Maine’s Beaver Dams

Headlines in the Portland Press Herald recently announced the discovery of the world’s largest beaver dam in Canada – the length of 8 football fields and visible from space!  Talk about generations of business.

Here in Maine, we have some good size beaver dams of our own.  Visitors on hut to hut hiking trips often spot beaver ponds on their journeys, even those traveling through the north country by car see the work of these animal architects.  Beaver ponds provide not only safe habitat for beavers to live and store their food in, but they create perfect places from moose, birds and fish to live as well, and often times the ponds extend to the edges of roadways, as seen in the photo of a beaver dam made right from the side of Route 201.

For a backwoods look at a larger beaver created-wetland area, from the big overlook parking at Robbin’s Hill at the southern end of the Old Canada Road Scenic Byway, it is a moderate walk down the hill to a beaver-flooded pond in progress.   The trail is still new, uneven and very wet, so hikers should be prepared to get muddy and damp,  but for those looking to add even more adventure to their Maine adventure vacations, this little side journeys is a nice twist.  Throw on some hiking boots and bug spray and go see what the beaver clan has been up to.