What is Letterboxing?

Letterboxing is a fun adventure game for families and people of all ages to enjoy.
Letterboxing is an outdoor hobby that combines elements of hiking, orienteering and puzzle solving. Letterboxes are small hidden weatherproof boxes. The letter boxer follows clues in order to find the letterbox.
The letterbox contains a logbook and a rubber stamp. Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp on their personal logbook and leave an impression of their personal stamp on the letterbox's logbook - as proof of having found the box!
Keep checking this site for clues to letterboxes hidden around Merrymeeting Bay so you can get started on your quest! Meanwhile buy or make a stamp and get yourself logbook (such as a small spiral bound memo pad).

Clues to Richmond Letterbox:

Go to the Richmond Town Landing parking lot. Locate the white Richmond Town Landing sign and stand facing it. Now look to the left of the sign and you will see a granite bench right next to the ramp leading down to the town dock. Sit on the bench facing Swan Island and look straight ahead and down on the ground for a big rock sitting beneath the bush directly in front of you. Reach down behind the rock to find the Swan Island Letter Box.

Clues to Choice View Farm Letterbox:

Choice View Farm offers an unparalleled view of the upper part of Merrymeeting Bay. The field was protected from development in an effort led by Friends of Merrymeeting Bay and supported by the Maine Wetland Protection Coalition. The property is now owned by the state of Maine and managed by the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife. Please see fact sheets on the Farm for more ecological and historical information.

To Get There:

Take Rte. 128 in Dresden south from Rte. 197 and cross the lower bridge over the Eastern River. About .2 beyond the bridge [or up the rise] you can pull off the road onto the right shoulder about 40’ north of mailbox 530. Do this opposite the northerly maple of the house on the east side of the road and abeam the clumped birch and red maple in the field to your right. This section of the field is quite solid so you can pull well off if you want to. Please take care getting in and out of your vehicle and in doing U-turns, the traffic includes many gravel trucks driving fast and can be quite busy.

Clues:

Cross the field towards the middle of the river view [210 degrees magnetic heading]. Walk down onto the point that sits on the south side of a prominent swale bisecting the field. This swale was known as Hay Landing. As you will notice, but for this gradual descent to the river, the banks in the area are quite steep and Hay Landing provided a place for wagons full of hay to access the winter ice and be transported to where it was most needed for feed. Much hay on the north side of the Bay was sold to Bath in winter and also to support the many horses used in the ice industry.

Enjoy the view from the point! One of the finest concentrations of rare wetland plants in the Bay lies below you. Looking southwest, you are seeing from left to right: the mouth of the Eastern River bending around Cork Cove and emptying into the Kennebec by the end of a long jetty known as the Training Wall. The Wall was built in the late 1800s to “train” the channel to stay in the Kennebec instead of meandering more and causing the river to shoal at the mouth of the Eastern. This was the heyday of schooner traffic on the rivers. At the mouth of the Eastern is where the endangered shortnose sturgeon have been found to winter. In the far distance across the Kennebec lie Pork Pt. and the north side of Abbagadassett Pt. in Bowdoinham. Between the Eastern channel in your foreground and the Training Wall, the extensive tidal wetland is prime waterfowl habitat and called the “Middle Ground.” In the background across the main channel of the Kennebec is Swan Island and the large high stand of pines across the Eastern channel to your right is Green Point, part of a large farm by the same name purchased and protected by the state through the Land for Maine’s Future program.

Standing on top of the point, turn and face up the hill about 120 degrees magnetic at the old white Choice View Farm buildings. There is a tall birch tree near the field edge in line with the two-storey section of house. At the base of this tree on private land you will find the Choice View letterbox. Other than accessing the box, please stay in the field on public land and remember, hunting is allowed.