Maine

Completed

Acadian Village

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One of the finest historic sites in the country is Maine’s Acadian Village in the Acadian Culture area of Saint John Valley in the northern tip of the state, open from mid June to mid September 12-5pm. Over a dozen buildings were donated and moved here overlooking the river that marks the border with Canada. Due to a penchant for large families, the Catholic agricultural community grew quickly, and many descendants trace their roots back to the rough hewn wooden buildings gathered here. Nearby towns also preserve their Acadian heritage, and the area has a partnership with the national park service.

What makes the place special is that you can walk in each building, including an art gallery, a church, a dentist office, a barber shop and a one room schoolhouse, and, unlike, many historic sites, you can go upstairs too. The tour guide had called in sick, but I was happy to have the place to myself for a while. Many of the exhibits have tags explaining the provenance of each item, and I was able to open a trapdoor to see how water was collected by wooden pipes. Every room seems furnished with authentic pieces evoking the lives and stories of inhabitants long ago.

I have a very old memory of hiking along a railroad bed to an old station in a French speaking village up here, so I believe this area is a revisit for me. But now I come with knowledge of the Acadian or ‘Cajun’ diaspora from Nova Scotia to Louisiana and many other areas, having eaten buckwheat cakes in Quebec, and having danced to Zydeco in the Bayous down south. Evangeline, Longfellow’s epic poem about the 18th century expulsion of the Acadians, strikes me more deeply now that I have grown children. I also have a greater appreciation for the meticulous love required to assemble such a beautifully moving collection of memorabilia from a unique culture that still thrives today, albeit out of sight of those who deny our non-English heritage.

”Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.”

From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

Frances Perkins National Monument

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Mainers are tough. While other Americans talk incessantly, wear flashy clothes, and spend every day seeking attention, folks here say little, dress simple and get stuff done. It’s a pleasant sail from Boston to coastal Maine in the summer, downwind and northeasterly or ‘down east’ as the area became known. But the coast is rugged and dramatic, with rocky beaches, serious storms, cold winters and endless forests. Not the place for overly dramatic flights of fancy.

Perkins was tough too. Her family made bricks on their large piece of land overlooking the oyster farms on the Damariscotta River south of Newcastle—a “Slow Village” warns a road sign. An ancestor protested ‘taxation without representation’ and survived having his skull cracked by a ‘lobster back’ redcoat in return. Frances got an exceptional education, saw firsthand the social problems of her time, and buckled down to do the hard work of solving them.

She found social worker allies in alleys, witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, learned the tough politics of Tammany Hall, reinvented herself to join the powerful and got stuff done. She worked on worker safety, health and poverty with two Governors of New York, and was singularly qualified when FDR asked her to be his Secretary of Labor. Frances Perkins was the architect and driving force behind his New Deal, including minimum wage and social security.

Perkins had practical training, the courage of her convictions and a moral authority to improve the lives of those in need, especially during the Great Depression. She did not seek the spotlight, but she wielded more power than any other woman in US history. Have you benefited from having drinking water & clean restrooms at work, a sprinkler system & fire escape, unemployment insurance, or not having to work weekends? Then you should remember and thank Frances Perkins.

Her Brick House family home isn’t open yet, but there are photos & exhibits in the barn. And the walk through the woods and meadow to the river is lovely. With this new park unit I re-complete the North Atlantic region and finish all park units the contiguous 48 states, until the next one is designated.

Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument

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I figure I climbed Mt Katahdin in Maine over a dozen times as a kid, so I decided just to hike out here to Orin Falls (above), about 6 miles round trip. Surprisingly little has changed in the decades since I last visited. The logging roads are still long, unpaved, bouncy and largely unmarked, and they still have lean to’s for the Appalachian Trail that officially ends on the mountain. The Swift Brook Road one lane bridge is still spectacular, and there are still moose here, wandering out in the roads and ducking into the woods to avoid being photographed. (Definitely a “save this park for offline use” ahead of time if you’re using the NPS app, otherwise you could get lost. My watch kept asking me if I wanted to send an SOS.)

The counselors/ environmentalists who brought us here as summer campers to teach us about nature would be pleased that this is now a national monument, but they would see that not everything has remained unchanged. Man has dramatically altered our climate, so the species here are virtually all in decline. The environmentalists may have won a battle over the logging industry here, but we’re losing the war. On the tour road I stopped at Lynx Pond—one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen as a teenager—, but it was surrounded by dead trees and was much drier than I remember. The slow growing forests of Canada and the northern states are at risk of wildfire, if they’re not burning already. It is not enough to save places like this. We must also save the climate.

Saint Croix Island International Historic Site

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The island itself is off limits, but there’s a viewpoint, a visitor center, some statues, and a rocky cove. The lighter land in the background is Canada. As is often the case in New England, I visited here as a child, although I had forgotten. Rediscovery is rejuvenating.

The French were determined to establish a trading post here in 1604, but the winter killed half of them. One of the survivors was Samuel Champlain, who went on to found Port Royal in Nova Scotia—the first successful colony north of Florida—and Quebec. He also accurately mapped the coastline, opened fur trade with the natives and was de facto Governor of New France.

Roosevelt Campobello International Park

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The park is in Canada, but the bridge to the Campobello Island is from Maine. I use my passport card for trips like this, where I just drive across the border for a few hours. I also crossed the border into Juárez in January, so this is my third country by EV. The park is an affiliated park, jointly run by both the US and Canada. Obviously, the staff are very nice, polite and helpful.

The Roosevelts used to vacation here in summer, and one of their children was born here. FDR came down with polio here in his 30s, although he likely contracted it before arriving. The house tour is fascinating with various toys and artifacts of their summers, and there’s a large nature preserve which has exceptional views at Liberty Point. However, my favorite part is the Tea with Eleanor.

At 11 and 3 (Atlantic time is 1 hour ahead of Maine), the staff give visitors free tea and cookies in one of the cottages while they present the life and achievements of Eleanor Roosevelt. They describe her trip to Tuskegee, her wartime work with the Red Cross, her friendship with Mary McLeod Bethune, her concert at the Lincoln Memorial for Marion Anderson, and here work on the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to name a few. One of my favorite park experiences.

Acadia National Park

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Well, Acadia, I’m back! My first National Park visit was here, on Cadillac Mountain at sunrise, some decades ago as a happy camper. We wanted to be the first in the US to see the sunrise, and—assuming nobody was awake on West Quoddy Head a bit further east—we were. This visit, I decided to get a photo before sunset, since I had already done the cold, dark and windy sunrise. Then I had an excellent meal at Geddy’s in Bar Harbor and slept until it was already light.

Acadia, in Maine, has excellent hiking on old carriage trails around ponds and lakes around Mt Desert Island—which refers to an area of bald rocky top mountains, not sandy deserts. Also, there’s kayaking, tide pooling, a pebbly “sandy” beach, bicycling, star gazing and more. The park dates back to 1929, and it’s popular enough that you need to buy a timed-entry ticket online to drive to the mountaintop above. I just pulled over at an overlook, ordered from recreation.gov and drove up. This park inspired me to visit as many national parks as I can, so I’m glad to be back, even if it took me a few decades.