Ron Dube has always liked maps. And two years ago, it led Dube, a Mason resident for 50 years, to a project.
He was looking over a topographical map of his property, and noticed that the names of Mason Brook and Spaulding Brook appeared on the map, but there was one small waterway that flowed through his property that didn’t have a name. So he set out to ensure it had one.
He contacted Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s office and was pointed to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names. At first, Dube wanted it to be named Dube Brook “after my family,” he said, but was denied because it couldn’t be named after a living person. He submitted another for an endangered species he had seen in the area of the brook, but that name was denied by the town of Townsend, Massachusetts, where it flows into Mason Brook.
“So I thought what would be the most obnoxious name I could think of?” Dube said. And what he came up with was Black Fly Brook. He submitted the name to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names earlier this year and last week received word that it had been approved at the board’s July meeting.
Dube said Black Fly Brook starts east of Depot Road in Mason and runs parallel to Townsend Road, crossing underneath the road and then flows southwest crossing Morse Road into Townsend where it connects with Mason Brook. He said the brook is set back in the woods, but is visible from Townsend Road. In total, the brook is 2.2 miles long.
Dube said the name is fitting because the black flies are pretty bad around the area in the spring.
“Black flies have a bad connotation, but they only live in clean water,” Dube said. “So that’s one consolation of having them around.”