Autentica Retreat Nord del Maine Lakeside. Vivere come un locale!

Megan, thank you for the nice words and for spending your family vacation at Nickerson Lake.

Morning Chris, I sent an email to get the particulars of your stay. We’re sorry the camp was not as clean as you like and geez, a hole in the canoe is no good. Thanks for letting us know. Anyway, when you get a chance, shoot us an email and we can chat about your stay. -Alison

Heidi, thank you for the kind words. -Alison

This review is great! Thank you. The title of our listing is “Live like a local” and this review brings a lot of that title to life, which is hard to do if folks are not familiar with the culture of rural areas. We are in a beautiful, wild, rugged part of the world. Our drinking water comes from the lake, a lake pristine enough to DRINK the water straight out of the tap. The scenery is gorgeous, the loons are heavenly and the abundance of woodland creatures is out of this world. Woodland creatures have a food chain and sometimes when we’re surrounded by woods, we’re going to have spiders (to feed the birds), mosquitoes (LOTS and LOTS of mosquitoes in May and June) and an occasional mouse sneaks in when we have all the doors and windows open. We do our best to clean the spider webs between each stay but those buggers are QUICK with construction. Mosquitoes are dealt with by having screens. However, we are also pet friendly and sometimes pets in a strange environment can damage the screens - no worries. We have a one-man maintenance crew. We value the folks who help up with our rental property. We do not live there and we do not know what happens unless someone tells us. Although I’ve been married for 17 years, I am still unable to read minds so if something is wrong such as a broken canoe or toilet seat, someone needs to speak up and let me know. Learning something was broken in a review a week after you stay is not helpful to anyone. Look at the photos of the property. The camp was build prior to 1970 and is a three-season camp. It’s not well insulated and the windows are single-pane. If you come in May, June, July, September or October, you will likely need to build a fire in the wood stove. Look at the photos of each room. Read the listing. There is no boat in our listing. We have never had a boat in our listing. BYOboat. We used to have a canoe, but it was damaged this summer and we are not fixing the canoe. For this guest, we did have a miscommunication (I really don’t know what the hell happened) and the boat (our family personal boat) was taken out of the water. When this guest let me know, we offered to get a replacement canoe to them. They declined, saying “We don’t canoe lol”. We clean the camp after each guest. If you are the type to bring your own silverware or pillows, you will find something wrong with the camp. I promise you, you’ll find an issue. We are clean. If you look hard enough, you’ll find a crumb or dog hair. We aren’t perfect, but are clean. The couch does have some staining from sunscreen. It’s annoying, but it happens. No amount of Scotchguard helped with the sunscreen. We appreciate feedback. We appreciate honesty and we appreciate the opportunity to have a summer camp as a rental property on the lake where I grew up. This place is special and you will enjoy your stay if you are prepared to be in a very rural area in a remote part of Maine.