Near Sebago Lake in Cumberland County, Maine, we find a strange arrow arranged from piles of stones:

What makes the arrow really bizarre is that rather than your usual pointing-style arrow, this apears to be a representation of the sort of arrow you might shoot with a bow. But why?

Without any clues of what it could mean, I presumed it was still an arrow for pointing, and followed the path north-east to a quiet pertrol station, but the trail went dead.

Buried treasure? Terrorist targeting device? Innocent stone wall? What do you think?

Thanks to RFIDGuy.

We’re continuing the first annual GSS Desert Week! We’re mostly posting about deserts and it’s lasting about a week!

The 40 acre Desert of Maine is located in a pine forest near the town of Freeport. Although not a real desert, the “sand” is natural to the area: it is glacial silt that would have been ground down under the earth sometime around the last ice age.

The silt would have remained hidden underground if it wasn’t for some poor farming practices in the early 1900s that eroded all the soil. The farmer eventually had to sell up to an enterprising man who correctly assumed tourists would flock to see some sand in the middle of a forest.

Since 1925 up to 30,000 people a year have visited the “desert”, which is made even more exciting by the inclusion of plastic camels. If that wasn’t enough, there is also a “sand museum” where you can see the sand of real deserts donated from around the world… sounds fascinating!

More info on the official website and NY Times.

Thanks to Elliott C. Evans and jon moses.

Okay, okay… It’s a weak link but I couldn’t resist. Troubled water? No? Never mind.

Check out this great bridge over a frozen river in Howland, Maine. Actually, Howland appears to be just North of a place which seems familiar somehow…

Also, we seem to be a little short on submissions for Maine. If you’ve got any good sights, please submit them so we can improve on the only two we’ve posted so far, thanks

Thanks to Ben Singleton.

Well here’s something I didn’t expect to see. Thousands of trees floating in the water as part of a logging operation on Vancouver Island. I think it’s actually a strangely beautiful image (thumbnail #1). However, the whole thing becomes a little scary when you see just how many trees are involved; have a look at the number of logs being processed over in Vancouver (thumbnail #2), and there’s thousands more down here.

We’ve also located places where trees are being cut from - for example near Baxter Park in Maine (notice the piles of logs by the side of the road), and also next to the Redwood National Park. Phil says:

This is an image of typical redwood forest clearcutting in Northern California. You can zoom out pretty far and it’s still visible. Also notice that this particular location is right next to Redwood National Park — and it’s obvious from the satellite photo where the protected land begins. You can discern how recently a clear-cut was made by how green it is — the light brown splotches are most recent. I’ve travelled in this place quite a bit, and the logging companies make efforts to log away from main roads & coastlines, perhaps hoping people don’t notice the amount of clearcutting that still happens. They can’t hide anymore.

How right you are Phil.

On a positive note however, I assume these are giant Redwood trees? Wow, they are huge! Looks like the green ‘ground covering’ is the top of normal sized trees, with these monsters looming above them, apparently up to 350 feet!

Thanks to Jean Lorraine, Jeff Miller, Wes, Karen Pease and Phil.