Scott’s Landing

The Island Heritage Trust describes this area as one of the island’s best places for birding, and the site was once an important fishing area for Indigenous people. The 24-acre preserve is mostly open fields, crossed by wide, mowed trails. You can also explore a couple of shingle beaches that look like good swimming spots on hot summer days.The land trust has created a self-guided tour of this interesting site and also offers detailed ecological and historical information.

On the land trust map for this preserve, you’ll notice an icon for a midden, an ancient refuse heap left by Indigenous people. Today these piles are quite striking, as they’re mostly made up of bleached, broken shells. Near the midden, an interpretative sign describes archaeological digs in 2007 and 2008 that unearthed remains of seasonal encampments from 3,000 to 2,500 years ago. Among the oldest artifacts, found near the base of the midden, were spear points and scraping tools. The middle layers contained “refuse from intermittent seasonal occupation over the next two thousand years.” In the uppermost layers, archaeologists discovered 16th- and 17th-century trade goods from Europeans, including glass beads, clay pipe fragments, and pieces of metal. As the interpretive materials explain: “The relatively brief period of cultural contact marks the end of Native American settlement at Scott’s Midden, as European settlement, warfare and disease decimated Maine’s Native populations.”

The trust also notes that Indigenous people in this region — identified in some historical accounts as Etchemins, a term used by early Europeans for certain Wabanaki people — built fishing weirs in the passage between Deer Isle and Little Deer Isle and speared flounder there, practices later continued by European settlers.

Note that dogs are not allowed, to protect nesting and migratory birds.

Directions: From the land trust: ”From the Deer Isle bridge, drive south on Route 15 for 1.8 miles, crossing the causeway to the preserve entrance on the left, opposite of Causeway Beach.” Drive a couple hundred feet down the driveway to reach the parking area, trailhead kiosk, and large stone sculpture.