Ambajejus Boom House
Ambajejus Boom House
Before roads became the primary transportation corridors for moving timber, the rivers of Maine served as highways for lumber drives. Beginning in the 1800s, loggers cut down trees during the winter and trimmed them into logs ranging in size from 40-plus feet in the early part of the century when they were used for ship masts to four-feet lengths for use in paper mills in the later years of Maine’s renowned river drives. After ice-out in the spring, those logs were dumped into the swollen rivers and the mass of logs was floated to collection locations.
“Floating” a mass of logs sounds like it would be a gentle process but it was anything but. Thousands of logs were propelled by the river current, helped along by river drivers who stood on and ran across the slippery logs using tools to dislodge jammed logs or keep them from getting stuck. The river drivers were always in danger of falling into the water and drowning or being crushed between logs.
At key points along the river, river drivers used barriers of chained logs – called log booms – to corral the logs so they could be sorted according to the company buying them and their destination. At those points were boom houses – work hubs where river drivers could also sleep and eat while they sorted the logs.
Today, one of the only remaining boom houses associated with the West Branch log drives is the Ambajejus (pronounced am-ba-gee-jus) Boom House. Located on the shore of an island where Ambajejus Lake and the West Branch of the Penobscot River come together, the Ambajejus Boom House was moved to the site in three pieces across 13 miles of ice in 1907 and was in use until 1971.
The last major river drive in Maine took place in 1976, but the Ambajejus Boom House remains, preserved as a reminder of the workers and waterways that shaped Maine’s lumber industry. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and accessible to the public via boat.
Author: Stephanie Bouchard
