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Spring Rolls in While Paddling an Icy Pond

April 22, 2009 - The first paddling outing of the year is often quite different from any other outing.

You will see birds and animals that you might not have seen since last October. The first hints of skunk cabbage are appearing in the roadside hollows. The first blooms of daffodils are appearing. On your drive home from your paddling outing, roll the windows down to listen to the chorus of peepers celebrating the arrival of spring.

Dyer Long Pond is a fine choice for a late-April paddle. We arrived to find the pond in the midst of a dramatic change from winter to spring. The ice was in the process of going out.

We were dismayed when we drove down to the state public boat launch site and looked out over the pond at a dark sheet of ice shore to shore. We got the binoculars out and scanned the surface north to south and discovered many open leads and circuitous blue ribbons of water in the southern half of the pond.

We carried the canoe down to the water, and for the next two hours paddled this way and that exploring along the shoreline of both sides of the southern end of the pond, leaving the ice-choked northern end for another time.

Dyer Long Pond is three miles long, and no more than a half-mile wide at its widest point. There are many cottages spaced along the shoreline, with more on the northern end than on the southern end.

The southeastern shoreline has no development on it, and provides the most interesting exploring. April is a great time to paddle this pond because no one is around – you will have it to yourself. During the summer this can be a very busy place, and does not provide as much of a wilderness experience.

To get to the boat launch site, follow Route 215 north from Damariscotta-Newcastle for about 12 miles. Turn right onto Hinks Road and proceed half a mile to the boat launch access road, marked by a blue sign. Follow the winding gravel road for a half-mile down through a large meadow to the water.

We felt like Arctic explorers as we searched out open leads and tried promising channels only to come to icy impasses. We learned about the ice thickness by trial and error.

In some places, the ice was the consistency of slush and provided little resistance. In other areas, a very thin crust was easy to break through. In other spots, we bumped into four-inch thick ice and came to an immediate halt. Time to find another way.

The pond is surrounded by a mature evergreen forest featuring many large white pine, hemlock and fir. We repeatedly heard the calls of pileated woodpeckers echoing throughout the woods on the eastern side of the pond. There are a number of small ledges tumbling down into the water that provide possible spots to get out and soak in the afternoon sun.

We watched a solitary loon float by, gazing up the pond at the ice ahead of it. We wondered if this was where the loon would be spending the summer, or if it would be moving on to another lake.

The southern tip of the pond is especially wild. Note the many stands of larch trees in the marshy area on the western side of the pond. The larch is the only evergreen that drops its needles in the fall.

These trees may look dead, but examine the branches and you will note small buds ready to send out delicate green needles. Also note the beautiful dark-red colors of pitcher plant leaves protruding up from the waterside mosses.

An osprey passed overhead, and we marveled at the distinctive mottled black-and-white underparts that so readily identify this acrobatic bird. Along with the call of the loon, the high-pitched call of an osprey on the hunt is an unmistakable sound of spring and summer in Maine.

As you drift into the cozy cove on the southern end of the pond, you will note a rolling pasture on the left and a home up in the woods. Stop here and listen to the rush of water over the ruins of an old mill dam. This is the continuation of the Dyer River, which eventually empties into the Sheepscot River in Newcastle.

This spot was traditionally the local put-in spot for boaters years ago. The land is now posted, and boaters today use the new state boat launch site halfway up the pond.

For help in getting to Dyer Long Pond, consult the Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (Map 13).

by Michael Perry, Portland Press Herald, April 16, 2009


Lakes: Dyer Long Pond
Regions: Belgrade


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