It was the Roman Naturalist, Pliny the Elder (AD 23 – 79) who said, “Home is where the heart is.” Polly Mahoney and Kevin Slater personify that quote through the Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge in Newry, Maine.

We enjoyed a casual conversation with Kevin and Polly at their home located about fifty yards from Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge, a rustic timber frame lodge that exudes an atmosphere of warmth with all the amenities to accommodate groups from a family to a corporate retreat. The goals for Polly and Kevin through their Lodge and their Mahoosuc Guide Service is to promote “wellness and personal development while getting to know and appreciate the natural world better.”

The Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge and Mahoosuc Guide Service are located in Newry about twelve miles from Bethel, four and a half miles from an Appalachian Trail parking area, and about thirteen miles from the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge. You can hike to nearby Step Falls in Grafton Notch State Park right from the lodge. There are hiking, dog sled, and snowmobile trails accessible in the summer and winter.

A quaint New England farmhouse greets the visitor when they arrive at Mahoosuc Guide Service. Polly explained that the original three-bedroom farmhouse was built in 1903. “It’s been renovated and is being operated as a Bed and Breakfast. The attached barn of the farmhouse is a workshop where canoes, paddles, dogsleds, and other traditional equipment is made.” The original farmhouse was also used as stop for stage services in the early 1900’s. Although renovated, they kept the structure’s original charm. You feel the charm the moment you walk onto the sixty-acre property.

Home may very well be how Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge feels when you’re away from your home. The lodge living quarters has a spacious great room, ample sleeping space with bunk beds, a user-friendly and functional kitchen, and bath. With a spectacular backdrop of the Mahoosuc Mountains, the lodge is large enough for just about any activity including weddings, corporate retreats, or family reunions to name a few possibilities.

Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge engenders a sense of healing the moment you enter, making it an ideal setting for therapists or workshop facilitators offering retreats centered on personal well being or improvement. The Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge itself can accommodate sixteen people for overnight occupancy with a seven-person overflow available at the farmhouse Bed and Breakfast facility.  Polly and Kevin have had larger groups meet in the downstairs of the lodge for various functions with some participants staying in nearby Bethel, Maine. Polly and Kevin have hosted dances at the lodge with as many as ninety people. Polly said, “It’s amazing how many people you can fit in there and it doesn’t feel that crowded.”

She added, “I envision the Lodge as a meeting place for people that need a location for board meetings or annual retreats. They may not need to be outdoors, but they like the idea that it’s in the country and there aren’t a lot of distractions.” The groups could include corporate business retreats or nonprofit organizations. As a break from the meeting, participants could tour the sled dog kennels, schedule a canoe trip, or take an interpretive walk or hike in the northern woods. Group or workshop facilitators could utilize the Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge to coordinate a wellness weekend. For that matter, a practitioner could also utilize the lodge for a wellness weekend.

The Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge is an important element, but Mahoosuc Guide Service is also a vital part of Kevin’s and Polly’s work serving the Mahoosuc region as well as portions of Canada. They earned their status as Master Maine Guides by guiding professionally for over twenty years. They view themselves as “professional year-round guides, equally comfortable poling a canoe up the Allagash or driving a dog team across the sea ice of Hudson Bay.” They consider themselves as “traditional guides” meaning that “we make much of the equipment we use on our guided trips, such as cedar canvas canoes, ash dog sleds, and maple paddles. We have found the traditional equipment and materials we use to be durable, functional, and in many ways preferable to today’s high technology outdoor equipment. The craftsmanship that goes into our equipment is an extension of the care we put into each of our trips.”  

A visit to either of their websites will show the vast opportunities offered to experience nature, www.mahoosuc.com or www.mahoosucmountainlodge.com. For example, “all of our trips are owner guided. A high percentage of our clients are returning as friends. We have traveled extensively in the north with the Cree and Inuit, and many techniques we use for north woods and tundra travel were developed by them.” Aside from its use for groups, retreats, workshops, musical events, and the like, the Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge can also be utilized as a “base for hiking, skiing, climbing, paddling in this area of the Mahoosucs.”

Experiencing the outdoors with Kevin and Polly is exhilarating, exciting, challenging, and most assuredly educational. A canoe trip or dog sled trip are not focused on entertainment, but rather an education about nature, to know about it, to care about it, and to act on the preservation and respect toward the natural world. If you come and expect to get entertained, keep in mind that Mahoosuc Guide Service offers a strong educational element. “People take it as far as they want. Some will learn every plant and use of it they can in the few days we have them. Some people have a casual interest and that’s fine too.” Despite their level of interest, Polly and Kevin want their clients to gain wellness and personal development on a deeper level through both the Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge and the Mahoosuc Guide Service. They will even help the practitioner, the corporate liaison, or workshop facilitator in planning an event.

Polly mentions, “I like to do trips incorporating Yoga or Tai Chi into the experience. There’s a Women’s Canoe and Tai Chi weekend the last weekend in July. Then, there’s a Women’s Canoe and Yoga weekend scheduled for the second weekend in August.” Typically Polly guides these trips while outside or local area instructors facilitate the modality. These two trips will be at Lake Umbagog and the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge. A women’s plant study trip is scheduled in July called Grand Lakes Region Women’s Canoe Trip/Native Plant Study July 20th-25th.

Other planned activities for the summer include Intro to White Water a canoe course “designed for people with little or no white water canoeing experience” June 19th-21st. The following weekend, further course study in white-water is available to those with more white water experience. They also offer excursions out of state and into Canada like Canoeing with the Cree in Quebec August 22nd-29th. Those participating in this trip will experience quaking bogs, black spruce, woodland caribou, and northern lights. “Welcome to the land of the Cree. This trip offers our guests a rare opportunity to travel with a Cree couple, David and Anna Bosum, through their ancestral homeland. Several days will be spent in the Cree Village Ouje-Bougoumou learning about the Cree language and culture. Learn traditional north woods canoe traveling techniques with the people who developed them.”The medicinal and herbal use of plants can be learned on this trip from a Cree, known by some as “Dr. Dave”, who was taught by his elders.

Polly and Kevin have some other activities scheduled for the summer. Specific information on the canoe trips and activities can be reviewed on their website www.mahoosuc.com. Their telephone is 207-824-2073.

Kevin Slater and Polly Mahoney devote their lives to guiding and that devotion shows through their dedication and excitement as guides. When it comes to the natural world around us Kevin Slater is reminded of the words from “Kirk”, a good friend of theirs.  “You have to know, to care, and to act.  You have to have all three. This is an old timer who started a Canadian canoe museum. That’s what he always tries to instill and use no matter what he’s doing, to learn about it, to care enough about it, to follow through with action to protect it.” Those are Kirk’s major concerns when it comes to the natural world. “It’s great to learn about all these different medicinal uses of north woods plants, but then you care enough about it to use it for yourself or other people and then advocate for the protection of the wildlife habitat.” Polly and Kevin strive to apply those same goals, to know, to care, and to act in their own work both through the Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge and Mahoosuc Guide Service, a destination of repose, a destination for healing, a home away from home.