'll make sure to make a drive up the coast when I do.
BTW, that isn't my site. I just found it for reference, some of the pictures reminded me of things I had long forgotten.
Thanks for bringing up the subject, though. It was a nice little trip in the "way back" machine for me!!
I'm only about 1/4 into it so far, but am already hooked! There is so much to absorb here... Amazing stuff that I would recommend to anyone who would like to know more about our state's history beyond what our euro-centric history books taught us.
This link is specifically about the Androscoggin River, and it's known historical origins. But that does not change the fact that other Maine rivers very likely have very similar histories.
Native Americans lived alongside, and traveled on, the Androscoggin River centuries before the first Europeans explored the coast of Maine, an effort that may have begun as early as the 1490s. Moving up the Androscoggin valley after the glaciers retreated over 12,000 years ago, the ancestors of today’s Abenaki Indians—the “dawn land” people—survived by hunting large game, especially caribou. Termed the “Paleo-Indians” by some scholars, these inhabitants of the valley erected a stone structure for the storage of meat, dated to 11,120 years before the present (and now on display at the Maine State Museum), at the “Vail Site” on the old course of the Magalloway River—a northern tributary to the Androscoggin. Many other prehistoric Indian encampment sites along the Androscoggin, notably on points of land jutting into the river (for example, “Powwow Point” at Bethel) and on raised elevations not far from the water’s edge, have been identified and documented through archaeological investigations carried out by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission and Maine State Museum. Such investigations have aided in the reconstruction of the lifestyles of the original human inhabitants who occupied the Androscoggin watershed.
Cool link. Thanks for sharing, 2naSalit!
I found it really interesting as well and bookmarked it myself. I thought you might appreciate the info too.
As a child I spent most of my years there in the Bowdoinham/Brunswick area an still remember much of what I saw and learned. I recall moose in our garden in Bowdoinham, I attended Nathaniel Hawthorne School (across the street from Harriet Beacher Stowe's house -which was then a fine dining establishment but I think it's a museum now). And used to ride bicycles with my older brother around the Bowdoin College campus and past Nathaniel Hawthorne's house... It was a great place to be a kid... but I really got into the wildness of Harpswell when we lived there - on the peninsula not the islands.
Anyway, glad you like that site, I have to explore it more myself. Most of the Native American info I have in my brain these days is of the Great Basin tribes... because that's what we had to study close at hand out here in the midst of "Indian Country". But with some coaxing and personal recall, I'm sure I can dredge up some info on the area of my childhood too.
