Answer to the Thanksgiving Special: Turkeys are indigenous to the North America. How did these big birds get their name? 

The answer is “C” although the story is not quite as simple as my answer. Here is some more detail on the tale of the turkey: Pre-discovery of the “New World” Europeans where familiar with a big fowl somewhat similar to the American Turkey. That bird was native to the “Land of the Turks”. When colonists encountered birds that looked to be from the Land of the Turks, those birds were called Turkeys. If Ben Franklin had had his way, the symbol of America would be the Turkey instead of the Bald Eagle.

A. Dried meat from the wild fowl was very tough and the name Turkey was coined to differentiate it from dried beef “Jerky”. 

B. The first Europeans to eat the unusual American bird got so drunk on “Wild Turkey” whiskey, they couldn’t think of a better name. 

C. Early Europeans were famous for getting lost. They thought America was part of the Ottoman Empire and thus the strange birds were from Turkey. 

D. Turkey was a derogatory term associated with Ben Franklin. Franklin opposed adopting the carrion eating Bald Eagle as America’s bird. Instead, Franklin promoted the American “peacock”. Eventually, both Franklin, and his birds, were known as “Turkeys”.

E. “Turkey” is the angelized version of the Wampanoag name for the wild bird the Indians served the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving dinner. F. Turkey is Yekrut spelled backwards. Yekrut is what the Pilgrims did after ingesting too much Wild Turkey. 

This Week’s Question:

During the next few weeks, some of the liquid water in Maine’s Lakes and Ponds will undergo a form change to solid water- aka ice. But not all ice is equal! Which of these forms of ice is NOT ever found on Maine Lakes? 

A. Fast Ice

B. Frazil Ice

C. Anchor Ice

D. Blue Ice

E. Float Ice

F. Ice cubes

Randall Poulton