Downeast Maine: Bar Harbor, Acadia, Mt. Desert, Northeast Harbor & Beyond

Maine's Downeast Coast: Bar Harbor, Acadia National Park, Mt. Desert, Northeast Harbor & Beyond

Earl Brechlin

HUNTER PUBLISHING, INC

© Earl Brechlin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This guide focuses on recreational activities. As all such activities contain elements of risk, the publisher, author, affiliated individuals and companies disclaim any responsibility for any injury, harm, or illness that may occur to anyone through, or by use of, the information in this book. Every effort was made to insure the accuracy of information in this book, but the publisher and author do not assume, and hereby disclaim, any liability for any loss or damage caused by errors, omissions, misleading information or potential travel problems caused by this guide, even if such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident or any other cause.

www.hunterpublishing.com

About the Author

A registered Maine Guide who designed and built his own energyefficient home, Earl D. Brechlin lives in Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island. He is an avid hiker, backpacker and whitewater paddler and author of several guidebooks to Acadia National Park.

During winter he enjoys snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in Acadia and snowmobiling near his vacation home in Greenville on Moosehead Lake.

Brechlin has been the editor of the Bar Harbor Times, a weekly newspaper, for 15 years. He is a past president of the Maine Press Association, a former Journalist of the Year in Maine, and is on the executive board of the New England Press Association.

Dedication

To those who have come before. To those who will follow. Live the adventure.

Introduction: Discovering Maine

Adventure is worthwhile in itself. – Amelia Earhart

The farthest east of any state, and the largest and wildest of any in New England, Maine is often perceived as the literal end of the line.

In many ways it is.

But that is not the entire story.

Granted, there is only one major interstate highway in and out. Regular passenger rail service is only now coming to fruition. Only two airports – Bangor and Portland – have regular service by commercial jets, although scheduled flights by commuter air serve most larger towns.

West Quoddy Head with its distinctive red-and-white-striped lighthouse near Lubec is the easternmost point in the United States. The Appalachian Trail, a 2,158-mile footpath that begins on Springer Mountain in Georgia, ends atop mile-high Katahdin in Baxter State Park. More than a thousand hikers begin down south each year. Fewer than 200 will finish the entire journey. Yet even as one path ends, another begins. A new, International Appalachian Trail, which heads north to Mount Jacques Cartier in Quebec, begins at the base of Katahdin.

Mount Katahdin

Maine is the only state in the lower 48 that borders only one other state. Except for a long frontier with New Hampshire the only way in or out is through another country – Canada – or by sea.

Just over one million year-round residents are spread out over more than 20 million acres of land. With most major population centers located in the southern part of the state, the farther north you go the faster the population density drops. It’s not long before moose and loons begin to outnumber humans.

Popular trends, fads and crazes seem to hit Maine last – if at all.

Distance both physically and culturally has created a land rich in closely held tradition. Yet a steady stream of visitors, connections to the world at large, and an almost institutional rejection of insular attitudes has resulted in a society remarkably open to embracing new ideas, methods and fashions – providing they bring with them sufficient utilitarian purpose or practical application to stand the test of time.

For it is time that is the sole witness and arbiter of change in this ancient landscape. Here the vagaries of climate and the arc of seasons can be discerned not just on the land but also in the faces and hands of those whose lives and livelihoods are tied to it each day.

In Maine the story is not one of the land, or the sea, or the people but rather of the land,andthe sea,andits people. The story of one cannot be told without the telling of the tales of the others.

While Maine has long been settled, it is not by any means an old state.

Its origins date back to the1600s, although it did not officially join the Union until 1820 when it formally severed ties with Massachusetts. While forts are many, notable armed skirmishes here were few. Still, the first naval battle of the revolutionary war was fought off the Down East coast near Machias.

Maine’s makeup today is a study in contrasts. Cosmopolitan cities, such as Portland, Lewiston and Bangor, jostle for attention with the trendy tourist towns of Kennebunkport, Camden and Bar Harbor. Like a mother wood duck, venerable L.L. Bean in Freeport sits surrounded by a brood of factory outlets and mini-malls competing not for cracked corn but rather the plastic nourishment lining the wallets of visitors.

Meanwhile fourth-generation, family-owned general stores from Rangeley to Greenville stock everything from live bait to the Boston papers (each in season, of course).

Most of all, Maine is a seemingly timeless rural place. The names of families in the oldest cemeteries can still be found in the phone books today. Tiny villages on back roads continue on as always with little more than late model pickup trucks in the driveways and the occasional satellite dish in the dooryard to betray the fact they are not the exact same community you could have experienced six generations ago.

Still, even those who live in what urbanites might consider wilderness cherish the wildness of the country deeper in. Many families own backwoods and lakeside camps or cabins to which they can retreat.

In the Great North Woods, the ghost of naturalist Henry David Thoreau still speaks in whispers above the white froth of wild rivers sporting rapids with names like Hulling Machine and The Cribworks. Today he would smile, undoubtedly, at the thought that a state which boasts millions of acres of undeveloped private timberlands open to public recreation would still insist on preserving 205,000 acres in Baxter State Park; most of which by law must remain free of the artificial cacophony of internal combustion engines, radios or cellular phones.

Henry David Thoreau

From north to south, east to west, tall white pines compete with granite spires to frame the cosmic flame and crackle of the northern lights. Mountains, rivers, forests, and shores harbor quiet glens, undiscovered waterfalls and a lifetime of explorations.

Mist rises at dawn from jewel-like ponds with names known but to a few. It may have been days or even weeks since a dry fly, paddle or anything more than the cry of a loon has broken the mirror-flat surface. Barren mountain tops, where snow lingers long into June, wrap themselves each day in the embrace of wind and cloud. Moose wander through backwaters in search of succulent water plants. As night descends, the call of the Eastern coyote echoes from nearby ridges.

All around the state the stony yet fertile soil provides for those who till fields of potatoes, blueberries and hay. For others who accept its Faustian bargain, the cold, fog-shrouded Atlantic Ocean holds constant danger as well as the prospect of nets brimming with fish and traps teeming with lobster.

Information Sources 

For general information on activities in Maine contact one of the following sources (area code 207):

The Maine Publicity Bureau , PO Box 2300, 325B Water Street, Hallowell 04347; 800-533-9595 or 623-0363; E-mail mpbinfo@mainetourism.com.

Maine Office of Tourism, State House Station, Augusta 04330;287-5710.

Maine Innkeepers Association, 305 Commercial Street, Portland 04101; 773-7670.

Maine Publicity Bureau Welcome Centers: 18 Mayville Road, Route 2, Bethel;824-4582. US Route 302, Fryeburg; 935-3639.

State of Maine Visitor Information Centers:

I-95 and US 1, Kittery; 439-1319.

US 1, Exit 17 off I-95, Yarmouth; 846-0833.

I-95, Mile 169, Hampden (North); 862-6628.

I-95, Mile 172, Hampden (South); 862-6638.

7 Union Street, Calais; 454-2211.

Ludlow Road, Houlton; 532-6346.

Along the Down East coast the endless surge of the briny Atlantic scours rocky shores or rhythmically thumps Southern Maine’s miles of fine sandy beaches. The state’s 30 lighthouses stand guard along more than 3,000 miles of coastline. Here, on almost any day, the capricious fog plays hide and seek with all your senses.

This book is not designed to be the be-all and end-all guide, a metaphorical holding of your hand if you wish, to reach a specific Maine destination. Rather, think of it as a resource to jump-start the journey. While the major byways and even many of the roads seldom traveled are mentioned, there are still plenty of people, places, and diversions awaiting discovery. After all, you can’t call a trip an adventure if everything goes according to plan. Pick a date, pick a road, pick a trail and let the fun begin.

Is Maine then, in fact, the end of the line? Many – artist, industrialist, farmer, fisherman – have found inspiration in the state’s great natural beauty, a grounding in its history and a spiritual kinship with its proud, independent people. But it has often proved also to be a new beginning. Maine then, is perhaps paradoxically both the end of the line and a place of beginnings. What better place then to find adventure?

Atlantic sunrise, Acadia National Park

A Land of Fire & Ice

Maine is a landscape literally born both of fire and ice. Titanic forces from deep within the earth have forced mountains of magma through the earth’s crust to create the massive rock plutons of granite that form most of the state’s ancient mountain ranges.

Elsewhere, ridges of dark slate and rugged hills of schist and basalt formed tough barriers for the earliest settlers to cross.

While legend and myth may try to link some mountains in Maine directly to volcanoes, there is no one peak that can clearly be said to be the remnants of a central cone. Still, many of the state’s more distinctive hills, such as Mount Kineo and Big Spencer near Moosehead Lake, are volcanic in origin, composed largely of dense volcanic rock that is even tougher than granite. This landscape has been carved and worked by eons of ice and the slow, steady, wearing action of swift streams and rivers.

Minerals

Throughout the state those with a careful eye can discern veins of basalt which was forced up in a molten state into cracks in the overburden. Maine is not considered a mineral-rich state. Except for limestone quarry operations for cement processing there are no commercial mining ventures in operation. In the late 1800s and before, small operations mined iron, such as those at Katahdin Iron Works along the Pleasant River near Brownville, and sporadic wildcat gold and silver mines were put down. Copper and lead for a while were mined near Blue Hill. In recent years a nickel mine was proposed for the Union area, although it never opened. Prospecting for copper, tin and other minerals has been done in Aroostook County.

Tourmaline

Perhaps the most famous mineral from Maine is tourmaline, which, along with garnets and other gem-quality crystals, can be found in areas in the mountains of Western Maine. Tourmaline, which is crafted into exquisite jewelry, comes in several colors, including black, green and pink. Dozens of minerals can be found in the hills of Oxford County near Newry and Paris.

Maine more than made up for its lack of minerals by producing prodigious amounts of building stone. Great slabs of slate were mined for roofs, chalk boards, countertops, sinks and walls in Monson. A limited operation continues today.

Granite was king along the Maine Coast during the 1800s, supporting quarries that bustled with immigrants on Vinal Haven, North Haven, on Crotch Island off Stonington, and in Hall Quarry on Mount Desert Island. Granite quarries were busy too in the Sullivan and Franklin areas.

DID YOU KNOW?Some of the largest buildings in the biggest cities on the East Coast were made of Maine stone. And many an American street was paved with granite cobblestones, rounded rocks collected from the beaches on the coast of Maine. Cobblestones were also used as ballast in ships carrying everything from lumber to livestock.

Most stone was shipped out by schooner (the stone was skidded or winched directly from the rock face to the nearby edge of the sea).

Fossils

Fossils, mostly of plants and small marine animals, while not common, can be found primarily in the slate and shale prevalent in the northern part of the state.

Scientists believe the land in Maine has uplifted several times in the past few hundred million years, although no one imagines the area as Vulcan’s nursery with volcanoes spewing lava as far as the eye can see.

In marked contrast to Maine’s relatively sedate experience with geologic fire, the most easily observed affects on the land have come from ice. Several times, the most recent only about 10,000 years ago, a mere split second in geologic time, great walls of ice more than a mile high have pushed their way from north to south across the state. The sheer weight of the ice alone is believed to have compressed the land nearly a mile below its present contours.

The comings and goings of glaciers have left many distinct signs. Mountains with long, gradual north slopes, and abrupt, broken-away south faces show evidence of glaciation. The ice rode slowly up the back of the mountains and then fractured pieces from the front.

The distinctive multiple peaks of Mount Desert Island, where nearly all ridges run north to south, resulted from glaciation. The island was literally a long east-west ridge at one time. The glacier groaned out of the north, came up against a bulwark of pink granite and pushed through in several areas carving deep valleys now filled with deep lakes.

INTERESTING FACT:Glacial movement created Somes Sound, the only true fjord on the east coast of the United States and a fissure which nearly cuts Mount Desert Island in two.

On many high hills the rock has been worn smooth creating flat areas of glacial polish. In other places deep grooves, like saw marks on the flat surface of fine furniture, help trace the glacier’s path.

Erratics

Rocks picked up and transported hundreds of miles by the glaciers were left behind as the ice receded. Bearing no semblance to the nearby bedrock, they were dubbed glacial erratics and posed great puzzlement to 18th-century scholars in an age before the effects of great sheets of ice were even suspected much less accepted and understood. One of the most famous is Bubble Rock in Acadia National Park. This truck-size boulder, perched it almost seems precariously on the edge of a cliff, is believed to have come from the top of a mountain more than 100 miles away.

Bubble Rock

Eskers & Kettle Ponds

But the glaciers did not work their magic only on solid rock. Along the way they pushed up massive deposits of loose gravel and rocks. In some places outwash streams under the receding icepack built up their own deposits of sand and smooth, rounded rocks. These long sinuous hills, which scientists refer to as eskers, became known around Maine as whalesbacks. With the wealth of building material readily available these routes quickly became roads and railroad right-of-ways as settlement progressed. One of the most famous whalesbacks can be found on Route 9 between Brewer and Calais. Glacial sediments also helped dam valleys, creating lakes and bogs and carve deep valleys. Glaciers also left distinctive kettle ponds; places where chunks of ice melted last as sediment built up around them.

DID YOU KNOW?Most rivers in Maine, except those in the far north or those dammed by humans, flow from the north to the south. In all, there are more than 31,000 miles of rivers and streams throughout the state.

Another remarkable feature of the Maine landscape are the massive peat bogs, dubbed heaths. They are the result of the natural death of lakes, where plants slowly creep in from the edges until the entire depression once filled only with water becomes clogged with slowly decaying vegetation. The water flowing from these areas is stained the color of tea from tannins in the peat. The state’s largest peat bog, The Great Heath, is near Columbia Falls in Washington County. It is several miles across. While canoeist can pass through it along the Pleasant River, most exploration is limited to the winter months when cold and ice keep visitors from quickly sinking into a spongy vegetation. For a while an energy company mined peat on nearby Denbo Heath along the Narraguagus River. The peat was dried and burned to generate electricity.

The Sea

The other great hand that has worked the face of Maine’s landscape is the sea. The state has more than 3,500 miles of coastline and 6,200 offshore islands.

INTERESTING FACT:Researchers have discovered that Maine’s rugged coastline is longer than originally thought – about 600 miles longer, in fact. The latest information provided by Geographic Information System (GIS) computers puts the length, when all island shores are included, at 5,500 miles.

All along the state’s coastline the relentless waters of the Atlantic scour away the rocks, creating the prominent headlands and pocket rocky beaches. Except in the southern part of the state in York County, where long, wide beaches stretch for miles, sandy intertidal zones are few and far between. Even Sand Beach in Acadia National Park is somewhat misnamed. A good percentage of the material that comprises the beach is really shattered sea shells.

Maine’s thousands of offshore islands and ledges, many which are home to nesting seabird and seal colonies, are literally a range of drowned mountains with only the tops exposed.

On rocky beaches the ceaseless action of waves works the stones, shaping and rounding them into distinctive cobble shapes.

WISEWORDS:Refrain from collecting these rocks. While many visitors fancy taking home just one as a souvenir, officials have begun discouraging the practice as some easily accessible locations are being picked clean.

Despite all the sea’s power however, the stubborn granite, born of fire and ice, only reluctantly yields. In several places along the coast