MOOSE RIVER, Maine — This is the first year that Unity College is using Sky Lodge Cabins.
The 150-acre Moose River property was donated to the college in March 2018 by The Couri Foundation. Its 16 buildings and main cabin sleeps more than 100 people in the summer time. Students will use the cabins for educational purposes.
"I think that's an awesome part of our school, where we have a place where we can go and stay and take courses up here and we're not limited to a college campus," said sophomore Tony Johnson.
Johnson and seven other students spent two weeks at Sky Lodge learning to fly fish from Paul Guernsey. First how to tie their own flies and then how to cast them out into the water to catch a fish.
"There is really a special feeling to taking materials, producing your own fly and then seeing the fish take that fly," said Guernsey.
Accommodations couldn't have been nicer while the students learned to fish areas of Moosehead Lake. Director of Sky Lodge Cabins, Rachel Crater, enjoys the hidden secrets in the main cabin that was built in 1929 as a hunting and fishing getaway. A time when prohibition existed.
"Given our proximity to the Canadian border, just up the road, there's also rumored to be a prohibition tunnel under the air strip outside just in the front of the lodge and a long prohibition history where they would hide liquor here and smuggle it across the border," said Crater.
Sky Lodge Cabins is used for educational purposes by students, but it also still operates as a full service resort property. Generating revenue for Unity College and decreasing tuition costs for students.