WILLOW CREEK — When Jed Thorne was a boy, Randy Boucher’s father showed him the yellowed notebook where Albert Boucher — Randy’s great-uncle — had recorded the date of the first official Homan’s Pond Ice-Out in 1927. A penciled entry that read simply: “April 7. Ice went out. Town had a picnic.”
Nearly a century later, Thorne is leading an effort to transform that notebook and thousands of other records into a commemorative book marking the 100th anniversary of the Ice-Out tradition.
“Every year has a story,” Thorne said, seated at his kitchen table surrounded by archival boxes. “The year the ice went out in March. The year the pond didn’t open until May. The year old man Bouchard fell in trying to retrieve his boot. It’s all here.”
The book, titled “A Century on the Ice: Willow Creek’s Homan’s Pond Ice-Out 1927-2027,” will include photographs, newspaper clippings, oral histories, and weather records spanning the full century. A team of five volunteers, including Doris Kim and Kyle Dubois, is assisting with research and editing.
The project has received a $12,000 grant from the Maine Historical Society. An additional $8,000 is being raised through a GoFundMe campaign launched by the Friends of the Carnegie Library.
The goal is to publish the book in time for the 100th Ice-Out celebration in April 2027, with an initial print run of 1,000 copies. Pre-orders are being accepted at the General Store and online.
“I may not see another 100 years,” Thorne said with a grin. “But this book will be here.”