Allagash

Allagash is a town on its namesake river in the North Maine Woods, a sparsely settled region of northern Maine. The town belongs to Aroostook County and covers 131.42 square miles, of which 128.61 are land and 2.81 are water. That scale is revealing: Allagash consists of a large rural territory around a small community rather than a densely built settlement. The river forms the central corridor through forests, lakes and rocky portages.

Wabanaki peoples, especially the Wolastoqiyik or Maliseet and neighboring Mi'kmaq and Penobscot, used the river and its waterways for fishing, hunting and travel long before European settlement. Canoes joined the Allagash with the Saint John and other watersheds, while carrying places allowed travelers to bypass rapids. Their seasonal routes followed fish, game, birch bark and materials needed for shelter.

From the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, French and British traders entered the region for furs. Control of routes between the Saint John, Penobscot and St. Lawrence made the northern woods important during imperial wars, and the Allagash became part of a contested borderland. The river's identity thus grew from Wabanaki canoe knowledge and a forest economy rather than from dense urban settlement. Their routes followed seasons and weather.