"That pond named after an adult beverage."

We're cruising down the Stud Mill Road on Sunday - dust flying, canoe on the roof, bones chattering as we hit pot holes, giving the Mainer two-finger-wave when we pass other trucks.

"Where are we going again? Whiskey Pond?"

I consult the Delorme. "No, it's Brandy Pond."

"Well, I knew it was some sort of beverage."

Driving along in this part of Maine it's easy to underestimate distance when looking at the Delorme. It took awhile to get out to left turn off from Stud Mill, and then another long while before the trees thinned, showing a body of water ahead. We were in the big old chunk of Maine east of 95, north of Route 9, and south of 6 that simply has tons of trees, dirt roads, and lakes. It's north woods alright, but it seems to sometimes get overlooked by the northern North Woods. 

Brandy Pond, as we discovered after a bit of research (no Google! I am not talking about the Brandy Pond in southern Maine!), is a 723 acre warm-water pond in Hancock County. It's shallow and, according the Maine state lake survey done in 1951, should be managed for pickerel, yellow perch, and bullhead. (That was actually the most recent lake survey I could find - but cool that it was online!) Unfortunately the fish in this lake happen to have really high mercury levels, more than double the amounts considered safe for human consumption. A federal study was done in 2011 to try and find a cause for the mercury contamination, but none was found. The mercury issue was first noticed because bald eagle couples nesting on the lake kept having unproductive eggs. At first researchers thought the pollution might have been caused by an old tannery from a few miles away but it turns out that tannery burned down before the introduction of mercury in the leather tanning process. (As a side note, it blows my mind that there used to be a tannery out there a hundred years ago. There were people, villages, everything, all along the streams and rivers in this part of Maine.) The final determined cause of the contamination is labeled "non-point-source" pollution, meaning it isn't coming from one, specific place. Instead, this mercury is coming from the air and rain, put there by coal-burning power plants in other parts of our country. For some reason the chemistry and sediments in this lake are holding onto the mercury more fiercely than other waterbodies near by. Sad to think this little remote slice of water is being harmed by things so far away. It's a sobering reminder close to home how important effective environmental regulations are, and how far we have yet to go.

I love these two photos because you can just barely see Daniel lounging in the background.

It wasn't all doom and gloom on Brandy Pond. We saw plenty of wildlife and discovered that approximately half the lake is ringed by beautiful perfect sandy beaches. These, my friends, are a rarity in Maine. Apparently this area is home to some significant sand and gravel aquifers. Perhaps this is what caused the beaches? I am definitely not a geologist, but it was cool to ponder nonetheless. 

The only thing to disturb our paddle were the blackflies near shore. We paddled quickly out to the middle of the lake. Welcome to Maine in May! We put some extra protection on our heads, after spraying copious amounts of (all natural) bug dope. I was thinking this should be our engagement photo. It sums things up nicely.  

Sadie taking her position in the bow of the canoe. She's exhausted after paddling because she spends the whole time standing on her rear legs, something dogs weren't designed to do for extended periods of time.

Monday brought one more adventure opportunity that I will mention briefly. Daniel needed to work on a management project in Vienna (the Maine town, to be clear), so Sadie and I joined in. We were able to get out for a bit of a run on some back woods roads that were beautiful and dry. This part crossed a pretty stream.

And this part went by some beautiful pines. 

The run was fun but the best part was stopping by a pond that was FILLED with tad poles. Hundreds and hundreds. When it comes to swimming, Sadie typically ranges between ambivalent and petrified, but these tadpoles had her enraptured. I'm quite certain she would've stayed there all night, watching them swim and then pouncing. (Don't worry tadpole lovers, she never came close to catching one.) She was even putting her head all the way under and swimming out past where she could reach! It was so much fun to watch her playing and loving the water. Even though she was shaking with cold I ended up having to drag her out and back to the truck. In we went, headed home after another adventure, with a doggie asleep on my lap.