About Us
Allagash Canoe Trips is New England’s oldest continuously operating guided canoe service. What began as one man’s love for a remote Maine river in 1941 has grown into a three-generation family legacy — more than 70 years of open fires, wild waterways, and trips that stay with people for the rest of their lives.
Herb Cochrane made his first trip down the Allagash River in 1941. He purchased three Old Town wood canvas canoes and, along with five companions, paddled into the northern Maine woods for the first time. Then the war came. Between the call of duty, rationing, and restricted travel, Herb was forced to sell his canoes. He spent the remainder of the decade as waterfront director at Camp Wassookeag in Dexter, Maine, and went on to become athletic director and head football coach at Avon Old Farms School in Connecticut in 1948. But the Allagash had gotten into him, and he never stopped thinking about going back.
Herb Cochrane, founder of Allagash Canoe Trips with his son Warren. Herb’s first trip on the Allagash was in 1947, and Allagash Canoe Trips is the longest continuously running guided canoe trip service in Maine.
In 1950, Herb and his son Warren returned to the Allagash for the first time since the war, leading three week-long trips for Keewayden, a Vermont boys camp. It confirmed what Herb already knew: this river was something worth sharing. In 1953, he founded Allagash Canoe Trips.
In those early years, trips were six weeks long — starting on Moosehead Lake and paddling, portaging, and poling all the way north to the St. Francis River. The boys who made those trips never forgot them. Many considered their six weeks on the Allagash with “Coach” and Warren the most formative experience of their youth, and kept in touch with Herb for decades afterward. One wrote:
“Dear Coach, I guess no one really appreciates the trip until after it’s over, then we really understand why it is so important to us. It really helped me appreciate life, it lets me see how life is in comparison with what it could be.”
— Xandi, 1963
In 1959, Herb purchased an old sporting camp on Sugar Island on Moosehead Lake — a major milestone. This became the basecamp for the next decade, allowing ACT to offer three separate trip sections for different age groups and lengths. Herb’s dream of introducing young people to the woods had become a fully operating reality.
In the mid-1960s, Warren led the first family trip on the Allagash, beginning a tradition that continues to this day. Around the same time, Warren started leading more advanced expeditions on remote rivers in Quebec — the first seeds of what would become ACT’s Canadian canoe trip program.
Herbert (“Coach”) Cochrane 1961
Running rapids on the Rupert River, circa 1970.
The 1970s brought change. The last six-week boys trip ran in 1971, as Allagash Canoe Trips shifted its focus toward family trips and shorter teen programs. The first co-ed teen trip was offered in 1973. Herb passed the business to Warren in 1973, the second generation taking the helm.
Herb’s last trip on the river was in 1977 — with his grandson Chip as his apprentice. Chip had first come to the Allagash in 1971 at age 11, fetching water, gathering firewood, and learning the river from his grandfather. He guided his first solo trip in 1977 with the help of his brothers Tristan and Bucky, and has been on the river every summer from 1971 to the present, with the single exception of 1974.
Warren’s wife Linda joined in 1984, working alongside Warren as trip organizer and guide. Together they expanded ACT’s Canadian river program. In the meantime, Chip and Tristan were guiding Allagash trips while simultaneously training for the U.S. Ski Team — a combination that speaks to the extraordinary athletic depth of this family.
In 1988, Chip’s wife Lani joined the family business, learning the traditions of the Cochrane guiding legacy from the ground up.
Chip cooking and baking dinner over open fire day 5 at Five Finger Brook North campsite, Allagash River
Through the 1990s, Allagash Canoe Trips continued to thrive under Warren and Linda’s stewardship. Repeat guests became a hallmark of the business — multi-generational families returning year after year, often bringing their own children to a river their parents had paddled decades before. In 1999, Warren and Linda led their last Allagash trip together. Warren retired having paddled more than 120 Allagash trips over 48 years of guiding.
The year 2000 marked the beginning of the current era: Chip and Lani took over full operation of Allagash Canoe Trips, carrying the legacy from Herb to Warren to the third generation. By 2002, Chip and Lani’s children Chloe and Czari had begun joining trips as fourth-generation apprentices.
In 2011, ACT established a new basecamp on Scammon Road in Greenville, Maine — a four-year project that gave the business a permanent home base for organizing trips and hosting youth campers. The seasons since have been among the busiest in ACT’s history. In 2021 alone, Chip and Lani took 300 guests down the river, running 28 trips, logging 130 nights on the river, and cooking 220 meals over open fire.
Today, Lani has paddled the Allagash more than 150 times. Chip has paddled it more than 220. The river is the same one Herb first paddled in 1941. The canoes still go in the water the same way. The fire still gets built the same way. Some things, on the Allagash, don’t need to change.