These archival articles are presented “as is.” Except for minor corrections or clarifications, most have not been updated since they appeared in print. Thus, some details may be out of date, and some hyperlinks may no longer work.
Helping Neighbors in Need
The Belgrade/Rome Food Pantry moved from the Belgrade Town Office to the North Belgrade Community Center in early November 2015.
Welcome to summer in Belgrade! The economic situation for many of our neighbors does not change with the weather and influx of summer guests. The Food Pantry is always operating, serving clients, distributing food and household items and ready to assist where and when needed.
The latest government survey shows that 16% of households in Maine, about 206,000 people, are food insecure. That number includes 24% of Maine’s children and 23% of its seniors. Maine ranks twelfth in the nation for this measure of hunger, and first — or worst in New England!
The Food Pantry is always trying to be a visible but discreet part of the community. At the annual 4th of July festivities in Belgrade Lakes, we will have a table on Main Street in front of the 1830 House with literature and information about our efforts along with baked goods. Look for us, pick up information and enjoy some baked goods.
The Belgrade/Rome Food Pantry should be recognized as an essential component of town services provided to its citizens to promote and enhance the quality of life of the community. Nutrition is a key component of good health and quality of life and children and adults benefit from the food that is provided on a regular basis from the Food Pantry.
We can assist our neighbors only with the generous monetary assistance, food drives, and item donations from Belgrade and Rome taxpayers, schools, clubs, churches, foundations, government agencies, private businesses, and the 25+ volunteers. But expenses are ever increasing, along with the number of families we are serving.
In 2015 the pantry had 66 households registered from Belgrade (of those, 26 were new families) and 29 households were from the town of Rome (10 new families). Within those households, on the average 35 families, 107 clients each month, were provided with food and household items to last them a week. The Food Pantry is always busy, accepting donations of 9,100 food and other necessities and distributing 27,344 items to our 95 registered families.
Your food contributions are greatly appreciated. We have food collection boxes at both the Belgrade and Belgrade Lakes Post Office, the Rome and Belgrade Town Offices and the Center For All Seasons. Monetary contributions can be made directly to the pantry at Belgrade/Rome Food Pantry, P.O. Box 662, Belgrade Lakes, ME 04918 or by sending a contribution to Good Shepherd Food Bank, Auburn ME and designating it for the Belgrade/Rome Food Pantry. We are located at the North Belgrade Community Center, 508 Smithfield Road (Route 8), and are open Tuesdays, 9:00 — 11:00 a.m.
John Gawler’s treehouse, looking east over Great Pond, ca. 1968.
by Rod Johnson
Boy, o boy, didn’t we love to build tree houses. I’m trying to get a handle on what age that was, I’m guessing it had to be from about 8 years to 12 years. Every small town had a few boys who seemed industrious and creative and who were really into making tree houses — and Belgrade, Maine was no different. Of course I’m not leaving out the girls, but in the 1950s most of them were into different things.
The group or team of tree house builders in the early years was cousin Rick Johnson, his neighbor Howard Downing, and me. There were others that were part-timers, namely cousin Skip Johnson, Ray Barker, Jim Sawyer, and pardon me if I’ve left you out. In addition to the local "builders," we had a snowbird or two who we all called "summer kids," that helped out while they were in town, cousin Cary Johnson being one. With so many cousins it was hard to keep track.
Oh, let’s not forget in the later years that a summer kid named John Gawler constructed one of, if not THE BEST, tree house in town. It was definitely the highest off the ground and commanded the best view. It was located in a large pine tree on the shore of Great Pond, looking easterly out over the lake. The tree was on the family cottage lot and John actually lived in the tree house for several summers.
The core three of us, in our early building years when we were perhaps 8 or 9 years old, got into some hot water when we borrowed (actually stole) some lumber from a summer cottage. We built three Class A tree houses about a hundred yards into the woods from the pile we had taken from. It happened on Skunk Alley (now Hulin Road) in the Lakes at a cottage owned by a Mr. Morin, where Ronny Belevance and family live now.
In the fall, he had had some big pines taken down and had the lumber sawn and stacked, with intentions to build another camp and garage in the spring. When Mr. Morin arrived in late April and noticed that the piles were depleted, it didn’t take him long to follow the trail off into the woods and find his lumber.
Our parents were notified quickly, and we were all interrogated about the matter. There was no denying it, we were guilty. Mr. Morin was decent about it, asking that we tear the tree houses down, return the wood in their now short lengths, and each pay a fine of $10. Our parents made sure we completed both parts of the sentence, along with humble apologies. We did so and never stole lumber again.
The smoking part of this story comes from the day that mother Elsie was quite angry with us when she called us into the house. We had been in my own tree house out behind the local Library which bordered our house. There, we were all busy experimenting with smoking Pall Mall cigarettes that we had heisted from one of our parents. We had been doing this out in the woods and never been caught. We thought we were safe inside the cabin, but of course the cracks between the boards were huge. Apparently, with three of us puffing (and choking) the smoke had bellowed out of the cracks, alerting Mother. She had us red handed.
Some fifteen years later, I bought the house next door. I had to chainsaw down the dead elm trees that separated my parents' house from mine. I kept running into spikes that we boys had put there in the tree house building days. Some kind of poetic justice, I suppose!
Five birdwatchers in a boat on Lake Messalonskee. Photo by Logan Parker.
by Pete Kallin
Summer seems to be in full swing, with long lines at Day’s Store and more out-of-state license plates than Maine plates on the cars parked in the village. The BRCA’s* Courtesy Boat Inspectors (CBIs) have been on duty for a couple of weeks already at the seven public boat launches in the Belgrades, doing their part to prevent the spread of invasive plants into our lakes. Last year, these CBIs inspected over 12,000 boats between Memorial Day and Labor Day and made multiple "saves."
This past week has seen a mixture of weather, some hot, some cool, some wind and finally, a bit of much needed rain. It has been rewarding to see so many people using some of the local hiking trails. My wife and I hiked French Mountain to check on the fire damage and ran into several groups out hiking, including Sasha, her aptly named son, Roman (with the accent on the second syllable), and her friend, Courtney. They live in Rome in Wildwood Estates. Roman reminded me of a young girl, perhaps a year older, whom I met hiking with her mother and grandmother on Mt. Phillip in March. When I asked her how she was doing, she told me her job was "to find the blue clues." She was already learning to look for the blue blazes on the trees that marked the trail. I have a feeling she will grow up very comfortable in the outdoors.
Sasha, Roman, and Courtney on French Mountain.
As the weather has warmed, the trout and salmon have headed for deeper water while the bass, sunfish, and landlocked alewives have headed for shallower water. I went fishing with my friend Matt Scott recently, and as we were headed down the lake I was telling him how I liked to look for schools of alewives at the surface being chased by bigger fish from underneath. I then cast to the action with a white zonker fly that looks like a small alewife and often connect with a nice bass or brown trout. I suddenly spotted just such a school about 40 ft. to starboard and reflexively jerked the throttle back, nearly dumping Matt out of his seat. After apologizing for not giving him any warning, we began casting and connecting with fish.
Meanwhile, another group of outdoor enthusiasts took part in a birdwatching expedition sponsored by the Maine Lakes Resource Center (MLRC), aboard the Maine Lakes Society’s 30-ft. pontoon boat, the Melinda Ann. With help from expert birders, Louis Bevier, Don Mairs, and Logan Parker, they cruised the lower end of Messalonskee Marsh and spotted 37 different species of birds, including sandhill cranes with chicks, endangered black terns, bald eagles, and nesting loons. Check the MLRC webpage or Facebook page for future trips.
Matt Scott holding a bass.
On Sunday, June 26, at 2 p.m., Mel Croft and I will be leading a hike on BRCA’s Mountain property to show how the Belgrade Lakes region has changed over the past 200 million years. Mel will discuss how plate tectonics and various ice ages sculpted the basic landscape over the past 199.985 million years. I will then talk a bit about how the bare rocks and lakes containing lifeless, melted ice water evolved in the past 15,000 years or so since the last ice age to become the forested landscape and lakes teeming with life that we have today. This is always a popular hike so please call the BRCA office at 495‑6039 to register so we can call you if there are any schedule changes. Check their website for the latest schedule. In the meantime, take a kid fishing, hiking, or paddling.
*In December 2017, the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance (BRCA) and the Maine Lakes Resource Center (MLRC) merged, forming the 7 Lakes Alliance. Now retired, Pete Kallin is a past director of the BRCA.
A couple weeks ago, the Kennebec Soil and Water Conservation District helped organize and coordinate a watershed survey in the Echo Lake watershed. We were contacted by the Echo Lake Association to do this work for them. In reality, they had already done much of the hard work and were an essential part of the entire effort.
We work in many different Kennebec County watersheds. Nearly all of them have some type of "watershed group." Some more formal than others. Some are more expansive and focus their efforts on entire watershed systems. What they have in common is that they are composed of people from all walks of life who share the one pervasive desire to do the right thing for their watershed.
The right thing is not always obvious. Folks want to do the right thing, but don’t always know what that right thing is. This basic principle holds true with watershed conservation. Most people have good intentions and would not knowingly harm water resources, particularly if they happen to live near a lake or pond. We all know what the bottom line is that good water quality is good for the recreation value of our property and good for real estate values. Even if one’s conservation motivations are a bit self-serving, conservation actions still benefit everybody. It’s a typical win-win situation. By using good conservation practices on the land, one is doing what’s right for the land, for water quality and in the long run, for real estate values.
Back to the watershed survey: The Echo Lake Association includes both year-round and seasonal property users. They all gain from good water quality in the watershed. Like any watershed group, they need to know their watershed before they can make good decisions about protecting and improving its water quality. Individuals tend to know their own neighborhood, but may know very little about other areas of the watershed. The Watershed Survey helps people get a much clearer picture of the entire area and its features.
The intent is to identify areas that may generate erosion and the resulting phosphorus which impacts on our water quality. The next step is to help address any problems that may be identified. In many cases, that watershed association will work to help individual landowners understand how to address a problem on their property. That may include an issue on the camp road or driveway which leads into their property.
The resulting knowledge about better management practices helps the association members learn how to fix problem sites and help their neighbors do "the right thing." Sometimes groups may purchase bulk materials like erosion-control mulch in order to make it easier for individual landowners to use it as needed on erosion sites. Some groups have worked to help road associations develop a road management plans in order to better spend their maintenance funds on more effective road issues.
By pooling resources, landowners can take action as a group or undertake tasks that require larger amounts of manpower or money. They also make it easier to take advantage of professional assistance in the form of expertise or financial help. By using the association, individuals are able to find answers to the question, "What is the right thing to do here?"
Lake associations are able to do important things for their watersheds. This is due in no small part to the fact that they are made up of people who care about the resource and want to see it taken care of properly. That feature alone can make all the difference between active conservation and environmental degradation.
As people in the area see good things happening, it generates more and more interest and a gradual upwelling of support. Volunteerism works and the spirit of community only stays alive when it is fed by new energy. We should thank those people who continually feed the community with new energy. So keep up the good work out there — you know who you are. We’ll follow your lead.
