Lest there be any doubt as to the political clout of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, look no further than John’s Bridge.

The bridge crosses Maine’s legendary Allagash Wilderness Waterway at the narrows, separating Churchill and Eagle lakes. Over the years, people have been allowed — or not allowed — to launch canoes from the land nearby.

Either way, it’s been a place of contention during nearly all of those years.

When launching was allowed, conservationists said it shouldn’t be; that such a scheme isn’t sanctioned by terms of the nation’s Wild and Scenic Rivers programs. The storied Allagash, after all, is the first waterway accepted into the federal program that’s state-managed.

When launching wasn’t allowed, fishers, hunters and others — primarily aligned with SAM — cried foul. How dare the state keep them from accessing the Allagash waters, wherever and whenever they wanted. This land, after all, is theirs as much as anyone’s.

Well, it seems they’ve won, at least for now. At least for now because any such controversial issue is always subject these days to some kind of court action.

On Wednesday, the state Bureau of Parks and Lands that oversees the Allagash decided it would move ahead with a plan to make a John’s Bridge-area canoe launch and associated parking area a permanent feature of the wilderness.

The action comes now because Gov. Angus King is about ready to leave office. He pushed for John’s Bridge as a payback of sorts for SAM’s support. While that disappoints conservationists and friends of the Allagash, it shouldn’t surprise them.

Among the disappointments the John’s Bridge canoe access plan fosters is the decision to act on it unilaterally, without linking it to other issues of access and overuse of Maine’s most precious waterway. The state has taken John’s Bridge off the compromise table, and that bodes badly for the hopes of others to restore limited access, as was intended, to the Allagash.

Still, there’s one kudo for the state. In its wisdom it deemed access will only be allowed in the spring, for fishers, and in the fall, for hunters. It’ll be closed during the summer so as not to add to overuse woes already facing the Eagle and Churchill lakes areas.

But opening it in the spring and fall makes us wonder how convenience-minded our sportsmen and sportswomen have become. After all, it’s only a few miles from John’s Bridge to an already existing canoe launch at Churchill Dam. In reality, John’s Bridge access isn’t needed, it just makes it a bit easier for those who harvest Maine’s fish and wildlife to practice their sports.

Whatever happened to building character and skill based on a bit of adversity or hardship?

And as the state opens more and more access to the Allagash, we should all be asking whither wilderness?
jmeyer@sunjournal.com