"The roads are in miserable shape'¹ says a year-round resident of the western shore. A winter of cold and no-snow early followed by cold and snow has produced ruts and frost heaves in great number.

Conversations between the BPA and the city council have not yet moved any nearer to a permanent agreement on maintenance of the roads. At this time the council will continue the minimal care of recent years, but nothing beyond that.

Chuck Rohn and Joel Dearborn are continuing their discussions on our behalf.

We are fortunate to have Part II of an interview of a long time resident by Don Hayes. Don spent some time on August 10th with Allen Ikalainen. After Part 1 appeared in our Fall Issue we were saddened to hear of Allen's death in December. Our sympathies go to MaryAnn (Ikalainen) Mastrorio and her family and Doris and Ellsworth Bourque.

The only two camps that I can recall on the opposite side (eastern shore) are those twin white camps. They have been there a long time. One of them has been recently added onto, made a little larger. Those are the only two that I can remember. There weren't any on this shore (now Branchview Drive) going down towards the narrows. There was nothing. There were these old camps here on this peninsula. And then there was a woodchopper who had a chopper’s camp over near the Cove. He lived there year round, but he didn't chop much wood, except in the wintertime. I never knew him by name - none of us did - but he was a very interesting man. My brother, Toivo, Oscar and I were bass fishing one day and going down toward the narrows. We saw something out in the middle of the lake, swimming. We didn't know what it was. So Toivo said, "I am going to go with the boat over there and see. And it was this man, the woodchopper, out in the middle of the lake. He was going (swimming) towards Hanson's Landing, and he had a canvas bag on his back, strapped on. It was a bag that he used to go with once a week. He would swim across the lake and get his staples, put then in the bag, and swim back to his camp. He would swim that distance! We approached him in the boat and asked, ''Do you need any help?" And he said, "No, thank you."

Yes, it was. A canvas bag, watertight, apparently. He would get his butter, bacon, stuff like that, sugar, I suppose. He’d go all the way over to Hanson’s Landing and someone would give him a ride to the store. Then he'd take to the water again on the way home.

Oh, that's gone. You know they weren't made to be permanent structures. Well-built, solid, tar-papered, weather proofed, everything like that, but not built as a permanent structure.

Well, there were some camps; but we never went over that way much, because all of our interest and business seemed to over here. Harjean was over there and he had a motorboat; two motor boats in fact. And I guess one of them is still down in the bottom of the lake. He had a speedboat, and way in the middle of the lake, he didn’t have his motor attached well. The motor got loose, and the motor is still down there. A big motor and a small boat. He used to race across. He'd come over to visit Toivo and come over from Hanson's Landing in nothing flat! Just skimming along on the top of the water. He was sort of an enthusiastic guy about boating, fishing, etc. He died and his wife distributed his ashes on the lake. Quite some time ago. He used to run beauty parlors down in Miami, Florida. He was a real business man.

Most people had twelve or fourteen foot rowboats. That's about all. There were no motors, except one or two – like Harjean had a motor. And Tiny Babcock had a motor on his boat. He was death on these big horsepower motors. I guess he wrote an article in the paper about it, saying that people on the lake shouldn't have any more than ten horsepower motors. He stood by that for a long time. Then one of the biggest power boats here was when my brother got his. It was a four cylinder, inboard, marine motor. Gray was the name of the motor. He bought it over in Blue Hill and then brought it over here. He- got good use out of it.

Yes, they always will be. Tiny was a great advocate of small motors. He was a good environmentalist, actually. Tiny had his camp down on the end of the peninsula here. Then, near where Russell Thompson is now, there was a camp. And there was a man, his wife and two young boys who rented it. And they were Washington people. He was from the Bureau of Engraving. She had long, long hair. She used to go and sit on a rock next to the shore and wash her hair - lather up her hair in a mass of lather. Then the wind would come up and the lather would float down towards Tiny's camp. Oh, did that burn him up?

I don’t think I have ever missed a summer, not even during the war. This is my 66th summer here, and I just went out fishing the other day. My neighbor took me out in the morning. We started off toward Teacher's Island and he said, 'Do you think I should throw my lure over board? And I said, "Sure." We weren't ten minutes off shore and he caught a small salmon. Yes, I've fished for 66 summers here. When the bass were some plentiful, almost every time you went out fishing you'd catch a reasonable size bass or two. Then you could bake the fish, fry it or make a nice chowder. When we were younger, we spent an awful lot of time on it. I don't know whether, if you took the average time in those days it took to catch a fish, that it would be any different than it is now. We had the time then and, of course, we caught more fish.

I don’t know that there have ever been any summertime derbies. But they always used to have on the three big lakes - Branch Pond, Beech Hill Pond, Phillips Lake and Green Lake, wintertime fishing derby - through the ice. I haven’t noticed it in the paper for a couple of years, but it was pretty active. Of course, Uncle Billy over at Hanson's landing used to keep a record of the better fish that were caught. He had a blackboard out there and marked them down. There were some pretty nice fish taken out of here. Uncle Billy worked at the Landing. I don't think he had an interest in it other than in working there. Someone else owed it. He was in charge of renting boats and. if you used the landing, he'd put your boat in the water and you had to pay a dollar. He was so interested in fishing himself, if he saw a fisherman coming in, he'd go over and say, "What did you catch? He wanted to see it, weigh it and scale it. He was a very interesting guy. I don’t know where the name Hanson came from. It’s been called that for years and years. The same as Camp Jordan, the YMCA camp. I can't recall how long that has been there. Of course, they have enlarged it and put up signs better than they used to have. But it's been there a long time.

Yes, you see them going across all the time. A favorite place they had was to come across and then go up Winkumpaugh Cove. They always had a counselor with them. For some of the younger boys who weren't familiar with paddling, you could see him getting after them, showing them how to paddle. one summer, or maybe two, a young man from Finland was a counselor over there.

Well, just one experience I had with a relative of Berkey's (Ellsworth Bourque). Berkey had him- up here one whole summer to help do chores. The young fellow liked work all right, but he liked fishing better. He’d get started on some project and then he'd ask, "Uncle Berkey, what time is it?" He was looking for the time we could go fishing. I used go fishing with him a lot. I liked him. One of our experiences was funny. We had Berkey's boat and we took off rowing, to go fishing in front of those big rocks off of Camp Jordan. So we started off in the morning and it was foggy. We were headed for those fishing grounds and two hours later came back up on this same shore. We couldn't see a thing. All fogged in and, apparently, we couldn't hold a straight line, for two hours later we landed right back up here. Kind of like drunken sailors. These were all good experiences. I’ve had a lot of wonderful times on Branch Pond.

Pond residents will have the opportunity to help the City protect Branch Lake through a study initiated by the Ellsworth Planning Board's Branch Lake Watershed Committee. The City, with assistance from the Hancock County Planning Commission, under a grant from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will be conducting an inventory of potential threats to water quality in the watershed. The emphasis of the project, according to Mike Benjamin of the Watershed Committee, is to involve local residents in the planning process. "We want the final recommendations to be supported, developed and understood by the residents of the watershed," Benjamin emphasized.

The study will focus on how to protect the lake while also respecting the needs of watershed residents. The final recommendations for the project are expected to focus on assuring that any new development taking place in the watershed won't damage the lake. "Public education is likely to be very important," Benjamin stressed, "everyone in the watershed wants the lake to regain pure, but they may also want to be able to leave a building lot for their children. Experience has shown that most watersheds can tolerate a reasonable amount of residential development without affecting water quality, if attention is paid to the way lots are laid out and appropriate provisions are made for drainage and minimizing erosion."

Residents are urged to help with the project. For example, volunteers are needed to help with the fieldwork. The entire watershed must be mapped for features that might pose threats to water quality. Local knowledge can be very helpful in identifying some of these threats such as areas where road washouts occur, old junkyards and areas where extensive land clearing has taken place. Those interested in helping can contact the officers or board members of the Branch Pond Association.

Residents can also help by attending public meetings. The Branch Lake Watershed Committee will be having working meetings monthly and a major public workshop is planned for the summer. The most recent session was held on March 18, 1992. Residents can also make their concerns known to the BPA Executive Board. This project is funded, in part, by the Maine DEP and the U.S. ERA.

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Fishing has been very POOR this year on the lake. Believe it or not, after all the publicity about poor ice conditions earlier in the year, there was 33" of ice on the second weekend in March. A deep freeze is still in effect despite the calendar's first day of Spring.

For those of you who do not receive the Ellsworth American, city elections were held the first week in March and two members were elected to the city council. They are Loren Clarke and Gary Fortier. Bill Spreng was reelected and Dale Higgins was elected as chairman of the council. Ray Williams chose not to run for reelection and Lee McCormick was defeated in his bid.

In a non-binding referendum, Ellsworth voted support for the homeless shelter at the corner of Main and Water Sts. The new council is moving away from the legal action that had been considered against the shelter.

Political sages welcome the new councilors.

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The Branch Pond Association will sponsor its eighth annual season of Sunday sail boat races. The first race will start at 2:00 PM on July 5, 1992. After the race everyone will proceed to Commodore Paul Wight's cottage for a Captain's meeting and refreshments.

Everyone is welcome to participate in any or all of the races without obligation. However, for those wishing to join the Branch Pond Sailing Club, there is a donation of $10 per faintly requested to defray expenses for trophies and refreshments.

Anyone wishing information about the racing rules or who would like to have sailing lessons, contact Paul Wight at 667-7874, available any time after June 1, 1992.

We welcome news or any Branch Pond type classified ads that you might care to run. Send any copy along to Dave Hardy, 95 Greenwood Lane, Waltham, MA. 02154.