The road shown on the right (basically, east) side here is the only access road to the famous WoodenBoat Publications and School campus.
That pond to the west of the road is the WoodenBoat lily pond, which is fed by local streams that flow under the road through a large culvert located just about at that telephone/power pole.
The boats are part of the effort to resolve the latest phase of a recurring problem that at times has caused the road to flood and begin to washout. That problem is beavers. They think that Mother Nature wants the pond-feeder streams to flow over the road, not under it. Until a solution was found last year, the furry engineers kept trying to dam up the culvert with mud and sticks and WB founder Jon Wilson and others had to keep digging it out.
Last year’s solution was to install a Beaver Deceiver™ system on both sides of that culvert. It fences-in the culvert openings and channels the flowing waters through the system’s own flow pipes. This allows the beavers to build dams on the system’s wood and wire housing to their hearts’ content, but the dams never stop the water flow. Here is the apparatus on the east side:
The system worked so well on the east side of the pond that the beavers stopped even visiting that area. HOWEVER, they held a family meeting and decided to go across the pond to its west shore and dam up the outflowing water, causing the pond level to rise to threatening levels.
This summer, Jon and sometimes his wife, Sherry Streeter, boated over to the new beaver construction site and tried various landscaping methods to thwart the eager engineers. None of the summer solutions worked well and winter would not be a good time to continue the repairs. So, very recently, another Beaver Deceiver™ system was installed over there.
The new system seems to be working, according to Jon. He says that the animals seem totally confused and have decided to spend their time fixing up an old beaver lodge in the pond. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 13, 2023.)