Baron: the guide of Townsend Gut

The only time it stopped raining, it was hotter than Hades.

That’s the kind of month it’s been.

Last night it felt much cooler.

I remember as a child when my family summered on Southport near Boothbay Harbor.

I remember many June nights that the family huddled around the kitchen stove, playing word games as temperatures dipped into the 40s.

There was no television, no Internet, no cellphones, nothing to play with but the family dog, Baron, a German Shepard mix. His ears drooped, giving away the fact he was a mutt. We used to hold his ears up with our hands and stand amazed at how much fiercer he looked with his ears up. A veterinarian told us once he could wire Baron’s ears to train them to stand up, but we thought he looked much cuter with his ears drooping down.

We lived on Townsend Gut, a narrow water passageway that separates Southport from the mainland. Many excursion boats traveled the gut and through a drawbridge that went over it.

When any boat approached the drawbridge, it would sound its horn three times to signal bridgekeepers they needed the span opened.

When Baron heard the horns, that was his signal to “shepherd” the boats down the gut. He would run pell-mell southward along the banks of the gut until he came parallel with one of the excursion boats. Then he’d prance along the side of the gut barking as the boat slowly motored its way under the bridge.

The point of land we lived on ended maybe a quarter mile before the bridge and Baron would have to resign himself to stopping at some rocks nearest the drawbridge and barking until the boat was safely through the span, then, his job done, return slowly to our porch to wait for the next boat to usher along.

One day that first summer we were there my parents took us on one of the excursion boat rides that would go through the gut. We children were sooooo excited to be on the excursion boat Holiday, which was scheduled to travel through the gut and circumnavigate Southport before heading back to Boothbay Harbor.

When we turned northward up through the gut, we squealed with glee as we saw our Baron running along the sides of the gut toward the ship.

Then we heard the captain say over the ship’s loudspeaker, “Now folks, if you’ll turn to the left you’ll see our guide through the gut. This dog helps us along on every trip. We don’t know the dog’s name, but it never misses our boat.”

We ran up to the ship’s bridge to tell the captain the dog was ours and his name was Baron, which he then relayed to the passengers over the loudspeaker. We walked back to our parents, our chests filled with pride that our Baron had been recognized.

Baron that summer became a bit of a celebrity on the excursion boats. The Argo, the Stardust, all the captains knew his name and pointed out his “duties”: guiding the ships through Townsend Gut.