Tag: Downeast

Looking today, it’s hard to envision this as a center of shipbuilding

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
This cove is where Caleb Stetson Huston became Eastport’s most noted shipbuilder and marine architect. Here he created more than one hundred vessels from 1840 to 1870, surpassing the number of his father, Robert Huston, had built. He was no doubt responsible for repairing many more.

A third-generation shipbuilder, C.S. Huston at one point owned four shipyards on Shackford Cove – his father’s, on the south side of the water, and the William H. Hall and Jacob Shackford yards on its north side, as well as Aymar’s spar shop at the South End bridge, which has long since been filled in.

And how it can look six hours later.

As an innovative entrepreneur, he early on erected a steam capstan to haul boats out of the water, along with a 600-foot marine railway made of thick beams set up as interlocking boxes filled with stones.

Huston lived in a Second Empire style house overlooking the yards, which he purchased from Hall in the late 1850s.

Part of the C.S. Huston house on Third Street incorporates a section of the “Red Store” that John Shackford erected in 1787 at the foot of Shackford Street.

The shift to ships built of steel rather than wood changed everything. Maine had seemingly endless lumber at hand, but not steel. That also allowed for bigger vessels, meaning fewer could suffice for shipping. Finally, with the advent of the automobile, passengers stopped relying on steamships and that, too, ceased at the corner of this cove. But not before the world’s largest sardine cannery extended from its shore – a building 250 feet long.

At high tide it can appear to be quite scenic.

It seems so quiet today.

The cruise ships are coming!

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As our City in the Bay has been redefining itself, in part thanks to its lively arts scene and surrounding natural wonder, tourism has been ticking up, even in the face of Covid-19.

Part of Eastport’s appeal is the deepest natural harbor in the continental U.S., a port that at one time, back when there was a lot of smuggling, was the second-busiest in the nation – something a shift in federal tax laws and heightened enforcement soon curbed.

Still, we have a long history of steamship travel, right up to the auto age.

And now, this year, hooray, we’re even anticipating the return of passenger vessels, albeit of the increasingly popular “small” ship variety rather than the floating cities that can overrun a seaport.

First, the 210-passenger, 325-foot Pearl Mist is scheduled for five visits, most of them 3½ hours ashore, as part of a seven-night round-trip out of Portland. Other stops on its Fundy Bay circuit include Rockland and Bar Harbor in Maine, and St. Andrews, St. John, and Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick. Fares run from about $4,000 and up.

Second, in September we host the innovative 530-passenger, 459-foot Roald Amundsen expedition ship on a 10-hour stopover. Originally, this was to be part of an adventurous 44-day navigation across the Arctic Ocean in a Northwest Passage venture from Vancouver, British Columbia, an ultimate bucket-list voyage. But the fares, starting around $57,000, may have been too pricy for the Covid-antsy market, causing it to be broken up into segments – the first ending at Nome, Alaska, and the second continuing from there on to Greenland and ending at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Eastport is now tucked in as the cherry in a shorter, more affordable, New England dessert.

More exciting is the news that the Amundsen is now scheduled to return next year as part of an even more audacious 94-day cruise – a Pole-to-Pole adventure that will originate in Vancouver, British Columbia, and traverse the Northwest passage before coming to Eastport and then continue on to equatorial warmth, the Panama Canal, the Pacific coast of South America, and finally shore visits on Antarctica. Think of going from icy summer to the edge of autumn in New England to the tropics and on to spring while exploring three continents. The lowest fares figure out around $600 a day.

And little Eastport will be part of that.

In Maine, the bulk of the cruise action hits Bar Harbor, at the edge of popular Acadia National Park, where frequently two ships a day debark during the summer season, and in Portland, which gets especially busy during the fall foliage season.

We’re really not set up for the mega-cruise vessels that have dominated the industry. Let’s see how our emerging niche shapes up.

 

Nesting osprey

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment
Mama’s head keeps a vigilant watch. For some reason, osprey often build their big nests atop power poles. This one is in Cutler.
Once alarmed, she’ll take flight, raise a racket, and threaten to attack. So beware. As I learned in East Machias.
Here’s an active nest in Princeton, atop a post in a human family’s yard, actually.
In Pembroke, there’s this impressive nest atop a piling at a landing. Almost looks like the structure was built for these majestic birds.

The Tides Institute as a vehicle of preservation and change

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The catalyst of re-envisioning Eastport is the Tides Institute and Museum of Art, founded in 2002 by director Hugh French. Its mission has been in acquiring and presenting wide-ranging collections of artworks and historical documents reflecting the coastal region, as well as educational and preservation efforts that include eight significant buildings in the town – four of them in the downtown district – and guest artists residencies each summer.

The leadership is rounded out by French’s wife, Kristin McKinlay, who is director of exhibitions and the StudioWorks residency program, and by Jennifer Dolanski, Artsipelago/program specialist, plus eight trustees, only one of them living in Eastport. The others reside in places like Boston and New York City.

There are also concerts in its 1818 church that housed the Free Will Baptists, plus other events at its 1828/1829 Seaman’s Church, which housed the Congregationalists.

Oh, yes, every New Year’s Eve there’s the maple-leaf drop at 11 pm Eastern – midnight for our Canadian neighbors – followed by the giant sardine an hour later. Both the maple leaf and sardine were commissioned creations.

I suppose TIMA was inspired in part by the Island Institute, founded in 1983 to help Maine islands from Portland to Acadia tackle pressing environmental and socio-economic issues. The Rockland-based organization’s impressive publications include the annual magazine, Island Journal, as well as data analyses to guide public policy. Its focus is on sustainable livelihoods and communities in changing times that include rising sea levels, bringing together marginalized communities, and economic survival.

The heart of the enterprise is in a former bank on Water Street downtown.

In contrast, for now, TIMA’s focus seems to be more on art and architecture, principally – especially the small downtown on the National Register of Historic Places.

In essence, it’s building a future rooted in the past but not stuck there. It’s really the way every art moves, too, no matter how revolutionary some of the leaps may seem.

Renovation of the former Masonic lodge downtown is designed to house additional exhibition space and perhaps mixed use upstairs.

I do have to wonder whether TIMA has taken on too much. The restorations appear to have stalled, perhaps before Covid set in, and both of the churches need significant repair, inside and out. The institute has, all the same, helped distinguish Eastport as a fine arts center in a visually stimulating setting in Maine, an identity that may attract new residents in a time of national population change.

Frankly, it was one of the things that lured me here, as well as my wife and elder daughter.