Summertime in the Belgrades
August 8, 2008Vol. 10, No. 10

Summertime in the Belgrades

August 8
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Happy 100th, Belgrade Lakes Association!

Postcard of the BLA Centennial Map.

To celebrate its centennial, the Belgrade Lakes Association has commissioned this map, "A View of the Belgrade Lakes (as seen by a fish in the talons of an osprey)," by artist and calligrapher Pier Gustafson of Boston. Gustafson's extraordinary and often whimsical work has graced collections across the country including the Museum of Fine Arts, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the DeCordova Museum, the Hechinger Collection, and Gallery Naga in Boston. Each map will be signed, hand-colored, and numbered in a limited edition of 100. The map is available for a $1000 donation to support the work of the Belgrade Lakes Association. To reserve a copy, write to Scott Finlay, treasurer of the Association.

by Esther J. Perne

The Belgrade Lakes Asso­ciation, 100 years old in 2008, deserves a special "Happy Anniversary!" Representing Great and Long Ponds, the BLA is one of the oldest organizations of its kind in the state, definitely the oldest in the area, and an impressive contributor to local history.

Founded in 1908 as the Belgrade Great Pond Association by landowners and vacationing regulars on the north end of Great Pond, the association's original objectives were to improve the waters, fisheries and navigation in the Belgrade Lakes chain. The responsibilities included stocking fish (salmon, trout and bass), keeping the trout streams cleared, mapping the lakes, and handling buoykeeping from identifying hazards to placing markers — long wooden spars with red, white or black flags on top — in the waters each spring, checking on them, and removing them each fall. Critical to these activities were the many fishing guides, local year-round men whose livelihoods depended on the emerging tourism/summer vacationer lifestyle.

Party ballon for the BLA Centennial. Photo by Dick Greenan.

In its early history the BLA also maintained docks and storage sheds on the stream in Belgrade Lakes Village, was probably influential in the establishment of the promotional organization Belgrade Lakes Region, Inc., and issued the Belgrade Lakes Code that covered nine rules of the waterways.

Examples of the code include: "When in a motor boat or outboard keep at least 100 yards away from swimmers, sailboats, canoeists, and people fishing" and "When cutting timber, do not strip the shoreline."

In more recent times the BLA has been instrumental in setting up a dam control system, supporting community health projects, purchasing equipment and monitoring and reporting on water quality, assisting in watershed surveys and Colby College study projects, contributing money and representation to the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance, to the Conservation Corps, and most recently to the milfoil and gloeotrichia programs.

The BLA has contributed generously to land trust acquisitions in the area and even purchased its own preserved parcel, The Mountain, in Rome. It has aggressively supported a Swimmers Itch Eradication Program, established an annual fund-raising drive via raffles, set up a newsletter, and sponsored a variety of educational outreach projects. Throughout the 100 years, it has never raised its dues and it only in the past few years switched its time of meeting. This year the BLA developed a new logo.

Kathy Lowell, Polly Beatie, and Howard Lowell.

From the left, Kathy Lowell, BLA president; Polly Beatie, vice president, and Howard Lowell, marketing manager. Photo by Dick Greenan of the BLA.

The official 100th Annual Meeting will be on Saturday, August 9, from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. at Loon Cove on Great Pond, followed by a lobster bake. Other events on the program will include a silent auction and a live auction; a pictorial stamp cancellation on BLA Centennial Map postcards from 3:00 to 6:00; drawings for the Old Town Canoe package, Shoremaster dock, and fishing and lodging package from 4:30 to 5:00; and the drawing of the winner of the Centennial Raffle of 20-foot Sweetwater Tuscany Pontoon Boat at 7:00.

On-going is the sale of the limited edition BLA Centennial Map, "A View of the Belgrade Lakes," by renowned artist and calligrapher Pier Gustafson of Boston, and plans for the next major BLA supported event, the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance Aquafest, August 29-30.


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