Where

Strange visitors in the night in the Maine woods can be a little disconcerting, especially when this visitor keeps turning up inside your cabin.
   My wife Darlene and I, and two friends Larry and Lynne, were to spend four nights in a log cabin back in the Maine woods in Oxbow. We had left the main road, the only road in Oxbow, to follow a twisting, turning woods road. There had been a new snowfall the day before and the trees were heavy with the clean, white snow. The woods were beautiful, the woods road was freshly plowed as our host, the owner of the cabin, Al Currier, was also the town plowman.
After about six miles, the camp sign appeared: Welcome to Umcolcus Camps. They were four log cabins, plus the large lodge where meals are served on the American Plan. We planned to do our own cooking and there were three great cooks in our party. I was not one.
Our hosts, Al and Audrey Currier, were on hand to greet us as we drove around the circular driveway leading to our cabin. Soft spoken Al, sported a gray streaked beard, and as we learned later, had a great sense of humor in his endless storytelling. Al visited us often as he filled the wood box and brought us fresh water each day. Audrey, an attractive brunette, is also the Oxbow postmistress with the Post Office in a front room of their home. She works at her job about four hours each day as Oxbow had only about 62 residents.
A leisurely tour of our large cabin showed us that the cabin was heated by a large wood stove, while cooking was done on a propane stove and the cabin lighting was by propane lamps, which really made a very cozy atmosphere. And, along with the large kitchen, there was a living area, two separate bedrooms, two bunks in a corner of the living area, and a loft with two twin beds that became quite a reading area as the light was always good in the daytime. There was no bathroom or running water in the cabin. The bathroom with hot showers was in a separate heated building just a short dash nearby. A gasoline powered-generator provided light for the shower/toilet building. In February, when you want to visit the shower/toilet building, you need to dress to the max: parka, gloves, boots and a flashlight. In the below-freezing weather, the snow crunched under your boots and your breath almost crackled in the moonlit air.
After seeing that we had everything we needed, Al pointed out two traps. One was a regular mouse trap on the porch while the other was a metal cage in the kitchen area. “There is a weasel running around in here,” he said, “and I can’t catch him.”
Al didn’t want to injure the weasel, which is why he had the cage-type trap. We didn’t give the weasel much thought and were surprised when he turned up in the middle of the kitchen floor. He didn’t seem frightened or overly aggressive, and was kind of cute, all white with a black tip on his tail. We put cheese in the trap and tried to catch him, but he was too light to trip the trap’s trigger. So, Larry held the door open and the weasel ran right by us into the trap. We placed the trap on the porch thinking we would tell Al in the morning. But, when we went to check on him later, he had disappeared and the trap was empty.
Again, not giving it much thought, we called it a night and went to bed. In the meantime, we decided to name the weasel Willie. About 2 a.m. someone called out, “Here’s Willie.” He was running through the log walls going from room to room. He even checked out one of my slippers and I thought he was going to spend the night in there.
Then Larry called out again, “I’ve got him,” thinking he had him trapped in a garbage basket. The comment was soon followed by a crackle, a scurrying, and then, “He’s gone again.” Well, back to bed again. Then, later in the night, someone called again, “Here’s Willie.” Darlene got to laughing and nearly fell out of bed. Larry and I caught Willie again and gave him to Al in the morning in a garbage bag.
Al put Willie in his pickup truck to take him way back in the woods. Well, Willie clawed his way out of the garbage bag and ran around inside the pickup. Up Al’s arms and across the dash board until Al finally stopped and put Willie out.
We thought, that was the end of Willie, until someone said “Here’s Willie.” Well there he was sitting on the kitchen sideboard looking at us. We imagine him saying, “Here we go again.” Larry and I finally caught him, again, in the big trap and put a log on top of it to hold him in, and gave him back to Al in the morning. Al took Willie back to Oxbow and gave him to a friend of his. And that, little children, is the end, we hope, of Willie.