Allagash Wilderness Water: History, Video 5 of 9

[@smw381st]

I saw the part about the tramway on Mysteries Of The Abandoned yesterday on Science channel or Discover Channel and I wish I knew which channel it was as I watch both of them so much

[@gregjalbert4474]

James Marquis' story about the construction of Jalbert's Allagash Camps is so ridiculously far removed from the historical fact it exists in an alternate universe. Here's the account my father told me hundreds of times: After discharge from the Army in 1946, my father, Robert Jalbert, and my uncle, Willard Jalbert, Jr.,. were hell-bent on building their father sporting camps, so he didn't have to guide on Round Pond out of a tent camp in rain and snow, or return to discover bears had ransacked the tents. In the fall of 1945, my father and uncle, along with my grandfather, the Old Guide, started building sporting camps on Round Pond, on land to which they held neither deed nor lease. When a representative for Great Northern Paper Company flew by bush plane into Round Pond, he threatened to burn down Jalberts Allagash Camps. In response, my father warned him that the company would have a hard time to put out the fire. The company gave us a 99-year lease.

[@theshadowfisherman1996]

I saw No camps on Round Pond when I was there 1973 ,bad vision ?

[@gregjalbert4474]

Mr. Swanson, my grandfather Willard Jalbert, Sr., (the Allagash River's celebrated, Old Guide), my uncle Willard Jalbert, Jr., and my father Robert Jalbert built them in 1945.

[@gregjalbert2801]

At 18:26 the narrator's version of the history of Jalberts Allagash Camps dispossesses my family of a proud history, creates a caricature of my grandfather struggling upriver, and annihilates family and community heroes by stripping them from their rightful place. By refusing to edit this portion of the video, the Allagash Wilderness Waterway is conducting a willful act of prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry against my ethnic Quebecois family. My grandfather, Willard Jalbert, Sr., was born on a farm three miles above Allagash Falls. He learned the channel as a five-year-old boy alongside his uncle, Jean-Baptiste Jalbert, ferrying supplies upriver by a horse-drawn towboat. As a river driver and guide, he regularly navigated the channel. Having made numerous trips as a boy in the bow of my father's canoe, I can attest to my grandfather and father making the upriver trip by canoe and outboard motor in less than half a day. Furthermore, in 1946 my father, Robert Jalbert, and my uncle, Willard Jalbert, Jr., helped my grandfather claim Windy Point and build Jalberts Allagash Camps without a lease the paper company refused to give them. When a paper company representative threatened to burn the camps, my father promised the company would have a hard time to put out the fire. The company gave us a 99-year lease. Beginning in 1878, when the son of a Quebecois immigrant, my great-grandfather, Joseph Jalbert, along with his wife, Helen Russell Jalbert, established a farm three miles above Allagash Falls, my family's history is one of the most extraordinary stories about a family farming, logging, and guiding in the largest wilderness east of the Mississippi River. The failure of this video to mention that history is further evidence of discrimination, risking the loss of an ethnic Quebecois family's story from the public record.

[@theshadowfisherman1996]

Love Jackson's & Moose Town :)