CALAIS – Thanks to a three-decade-long community endeavor, Maple Corner’s historic Curtis Pond dam is once again safe and sound.
photo by Mason Singer
Completion of the longtime effort to replace the endangered Calais dam and preserve the scenic pond behind it was celebrated in fine fashion on a sunny and unseasonably warm fall day, Octpber 5.
A crowd gathered at the Maple Corner Community Center for cake and ice cream, followed by two pond-related videos. The dam’s nearest neighbor, Don Heise, and his locally famous hand puppet, Bucky the Beaver, thanked “Dam Nation” (otherwise known as generous supporters) and spoke about the enduring importance of the pond, likening it to “that one house in the neighborhood where everyone goes.”
The party then moved to the nearby dam for a champagne toast. Glasses in hand, the group, led by Calais state Rep. Marc Mihaly (D-Washington-6) toasted the newly restored dam. Poet Geoff Hewitt then read a light-hearted ode to the pond, and “for the last time” musician Lewis Franco performed an original song titled “Hell or High Water.”
photo by Mason Singer
Although work on the new dam officially began a little over a year ago, the path to reconstruction started about 30 years earlier when dam neighbors Don and Bev Heise first noticed large and worrisome “piles of gravel washout” at its base. This proved a forewarning; behind its picturesque facing, the barrier was slowly deteriorating.
A dam has existed at the site since around 1813, when it helped power a grain mill. The current dam was built later, in 1900, and despite its simple stone rubble material, proved remarkably durable. Its failure would threaten the thriving village store and its renowned Whammy Bar, numerous homes, the restored community center, and an historic water powered sawmill. The heart of the village and roads would likely be washed away and with it, Curtis Pond.
photo by Betty Copeland
Though the need for reconstruction was obvious, the means to that end proved difficult and costly. Over the years numerous efforts to fix the structure faced substantial obstacles, regulatory, legal, financial, and stalled. There was no simple path forward.
In the interim, residents worked diligently, sometimes heroically, to maintain the crumbling structure and save the 72-acre pond, home to much wildlife and a hub for year-round activities, such as fishing, swimming, ice-skating, boating, and, a local favorite, pond hockey.
Bev Heise and Betty Copeland both vividly recalled group struggles to save the dam — working through the night to cover it in tarps and reinforce the stone during intense storms — as it overflowed and came close to washing out.
Finally, cobbling together repairs was no longer viable, and in 2019 residents formed the Curtis Pond Association to steward the pond and save it as a lasting natural resource.
The passing years and extreme weather took a toll on the dam’s structural integrity, and also increased the cost of replacement, rising from around $400,000 to a daunting $1.2 million. The small community of 1,667 responded with a variety of fundraising efforts: benefit concerts, online auctions, boat rides, parade floats, specially brewed beers, and more. Gifts, such as proceeds from the infamous “Men of Maple Corner” calendars, piled up. After hundreds of hours of work, partial funding for the dam was eventually secured by a town bond, federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, generous donations, and a private loan to the association.
John Rosenblum, whose home overlooks the pond, remarked that each unfulfilled attempt had been important and served to provide the foundation for subsequent work, and “without those earlier efforts the dam might never have been rebuilt.”
The new structure, designed by Debois & King and built by Hebert Excavation, is fabricated of cement secured into bedrock and then fronted by stone salvaged from the old dam. Finished, its appearance is designed to mimic its humble, but much-admired, predecessor and should last well into the future.
Curtis Pond Association member Marge Sweeney, who has compiled a comprehensive timeline of the various rescue efforts and the many people who made it possible, noted that the $100,000 loan remains to be fully paid off and that fundraising continues. Sweeney’s detailed accounting of people and financing, “It Takes a Community,” can be found at curtispond.org, where donations can also be made.
As the party broke up, and a harvest moon rose over the tranquil pond, there was no fear of flooding. The summer drought had lowered water levels significantly, but the dam now remains strong and ready when the rains do come again. In the fading light, CPA member, general store manager, and the town’s unofficial mayor, Jamie Moorby, noted, “If we hadn’t finally done it when we did, we’d have lost the pond. We really dodged a bullet.
This article first appeared in the October edition of the Bridge, covering central Vermont.
