It’s like a state fair in the hippie, organic, granola-mind reality. There’s no midway with carnival rides, for sure, but for truly inquiring-minds folk, it’s an autumn equinox slash harvest-time celebration.
Yes, let’s declare a true Thanksgiving, minus turkeys.
Shortened in its post-Covid resurrection, this year’s gathering in Unity, Maine, is the premiere event of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), and runs Sept. 23 through 25.
Now that we’re living in Maine, we can identify as members and look forward to attending, even though in New Hampshire we were surrounded by devotees. Yes, it’s that boffo.
As an aside, I can attest to enjoying my best-ever souvlaki ever, from a wood stove, no less, at an earlier fair. Gee, and I hate standing in line. It was worth it.
This is definitely a hippie-vision positive manifestation of the radical mindset of nirvana. And there’s no honky-tonk.
This year’s poster will no doubt be displayed on a wall of our new abode.
I thought the guy was kidding when he pulled up in town and confided that he was going to repaint Eastport’s iconic waterfront fisherman statue, changing the blue coat to a yellow slicker. I was sworn to secrecy at the time, but the next day, there he was, in full light, doing the deed.
The somewhat surreal, but shall we say fiberglass de facto emblem of the city, really got a fashion update. Or upgrade, in my opinion. Seems I’m not alone. Yes, that yellow slicker fits much better.
Just look.
My kudos to Patrick Keough of Seward, Nebraska, for something that even included an imaginative eyepatch.
Some folks, however, are seeing a similarity with the Gorton’s guy down in Gloucester on Cape Ann, Massachusetts.
I think they have that backwards.
Well, here’s how he looked before. The figure was a leftover from a television series set in the town.
Eastport’s tap water last summer took on a greenish color and a definite off-taste. It got to the point that we started running everything we’d be drinking or using for cooking through an activated charcoal filter.
The explanation was that the supply came from a large but shallow lake a dozen miles away and that every summer the algae bloomed. The private company that provides water to the city then had to heighten its use of chemicals for treatment, resulting in the offensive character.
Water to the Sipayik reservation also came from the same source but was delivered via a different pipeline and was, by reports, much more troubling.
In its attempts to redress the issue, the company announced it would be using an alternative to treat the water, and I have to say we haven’t noticed the off-taste or discoloration this year. We haven’t yet seen a chemical analysis yet, however, or heard about the current situation on the reservation.
Still, public water quality is something most Americans take for granted.
Funny how often we overlook a problem, even when it has, as I hope, been clearing up.
Trying to get only three items to the dinner table at the same time had me thinking of this the other day.
It wasn’t like I had eight or nine tables awaiting some miracle, this was only me. The mathematical probabilities became rather staggering.
Quite humbly, it’s something every household more or less expects at least once a day, and it’s much more demanding than most of us assume.
My wife, bless her, is a wizard at this, as are our daughters.
But now, back to the rest of the universe.
This is one more case of where timing is everything.
It had me recalling my first visit to New Hampshire, where my traveling companion and I had to await breakfast on a one-order-at-a-time prepared by an amateur.
Next time you venture out to eat, please remember this.
There may be no excuse for much of the overpriced mediocrity that emerges after you ordered, but please, please, be aware of the skill when things do come together seemingly as expected. And do react appropriately, when the check comes.
The development of the West – meaning out to the Mississippi River, mostly – propels changes in the balance of population by 1850.
New York (515,547) is without question the largest metropolis, boosted in part by commerce via the Erie Canal, transporting goods to and from the Great Lakes and Midwest.
Baltimore (169,054) has leapt to second-place. The growing Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is a factor. The city takes advantage of being the closest Eastern Seaboard port to the Ohio Valley and its agricultural abundance.
Boston (136,881). The textiles mills of New England have to be a factor in the city’s prosperity and position.
Philadelphia (121,376). Its clout would be enhanced if its three suburbs in the Top 20 are tallied in, pushing it to second place.
New Orleans (116,375). The nation’s center of gravity has shifted. Nearly as large is
Cincinnati (115,435). Migrants from urban Germany make a difference.
Brooklyn (96,838) is a thriving independent city just across the waters from booming Manhattan.
St. Louis (77,860). Not just the gateway to the Far West, it’s also a center of urban German migrants.
Spring Garden district, Pennsylvania (58,894). Adjacent to Philadelphia.
Albany, New York (50,763) is active on the Erie Canal.
The next ten are also illuminating: 11, Northern Liberties district, Pennsylvania (47,223); 12, Kensington district, Pennsylvania (46,774); 13, Pittsburgh (46,601); 14, Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky (43,194); 15, Charleston, South Carolina (42,985); 16, Buffalo (42,261); 17, Providence, Rhode Island (41,513); 18, Washington, District of Columbia (40,001); 19, Newark, New Jersey (38,894); and Southwark district, Pennsylvania (38,799).
Altogether, six of the 20 largest cities are west of the Appalachians. Three of those are on the Ohio River. And, in contrast, New England has just two.
Most of Eastport’s small population resides in a semicircle around the Breakwater downtown. Quoddy Village stands apart, separated by a narrow neck around Carrying Place Cove. It also fronts Half Moon Cove, with a dead-end road to the former toll-bridge to the mainland. The place feels like an island of its own and is easily overlooked when you drive into town. The highway skirts it, and what you see is mostly former industrial, rusty, and all that.
A former factory looking for new uses gives no clue to passers-by of the residential neighborhood behind it.Chimneys are all that remain of the administrative headquarters and even a school that supported a federal project in the 1930s.
Until 1935, this was farmland, but then an ambitious but ecologically disastrous public works project took off, one to dam up most of Passamaquoddy and Cobscook bays to transform their vast tidal energy into electricity. A large but confusing working model of the engineering proposal can be viewed at the historical society’s gift shop in downtown Eastport. (The room-size three-dimensional map is water in and water out, mostly. If you don’t already know the area, it’s baffling – and the presentation is aimed at today’s tourists. I still think it would make for a really interesting model railroad layout.) The short-lived boondoggle’s most lasting contribution, apparently, was the causeway connecting Eastport to the mainland by filling in a former railroad line. No more toll bridge and longer loop. Oh, yes, and it also had a noticeable negative impact on the Old Sow, the world’s second-largest whirlpool, perhaps even pushing it more into Canada.
Significantly, the project needed housing for its estimated 5,000 workers, and that led to the construction of Quoddy Village.
Even though the plug was pulled a year later on what would have been the world’s largest tidal dam – it did require Canadian cooperation, among other things – 128 single-family, two-family, and four-family houses had been constructed, along with three large dormitories with dining rooms for single workers, plus a fire station, a hospital, a heating plant, a school, a large mess hall, and a large administration building that included a theatre, library, and sub post office. In other words, a small city unto itself. Even though the homes had been designed as temporary, many of them are still occupied today. Still, for a brief time, the village was home to a thousand people.
More evidence of abandoned projects, also seen from the state highway.
From 1938 to 1943 the National Youth Administration used Quoddy to train 800 city youth a year in vocational trades. It was also a Navy Sea Bee base named Camp Lee-Stephenson during World War II.
And then? It morphed into a residential neighborhood.
Its best-known attraction today is David Oja’s colorful and eccentric Bazaar, a gift shop that includes what’s arguably the best gourmet wine and cheese selection in Washington County. Think of it as a blast of Puerto Rico, Brooklyn, and Provincetown rolled into one. Who knows what the original function of the building was, we can be sure it was not nearly anything like this.
The one-of-a-kind Bazaar, seemingly out in the middle of nowhere.Today it’s mostly residential. I think of it as a small suburb.Anyone else see potential here?Yes, there’s a mix of housing, some of it from the ’30s.Much of it is also a working neighborhood. I’m all in favor of working from home, when you can.
To one side of Eastport’s Quoddy Village is Rossport by the Sea, a remarkable – and reasonably priced – 80-plus acre family-friendly retreat created in 1987 by Ross Furman when he purchased the dilapidated and vacant 1790 Captain Jacob Lincoln farmhouse.
This is your greeting from the old Toll Bridge Road.
It’s definitely not your average motel, hotel, or cabins and campground, either.
The resort’s 32 bedrooms in 12 private sites have access to more than a mile and a half of shoreline and seemingly endless views. There’s also an organic farm working part of the grounds.
If you’re thinking of a visit to Eastport, I’d suggest booking there first, May through October. Not that there aren’t some other good options. Or maybe I’m just being envious.
Still, just walking around the grounds is delightful.
This lane leads into the grounds.Here’s what you’ll find in one of the barns.Here’s one of the cabins available for rent. The lawn leads down to the ocean.A whale vertebra sits on the deck of one of the cabins.I love the quirkiness of sculpture like this puffin.How about a decorated canoe? Go ahead, click on it for the inside view. I hope.
That said, you may want to put it on your list of vacation destinations to consider for next year and then make your reservations early, should you desire.
What distinct accommodations would you suggest for a traveler?
Jnana's Red Barn 