If you haven’t noticed, I can be entranced by place names. So for ten around here, let’s go.
- Bailey’s Mistake. Did they really land and then settle in the wrong spot?
- Boot Head. Try picturing that.
- Cutler. It even has a song about drilling into the bottom of barrels of wine confiscated during the Prohibition. And there’s a plank of wood as evidence.
- Destiny Bay. Also at Cutler, but what a name.
- Machias. Even as something-or-other disgusting kind of falls in the Native name.
- Magurrewock Mountain in the Moosehorn National Wildlife Preserve. At a modest 377-elevation, it still deserves attention, even if you can’t pronounce it.
- Meddybemps. It’s a town and a huge lake, but still, try repeating it three times.
- Moosehorn National Wildlife Preservation. Moose don’t have horns but antlers, despite the naming of a small river.
- Pope’s Folly. The small island just off the Old Friar monolith of Campobello Island, New Brunswick, seems to elude historic explanation. I’m not convinced it’s entirely religious.
- Treat Island. Named for an early settler, no matter the consequences, it’s still part of Eastport. And a fine IPA brew exists in its honor.