More about Maine

"Whenever I hear of places with names like Pretty Marsh, I wonder if there's another town called Ugly Swamp, just down the road." said a witty friend of ours, when he saw a picture I'd taken of the Pretty Marsh on Mount Desert Island in Maine last month. It was all attractive, though.

We landed at Bar Harbor airport, BHB, crossing the water on the final approach in what Chris calls "squirrel-y" winds (ahead of a storm front) after an exciting flight from Ottawa on Sunday, June 23rd, via Sherbrooke and Bangor. Sherbrooke to Bangor had taken half an hour less than estimated, because we'd been allowed a direct heading across the non-active Military Operations Area we might have had to avoid, and because of a tailwind of 50 knots, we'd made an unprecedented 150 knot ground speed. I'm glad the flight was that much shorter. It was turbulent up there, due to the gusts. The speed of our journey meant that we landed at BGR well ahead of our given arrival time at the immigration point. Fortunately, the border guard was friendly, allowing us out of the plane immediately and hardly glancing at our passports, let alone asking a heap of official questions. We appreciated that. The last hop from Bangor to Bar Harbor also threw us around in the air.

View from outside our room at the Acadia Sunrise Motel

BHB (officially named Hancock County airport) is actually 12 miles away from Bar Harbor, in a township called Trenton. Having studied the map before we came I had booked us into a motel hardly more than walking distance from the airport but a long way from anywhere else, so the first thing we did on arrival was to pick up a car. The rental was expensive, probably because many of their usual clients land in private jets to pop into their 35-room cottages on the coast, and can afford anything. The Acadia Sunrise Motel was not of that ilk, but the polite staff there gave us a room for $69 (US dollars) with a bath and everything else we needed, apart from breakfast; we drove into the "village" of Bar Harbor for that, down Bar Harbor Road, crossing the causeway onto Mount Desert Island, the largest island off the coast of Maine. We did this drive several times.

The island's rather odd name comes from the 17th century French explorer Samuel de Champlain who called it l’isle des monts-déserts when, sailing by, he noticed the bare, rocky summits of these hills, nowadays the Cadillac Mountain area of the Acadia National Park. Mount Desert has been a hideaway or playground for the wealthier residents of New England since the 19th century. In 1947 a great fire raged across the island forests, destroying most of the posh cottages; many were never rebuilt.

The Egg Rock Light

The bay we sailed across on June 25th (Tuesday morning) --- from the dock below the Atlantic Oceanside hotel, with a party of old folk on a coach trip from Pennsylvania --- is known as Frenchman's Bay. We were on a pleasure boat called The Acadian that took us round the Porcupine Islands, through calm water and, round a headland of Mt. Desert Island, into choppier water --- "It's like a roller coaster here sometimes!"  which inclines to make passengers queasy --- beyond which the open Atlantic could be seen. Woollen blankets on board kept the cold wind out. Swinging back round, with the waves calming down again, we headed toward the Egg Rock with the Egg Rock Light on it. Here was a colony of seals, flopping about amongst the seaweed and looking from the distance amazingly like smooth, pale brown rocks. I noticed a couple of those "rocks" shuffling into the water for a swim, but most were sleepy, too lazy for swimming, except for the young ones already in the water with their whiskered noses poking out. An American astronaut had been the lighthouse keeper's son, on this island. The commentator kept up his educational spiel from the top deck. Formerly a high school teacher, he did this with plenty of humour, lecturing about how a lobster gets into a lobster pot, demonstrating with a plastic model. "And if you examine its claws closely you can work out where the lobster comes from. Look, here we are: Made in China!"

Back at the islands in Frenchman's Bay, now sailing close to their cliffs, we could see that these rocks are stratified, with very ancient layers at the bottom, Precambrian. I don't know much about geology; that is what our knowledgeable commentator said. The rocks had formed into a natural bridge at one point. Early settlers tried to inhabit the islands, a good defensive position, but what they could do there, other than fish, was limited. Now they are called the Porcupine Islands because they look like those animals from a distance. The cliffs here and on the main island are the home of bald eagles; we saw several perching by their nests.

The Porcupine Islands, seen from above Bar Harbor (Wikimedia image)

At low tide, one of the Porcupine Islands can be accessed on foot. It's not a good idea to linger there for long. We saw the seabed starting to appear, at sunset on our third evening there.

Bar Harbour in the early evening

During the two days we were on Mount Desert Island, we explored it by car and on foot, Bar Harbor itself, pleasant to walk around, with its Shore Path, parks and gardens, well appointed eateries and so on, the beach at Seal Harbor, the small towns of Northeast Harbor and Southwest Harbor with their marinas, along the scenic road up Somes Sound and down the other side to Bass Harbor Head, where an old lighthouse stands on the rocks. We left the car there for a walk to the lighthouse, not much of a walk, and the rocks were crowded with sightseers. We did get the Pretty Marsh to ourselves until a party of kayakers turned up, but again could only walk a few paces along the rocky shore, no trails there.

At Seal Harbor, Mt. Desert Island, Maine

Road by Somes Sound

To hike properly, maybe we should have used the trails of the Acadia National Park, paying the hefty entrance fee and finding a parking spot, but as we could see from the lines of glinting vehicles visible on the roads there, this would have been difficult on this sunny day, perhaps impossible, certainly frustrating and time consuming, which was not what we wanted. We decided not to bother, and kept driving. It would be a good idea to return in the off-season, although that could mean encountering fog or high winds.

By the shore at the Lamoine State Park

We wondered if Elsworth would be worth seeing on the mainland, but there was not a lot there. In the end we discovered the Lamoine State Park, beyond Trenton, which did have a reasonable trail, allowing us a walk through the trees and parkland, at East Lamoine, where there was a deserted pebbly beach, a quiet campsite, and a jetty.

I have already described our return to Ottawa in a previous blog post.