![Old Orchard Beach and Saco Bay aerial photograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Old_Orchard_Beach_and_Saco_Bay_aerial_photograph.jpg)
Saco Bay is a small curved
embayment
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...
of the
Gulf of Maine
, image =
, alt =
, caption =
, image_bathymetry = GulfofMaine2.jpg
, alt_bathymetry =
, caption_bathymetry = Major features of the Gulf of Maine
, location = Northeast coast of the ...
on the
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
coast of
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
in the United States.
Saco Bay is approximately 10 mi (16 km) wide, running from the Fletcher Neck (the
Biddeford Pool
Biddeford Pool is a large tidal pool, located off Saco Bay south of the mouth of the Saco River on the south coast of Maine. It is approximately 6 miles southeast of downtown Biddeford, to which it is connected via State Route 208. The town of Ke ...
peninsula) and the mouth of the
Saco River
The Saco River (Abenaki: ''Sαkóhki'') is a river in northeastern New Hampshire and southwestern Maine in the United States. It drains a rural area of of forests and farmlands west and southwest of Portland, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean ...
in
York County north to the
Scarborough River
Scarborough River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed June 30, 2011 coastal estuary and river draining through the Scarborough Marsh in Scarborough, Maine. It empties in ...
and
Prouts Neck
Prouts Neck is a coastal peninsula, located within the town of Scarborough, in southern Maine.
History
Prouts Neck first appears on a map by Samuel de Champlain from his 1604 explorations of New England. In early times, it was known as Blac ...
in
Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to:
People
* Scarborough (surname)
* Earl of Scarbrough
Places Australia
* Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth
* Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong
* Scarborough, Queensland, su ...
,
Cumberland County, Maine
Cumberland County is a county in the U.S. state of Maine. As of the 2020 census, the population was 303,069, making it the most populous county in Maine. Its county seat is Portland. Cumberland County was founded in 1760 from a portion of Y ...
, approximately 13 mi (19 km) southwest of
Portland
Portland most commonly refers to:
* Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States
* Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
. The shoreline of the bay makes the largest sand beach and
salt marsh
A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is domin ...
system in Maine and contains the longest unbroken stretch of beach in the state.
Ecosystem
Construction of a railroad causeway in the 19th century led to the closure of the Little River Inlet. This tidal re-entrant had formed the county line between York and Cumberland counties and the town line between Scarborough and Old Orchard Beach. Prior to its closure, the
Pine Point region of Scarborough was a
barrier island
Barrier islands are coastal landforms and a type of dune system that are exceptionally flat or lumpy areas of sand that form by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything from ...
, the only one in Maine. Behind Pine Point is the state run wildlife management area for
Scarborough Marsh Scarborough Marsh is a 3,200-acre saltwater marsh owned by the state of Maine and managed by the state's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife as a wildlife management area. It is situated in southern Maine, in the town of Scarborough, in Cu ...
. The marsh is 15% of the state's total
tidal marsh
A tidal marsh (also known as a type of "tidal wetland") is a marsh found along rivers, coasts and estuaries which floods and drains by the tidal movement of the adjacent estuary, sea or ocean. Tidal marshes are commonly zoned into lower marshes ( ...
area and the largest contiguous marsh in Maine. The state owns and manages a reserve, of which is salt marsh, about is upland habitats, with the remainder being other types of wetlands. The marsh is an excellent site for birding as 72% of the water dependent birds that can be found in Maine can be found at the marsh. The marsh is located within of two nationally significant seabird nesting islands. The marsh has been designated essential habitat for endangered
piping plovers and
least tern
The least tern (''Sternula antillarum'') is a species of tern that breeds in North America and locally in northern South America. It is closely related to, and was formerly often considered conspecific with, the little tern of the Old World. Ot ...
s. The Maine Audubon Society maintains a center at the marsh from which visitors can do hikes or rent a canoe and paddle through the marsh.
The U.S.
National Marine Fisheries Service
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), informally known as NOAA Fisheries, is a United States federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that is responsible for the ste ...
has designated Saco Bay as "essential fish habitat" for at least fifteen types of fish, including
Atlantic salmon,
hake
The term hake refers to fish in the:
* Family Merlucciidae of northern and southern oceans
* Family Phycidae (sometimes considered the subfamily Phycinae in the family Gadidae) of the northern oceans
Hake
Hake is in the same taxonomic order ( ...
,
halibut
Halibut is the common name for three flatfish in the genera '' Hippoglossus'' and '' Reinhardtius'' from the family of right-eye flounders and, in some regions, and less commonly, other species of large flatfish.
The word is derived from ''h ...
,
herring, and
scallops. Stratton Island in the bay is a wildlife sanctuary owned and run by the
National Audubon Society where multiple species of
tern
Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated as a subgroup of the family Laridae which includes gulls and skimmers and consists of e ...
s nest.
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...
,
common, and
roseate terns have been regulars, and in 2005 they were joined for the first time by nesting least terns.
Sand movement and erosion
The
(USACOE) initially thought that the beach sand was coming from an underwater glacial deposit. Thus when in 1866 they were called in to protect the navigable channel of the Saco river, they built rock
jetty
A jetty is a structure that projects from land out into water. A jetty may serve as a breakwater, as a walkway, or both; or, in pairs, as a means of constricting a channel. The term derives from the French word ', "thrown", signifying some ...
s on both sides of the mouth of the Saco river to protect the channel from sand. The north jetty was extended in 1897, 1930 and 1938, and raised at various dates through 1969. The primary source of sediment for the beaches is the Saco river.
Longshore drift is dominantly to the north along the shore. About 1960 another jetty was built on the south (Pine Point) side of the mouth of the Scarborough River to protect it from sand. It was not until 1992 that the USACOE acknowledged that there is no source of sand nourishment in the area. Thus, erosion is worst at Camp Ellis in
Saco at the south end of the system where the Saco jetty prevents sand from coming ashore naturally while Pine Point is growing both from the sand coming out of the Saco river and from sand eroding from Camp Ellis and other parts of the bay to its south.
Much of the inner shore of the bay is within the town of
Old Orchard Beach
Old Orchard Beach is a resort town and census-designated place (CDP) in York County, Maine, United States. The population was 8,960 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Portland− South Portland−Biddeford, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Ar ...
, Maine's largest resort beach community. The geology of the larger Gulf of Maine means that warm waters coming up the Atlantic Coast are kept far offshore, while the inshore waters are flowing from the north to the south, fed by the
Labrador Current
The Labrador Current is a cold current in the North Atlantic Ocean which flows from the Arctic Ocean south along the coast of Labrador and passes around Newfoundland, continuing south along the east coast of Canada near Nova Scotia. Near Nova Scot ...
that originates from the glaciers of
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
, making most Maine coastal waters very cold, especially to the east. The combination of Saco Bay's western location, the inland waters of the Saco river, and the bay's local flow from the south to the north make it the warmest water for swimming in Maine, although summer water temperatures regularly dip into the 50s (
Fahrenheit
The Fahrenheit scale () is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accounts of how he originally defined hi ...
).
History
The bay was mapped in 1605 by the French explorer
Samuel de Champlain, who named it the ''Baie de Chouacouët'', also spelled ''Chouacoit'' or ''Chouacoet'' (as recorded in ''
The Jesuit Relations
''The Jesuit Relations'', also known as ''Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France'', are chronicles of the Jesuit missions in New France. The works were written annually and printed beginning in 1632 and ending in 1673.
Originally written ...
''), which de Champlain said was the name used by the indigenous
Abenaki
The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pre ...
people of the area. His chart of the bay and the mouth of the river has been described as one of his best charts.
In 1616,
Sir Ferdinando Gorges
Sir Ferdinando Gorges ( – 24 May 1647) was a naval and military commander and governor of the important port of Plymouth in England. He was involved in Essex's Rebellion against the Queen, but escaped punishment by testifying against the ma ...
sent
Richard Vines to settle in
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
. He spent the winter of 1616–1617 on Saco Bay. A pestilence was raging among the Indians, and as Vines was a physician he attended to sick
Indians in the area. In 1630 the
Plymouth Company
The Plymouth Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of Plymouth, was a Division (business), division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for British colonization of the Americas, colonizing the east coast of America between 38 ...
gave Richard Vines and John Oldham each a tract of land on the Saco River, four miles (6 km) wide on the sea and extending eight miles (13 km) inland.
Winslow Homer painting
''Saco Bay'' or ''Sunset, Saco Bay'' is a painting by
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...
, showing a view of the bay from Checkley Point on the southwestern side of Prouts Neck. According to Winslow he worked on it for about 10 years, finishing only 3 days before shipping it for exhibition. It was first exhibited in 1897 at the
Society of American Artists
The Society of American Artists was an American artists group. It was formed in 1877 by artists who felt the National Academy of Design did not adequately meet their needs, and was too conservative.
The group began meeting in 1874 at the home of ...
in New York City. The painting is now at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.
References
External links
Overhead imagery of Saco Bay
{{Authority control
Bays of Maine
Bodies of water of Cumberland County, Maine
Bodies of water of York County, Maine