Small Towns, Big Traditions

Past winners of the Loon Calling Contest

By Esther J. Perne

Belgrade — August 5 is the ultimate Saturday night. Small-community, lake-country, special-like-clockwork, that first Saturday in August is symbolized by dozens of cars lining the roadside near the Belgrade Community Center for All Seasons, where hundreds of guests enjoy the annual tradition of Bean Hole Beans (and homemade pies) served up by the Belgrade Fire and Rescue crew, with the help of an extensive community cast.

Belgrade Fire Department volunteers stand ready to serve beans to the masses.

Then, dozens of onlookers hang over the Belgrade Lakes bridge at the Rome end of the village to catch the familiar tunes of the region's beloved loon, in as many variations as there are contestants, during the popular Belgrade Lakes Loon Calling Contest.

In the best of Maine small town summer traditions, Bean Hole Beans and Loon Calling, are symbols of the community pulse beat. Bean hole beans date to the annual log drives of the 1800 and 1900's, and go back in the Belgrades several decades, when the secret recipe that is tasted today was formulated.

The secret recipe and the bean hole tradition of cooking this New England staple in an underground pit of hot coals overnight is maintained by the Belgrade Fire & Rescue Department. The annual dinner is their primary fund raiser for the best cause a small town and all its vacationers and visitors could support: safety, security, and successful rapid response to emergencies. No wonder the roadside is lined with cars; what better way to say thanks than by enjoying a delicious baked bean tradition.

The Belgrade Lakes Loon Calling Contest, sponsored by Castle Island Camps of Long Pond, is a symbol of the community because . . . well, just stop and listen anywhere in the Belgrades and sooner or later one of the loon's four distinctive calls will echo from a nearby lake, or perhaps from above during a flyover. That haunting cry is also the call of a coveted lifestyle, the call of adventure, the call of one of the few remaining states in the United States where the waters are clear enough for loons to fish and therefore reside.

A fiddler, guitarist, and accordionist entertain.

So popular are the Belgrades' resident loons and the Loon Calling Contest that some participants plan their vacation around this unique competition of talent that attracts a range from toddlers to the-sky's-the-limit in age. The actual age classes of contestants are: 10 and under, 11 to 15, and 16 to 110!

Meanwhile, Mercer's Old Home Days, on the first full weekend in August, on August 5 and 6 in 2006, is a celebration of going back — back to a place either real or longed for, called home, back to events that are simple and sane, to people familiar, to reminders of times, thankfully, not totally gone by.

In 1807, Mercer resident John Thompson wrote:

From Cape Cod Hill in New Sharon to where the Congregational, Baptist and Universalist meeting houses now stand and from there to Proctor's Comer was an entire wilderness, without house or an opening. The road, if a road it could be called, was muddy and bad to travel on horseback or on foot and there was no other mode of traveling, for it would be impossible to pass with wheels.

Times, they have a-changed, and parts of Route 2 north of Smithfield where Mercer lies, probably are where it was once impossible to pass with wheels. There are houses aplenty now, and openings, too, but with a little imagination and some baked beans and pie, or roast pig or turkey, children happily running around in the background, and local talent nervously warming up their instruments for the annual show, it's easy to go back, perhaps not to the wilderness, but to a time when life in a small town was simpler, just like Old Home Days.

Summertime in the Belgrades

Contents

Small Towns, Big Traditions