There are multiple theories about the origin of the name "Casco Bay". Aucocisco, an Anglicisation of the Abenaki name for the bay, means "place of herons", "marshy place", or "place of slimy mud".
everyone who drives by on 295 usually sees "the place of slimy mud": miles and miles of mud. I've paddled down the small channel of water at lower tides from the Presumpscot to Martin's Point, but i REALLY wanted to see it at high tide. It is very hard to get any firm answers on where the Presumpscot ends and Casco bay begins: the Presumpscot Estuary certainly runs along the shore from the rte 295 bridge to Martin's Point, so I'm taking Martin's Point as the start of Casco bay. Convince me I'm wrong.
At the same time, I really wanted to try paddling from Sebago to the sea with a lighter boat, now that I knew where the rocks and rapids were. And at the SAME time, I wanted to try the new path for me starting at the Eel weir canal right at the dam on Sebago Lake basin. When you get down to the Eel Weir hydropower plant about a mile down from there. It’s an easy takeout at the warning signs. Then it’s an easy portage down a short stretch of road to the power plant parking lot. From there you walk down a little dirt car trail for a few hundred feet and, make a sharp left back up a little easy path down to the presents Scott river. The next thing here was of course the Dundee Dam has been repaired and the refilling of Dundee pond is underway, but the Rapids are still there at Dundee Park. So I portaged around at Dundee Park. With the pond being slowly refilled, interestingly, the lower rapids are now already completely covered. It was still easy to pull right up to the tow path at the dam and hike up to the portage spot.
From there, there are no real changes in the portages, but the river is historically low these days. The waves from the ocean and the very low rocks after Presumpscot Falls convinced me to stop in the tidal Water just after Presumpscot Falls and not try paddling down under the next two bridges into Casco Bay in my ragile old racing canoe. This would’ve been a lot of fun with my Old Town Penobscot Canoe, but it would not have been safe or even possible in my little J190. 23 miles and 11 portages later I called it a day. The city portage is on the streets of Westbrook are still quite a thing. Getting back into the river after the c&o mill dam at SAPPI is still a chore and I still hike down behind tritank welding. The “ homeless“ camp is becoming quite a nice home now! There are even more strainers than before, and the massive strainer completely blocking the Presumpscot is still there and it was still really hard to drag boat up the steep slope for the shortage around the strainer. The hardest portage physically is still purging around Presumpscot Falls with steep hills, many roots and rocks. With all this, I think it might be too much of a chore for one person to do all these portages in one day. With a crew it would certainly be a lot more fun!
But you can see my face when I decided to stop at the Falls: just not actually happy about stopping short of the Bay.
Sooooo... I came back the next day, with my trusty old Old Town Penobscot 16. I paddled right up to Presumpscott Falls, then down along the beautiful cliffs and rocks out into the open water. The wind comes up fast sometimes, and the waves got higher and higher, reaching 2 ft by the end.
Then an unexpected discovery: the secret hidden path to the secret hidden pond on 295 North! there's a small opening cut in the tall sea grass with a Portland Trails sign just visible and some small stairs: It's Berle Mile Pond! www.trails.org...
you can only get there by boat and only at high tide, but I'm going back there for sure: it's like the Secret Garden or something...
so with paddling the final stage to the lower parking lot on Martin's Point, it came out to about 26.5 miles, 11 portages, and lots of beautiful sights
Негізгі бет Paddling from Sebago to Casco Bay
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