The other day I got a gift. It arrived amid the little torrent of my daily email, and it was wrapped in the usual — meaning I thought it was another piece of work to do or question to answer. It was, after all, email No. 7 in a string that had begun some time ago.
“Sorry to clog your inbox,” the note said, and I almost moved on. “But,” the next line began, “my 8th grader really wanted to share the attached video he took Saturday that captures roughly Mare Brook from the Bowdoin detention pond outlet along the main stem to Maine Street. He now plans on droning the entire length of Mare Brook.”
I clicked on the attached file, and then, in the little screen-world so familiar to us all, I was suddenly aloft, some feet above a grove of high white pines, hemlocks and big, bare maples, looking down at a winding watercourse I know. There was Mere Brook running 24/7 toward the sea in the reach just upstream from my neighborhood. There, from a hundred feet above, was where I often walk when I have water on my mind. And there, I know, wound the stream corridor that lots of animals use to travel unseen through the middle of Brunswick.
Brunswick eighth grader Luke Walker used his drone to take footage of part of Mere Brook, which his mother sent to Sandy Stott. Photo contributed by Sandy Stott
We, the camera and I, began to move upstream. I was mesmerized.
A few days later, I got to meet the pilot, Luke Walker. Luke, a 13-year-old nearby resident, had gotten his eye in the sky for Christmas, and one of his first thoughts went to his favorite brook. “What would it be like to see Mere Brook from above?”, he wondered. After some practice flights, he decided to find out. Luke’s hand-sized drone has a range of up to 2-plus miles, and so once he’d found an open space in the woods near the brook, he could launch and control the drone from one spot.
Keeping to the 120-meter legal maximum for flying height, Luke sent his sky-eye up; there above the tall pines that line the brook, he began to fly and film upstream, tracing the water all the way to from Meadowbrook to Maine Street. He could see what the drone was recording on his phone, and, like many tech-fluent kids, he could fly the drone, track its progress and adjust its camera simultaneously. What he caught on tape became the gift that appeared in my email.
“What is it that you like about Mare Brook?” I asked, as we stood amid huge pines just above the brook.
“I’ve been going there since I was a kid,” Luke answered. “It’s my favorite place around here. I can see the trout that live in the stream, and it’s also the home of a barred owl that I’ve seen in the trees. It’s a wild place right between two roads. Most people don’t know about it.”
I recalled my own affection for nearby places that felt hidden and held secrets — like trout and owls.
Luke went on: “And just downstream, where the little pond is, there are all sorts of cool birds and animals. Now, I want to see if I can make a film of the whole brook.”
As a brook neighbor and a member of the town’s Mere Brook Steering Committee, which is charged with overseeing brook improvement, I see great possibility in Luke’s idea. I’ve walked the entire length of the brook and brought back some photos, but Luke’s project promises a view none of us has seen yet: a continuous look at the whole 5.7-mile brook and its many tributaries from a few hundred feet above. And that view can be shared with Brunswick citizens to help them see the live stream that runs through us and its many connections.
One of our goals on the Mere Brook Steering Committee is to help people think about our lands as watersheds. Luke Walker may be able to fly us all closer to that watershed vision.
A note on brook naming: I use Mere and Mare Brook interchangeably, in part to keep both names alive in mind and print. A while ago, I sought definitive opinion about the name and, even from one of our town’s acknowledged go-to-history sources, Fred Koerber, found variability. Mere (Mair) and Mare come down to us through time and use. But instead of confusion, I see that it offers me freedom, of a Mere sort.
Sandy Stott is a Brunswick resident, chair of the town’s Conservation Commission, and a member of Brunswick Topsham Land Trust’s Board of Directors. He writes for a variety of publications. He may be reached at fsandystott@gmail.com.
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