Two Hundred Miles of Maine

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

It may not be the best of the Pine Tree State. There are parts of Maine more magnificent than the two hundred miles that lie along its most southern coastline. Acadia National Park in the north, for example, not only looks better, it sounds better and when the tide tears into Thunder Hole and the ground shudders, people nod their heads and say above the roar, "Now, that's what a sea should sound like."

And there are, arguably, parts of the state that may be more the true Maine where granite mountains rear their craggy heads to the skies, evergreens fight for space in the dense pine forests, and gunmetal lakes lap their grey water against glacial boulders. "Ayuh," the northern guides are alleged to murmur, "it's the 4th of July and the ice in the lakes is starting to break up. Ice is out. Let's fish."

But there is a stretch of Maine running from Kittery to Camden that is beloved by visitors because it meets their needs of a summer vacation so well. It is a mixture of garish tourist traps and authentic fishing villages, of modern motels and ancient inns, of amusement arcades and historical museums.

Here the automobile plates read California, Florida and Texas and the accents might be German or French or Italian. Here the visitors are of all ages from the elderly walking with canes to children scampering around in sandals. And here is Maine: cotton candy, balloons, summer theatre, deep-sea expeditions, trolley rides, boutiques, fresh lobster, flinty-eyed fisherman, and taciturn locals so sparse of speech it's as if there's an annual competition of silence.

"Hi! Excuse me. How long will it take to drive from this toll booth to Exit 6?" you enquire on the Maine Turnpike. "Depends how fast ya drive," is the sniffed reply, then the face disappears from the toll booth window aghast at itself for speaking so many words.

But even reticence has its charm if those who hoard words like misers and spend them under protest are compared to the Howard Cosells and television personalities of today whose chatter sometimes suggests free speech is a disaster. So enjoy the sounds of silence. Come to a quiet reserved state that really has changed little in the last century. Because when you wander down one of Maine's many peninsulas that the glaciers clawed from the land 20,000 years ago you do finally come to parts of America far removed from today's tempos. You can throw a pebble into the sea and feel that maybe you are the first to do so original a deed. And you can glance down to your feet and not expect to find those empty beer cans by which the wilderness measures the approach of civilization.

If you're going to drive only two hundred miles through Maine it doesn't really matter whether you zig zag or "Maine line" it straight, whether you start at the top and work down to Kittery or begin at New Hampshire and drive up. Nor do you have to worry about Maine's topsy-turvey notions that up North is Down East. Let that confuse the sea captains. All you need is Route 1, the oldest highway in America. Part of the way you'll want to take 1A, the coastal road, even though there will be times if it's midsummer when you'll want to kick yourself for doing so. Traffic is heavy in season though Interstate 95 a few miles to the west is always accessible if you feel you must increase your average speed.

Take advantage of the numerous booths listed as providing tourist information. There are a lot of appealing places. Indeed, the question soon becomes, "Do we really need to stop for that one?" For once, the American Automobile Association tour books don't help much in the decision-making. Those who plan their vacations around AAA-starred attractions will be disappointed to find there are not many in a state of 33,000 square miles, and one of those is a national park.

The charm of Maine lies not in its historic institutions though many of the homes are magnificent, built as they were by the wealth of merchants and sea captains. No, the charm of Maine lies in the perfection of its climate in summer, in its interesting terrain, and in its fascinating functioning villages some of which go about their business oblivious to the enchantment they give tourists, or, if aware, steadfastly refusing to be changed by it.

But at times genuinely unaware. "Jest sold one of my fields as a house-lot to an idiot from Boston," the farmer tells his wife. He puffs on his pipe and continues. "Said he'd bought it for the view. Idiot. Ain't no danged view there except rocks and mountains."

The highlands of Maine are inland. Yet the roads meandering lazily along the coast are following the contour lines of mountains. The shore of Maine is a "drowned coastline compressed into the sea by the vast Polar ice cap about 20,000 years ago. The bays, sounds and estuaries were all former valleys and low lying areas before the seas rushed in. Elsewhere, only Alaska, Chile and Japan have such serrated coastlines.

The peninsulas grope down to the ocean like the dancing feet of a drunk centipede. The highways tend to press on north as if unaware of the vast stretches of land to the east. Visitors can cover the coastal route quickly if they ignore the sea but the sea is what Maine is all about. With the help of weather and time, it has fashioned' the land giving the villages their character and molding the Maine personality into what we see today.

You see this personality everywhere, as soon as you cross from New Hampshire. Here's York, its old Gaol built in 1653 or 1719 depending on which authority you believe and considered by some to be the oldest remaining public building of the English colonies. York was the summer vacation home of Mark Twain, just one of the many great writers who found Maine irresistible in the summer.

Artists love Maine also and you'll find plenty at the Nubble Head Lighthouse and in the next town, Ogunquit. Take the detour down to Perkins Cove and walk along the footpath there to get an appetite for lunch at the Hurricane Restaurant just up the coast at Kennebunk. This town was the birthplace of Kenneth Roberts, the author of Northwest Passage and Arundel, and beyond lies Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth where Winslow Homer painted most of his masterpieces.

You are now entering Portland the largest city in Maine and the one time hometown of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His house, well worth a visit, was the first brick dwelling in the city and is now a museum. The small islands scattered in the bay were once thought to total 365 hence their name: the Calendar Islands.

There are many boutiques in the cobbled streets of the revitalized harbor section of Portland where a successful urban renewal project has made a delightful contribution. But for better bargains you may wish to continue on to Freeport, the little town famous all over America as the home of L.L. Bean. Other stores have arisen to take advantage of the hordes of tourists flocking to this attraction. If you haven't already, eaten you may wish to do so in this busy little place.

As you leave Freeport and swing east on Route 1 you'll notice 295 continuing north to Augusta. You now no longer have the interstate option if you're in a hurry. But you won't be. Route 1 is a good road and offers plenty to see. Seaward lies Orr's Island where Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, but you should press on because you're approaching Bath, a delightful and relatively untouched town of 10,000 people.

Bath was the center of shipbuilding in our nation 150 years ago; in 1848 it built half of all the ships made in America. Even more striking is how far back in history this "City of Ships" goes -- to 1607 in fact. Because, 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, George Popham and a group of English settlers had built a 30-ton pinnace Virginia at present-day Phippsburg, 12 miles south of Bath for their return journey to England.

Although Bath was the birthplace of wooden shipbuilding in our nation, it has successfully made the transition to modern times. The Bath Iron Works even celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1984, and today is still one of Maine's largest private employer.

Bath is an attractive town which has only recently realized it possesses a wealth of architecturally significant gracious old homes. Many of the dwellings are magnificent, for example the 1827 Federal-style home at 1 North Street of John Patten who once, with his brother, owned the largest fleet of merchant ships in the country. Even if you have only an hour or so you should drive past those homes put up in the 19th century by wealthy sea captains, merchants and ship builders, and drive around the downtown historic district.

But you'll surely give yourself more than an hour in Bath to visit the scattered locations of the Maine Maritime Museum. Don't miss the Percy and Small shipbuilding complex which became part of the museum in 1974 but still has a genuine yard where apprentices are trained in the almost lost art of wooden boatbuilding.

As you continue on Route 1 and start across the bridge at Wiscasset you can no longer look to your right for the remains of the Luther Little and the Hesper, formerly the last evidence that once four-masted schooners ruled the world. The remains were removed in 1998 -- and an era is now forgotten.

But it's getting dark and you're hungry. Why not turn down south on Route 27 and head for Boothbay Harbor? This little seaport, a former fishing village, was invaded by yachtsmen and artists a century ago. It still maintains an old world charm despite its popularity with tourists during Maine's short summer. There are many attractive hotels and restaurants, some overlooking the harbor, but for a great meal and a reasonably comfortable bed you might want to go a couple of blocks inland to the Thistle Inn. Built as a sea captain's house about 1850 it now serves as a small 11-roomed inn. It has soft beds (you'll have to share a bath) and a splendid chef. South of Boothbay Harbor is Squirrel Island where they filmed the movie Carousel. The peninsula further east is Pemaquid Point with its much photographed lighthouse and its fisherman's museum.

Depending on your time you can either ramble amongst the peninsulas, the next one Port Clyde being where N.C. Wyeth loved to paint, or you can get back on to Route 1 and drive a rather humdrum twenty miles to Thomaston, where, many fine colonial homes stand in what was in 1630 one of the earliest outposts for trading with Indians.

You can now go on. to Camden, the seaport some claim to be the prettiest in Maine, or you can detour east to Owl's Head Light for the unbelievable view of Penobscot Bay. North, Haven the island just above Vinalhaven is where Anne Morrow Lindbergh used to summer as a child. And since the name Lindbergh makes your thoughts flutter from the seas to the skies, you can capture another spirit of Maine by visiting the Owl's Head Transportation Museum. Here antique cars stand side by side with old aircraft, each a tribute to man and machine.

"Come on in," cried Bruce Kinney one of the enthusiastic volunteers who manned the admission booths. "Come in. Look. And Listen."

He waved a brochure. "Listen to the putter of a one-cylinder Oldsmobile, the hiss of a Stanley Steamer, the whistling wires of a 1912 Curtiss Pusher."

Yes. Drive up this coastline and listen to the sounds of summer. Come, listen to the Song of Maine.