Reflections from Moosehead Lake: Enduring lessons from a record-breaking swim

This week, water temperatures in Moosehead Lake are hovering right around 70 degrees. Even on the sunniest day, that registers well below the recommended range for aerobic exercise and makes for a downright chilly dip. While you may see some swimmers doing laps across a quiet cove, jumping off docks, or doing back-flips off the rails of their boats, most folks stick fairly close to shore.

As a 17-year-old student at Mt. Blue High School, Joe Fowler was no stranger to water. By then he had been swimming competitively for years and had just been named the 2003 Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Swimmer of the Year. Still, as he stepped into the cool, blue waters of Moosehead Lake he felt nervous.

That summer, 17 years ago this week, Fowler had committed himself to the idea of swimming the length of Moosehead Lake. At 32.4 miles, it was a feat that had only been accomplished once before.

He had participated in an open water swimming camp run by coach Craig Taylor and had gotten hooked on this unique brand of cold water swimming. After Taylor challenged him to consider the traverse, Fowler dedicated himself to the idea.

“There was only one other person before me who had done the swim. Craig told me that if I put in the time, there was a possibility that I could do it too. He planted the seed,” Fowler said.

Soon after, he decided to use the opportunity to raise money for Pulmonary Fibrosis, which has taken his grandfather’s life the year before.

Fowler began training intensely, spending most mornings counting miles in Industry’s Clearwater Lake before heading to work at Mt. Blue State Park. He would chase longer distances when and where he could, gaining strength and confidence with each attempt.

“The big thing that Craig said leading up to the big swim was that I had to understand what it would be like to be in the water that long,” Fowler said.

By the time he set off across Moosehead, Fowler had clocked hundreds of hours in the water. His longest traverse had been sixteen miles across Richardson Lake.

As with any long-distance, open water crossing, his journey was accompanied by a support boat. Those aboard monitored water conditions, provided nourishment, and kept an eye on his physical well-being. The support team aboard the vessel included Coach Taylor, Fowler’s sister and parents, and Dan DeLuca, the only other person known to have completed this swim. His uncle joined in a separate boat. Together they cheered Fowler along, helping him keep pace and buoying his spirits.

As it turns out, Fowler needed their support more than he might have imagined. Instead of the bright blue skies and beautiful weather that benefit distance swimming, he was met with “rolling whitecaps, frigid water, and winds that never let up.” Local authorities warned of dangerous conditions. After hours of idling alongside his swimmer, Taylor’s boat engine flooded and Fowler’s uncle took over watchkeeping duties. As night began to fall, they followed Fowler’s trajectory through the water with a single handheld flashlight.

By the time Fowler finally touched shore in Greenville, it was the middle of the night. After 16 hours and 46 minutes of swimming, his core body temperature had dipped to 92 degrees and he was fending off hypothermia. At some point he’d begun hallucinating, imagining himself floating in a vast, dark galaxy.

“You don’t really have a perception of where you are – am I on land? Am I in space?” he recalled. “It was a totally surreal experience, swimming in complete darkness, having absolutely no vision, but feeling your body being propelled through this dark mass.”

After he was able to warm back up, rest, and replenish his energies, the surreal feeling gave way to euphoria. He had accomplished his goals and set a new record. “You know, you have a vision and you want to complete something that is kind of unfathomable to you. And then you do. I was really excited.”

Looking back on it now, Fowler is proud of his teenage self and sees the accomplishment as a defining moment in his life. “I think it was about proving to myself that I could do something that was beyond my own conceived capabilities. I wanted to raise money for pulmonary fibrosis and set a record,” he explains. “But as I’ve gotten older I focus on the swim as an example of the human ability to set a goal that is beyond your limitations and to put your focus and dedication on really pursuing that.”

As the owner of a talent management firm in Los Angeles, the lesson of working hard towards accomplishing your goals is a particularly valuable ethos. “I think I infuse a lot of the same mentality in what I do now,” he said. “That experience validated the idea that the impossible is possible.”

It’s been a long time since Fowler committed himself to the Moosehead Lake challenge. He doesn’t usually celebrate the anniversary of his record-breaking swim but he has been thinking about it a lot recently. “If anything, it is a reminder that when things get dark and things get difficult,” he said, “we possess the potential to still be great and to do great things.”