The journey of a lifetime through the Pennsylvania Wilds

I vividly remember my very first trip to the Pennsylvania Wilds. Grandpa had just bought a camp in Potter County and our family was en route to check it out.

For a 9-year-old “flatlander” from Ohio, this was some high adventure. Heading to the mountains for the first time, I was beyond excited.

Traveling through Marienville on Route 66, the family car sped toward Kane, bound for Route 6 and Coudersport, part of what is today the Dark Skies landscape of the Pennsylvania Wilds. It was almost dark. All-around on the dusky horizons, I could make out what looked like storm clouds. The adults got a good laugh, explaining those weren’t storm clouds, they were mountains.

Passing through the dense Allegheny National Forest on Route 66 past her Marienville birthplace, Grandmother leaned toward me and whispered, “Look at those woods. There are bears in there. If we’re lucky, we’ll see one.” I swallowed hard.

Now almost dark, as the car got closer to Kane, she said to me, “When we get to Kane, there are Lobo wolves there!” Wolves? Seriously? I shifted nervously in my seat, trying hard not to think about the possibility of the car breaking down, being stranded with not only bears but wolves close by!

On the way to Smethport and Port Allegheny, it was pitch black and I couldn’t see any mountains, but I could feel them. Dad roared that’56 Chevy up and down the mountains on Route 6 through the Seneca Highlands.

It had only two rooms, two enormous rooms. One was a combination living room/kitchen, the other was a sleeping area with at least ten single and double beds and a small bathroom off it. This was an arrangement we referred to as “the mess hall and the dormitory.”

Through the years it just kept getting better, a magical place, with a trout pond, Mill Creek flowing through it and a whole mountain to explore.

As the timber industry faded, Grandpa followed the lure of high-paying steel mill jobs in Youngstown – Ohio’s “Steel Valley” – which is where I was born and raised. Relocating to Ohio, Grandpa never forgot his Potter County roots. He always had the Silver Spruce Lodge to call “home.”

Despite time and distance, there are vivid memories of heading to “God’s Country,” the sights, the sounds, and even the smell.

I always knew we were getting pretty close to camp when I spotted Erway’s Market. That was always a good sign – and who could forget that weird smell upon entering Coudersport –the tannery! Just west of town it was roughly a half-mile of foul odor, but it was a sweet smell to many Coudersport people who made their living there.

We would stop and say hello to great-Aunt Dorothy and great-Uncle Bill Long who lived in Coudersport right next door to Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Don Hoak, who just happened to be one of my baseball heroes. How I wanted to meet Don Hoak. The only problem was, Don was never around when I visited in the summer; he was playing ball with the Pirates, naturally.

Another neighbor of Dorothy and Bill’s, just a few years before, was Eliot Ness and his family. Uncle Bill would tell us stories of sharing a brew or two with Eliot at the Hotel Crittenden. Aunt Dorothy was friends with Mrs. Ness.

There was a routine stop at Goodenough’s store for groceries and Dick McCaigue’s distributorship for a case of Dubois Export for the adults and soda pop for us kids.

I knew we were getting closer to camp when I would see that huge white sign, high up on a mountain clearing, “ICE MINE – ONE MILE,” with an arrow pointing east on Route 6.

There was no TV at the camp, and Aunt Dorothy spoke of a family friend named “John,” who was developing something called “cable TV,” which would bring TV stations with a clear picture to Coudersport. There was a radio at the camp, but only one station during the day – WFRM 600. It was on from sun-up to sundown.

Those were good times, and more memories abound:

• Going out to Slim Croyle’s farm on Rt. 144, watching him feed the deer, calling them in, by name, one-by-one. Jumping in the car at dark to go deer spotting down Route 872. 
• Going to my mom’s cousin Bob Mitchell’s sprawling camp out on Big Moore’s Run and riding the lake in his motorboat.
• I remember standing with Grandpa and my father in a tiny mountain spring, which was the very beginning of the Allegheny River near Gold, and picnic trips to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon.
• There were summer days, swimming Mill Creek and Lyman Lake. There were summer nights, catching fireflies in the field across Ice Mine Road at the nearby Fireman’s Camp. There were picnics at Cherry Springs, Stevenson Dam, Patterson Park, and Prouty Place.
• We fished for brookies at Big and Little Moores Runs, Nelson Run behind the Golf Course, the First Fork of the Sinnemahoning, Prouty Run and the “Fish Basket” where I was always on the lookout for rattlesnakes. (I remembered all the stories!)

As the years went by, Grandpa’s health began to fail. He sold the camp when I was 21. How I hated to see that place go because it was such a huge part of my life. I felt a profound sense of loss. Almost like a member of the family had died.

Today, as I approach the very age when Grandpa left us, he was right about there being magic in those mountains. As he said many times, “They don’t call it God’s Country for nothing.”

It’s so easy to see why so many people have a special love, awe, and reverence for the beauty of the Pennsylvania Wilds.

My Dad was one of those people. He left us in 2013 and I remember him saying so many times around so many late-night campfires, “If you want to see me and talk to me after I’m gone, just come down to the creek, that’s where I’ll be.”

In 2014, we gathered to scatter his ashes on the grounds of the family camp on the banks of the Tionesta Creek. It was his final wish.

On occasion, I visit. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll catch a fleeting glimpse, perhaps hear his voice, revisiting the good times and all those magical mountain memories.