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I first visited Maine nearly 20 years ago, sailing into Camden on the Western Shore of the Penobscot Bay while crewing on the Naval Academy's 98-foot ketch, Astral. As a wayward son of Low Country
South Carolina, where the meeting of ocean and land is about as gradual and
gentle as is geologically possible, I was awed by the violent clash of rock
and surf and tide as we entered Camden Harbor, and by the looming, sheer
faces of Mount Battie and Mount Megunticook
rising up beyond the town, far closer to the water than mountains had any
right to be, based on my experiences to date. After mooring and settling in,
my friend Adam and I, fuelled by testosterone and beer, decided to climb the
mountain face closest to Camden, setting out without maps, without
provisions, without much sense--and learning that those peaks were bigger,
those faces steeper, and those distances greater than they had seemed from
the deck of the Astral. Still and all, though, that delusional hike
had its defining, transforming moment, when we cleared the tree line
(temporarily) and found ourselves sitting on an exposed rock, looking east
across the Penobscot Bay at one of the most beautiful vistas imaginable. I
knew I'd be back.
And when I did return to Camden the next time, some years later, I learned
with that there were easy trails and even a road that reached the top of the
Camden Hills that Adam and I had worked so hard to climb--and which were typically
filled with sightseers when you approached them the way they were supposed to
be approached. Preferring solitude to crowds, my wife Marcia and I then opted
to explore other parts of the Maine coast, sticking for the most part (like
most tourists) to the U.S. 1/Maine 3 Corridor that runs the coast from the
beaches of Ogunquit and York (crowded) to the outlets of Freeport (very
crowded) to the sailing towns of Rockport and Camden (crowded) to the tourist
and speed traps of Ellsworth (very crowded) to the tamed wilderness of Bar
Harbor and Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island (lovely, and very
crowded).
But this summer? This summer we found a way to beat the crowds--by finally
visiting the very vista that Adam and I had viewed and admired all those
years ago: the Eastern Shore of the Penobscot Bay. Jutting south of Route 1 between Bucksport and Ellsworth is a
large peninsula of folded hills and freshwater lakes, bordered to the west by
Penobscot Bay, to the south by the Eggemoggin Reach
and to the east by Blue Hill Bay. At the southern end of the Peninsula,
accessed by a gorgeous old (and very high) suspension bridge is Deer Isle,
from which ferries can carry you further south still to Isle Au Haut, a
pristine enclave of Acadia National Park. The area is surprisingly isolated,
strikingly beautiful and rich in the sorts of charms and thrills that aren't
pre-chewed and delivered to your doorstep each morning.
It's also surprisingly old and historical, given its relative isolation
today. Both Samuel de Champlain and Captain John Smith visited and charted
the region for their respective masters in France and England, and the French had established a trading post near Castine by 1613. The Dutch, too, staked their claim on
the region, briefly capturing Castine after Naval
bombardment in 1674 and 1676. French (and, later, Canadian) dominion ended
after the Revolutionary War when the Treaty of Paris set the boundary between
Canada and the United States at the St. Croix River, rather than at the
Penobscot, where it had been until that time. The nineteenth century economy
of the region was defined by shipbuilding, rope making, lumber and
fishing--until the so-called "rusticators" began leaving Boston and New York to travel up the coast to escape from the pressures of the city in
the late 1800s. To this day, tourism, timber and fishing vie uneasily for
economic primacy throughout Maine--although on the Eastern Shore, the tourism component is a bit less in-your-face than it is in
other parts of the state.
Marcia, our daughter Katelin, her friend Madison
and I spent a full week this summer at the Oakland House Seaside Resort (1-800-359-RELAX) in Herrick's Landing on Eggemoggin Reach. Finer accommodations we couldn't
recommend: Oakland House is one of the few remaining original Maine coast
resorts, opened in 1889 by retired sea captain Emery H. Herrick on land that
had been in his family since well before the Revolution, run today in true
family style by Captain Herrick's great-grandson, Jim Littlefield, and his
wife Sally. The resort features a bed and breakfast style inn and series of
cabins and houses, some of them small and rustic, some of them large . . .
and rustic (in the best possible use of that word). We stayed in a cabin
called Ledges, in a perfect location that allowed Madison and Katelin to pretty much have the run
of the resort: beaches, gardens, parks, and a centrally-located tetherball
pole where all of the kids at the resort that week tended to gather to plan
their days. Summer accommodations were offered modified American style, with
breakfast and dinner as part of the package. Which was a
good thing, since Oakland House also has the best restaurant in the
region--and one of the finest restaurants in which Marcia and I have ever
dined, period. Bonus points to Oakland House
for the Thursday night lobster and chowder dinner on the rocks above the
swimming beach, and for arranging a day trip for us on an actual working
lobster boat, which took us (Madison and Katelin at
the helm, no less) up through Buck's Harbor to the uninhabited (well, except
by mosquitoes) Pond Island, then back again, picking up traps along the way.
If you go to the Eastern Shore of the Penobscot Bay, then those sorts of
outdoor activities are the ones you're likely gonna
want to engage in, since there are no clearly defined no-brainer tourist
centers on the Eastern Shore of the Penobscot Bay, and very few gift or
brick-a-brack shops in its scattered and
distinctive villages, which include Castine (the poshest spot on the peninsula), Blue Hill (very arts and
crafts oriented), Stonington (a working fishing village), and Brooklin (home to the very cool Wooden Boat School).
Which is not to say that there isn't shopping aplenty in the region: it's
just that it tends to be off the beaten path a bit, and tends to be a little
bit more rough and tumble or quirky than what you usually find in the
sanitized souvenir shops along the more heavily traveled portions of the
Maine coast. We particularly enjoyed the Gallery at Caterpillar Hill (great
art in a stunning location), the Buck's Harbor Market (a grocery store and
more with superb fresh-baked bread), Nervous Nellie's Jams and Jellies (yummy
eats and great sculptures) and Blue Poppy Garden (a fabulous indoor/outdoor shop, with flowers to die for).
When we weren't busy exploring the villages and shops of the Eastern Shore, we spent most of our time hiking. Our two favorite destinations
were Holbrook Island Sanctuary, which offered a wide variety of
easy-to-moderate hikes through a wide variety of diverse ecosystems
(mountain, pond, farm, creek) and Crockett's Cove Woods Preserve near
Stonington, a rocky, mossy, earthy sort of place, lots of shadow, lots of
slime mold, lots of fungus--and lots of fun accordingly for those of you who
like to look down when you walk. Oakland House itself had a great series of
trails, too, one of which climbed up to a rock outcrop above the Eggemoggin Reach, from where you could see the bridge to
Deer Isle, Buck's Harbor, Pond Island . . . and, far across the bay, the
Camden Hills where Adam and I first felt like lords of all that we surveyed.
It felt good to come full circle, sitting on a rock with a friend (in this
case, my wife), marveling in the splendors of Maine.
Copyright 2002: J. Eric Smith.
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