By Cliff White
Staff Writer
    Ever drive between Old Orchard Beach and Scarborough on Route 1 and wonder what that smell was? Or why there aren’t any buildings around?
    The answer is the Scarborough Marsh, a 3,100-acre estuary owned and managed by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. It is the largest salt marsh in the state, and in addition to being home to a wide array of wildlife, it also offers extensive recreational and educational opportunities for outdoors enthusiasts.
Since the land was bought by the state in the 1970s, the Maine Audubon Society has run a nature center at the marsh in what was formerly a clam shack on Pine Point Road. It offers canoe rentals, a variety of nature programs led by trained naturalists, a nature trail and a gift shop.
    “People see Scarborough Marsh all the time as they drive by, and they don’t even think about it,” said Dick Anderson, a former president of the Maine Audubon Society. “A lot has been done to make people aware of what a great natural resource it is. It represents 20 percent of all salt marshes in the state of Maine. It’s a really important piece of habitat because it’s so rare.”
    The area is of particular importance for rare shore birds. The Scarborough Marsh is a popular destination for bird-watchers looking to tick a few rare species off their “to-see” lists, such as the glossy ibis, the snowy egret and the Norman’s and salt-marsh short-tailed sparrows, which use the marsh as a nesting place and feeding ground during migrations.
    The marsh is also important from a more practical standpoint, at least from the human viewpoint. During storms or other periods when water levels rise higher than normal, such as winter nor-easters or the occasional hurricane, the marsh acts like a sponge in absorbing water that would otherwise flood the surrounding area.
    Historically, humans have utilized the marsh for centuries. It was used by the Ogunquit Native-American tribe as fishing and hunting grounds until the arrival of European settlers in the 1630s. The colonists harvested salt hay from the marsh to feed to their livestock. People continued to cut salt hay from the marsh through the early 1900s. During the colonial period, the area of Dunstan’s Landing was used to build and launch ships, and an attempt was made to widen the channel to accommodate naval traffic. During the Great Depression, workers cut ditches into the marsh in an effort to eradicate mosquitoes. The Eastern Division Railroad put down track across the marsh, and now a running trail exists where the tracks once lay.
    As human expansion around the marsh grew, construction projects began to encroach upon the marsh. In the 1950s, Scarborough’s town manager sought to develop the marsh as an industrial zone. However, an effort began in 1959 by Richard Parks of the state’s fish and wildlife department interceded to preserve the marsh. Parks spent the next 12 years working on the project, finding the owners of the land and buying their deeds.
“It was like crossword puzzle,” Parks said, describing his effort to sort out who owned the land. “The original owners were all dead, and the land had been sold and resold.  That made it really difficult to figure everything out. Most of the people who owned the land didn’t even know it was theirs. And they didn’t care, they thought it was just wasteland. We paid an average price at around that $5 an acre.”
At first, the fish and wildlife department wished to block off the upland part of the tidal marsh in order to convert it into a still freshwater pond. Even though dykes were put in, salt water pushed in at high tide found ways of getting around the dykes and foiling the attempt.
Eventually, the department became content with preserving the marsh in its natural state, and by 1971, had completed its effort, and entered into an association with the Audubon Society, which had become interested in running programs at the site.
Nowadays, the Audubon Society runs educational programs for school groups during the week, and with the advent of summer, will begin giving canoe tours seven days a week. Daily tours begin run from 10 to 11:30 a.m., with an additional tour beginning at 1:00 p.m. on Sundays. The cost is $11 for adults and $9 for children. In addition, there are special tours available, such as an early morning birding tour, a sunset canoe tour, an edible and medicinal plants tour and children’s tours. the center also rents canoes during the hours that it is open, which is regularly 9:30 a.m. through 4 p.m. Check the center’s Web site for more information, at www.maineaudubon.org/esplore/centers/marsh2.shtml.
The center is also looking for volunteers to assist with various projects, including preservation of the marsh, cleaning up damage that was done in the Patriot’s Day storm and guiding tours. to get to the center, from U.S. Route 1 in Scarborough, turn east onto Pine Point Road (also marked as Route 9 West). The nature center is located on the left.