Quoddy Head Lighthouse

Quoddy Head State Park occupies the most easterly land in the US, and covers 532 acres with over 4 miles of paths along the coast and through woodland.

After Millinocket I travelled to Ellsworth, about 20 miles by road from Bar Harbor (which will be covered in a subsequent post). I could have gone directly but decided to go east then 100 miles south parallel to the coast and get some exercise en route as it was a lovely day.

All of Maine north of Ellsworth is known as ‘Downeast Maine’. This dates back to the days of sailing ships, and when Maine was part of Massachusetts. To reach it from Boston they sailed ‘downwind and east’, so called it Downeast.

The coast of Downeast is nowadays labelled ‘the Bold Coast’ but I think that is just in the hope of encouraging tourists. Anywhere north of Ellsworth is too far for second homers from Portland or Boston to reach easily for a weekend, so it is predominately still just fishing, farming and logging that sustains the area. As a result it is relatively poor, but much less changed than further south. Foreign tourists are a rarity, but there were significant numbers of US ones. Some retired people live in Downeast from May to October and have another home in Florida or Arizona for the winter.

Like other lighthouses, this one had its old bell on display, but the museum was closed when I was there.

The entire coast of northern Maine is rocky, and this was the view south from the lighthouse. The island in the distance is Campobello, part of Canada, and a favourite of the Roosevelt family. Whilst I was at Quoddy Head my phone decided I was in Canada for roaming purposes.

I walked over 2 miles on or very close to the coast, then turned and walked though woodland to return to the car. The coast is very reminiscent of much of the Scottish coast.

There were even a few (very few) harebells, otherwise known as Scottish Bluebells. These were on a very exposed outcrop.

It was good to be able to walk freely along such lovely coast.

However it was very rocky and up and down, so going was slow. In several places there were sloping boards with wooden treads – this is much steeper than it appears in this photo and the handrail was definitely needed.

Lovely views all the way on the outward leg.

The final view before turning back

Returning though the woodland was much quicker and easier, though muddy in places.

About a quarter of a mile from the car park was a ‘peat garden’. This turned out to be a couple of acres of peat bog with a lollipop shaped boardwalk. Nothing very interesting for those of us who have walked a lot of peat bogs in Britain, but British ones, to the best of my knowledge, never include fly catching pitcher plants like these with red pitchers. They were very small compared to the two I bought at Shrewsbury Flower Show this year, but this is very far north for plants that flourish over 1000 miles further south.

This is where I stayed in Ellsworth, another old house. In this instance the front porch is falling down and out of use. There is a shortage of building workers in Maine, so it may be a while before they can get it repaired. It was very well situated, only a 3 minute walk from the old main street with several good cafés.

The old part of town is surviving well, and there are huge retail parks etc on the outskirts.

The Union River is only 18 miles long, insignificant in US terms.

Ellsworth City Hall

The only negative is that Maine 3 and Maine 2 cross in Ellsworth, and there are logjams of traffic late afternoons.

After driving so far the day before I took it easy on the Saturday. There was a mini weekly farmers market to check out, then in the afternoon I went for a ride on the Downeast Scenic Railway, which has a mere 6 miles of track that runs from just past the river northwards to an old railway junction. It is entirely volunteer run and funded.

These are 2 of its 3 diesel locomotives. There are 2 huge plastic tunnels onsite where a steam engine owned by a partner organisation is being renovated. It is in such a bad state that they estimate it will be at least another 8 years before it can operate.

This was the loco that pulled our train.

There were 2 carriages plus a small open one. As you can see it was not a busy day. This carriage dates from 1910 and is the older of the two they possess. The seat backs swing, so you can keep your seat but change direction.

This is the smaller open carriage, sandwiched between the other two.

They claim to have repaired the track! I was glad that we only went at about 4 mph on this part of it. Later we managed 9 mph.

We spent at least 20 minutes shuffling around a ‘wye’ of tracks which enabled the whole train to turn through 180º  just by stopping, changing tracks and going a bit further then repeating several times. I couldn’t really see what was going on as there were trees close to all the pieces of track, but it definitely worked as we ended up where we started but facing in the opposite direction.

We then started on our 6 mile journey.

There were lots of men playing with real trains, and one woman who came through the carriages trying to sell bottled water and crisps. As they had said you could bring your own food, I don’t think she had any takers at all. And she did not get to wear a uniform either.

Shortly before we reached the bridge over the river there was a short stretch of double track. This was used to get the engine to the other end of the train. It then pushed us over the bridge, then pulled us all the way back to the beginning.

The route was mostly urban, so we crossed several roads. American railways do not seem to use barriers at all. Railway crossings all have signs, and some also have lights, but not many. Where there were no lights (say small residential roads) the engine driver had great joy in sounding 4 blasts on a bull horn (long, long, short, long) to warn motorists. Where there were lights, two ‘brakemen’ turned on the lights and stood either side of the tracks to stop the traffic. The train stopped, apparently to let them get off to do this. However we never stopped to pick them up again. This happened at two roads, twice over as we returned on the same track, and I noticed that they were going from one crossing to another in a car!

This just about justifies the adjective ‘scenic’

And this barely does

There was more like this, and everywhere else was much less attractive. I think they could have found a better name for the line.

However it is the only passenger railway still in use in Downeast Maine.

Every mile is marked by one of these stone posts, which show the distance along the old trackway to Portland, which was where the line originally started. It ended at Washington Junction where it now operates from. From there, there used to be another line to Calais (pronounced Calluss by Mainers) on the Canadian border. That line was discontinued a long time before the Portland line, and the wye was created then to turn the trains round. Not sure why they didn’t just install a turntable!

On the Sunday I decided to investigate the Penobscot peninsula just a bit further north of Ellsworth. This is named for a native american tribe that used to live there.

I did a short circular walk up Blue Hill (the nearest village has the same name!).

There was a nice start through a meadow (later the farmer was topping the weeds), then up through the usual woods, getting fairly steep near the top.

The actual summit was marked with this metal disk placed there by the US Coast & Geodetic Survey. There was no view at that point, but a little farther on there was a good viewpoint. Now I know what to look for I have found another.

The route was very busy with locals and visitors, many of them dog walkers, even though it was quite a cold and cloudy day, somewhat out of season.

I then indulged myself by visiting the ‘Good Life Center’ at Cape Rosier on the tip of the Penobscot peninsula.

Back in 1994 I investigated several possibilities for a change of lifestyle before settling for growing organic fruit and vegetables in north east Scotland. My research covered self sufficiency, which I rejected as requiring too many skills that I did not possess. It was also clear that you really need to have some capital behind you to fall back on.

These are Helen (1904-1995) and Scott Nearing (1883-1983) who (sort of) carried it out.

He was an economist who moved far to the left. She was his second wife, and they were both vegetarians (probably actually vegans). In the 1930s they set up in Vermont, using maple syrup as a cash crop. They also published his books that no publisher would print. They never produced more than 75% of what they ate though and certainly never clothed themselves.

They were forced to move from Vermont, I think by a road being built, and moved to Cape Rosier in Maine and started again, a little way uphill from the present centre.

When he was 95 and she was 74 they decided to move down the hill and build a new house and garden themselves. They did so, doing all the design and labour themselves.

House

Walled garden

Greenhouse

Compost bins

Helen was a believer in the supernatural and aliens from space. One of their friends designed and built what they called a Mongolian Yurt.

I have been to Mongolia and even slept in a yurt. The only similarity is the circular floor plan. Looks more like someone’s idea of a UFO to me.

On his 100th birthday Scott Nearing announced that he thought he had done all he could in life and it was time to die. So he just stopped eating and died 18 days later!

When Helen died, the property was formed into a Trust, and it is run by the Trustees. Every year they appoint two people to live on the property from Spring to October, to grow crops in the walled garden and to explain it all to any visitors. I was there one week before they close and there were at least five other visitors that afternoon.

I am certain they were very tough and worked hard, but equally they had money behind them, and Scott Nearing had learned many useful skills from his grandfather when young. However it was an interesting visit.

Next time I will cover Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, then a final post on a real fishing village on the coast and a few bits and pieces.