Fall has arrived from one day to the next, nippy temperatures in the early morning air are signs of good sleeping weather. While we were very fortunate not to have any trees come down on the cabin during the recent storm, we have a number of big ones that have to be removed due to disease and age. Several years ago State of Maine Forest Ranger Kent pointed out the candidates and as we speak tree specialist Donny Clark is here taking care of those hazardous trees. 

These are good days for walking. Sixty years ago when I was in Girl Scouts in the late fall we would make our annual trek on the Indian Trail from the bottom of Crest Avenue and Lobster Cove Road all the way to the beach. We walked along the shore and looked for signs of Native Americans. We were certain that every dip in the ledges were grinding bowls but later discovered that it was natural weathering to the stone. My Boy Scout brothers also had an annual Indian Trail trek and we would also hike the trail as a family. We loved to climb Jacob’s Ladder from Blowhorn Road to Crest at the top of the hill, the giant granite blocks appear to be stairs and it was a work out! Long time Sprucewold resident, the late Margaret Schwartz, led annual Indian Trail walks for the Sprucewold Association and pointed out where improvements should be made to the trail. We walked all the way to Spruce Point along the shore until you couldn't, then we walked up the hill to Crest Avenue through the woods where it became a dirt track and arrived at the top swimming pool behind the Spruce Point Inn. We would all meet for a well deserved lunch at the Lobster Wharf. 

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, my grandfather and my mother and all their friends and family would traverse the Indian Trail to Lobster Cove from Murray Hill and Bayville. My grandparents, John and Ethel Trask, lived at Murray Hill but Grandpa John lobstered out of Lobster Cove and moored his boat off his mother’s house. When my mother, Alice Trask Fossett, lived with them in Murray Hill, she worked at the Bayville Inn in the summers, and walked to the inn for her waitressing shift and to Lobster Cove by the Indian Trail to visit her grandmother. 

If they planned a visit to town they would walk to my great-grandmother Grace Lewis Trask’s house because the walking route from East Boothbay was the Indian Trail from Murray Hill to Bayville, Tallwoods Estates, Appalachee, and Lobster Cove to Gramma Trask’s house then behind it up the side of Mount Pisgah to the top to the Cave Steps down to Campbell Street then down High Street and across the footbridge. Almost as fast as driving at that time, if you had a car. My grandfather would say the only way to get there is by shank’s mare, which is an old Scottish saying meaning, “use your own legs.”

The Indian Trail is no longer accessible because of erosion of the bankings along the shore and lack of maintenance by property owners even though Maine has a law that protects property owners from fault on a right of way in my understanding of Margaret’s research. At several points on the old trail in Sprucewold there are even no trespassing signs; signs of the times. 

It was interesting to learn that historically the Indian Trail was created by the original developers of Sprucewold and the Linekin Bay summer colonies. The Native Americans would have used faster and more efficient ways to get around the rough waters off Ocean Point and Spruce Point. Crossing from John’s Bay at South Bristol to the Damariscotta River they would portage at East Boothbay at the Mill Pond to Murray Hill, cross Linekin Bay and then portage from what is now Barretts Park down what is now Lobster Cove Road to the old Co-op across from Our Lady Queen of Peace and on to cross the harbor and from there up the gut to Indiantown Island and beyond. An excellent read to find out more about the Maine Native Americans is: “Notes on a Lost Flute, A Field Guide to the Wabanaki'' by Kerry Hardy. And don't forget “Rusticators in Sprucewold, Preserving the Legacy” written and edited by our own Mary Otto, a few copies are still available for purchase. 

Because of last week’s storm we had a head start on storing the boat, outdoor furniture, the grandchildren’s beach toys, and cooking equipment; we are not taking it all back out. Sept/ 23 was the last day of the summer season. We all can enjoy the quieting of Sprucewold as our neighbors close up for the season. We try to stay to the bitter end; seasonal water is shut off on Thursday, Oct/ 19. As you pack up do not forget the food pantry, the library used book store, and the thrift shops. Thank you to all the Boothbay Register 2023 Sprucewold columnists: Joan Cossaboon, Mary Otto, Susan Goodell, and Doug Reilly; please consider writing a column next season. It has been a wonderful year, see you in May, already making plans for 2024.