1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (11 page)

W
HERE:
37 miles southwest of Portland.
Visitor info:
Tel 207-646-2939;
www.ogunquit.org
.
O
GUNQUIT
M
USEUM:
Tel 207-646-4909;
www.ogunquitmuseum.org
.
When:
July–Oct.
C
LIFF
H
OUSE
R
ESORT:
Tel 207-361-1000;
www.cliffhousemaine.com
.
Cost:
from $165 (off-peak), from $210 (peak).
When:
Apr–Dec.
A
RROWS
R
ESTAURANT:
Tel 207-361-1100;
www.arrowsrestaurant.com
.
Cost:
dinner $70.
When:
Apr–early Dec.
B
EST TIME:
early morning for the smallest crowds on Marginal Way and the beach.

Picture Postcards of Maine Maritime Life

Maine

Imagine coastal Maine as a painting. The constituent elements: a dock where fishermen in yellow rain slickers are busy hauling lobster pots, buoys, and nets. In the background, weathered shingled houses and craggy coastline
, with maybe an intimation of dense green hills and forest behind. That’s the idealized image people come north to see, and Penobscot Bay really looks that way. Cutting a 35-by-27-mile gash in the center of the Maine coast, the bay is a scenic wonder, circled by some of the state’s prettiest towns. In the south, the three towns of Rockland, Rockport, and Camden are the home of the bay’s famous schooner fleet (see p. 36).

Camden is the archetypal coastal village, so charming that it was chosen in 1957 as the setting for the film
Peyton Place.
Many of its gorgeous old homes have been converted into B&Bs, while antiques and craft shops fill the old buildings along Main Street, and pleasure craft share space with fishing boats in the beautiful mountain-ringed harbor. Some of the best waterfront views are from Harbor Park, laid out between 1928 and 1931 by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York’s Central Park.

Farther north, in Searsport, the Penobscot Marine Museum is one of New England’s finest small museums, housed in a dozen historic buildings. Its collection covers all aspects of 19th-century Maine maritime life, with displays of boats, tools, furniture, and art, from scrimshaw and figureheads to marine paintings by Thomas and James Buttersworth.

Around the curve of the bay, on the Blue Hill Peninsula, Castine is one of America’s oldest communities, first settled in 1613. It’s a small, serene place, full of beautiful Federalist, Georgian, and Victorian architecture, towering elm trees, and more than 100 historic sites, including Fort George, built by the British in 1779. For an overnight, try the Pentagöet Inn, a turreted 1894 Queen Anne Victorian that’s Castine’s oldest original summer hotel. For dinner, drop into the Castine Inn, overseen by award-winning chef-owner Tom Gutow and featuring variations on regional cuisine.

Castine is quiet and authentic, but the village of Deer Isle is even more so. Located just off the southern tip of the peninsula
(accessible by bridge), it maintains an active fishing and lobstering fleet and serves as home to many artists and artisans, as well as the charming waterfront Pilgrim’s Inn, built in 1793. The nearby Haystack Mountain School of Crafts offers intensive live-in workshops in clay, glass, blacksmithing, weaving, woodworking, and other media, taught by internationally known instructors. The region is also famous for superb sea kayaking, especially along Merchant’s Row, a string of islands and islets between the Deer Isle village of Stonington (known for great lobster) and Isle au Haut, a wild, rocky island whose southern half is part of Acadia National Park (see p. 20).

The beautiful Penobscot Bay is one of Maine’s premier summer destinations.

W
HERE:
Camden is about 80 miles northeast of Portland.
Visitor info:
www.mainesmidcoast.com
,
www.visitcamden.com
,
www.deerislemaine.com
.
P
ENOBSCOT
M
ARINE
M
USEUM:
Searsport. Tel 207-548-2529;
www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org
.
When:
late May–mid-Oct.
P
ENTAGÖET
I
NN:
Castine. Tel 800-845-1701 or 207-326-8616;
www.pentagoet.com
.
Cost:
from $95 (off-peak), from $115 (peak).
When:
May–Oct.
C
ASTINE
I
NN:
Tel 207-326-4365;
www.castineinn.com.
Cost:
6-course prix fixe menu $85.
When:
May–Oct.
P
ILGRIM’S
I
NN:
Deer Isle. Tel 888-778-7505 or 207-348-6615;
www.pilgrimsinn.com.
Cost:
from $99 (off-peak), from $119 (peak).
When:
May–Oct.
H
AYSTACK
M
OUNTAIN
S
CHOOL:
Tel 207-348-2306;
www.haystack-mtn.org.
When:
June–Oct.
S
EA
K
AYAKING:
Old Quarry Ocean Adventures, Stonington; tel 207-367-8977;
www.oldquarry.com.
Cost:
1-night trip $275.
When:
early Apr–early Nov.
B
EST TIMES:
June and Sept for fewer people; Oct for fall foliage.

The Art of Maine

Rockland, Maine

Lucy Copeland Farnsworth, daughter of wealthy 19th-century entrepreneur William Farnsworth, lived her whole life in her father’s Rockland house, outliving her five siblings and leaving no children of her own. When she
died in 1935 at age 97, her will stipulated that her $1.3 million estate would be used in part to fund an art gallery and library. That was the genesis of the Farnsworth, which over the following years has amassed a collection of works by artists such as Winslow Homer, Maurice Prendergast, Eastman Johnson, and Andrew Wyeth, all intimately associated with Maine life and landscapes.

Beginning with the acquisition of seven watercolors in 1944, the museum’s relationship with Wyeth has been particularly fruitful, culminating in a 1996 agreement to create the Wyeth Center, dedicated to the works of
Andrew; his son Jamie; and his father, N.C. Wyeth, who illustrated novels by Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, and James Fenimore Cooper. This high-profile association has allowed the Farnsworth to grow into one of the country’s finest regional museums.

Today the heart of the museum’s collection is “Maine in America,” which documents Maine’s cultural history from colonial times to the present, while newer galleries are dedicated to 20th-century works, including the nation’s second-largest collection of works by sculptor Louise Nevelson. Next door to the museum, Lucy Farnsworth’s 1850s Greek Revival house is preserved much as she left it, outfitted with the family’s furniture from the early 1870s. The Wyeth Center, with exhibitions, interpretive programs, and research facilities, is just down the block in a 19th-century Methodist church building. About a half-hour’s drive southwest, the Olson House completes the Farnsworth’s holdings. It was the model for houses depicted in a number of Andrew Wyeth’s most famous works, and is maintained in a rustic state, allowing visitors to, in effect, step into a Wyeth canvas.

W
HERE:
80 miles northeast of Portland; 16 Museum St. Tel 207-596-6457;
www.farnsworthmuseum.org
.
W
HEN:
daily mid-June–mid-Oct; closed Mon, Jan–mid-June.
B
EST TIMES:
before July 4 and after mid-Oct for lighter crowds.

The Wyeth Center, in a former Methodist church, is one of Rockland’s most prominent and venerable structures.

Where Crustacean Is King

Rockland, Maine

Though the coastal Indians of Maine and eastern Canada knew about the pleasures of lobster (if not butter sauce) for hundreds or thousands of years, early European Americans were so disdainful of the spiny beast that
hardly anyone but prisoners and indentured servants ever took a taste. The upper class finally realized what they were missing in the late 19th century, and today Maine is a veritable lobster Valhalla, made famous by the sweet, succulent
Homarus americanus,
generally considered the finest crustacean in the sea.

Maine and lobster are all but synonymous and with good reason: The average annual catch along the state’s indented coastline generally exceeds 36 million pounds—more than half the national total. Rockland, on Penobscot Bay, is the capital of the lobster universe, hosting an annual Lobster Festival that for more than 50 years has offered five days full of live music, seafood-cooking and lobster-eating contests, the coronation of a Sea Goddess, and enough New England Americana (and
americanus
) to last through the winter.

Even if you’re not in-state for the festivities, heavenly lobster dinners can be had almost any time of the year at any of 1,000 shacks, huts, pounds, and farms found scattered among Maine’s coastal towns. Be
sure to dine dockside, so you can enjoy the perfume of the salt air, the sound of the ocean, and the screech of gulls nose-diving for your french fries.

W
HERE:
80 miles northeast of Portland. Tel 800-LOB-CLAW or 207-596-0376;
www.mainelobsterfestival.com.
W
HEN:
5 days (Wed–Sun) in late July–early Aug.

Of Wind and Waves

Rockland, Camden, and Rockport, Maine

In the 19th century, Maine was to tall ships what Detroit is to cars, with thousands of vessels pouring from its shipyards and sailing to and from its harbors. Steam engines put an end to all that, replacing the old boats’ quiet
, graceful sails with belching, roaring engines, and by the 1930s it seemed the few tall ships remaining were destined to fade into memory.

Enter Maine artist Frank Swift. In 1936, Swift began offering pleasure cruises on one of the old vessels, confident that people would be glad to escape the bustle of modern life for a few days of relaxation and simple pleasures. On his first trip, he later recalled, “we had only three lady passengers from Boston,” but demand over the next three decades not only allowed Swift to grow his fleet but also lured other captains into the business. Today there are some five dozen schooners, sloops, barks, brigs, and barkentines that sail the waters between Bar Harbor and Boothbay, most of them historic vessels from the late 19th and early 20th centuries—nine designated National Historic Landmarks—plus a few modern facsimiles. Most visible are the schooners of the Maine Windjammer Association, a loose consortium of 12 owner-operated vessels specializing in three- to six-day sailing adventures among the islands of Penobscot Bay. It’s a stunning place, full of craggy, pine-covered coastline, deliriously beautiful sunsets, and lighthouses that seem to come right out of Andrew Wyeth paintings.