Down East, Day 2: Quoddy Head

We got to Quoddy Head State Park somewhat late in the afternoon, and were sorry for the lack of time, for it is achingly beautiful, one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been. The cliffs are high, the surf roars, trees grow out of the granite, and little streams cross under the Coastal Trail and fall like lace to the shore. We walked only some of the Coastal Trail, but maybe that's just as well; how much glory can this old heart take?

For a few weeks in the spring and in the fall, i.e., at the equinoxes, West Quoddy Head Lighthouse is the first place in the continental US to receive the morning light. (I'd like to tell you that we made the return pilgrimage the next morning to see the sunrise, but Sue's popovers - actually popunders, since they were concave with bananas and syrup - took precedence.) Quoddy truly seems like one of those end-of-world places. We're blessed to be able to experience it still. The work to preserve and conserve these places is God's.

We did have time to take a side trail to a perfect peat bog, complete with a boardwalk dotted with signs explaining the science and the poetry of these fascinating (and fragile) ecosystems. Compared to the wild shore not so far away, where everything seemed oversized, the bog was quiet, petite, attenuated. What trees there were matched me both in height and in years. We went from being dwarfs to the firs and cliffs to being giants to the pitcher plants. At times like these, I'm always astounded at the range and reach of beauty.

Reluctantly, we left Quoddy Head at dusk and went to dinner. In a daze I allowed myself the fried clam plate, with fries and slaw. What matters a little cholesterol at the end of the world?

Down East, Day 2: Lubec and Campobello

We arrived in Lubec around noon, bought a bit of lunch, and took it (probably illegally) across the bridge into Canada, i.e., Campobello Island. A group of rich New Yorkers bought the island in the late 19th century during the rusticator craze, erected their huge cottages, and, well, rusticated. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's father was one of them, and while his first cottage burned, his second still stands, all 35 rooms full of FDR and Eleanor and their happy/unhappy life together. Campobello was where FDR contracted polio - he would return only three times to the place he loved almost more than politics.

On the ocean side Campobello is wild and beautiful. On the bay side, it's calm and full of salmon pens. (The big tides flush the fish waste away, the modern version of water pollution.) I don't really understand why all the big houses were built facing the bay. Maybe the sailing, like polo and polio and politics, is more relaxing if protected (like the salmon). Or perhaps the rich businessmen didn't want reminders of their rough and tumble workday lives.

Lubec is only a couple of miles from Eastport by water but seems completely different. Here the people, I suspect, have already made their money, elsewhere, and bring it to Lubec in order to have the time to keep lovely houses and a clean waterfront. There's a derelict building but it's part of an old smoked herring factory itself about to be preserved.

It's a delightful town for older folks, and getting older - the high school has fewer than 40 students and will probably close. Our B&B, the Peacock House, has had guests from all over the world. There were two restaurants from which to choose. The sunset was heart-stopping.

Between hiking in Campobello and staring agog at the sunset was Quoddy Head, the highlight (for me) of the trip and so spectacular as to deserve its own post, next time.

Down East, Day 2: Eastport

The rain let up mid-morning, giving us one last sprinkle as we walked through Eastport. Like many port cities in Maine, Eastport is trying to make up for the decline in shipbuilding and fishing by touting tourism. The possibilities are great. It sits on a dramatic point in the middle of Passamaquoddy Bay, islands both Canadian and American all around. Scenery is dramatic, unspoiled. It's the easternmost city in the continental US, exceeded in eastness only by Lubec, a mere town, a couple of miles by water, but 40 miles by road around the bay, away.

To love "away" to love Eastport. It's gritty, unpretentious, startling, decaying. Tides reach 25 feet. Its high street is lovely, 3- and 4-story brick buildings mostly connected, and mostly (but not all) tenanted. It was to be the center of the huge tidal power project of the Great Depression of the 30s, pushed by FDR who vacationed on nearby Campobello Island, but the project lasted but a year and Eastport seems to be slowly sinking since. Will it survive the Great Recession of the 00s? Well, there were some builders working on that beautiful brick, a couple of new shops clearly were going to open soon....

This is Maine's dilemma: incredible natural beauty, decaying waterfronts; unspoiled, too far from urban centers; lots of things to do, but those things don't fit the modern life. Places like Eastport must depend on a real shift in attitude - away from loud consuming, toward quiet community. These pictures might be considered depressing, but to me they symbolize a way of life fast disappearing, a slow life, hard perhaps and difficult, but humorous and independent and free of the crazy abstractions that rule the 300 million people to the west.

Down East, Day 1

We returned on Sunday night from a few days Down East, that is, east of Ellsworth and Bangor. We had never visited the stretch of coast from Acadia to Canada and needed to correct that glaring omission. We are extremely glad we did.

Although the first day was hardly glad. We set out from Owls Head at the beginning of a kind of small northeaster, and are pleased to report its company for the rest of the day - the usual wind and rain and fog. It was a graphic illustration of the reason Down East got its name, the prevailing winds pushing us east. The storm wasn't the problem, since it was to be a day mostly of travel anyway. The problem was certain executive decisions made by yours truly. But first the highlight of the day.

We drove to Bangor and saw Paul Bunyan's statue (no, that wasn't the highlight, although he's quite high), then through Orono and Old Town to the Penobscot Indian Reservation on Indian Island. Our goal was the Penobscot Nation Museum, which turned out to be a whole series of adjectives: small (but definitely beautiful), full (of wonderful artifacts), fascinating (not least because of its gracious curator James Neptune), humiliating (when the facts of annihilation by white people are so bald and disturbing). James showed us an evocative film about the people and their connection to the river, and patiently answered our questions. I'm still overwhelmed by the fact that James is a direct descendant of John Neptune, born in 1767, chief and shaman of the Penobscots, and Louis Neptune, erstwhile guide to Henry David Thoreau on his first trip to Maine. What terrible diminution of place and power that one family, not to mention a whole peaceful people, has seen.

As if in teary response, the rain grew stronger as we left Old Town. The executive decision that ruled the afternoon was basically a silly romantic wish to travel through great swathes of undeveloped forest. The Maine Atlas showed a suitable road, the Stud Mill, running for some fifty miles through nothing. The "nothing" part of the wish was granted, but it wasn't a beautiful nothing. It was boring and utilitarian: a logging road accompanied most of its length by large power-line towers on one side and a strip of cleared land, strangely wide, on the other. We passed a handful of pickups, and a dozen large trucks stuffed with logs. I'm sure they all wondered about the little blue idiot sedan from Massachusetts....So no leafy bowers, no magnificent white pines, no moose. Thoreau had long ago left the building.

But worse was yet to come. Mr. Executive also had the notion of visiting Grand Lake Stream, home of many 19th century hunting and fishing camps catering still to "sports" from the cities. Visiting one, if only to look briefly, seemed an educational thing to do. It involved taking a little shortcut, a short, 10-mile stretch of road off Stud Mill called Little River Road. And here in true executive style I blame anything but myself. Little River Road was indicated in the Atlas to be the same kind of road as Stud Mill, and indeed the same kind as the tarred road that eventually led from Grand Lake Stream to the smooth bliss of Route 1. Needless to say it wasn't in reality.

Having unconsciously delegated, said executive wasn't driving and long-suffering helpmeet, now supremely expert on gravel, was. It took an hour to go 10 miles. The wash-outs were enormous. Thank God for the rain - you could estimate how deep the ruts were. Two miles per hour was several times achieved. Blind faith in the Atlas is forever tarnished.

The pelting rain made Grand Lake Stream less than memorable, and we were never so glad to get to our B&B in Princeton. Wilderness is fine in a 4-wheel drive, sturdy boots, real spare tires, and a pack of provisions. We should have gone straight to the beauty and splendor of Lubec, an amazing area, the very eastern end of the US.

Stay tuned for Day 2.