Finding Duck Harbor

By Herman Krug 

It took us a lifetime to find Duck Harbor.

Looking back, that still amazes me. If you weren’t from northeastern Pennsylvania, it would make sense that Duck Harbor had never crossed your radar. But for Rhonda and me, who have lived less than twenty minutes away for more than thirty years, it’s hard to explain how we overlooked this hidden gem for so long. Somehow, while we were busy building careers, raising children, and traveling the world, this quiet little lake was patiently waiting just down the road.

Rhonda and I both grew up in Levittown, Pennsylvania, where we met in high school. After we married, we stayed there until 1988, when we moved to Lake Ariel, and eventually settled in Honesdale in 1994. Like many couples, we brought different childhood memories into our marriage, especially when it came to vacations.

For Rhonda, summer meant Ocean City, New Jersey. She still smiles when she talks about early morning bike rides along the boardwalk before the crowds arrived, long days in the water, and trying to protect a warm donut from Brown’s from the ever-persistent seagulls. Those family trips became part of who she is.

My summers couldn’t have been more different.

Both of my parents grew up in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, before moving to Levittown during the great suburban expansion of the 1950s. Every summer, our family made what felt like a pilgrimage back to Cambria County to visit relatives. The landscape there wasn’t all that different from Wayne County—rolling hills, farms, streams, and woods.

Much of our time was spent on my uncle’s dairy farm. I remember climbing through haylofts, fishing quiet streams, wandering the woods, and sitting with older relatives as they told stories that had been passed down for generations. Those weren’t glamorous vacations, but they gave me an appreciation for simple places and simple pleasures that has stayed with me my entire life.

Soon after we married, Rhonda and I were introduced to another style of vacationing—a timeshare. Looking back, we were probably sold on it more skillfully than we realized, but we certainly got our money’s worth. For more than thirty years it became our passport to adventure.

We rarely stayed at our home resort, instead exchanging it for destinations throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, Europe, Central America, and across the United States. Those trips became some of our family’s greatest memories with our children, Julie and Daniel. We experienced places we might never have otherwise visited, and we never regretted those years of exploring.

During the early 2000s, life became especially busy. My work in medical imaging business development covered nearly the entire Western Hemisphere outside the United States. Weeks at a time were spent traveling through Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. While I was away, Rhonda somehow managed everything at home while also completing her nursing degree. Looking back now, I honestly don’t know how she did it.

Those years moved quickly.

Although we’d lived in Honesdale since 1994, Duck Harbor never entered our lives. As a fisherman, I knew there was a Fish Commission access there, but for whatever reason I never bothered to launch my kayak or wet a line. It’s funny how life works. Sometimes the things you’re searching for are right in front of you, and you simply aren’t ready to see them.

By 2019, life had changed.

My business travel had ended. We had finally given up the timeshare. Julie and Daniel had grown up and begun lives of their own. For the first time in many years, Rhonda and I had space to ask ourselves what we wanted this next chapter to look like.

Neither of us considered ourselves “lake people.” We didn’t own a boat. In fact, we’d spent very little time in boats at all, and a jet ski wasn’t even on our radar. What we wanted wasn’t luxury.

We simply imagined a place where we could slow down—a cabin with a campfire, a couple of kayaks, peaceful evenings, and sunsets reflected across the water.

Finding that place proved easier than we expected.

There aren’t many lakefront properties available, so our search consisted mostly of driving from lake to lake looking for “For Sale” signs. One day we found one at J.R. and Elaine’s cabin on Duck Harbor.

Elaine answered when I called. She gave us the code to the door and invited us to walk through the cabin on our own.

That evening couldn’t have been scripted any better. As we explored the cabin, the sky lit up with one of the most beautiful sunsets we’d ever seen. The cabin felt exactly right. Before we left, we were already imagining ourselves spending time there.

Trying to be practical, we looked at another lakefront home on Long Pond. It checked every box on paper, but something was missing. It simply didn’t feel like the cabin at Duck Harbor.

Then came the disappointment.

We heard that the Duck Harbor cabin had been sold.

Still, we couldn’t stay away. One Saturday evening, Rhonda and I launched our kayaks and paddled quietly along the southeastern shoreline. As we floated past the cabin, we imagined what might have been before continuing around the lake.

The following weekend, I happened to stop by Duck Harbor and talk with Skip Hillier and Jim McMyne. They were dismantling Skip’s cottage to make room for a new home. During our conversation, Skip casually mentioned that he believed J.R. and Elaine’s cabin was still available.

Sometimes life gives you a second chance.

I called Elaine once again, and this time everything fell into place.

When we met them at the cabin, they welcomed us warmly. They patiently showed us how everything worked and shared stories about the cabin’s history. It already felt less like a real estate transaction and more like being entrusted with something they had loved.

When they accepted our offer, we were thrilled.

Ironically, we closed on the cabin in early October while both Rhonda and I were recovering from COVID. The closing happened remotely, without anyone meeting in person. It wasn’t exactly how we’d imagined buying our dream cabin, but none of that mattered. The cabin was finally ours. The first neighbors we met were Lou and Maryann Bednarz. We let them know of our COVID status and greeted them from a safe distance.

As happy as we were, I think one member of the family has enjoyed Duck Harbor even more than we have. Our Labrador, Magdalena, considers the lake her personal swimming hole. She has never met water she didn’t love.

Because our home in Honesdale is only twenty minutes away, the cabin has become part of our everyday life rather than simply a weekend destination. We stop by after work, spend weekends there whenever we can, and welcome Julie and Daniel home whenever they visit from Philadelphia and Denver.

Somewhere along the way, we even became lake people. We bought a pontoon boat. Then a jet ski—something I never would have predicted a few years earlier.

But those things aren’t really what make Duck Harbor special.

It’s the campfires on cool evenings. The quiet mornings on the water. The sunsets that never seem to get old. Most of all, it’s the people. Our neighbors welcomed us from the very beginning with kindness, friendship, and a willingness to help whenever we needed it.

For all the miles we’ve traveled around the world, it’s funny that one of the places that has brought us the greatest peace was only twenty minutes from home all along.

Sometimes the best journeys don't take you very far.

They simply bring you to exactly where you were meant to be.