A sure sign of spring is high school and college graduations, like this one at Colby College on May 21, where former vice president Joe Biden was the featured speaker. Can summer be far behind? More…
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 Thus, some details may be out of date, and some hyperlinks may no longer work.
2017: Can’t Wait For Summer
by Esther J. Perne
Can’t wait … to wear sandals, brain-freeze on ice cream, listen to concerts under the stars and chase the shade on hot days.
Can’t wait for warm gentle rains, lupines decorating the roadsides, sails aloft across open waters and bikers whizzing in convoys along local roads.
Can’t wait … to watch butterflies and birds adding flutter and action to gardens and greenery.
Can’t wait for pets to frolic and children to play and oldsters to pick up the pace.
Can’t wait to run and jump and boat and bike and accept the invitation of a near perfect summer day to do nothing.
Can’t wait … to enter a building that’s been closed for almost a year and inhale that familiar campy, coming-home smell.
Can’t wait for long days, longer shop hours and leisurely lingering.
Can’t wait … to reduce global, national and home state issues to cheering with the crowd at the local ballpark, watching a parade, admiring a few simple sunsets or choosing from a calendar of events that is wholesome.
Can’t wait for the crawl of construction…
Can’t wait for seasonal residents returning to summer from away, so happy and enthusiastic and eagerly seeking change of address forms, local updates and news.
Yes there is news, changes, losses, births, break-ups, emerging romances, all measured by season, all gathered in the best, most old-fashioned of all mediums: word-of-mouth.
Can’t wait for the tide of newbies and summer visitors, who browse the roads and the shops and the events — and love it all.
Can’t wait for summer to invite out those who don’t leave, who live here, who work here, who wait for summer here and are so relieved here by the change of season and the change of lifestyle.
Fall immerses the region in a burst of beauty and invigoration. Winter offers a challenging balance of cold outside and cozy in. Spring hereabouts defies definition.
Welcome to the summer of 2017 and to the 25th season of this unique Belgrades newspaper.
For years now, we have been greeted with: "Summertime is here, now we know summer has truly arrived." For years now we have had people run up to us on the street, follow us into stores and stop their cars when they see us to get the latest copy of the newspaper.
Contractors often tell us that wherever they’re working they see copies of Summertime in homes and camps. We get phone calls for issues that readers can’t find. And we get inquiries about something that was in the paper two or three seasons ago.
Although Summertime in the Belgrades has many qualities going for it, the quality that keeps us going most is you: the readership — the visitors, vacationers and residents, the business owners and employees, and the passers-through who want to know where to go and what to do and much more about the Belgrades.
And so, again, we start a new season of summer and of Summertime, as a spokespiece for much that is family-oriented and wholesome in the area, that is of current concern and historic interest, that is beckoning everyone to enjoy, and to participate in, the events, the recreation, the beautiful natural setting.
For everyone, may this be the summer to not just drive by but to stop and discover, to sample, to savor, to visit the sites, to celebrate the events, to admire the views and, yes, to read the Summertime news.
Welcome to our pages … the pages of the good times of summertime.
A cove, a boy and a boat. For as long as I can remember, there was our cove and there was Glenn, the boy in the boat with a motor.
Like most kids on a lake in his day, the cove — our cove — was Glenn’s world. He was always on the water or diving off docks or pestering his father on boat trips to the [Belgrade Lakes] Village. The closest Glenn got to me was storing his boat in a shed on adjoining land where by all accounts young Glenn put his boat away by revving hard and driving full on over the beach and into the building.
Glenn left the lake off and on, of course — for winter, for school — but he always came back to his lake and his boat and the cove that was his world.
Fortunately for Glenn’s world, he met Bonnie, a perfect match for adopting his lake life, his peninsula dwelling and his penchant for boating. Evenings through the years they would motor around the cove, waving to docksitters and sometimes stopping to chat.
Although Glenn was undoubtedly familiar with other sections of the lake — after all, he had always had a motor — he maintained a lot of loyalty to his own cove, its history and its occupants of all ages. When my parents were very elderly, Glenn and Bonnie frequently visited, but they also visited with my very young grandchildren.
The last time I saw Glenn he was checking out a newcomer to the cove but he took time out to walk with me to my parents' camp. It was cold and bleak but Glenn was cheerful about the summer that would lie ahead.
He had a lot to be cheerful about. He was a man with a cove and with a boat with a motor. The same cove and boat for as long as I can remember.
…The girl in the rowboat
Glenn Baxter passed away on May 5, after a protracted illness. A memorial service was held on June 3, in the Union Church of Belgrade Lakes in Belgrade Lakes Village.
Well, it seemed like the winter would never get over, and the big Valentine’s Day storm sealed our fate. We haven’t been up to camp since Columbus Day weekend last fall. After the Christmas holidays were over and we got through the 2017 New Year blast, occasional thoughts of the coming summer started to creep in.
Yes, we were able to stave off seriously thinking about it with some winter diversions. We took the kids to Disney over the February vacation and got a couple of ski weekends up in Vermont and New Hampshire. Those were fun times, but when March was nearly over and the snowbanks were pretty much gone, the thoughts of Goin' Ta Camp became a daily ritual.
Then April finally came and that was it. We ARE planning the first trip north to open camp over Memorial weekend; there’s no two ways about it. As mother often said, "March winds and April showers bring May flowers" — and I’m adding Opening Camp to that little verse.
What’s involved in opening the camp and getting everything up and running? Well, it no doubt varies from A to Z depending on your camp’s issues, how much you hire done and how much you do yourselves. There’s the water issue, the shutter issue, kicking out the squirrels and mice issue, the dock, the boat(s), the sticks, and winter debris. Also, in the "other" category, unexpected issues always seem to pop up. You’ve discovered a leaky roof that needs patching where the tree branch punctured the shingles last winter, also a saggy floor and stuck-shut door which calls for jacking and shims.
After the long drive up to Maine with the SUV loaded to the gills, it’s Saturday morning and time is a-wastin'. First, a good breakfast at the [Sunset] Grill with lots of "welcome backs" and "how’d your winta go," then you are ready to attack openin' camp.
What comes first? All of it. With all hands on board, you and the family charge with ten projects going at once. There’s lots of questions about what to do, what goes where, and which switch does what. While giving advice or orders to other family members, some aren’t happy with you about the yelling, but everyone chips in to help, at least for a while.
By noon, things are looking possible though still overwhelming. The kids have lost interest and want to play near the water or in the woods, go downtown for a sandwich or ice cream, and they want you to change priorities and get the boat in. You want that, too, but one of the pipes is busted from your poor draining last fall. The roof hasn’t been fixed yet where it leaked onto the old camp couch, and the sticks and debris are in hastily made piles scattered about. There’s been mice nesting in the silverware drawer, and by the looks they’ve been present throughout the cabin all winter. No one is volunteering to clean out the mouse nests.
By 4 p.m. on Saturday you are exhausted, frustrated and realize that you cannot fix all this chaos and still enjoy the weekend. You fix the pipe (sort of) with duct tape, good enough to get the toilet filled and flushable. A call to plumber Paul Hanna on Tuesday while at the office will take care of the rest.
That’s it for today. A beer and burger on the porch while watching the sunset gives you back your spirit. Sunday is coming and surely you can bring some things together. You’ll make a mental list of the items left to do when you are driving home on Monday. You push back the dread of driving home in the heavy Maine turnpike traffic, then look out over the lake at the beautiful sunset just in time to hear a loon calling. Camp is open, and that’s all that matters right now. Sound familiar, welcome back to camp and the lake. I know I’m happy to be back.
The onion domes of a centuries-old Russian Orthodox cathedral rise above the trees in Solvychedodsk, a village near Kotlas.
by Gregor Smith
Later this month, Kotlas, Russia, Greater Waterville’s sister city, will celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of its founding. Four area residents will travel to Kotlas to join in the festivities.
The four are Mark Fisher of Oakland, John and Lisa Fortier of Belgrade, and Gregor Smith, also of Belgrade. The delegation’s leader, Mark Fisher, is an Oakland town councilor, host father to many past Russian exchange students, and founder of American Academic Adventures, a new company that arranges student exchanges. Lisa Fortier is the daughter of non-Communist Russian refugees who emigrated to New York City after World War II, and her husband, John, owns the State Farm Insurance Agency on Silver Street in Waterville. Gregor Smith works at the L.L.Bean call center in Lewiston and for this newspaper.
Maine Governor Paul R. LePage had hoped to join the delegation for its first few days in Kotlas but was not granted a visa. Gov. LePage visited Kotlas twice while he was mayor of Waterville, in 2005 and 2008, and has vowed to return to Kotlas before his term as governor ends in two years.
Gregor Smith, Mark Fisher, Lisa Fortier, and John Fortier in a classroom in Kotlas.
The group will fly out of Boston on June 4, arriving in St. Petersburg the next day. After four days of sightseeing, they will board a train for the 23-hour ride to Kotlas. There the festivities will begin on June 10, and will run for three days. The centennial celebrations will include a parade, fireworks, musical and theatrical performances, exhibitions, and a gala dinner.
The delegation will remain in Kotlas until June 16, when they will board a train for Moscow. After two days in the Russian capital, they will fly back to the United States. You will get to read all about their adventures here in Summertime in the Belgradeslater in the season.
Home to around 75,000 people, Kotlas lies at the confluence of two mighty rivers, which are similar in size to the Mississippi and the Missouri. Unlike those two American rivers, however, the Northern Dvina and the Vychegda flow north, to the Arctic Sea.
A view of the Vychegda River from the bell tower of the Annunciation Cathedral in Solvychegodsk, looking downstream toward Kotlas.
At 61° North, Kotlas is at the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. While the winters are long, cold, and dark, the summers are warm, occasionally hot, and full of light. During June, the sky never truly darkens. The days are 19-20 hours long, punctuated by 4-5 hours of twilight.
Although the region has been inhabited for centuries and became a center of commerce in the 19th century, it did not become incorporated as a city until 1917. Today the city boasts a shipyard, a rail junction, an airport, and a once-secret "electro-mechanical" factory, which produces aircraft and rocket parts. A nearby town, Koryazhma, has the largest cluster of paper mills in the former Soviet Union.
Kotlas and Waterville officially became sister cities in June 1990, when the mayors of the two towns signed a sister city pact. (Although technically the agreement is between Kotlas and just Waterville, sister city organizers here have always interpreted it broadly to include the surrounding towns.) Since then, dozens of travelers have come in both direction for educational and cultural exchanges. For more information about Kotlas and the sister city partnership, one may visit the website of the Kotlas – Waterville Area Sister City Connection at www.kotlas.org.
Greetings to the greater Belgrade Lakes Community and welcome back to summer residents and visitors!
When I was growing up and there was any kind of ruckus in the house, which was pretty common with six kids, my mother would tell us to "Take it outside!" We would then head out to the woods behind the house to find something to do.
My mother was a wise woman. Fifty years before Richard Louv wrote Last Child in the Woods in 2008, she had an innate understanding of "Nature Deficit Disorder" and knew that direct exposure to nature is essential for a child’s healthy physical and emotional development. Louv later proved that kids who spend a lot of time outside are healthier, have longer attention spans, and are less likely to suffer from depression or childhood obesity.
If you haven’t read Louv’s book, you should. I hope this column will inspire you to take advantage of all the outdoor recreation opportunities in our area and especially about the importance of getting youngsters outside and interacting with Mother Nature. Mother Nature is an amazing teacher and we can all learn from her.
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Dick Greenan with nine-pound brown trout.
This winter seemed to come and go, with snow followed by melting and then more snow and cold. Overall, the skiing ended up being pretty decent and the ice went out in the third week of April, a full month after last year.
The fishing has been good, especially for bass, pike, and trout. Once the surface water hit about 50°F, the fish began to get active and I caught a lot of very large bass on flies fished deep near the bottom in about 20 feet of water near dropoffs. The first dozen smallmouth bass I caught this year were all in the 3to 4.5-pound range. By the time this article is published, the water temperature will be in the mid to high 60’s in most of our lakes and the bass will be in the shallows, either on their own beds or chasing sunfish on their beds. Fast action can be had with surface poppers, jerk baits, or Senko type jigs.
There have also been some nice trout taken, including a fair number of rainbows that were stocked in Long Pond last fall. Many of the fish migrated downstream and seem to be hanging out near the Wings Mill Dam. Others have been taken near the dam in the village. My friend Dick Greenan, recently caught a nine pound, lunker brown trout trolling in Long Pond.
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The hiking trails in the Kennebec Highlands and nearby Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance (BRCA) properties like French Mountain, Mount Phillip, and The Mountain are beautiful, verdant, and awash in spring and early summer wildflowers like trillium and lady slippers and birds and other wildlife.
Jon Doty, Toni Pied, and Roy Bouchard of BRCA Stewardship Committee.
In mid-May, the BRCA Stewardship Committee held a work day on Mount Phillip, cleaning and marking the trails a bit and refreshing the yellow blazes along the property boundary. This dedicated group spends a lot of time maintaining over twenty miles of hiking and biking trails that help make the Belgrade Lakes Watershed a special place in which to live and recreate. They are always looking for additional volunteers to help out. It is a lot of fun, you will learn new skills, and you won’t meet a finer group of people anywhere. If you are interested, contact Toni Pied 495‑6039 at the BRCA to find out about the next scheduled work day and how you can sign up.
As I was heading down the trail after the work day, I ran into BRCA (and North Pond Association) board member, Jodie Mosher-Towle, heading up with her sisters, one of her sons, and assorted nieces and nephews. It was good to see so many youngsters out enjoying the outdoors. I encourage everyone to take advantage of the wealth of recreational opportunities this area offers. Take a kid fishing or on a hike, or paddling in a canoe. It’s how memories are made. Or take a parent, so he (or she) can become a kid again.
It really was not that long ago that the water surface was covered with ice and snow. Yet it is already time to start thinking about getting your feet wet and enjoying the summer season in your watershed. I’d like to start the season with an overview about water quality in our ponds and streams!
You hear the term "non-point source pollution" or NPS. The term means just what it implies. The pollution comes from many sources instead of a single point. So … it’s the rain runoff from roofs, parking areas and roadways. It includes the unimpeded runoff from your yard/lawn or a farmer’s field. It may include the runoff from a local car wash or other commercial activity. Some of it may come from an area of the watershed where septic systems are not working effectively. NPS at all those sites adds up and has a cumulative effect on our lakes.
How do we address these NPS sites? We use a "Best Management Practice," or BMP. (Though I prefer to use the term "Better Management Practice". It’s somewhat presumptuous to think we know what is best.) A BMP is a practice done to address the problem caused by the Non-Point Source. Confused yet? It doesn’t need to be that complicated. The staff here at the Kennebec District or your local watershed group are able to identify different types of BMPs designed to intercept water runoff. The practice either removes or decreases that runoff’s impact on a stream or pond.
As a landowner what can you do to help protect and even improve the water quality of our marvelous watersheds? We work with various pond and lake associations and individual landowners. Over the next months' issues of Summertime In the Belgrades, we will address issues people need to focus on. That isn’t just people who own camps on the water but includes everybody who uses the resources in that area whether you simply walk on the beach, live year-round on the shoreline, or occasionally drop a boat into the water. Regardless of where you live, you are in some watershed. The water that leaves your property ends up in one of our streams or ponds. Even if it seems to disappear down a storm drain, that water runoff ends up somewhere.
There are ways for us to minimize our impact on water quality. Some people like to focus on how they manage their yard and property.
Minimize your lawn and only fertilize if you absolutely need to and then only in the fall.
Keep the lawn well back from the water’s edge. A good buffer planting of shrubs with erosion control mulch does a good job of intercepting water runoff and filtering it before it gets to the lake.
Control the water runoff from your buildings or driveway and parking. These impervious surfaces can concentrate rainwater runoff and funnel it into the lake.
Clean and manage drainage ditches. Divert that water into the woods or otherwise filter it so it doesn’t transport soil, chemicals, or other toxics into the water.
If you have a driveway or share a camp road, make sure it is designed and maintained to collect the rainwater and divert it into either filter ponds or a vegetative area where the water has time to settle before it gets to the lake.
If you use a boat, keep it maintained. Don’t spill or drain engine fluids into the water. Make sure you check your boat and trailer for any petroleum residue and/or other pollutants.
…AND MAINTAIN YOUR SEPTIC SYSTEM!!! Have it checked regularly and pumped as needed.
Remember, there is a lot to do in working to protect water quality.
