So many Maine towns have, at one time or another, enjoyed a taste of glory. It could be Sangerville, home of two knights, or Rockport, home of the man who invented the doughnut hole. East of Newport lies the town of Stetson – home of Pleasant Lake and in the early 1900s the home of the largest oxen team in the world, Mt.
Katahdin and Granger, who tipped the scales at nearly 10,000 pounds and were once featured at Madison Square Garden in New York. We recently enjoyed a four-hour exploration of the western half of the 3-mile long lake. A winding mile-long channel leads out from the outlet dam into the open lake.
On the southern side of the channel sits a 100-acre wooded peninsula known as the Cape. The Hewitt family graciously gifted the land in 2010 to create the Pleasant Lake Preserve. You will pass by a couple of waterside picnic tables, part of the network of trails.
You can land in a number of spots and enjoy a walk in the shadows of hemlock and fir trees. Rounding the Cape you will paddle by a number of large marshes and wetlands punctuated by a few homes and a campground located at the southwestern end of the lake. Red-winged blackbirds constantly flitted up out of the grasses onto nearby larch branches.
The air was filled with their telltale calls, one of the magical sounds of early summer in Maine. The honking of Canada geese echoed from shore to shore. Mallards dabbled in secluded shadows.
A bald eagle flew low over the water to a distant tree. The larch trees were.
