Attean Lake Lodge
A winding dirt road off Route 201 in Jackman, Maine—twenty minutes from the Canadian border, with a population of less than 800 people—ends abruptly at a mud-clutched lot skirting the edge of Attean Pond filled with boat trailers, a dock, and a small shack with a phone. A man with weathered skin and a dense beard appears from the shack, picks up the phone, and lets someone on the other end of the call know that new guests for Attean Lake Lodge have arrived and need a ride over to Birch Island.
In about twenty minutes time, two young staffers pull up to the dock, grab our bags, and ferry us across the pond to the 24-acre island where Attean Lake Lodge’s fourteen cabins dot the shoreline. The stately main lodge where guests take their meals has electricity, WiFi, and creature comforts—but it ends there. Kerosene lamps light the cabins and woods stoves heat them. Gravity tanks hidden amongst the pines dotting the island provide hot water: a welcome luxury after a day of fishing, canoeing, tubing, and exploring.
With hearty yet refined dinners, float plane tours, guided fishing trips, boat rentals, and weekly cookouts with multiple types of mayo-bound salads, Attean Lake Lodge recalls a long-gone era of American Plan family retreats tucked into far-flung wilderness locations. And those nods to an older, slower philosophy are well-founded: Attean Lake Lodge was originally established in the 1890s as a hunting and fishing camp and it’s current owners have passed the business down through three generations.
