In my never-ending quest to explore “new” places, I took a trip to Seboeis (Se.boy.es) Lake last week to check out the state-owned Seboeis Management Unit. It contains 12,900 acres and is located between Brownville Junction and Millinocket off Route 11.

The unit encompasses a large portion of the shoreline of Seboeis Lake, about half of the western shore of Endless Lake and all of Turtle Pond. If you’re looking to get away from it all, this is the place to go for fishing, camping and boating, but watch out for deadheads and boulders. Best of all, you won’t have to shell out camping fees to stay there. The maximum stay is 14 days in a 45-day period.

There are five boat-access camping sites, two vehicle-access sites and one remote, walk-in site, all available on a first-come, first-served basis. The sites have fire rings and nearby pit toilets. Camping is allowed in other areas within the unit, but there are no fire rings, so you cannot build fires.

The Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands publishes brochures for all its management units. The one for Seboeis, which you can pick up on the way to the lake, says Seboeis and adjacent Endless Lake support landlocked salmon, white perch, bass and pickerel, and that Turtle Pond has a brook trout population. Hunting also is allowed in the unit. Beech is one of the tree species managed on the hardwood ridges to the east.

To get to the region, take Route 11 to the West Seboeis road, which is about 16 miles north of Brownville Junction and 11 miles south of Millinocket. The road turns to gravel and soon crosses railroad tracks. After about a quarter of a mile you’ll come to a fork in the road with a sign where you’ll find brochures and other information about the unit. If you take the right fork for 1.7 miles, you’ll be at the boat launch site and the two drive-in campsites. If you take the left fork you’ll drive about six miles on a pretty good gravel road and be at the outlet of Seboeis that flows into Endless Lake.

There you’ll find a dam and a large sawdust pile, evidence of a mill that used to be on site. From here you can walk about half a mile to the remote campsite. The road continues on (four-wheel drive is recommended) for a couple of miles to the south end of Endless Lake where there’s one campsite and a crude boat-launch ramp.

Back at the northern end of Seboeis, you launch your boat in the inlet and head south to seek out the five waterfront campsites. You’ll find three on the eastern shore as you head south within a half-mile of the launch site and the two closest to the launch were free last Wednesday. Two more sites are to your right as you enter the main lake. There was a group with several large tents set up there.

I paddled south after entering the main lake and stopped for lunch on a little island called Dollar Island. The sky was overcast and the wind was out of the south at about 15-plus mph, but in the lee on the north side I was sheltered. After lunch I continued on my journey south to Leyford Island, meeting a couple of fishermen in canoes who said they’d had decent luck catching smallmouth bass.

I continued south into the wind to make a loop around Leyford. The southern end of Leyford is about 2.5 miles north of the brook that comes out of Turtle Pond. On the way there you’ll pass Hammer Island, which is not in the land management unit. But there’s a campsite here, according to DeLorme’s Maine Atlas and Gazetteer.

The paddle back literally was a breeze.

During my short visit I’d seen numerous mallards and sea gulls, a couple of kingfishers, a couple of loons, five partridge – I almost ran over them in the road – and the usual cadre of crows.

If you go, kep in mind there are no stores nearby. Pack out what you pack in and practice “leave-no-trace” ethics so the next person to visit will find it as enjoyable as you did.

By the way, I drove up Route 221 (the Hudson Road) from Bangor, which turns into Route 11. Much to my surprise, the road has been resurfaced and, for the time being, it’s a pleasantly smooth ride.

It’s last call for anyone looking to enroll in this fall’s wilderness careers courses at United Technologies Center on Hogan Road in Bangor. This is the second year the regional technical school has offered classes for people interested in guiding, search and rescue, and wilderness medicine. They are scheduled in the evenings so most working people can attend.

Some classes begin Tuesday, Sept. 5, so you need to get on the horn and register quickly.

Wilderness EMT Upgrade, taught by John Tierney, is being offered at a cost of $345. This course runs from 5 to 9 p.m. Monday, Nov. 6, and runs 12 weeks. The intensive 56-hour course covers a wide spectrum of emergency care topics relative to wilderness medicine and caring for injuries and illness over prolonged periods.. Prerequisite is current EMT certification at the wilderness EMT level. Physician’s assistants, registered nurses and medical doctors may also participate.

Tierney is also offering a two-day class on wilderness first aid for $135 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 3 and 4.

Basic search and rescue ($250) begins Nov. 7 and runs four weeks. Tierney is also teaching this course, which provides an introduction to wilderness rescue principles and practices.

Hunter safety is a four-night class taught by Don McAllister. The $3 course fee covers proper handling of firearms, survival and first aid, ethics, maps and compass.

The Maine Guide Recreation course is offered from 6 to 9 p.m. beginning Tuesday, Sept. 5, running 15 weeks. It’s the starting point for those interested in beginning a career as a Maine Guide. Safety, maps and compasses, canoeing, and watercraft laws and regulations are covered. The course costs $170 and does not include the $100 fee for the state guide exam.

Karen Francoeur is teaching the Maine Guide Sea Kayaking course again this year. The cost has not been determined, but the course will run 15 weeks from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7. Safety, navigation, trip planning, group management, self and assisted rescues, and island ethics are covered. The fee does not include the $100 charge for taking the state exam leading to a guide’s license.

Francoeur is also teaching a seven-week class on the essentials of sea kayaking. It begins Sept. 6 and Oct. 25. The cost is to be determined.

Dick Parker is teaching a seven-week class about navigation from 6 to 9 p.m. beginning Oct. 25. The course will cost $55.

And finally, Mike Maybury is teaching a class on wood-strip canoe and kayak making. It covers boat design to finished product. Two craft will be raffled at the end of the course to class participants. The course costs $170.

Call the school at 942-5296 for more information.

If you’re looking to do some road biking and would like to know on which roads you stand a better chance of not getting picked off, check out the newly released Maine Bicycle Map. Produced by the Maine Department of Transportation, the map will “aid the bicyclist in choosing highway routes appropriate to one’s bicycling comfort level,” according to John Balicki, bicycle-pedestrian coordinator for the MDOT.

On the map, byways are designated by colors that designate average daily summer traffic counts. For example, green routes have from one to 1,499 cars per day; purple routes have 1,500 to 2,999 per day; red ones have 3,000 to 4,999 and black ones are 5,000-plus automobiles per day.

Also designated by color overlay is the width of the paved shoulders. No color overlay means 0-2 feet; light orange is 2-4 feet and medium blue routes have 4-6 feet of paved shoulders.

So, if you’re uncomfortable with traffic, look for green routes with a blue overlay. These would be lightly traveled roads with wide paved shoulders. I looked but couldn’t find such a road. The closest I could find on the map were green or purple routes with 2-4 foot paved shoulders.

You’ll also find a list of 21 bike tours ranging from the multiday, 110-mile Franklin Heritage ride, which begins and ends in Farmington, to the 29-mile Acadia National Park-Schoodic tour which starts and ends in West Gouldsboro. The map has a brief description of the routes, but you may want to visit a Web site to get detailed information on each. The site is: www.state. me.us/mdot/ opt/biketours/bike tours.htm.

On this Web site, you’ll get directions down to one-tenth of a mile as well as hints on lodging, stores, camping, restaurants, scenic points, automatic teller machine locations, hiking trailheads and historic sites.

I checked out the Schoodic Peninsula ride description and found it matches my recollection of the ride. I like the idea of having suggested side trips with the ride description as well as information on road conditions or services. You could print out the detailed trip information and take it with you on your ride and you’d have enough information for a self-guided tour.

To get your own copy of the map, contact Sara Thompson at 287-3869 or e-mail her at sara.thompson@ state.me.us.

Last but not least, the Maine Outdoor Adventure Club will meet next at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 5, at Cadillac Mountain Sports in Bangor. Note the change in day from Wednesday. The newly organized chapter welcomes newcomers.

If you haven’t heard about this group and you like outdoor activities and would like to meet others with similar interests, you owe it to yourself to check MOAC out. The Bangor chapter is an offshoot of the 700-member Portland-based organization that was organized in 1989. Besides ideas for a new trip and camaraderie for that outing, you’ll have a ready-made list of contacts for advice on outdoor equipment purchases. Monthly meetings feature a session to brainstorm future outings.

Jeff Strout’s column is published on Thursdays. He can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangornews.infi.net.