Snow comment needed.
Tag: Eastport
Just from one storm
We had generally cleaned up from earlier snowfalls, with only a light covering left in town, before last weekend’s blizzard blew in. And, oh, my, did it!
Officially, we had 19 inches, though stiff wind and wicked gusts left some patches surprisingly bare, along with most roofs, but then piled the offset precipitation in the lee.
We were also hit with a widespread electrical outage, which fortunately was repaired in about only an hour or a bit more. I was braced for two or three before getting worried. Oh, I do miss having a wood-fired stove, though one is in our plans. And we do have a generator on order, one that would have been in by now if only we weren’t trying to relocate its proposed placement to allow for a tiny future full-sunlight garden, which is, in fact, now buried by the snow plow driver. Life gets complicated.
Shoveling out the front entry allowed for lighthearted conversations with passers-by, not all of them walking dogs. One woman even showed me a phone picture of her son or son-in-law’s back door, which was floor-to-ceiling snow when they opened it. Yes, I was deeply grateful ours wasn’t anything like that theirs.
So far, according to the weather service, we’ve had about 48 inches so far this season, but this last storm was the doozy, as you can see from our digging out. But, wait, there’s more, as the cliche goes. Tomorrow and the day after are expected to deliver another foot or so, the figures are still bouncing around. Dial up, scale back. Yeah, folks around here are skeptical of the forecasts, for good reason, but not stupid, either.
Reminds me of the guy behind me at the IGA checkout before the last blast. He had baby spinach and some related healthy ingredients followed by an impressive selection of wine. And you thought it was always milk, bread, and canned soup that got cleaned out?
Now, the big question is this:
If we get hit by this much snow in the days ahead, where we will put it?
Traditionally, February and March can bring the big whammies in New England and neighboring Upstate New York. This could get interesting. Or even tedious.
Restoring a one-of-a-kind Civil War mural
Eastport’s Civil War veterans had good reason for naming their Grand Army of the Republic post after Major General George G. Meade. Not only had he commanded the successful Union troops at the Battle of Gettysburg, he was stationed in Eastport after war to curb the Fenian Rebellion, an Irish liberation attempt that had organized in the United States and conducted raids in neighboring Canada.
During his time in Eastport, he caught pneumonia and nearly died, and some residents got to know him first-hand. One – the wife of the owner of the house where he was staying – complained bitterly for years afterward about his poor aim in spitting tobacco juice all over her home. Let’s hope he was better with a firearm.
The local post wasn’t the only one named in his honor, by the way, and the organization itself became a powerful force within the Republican Party, helping to elect at least four its members to the White House and pressing for progressive legislation.
In 1881, the local post took over a two-story frame structure at 6 Green Street as its meeting hall. As its membership – limited to Union veterans of the Civil War – died off, the building passed to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars for its post. The building next door included a bowling alley, roller skating rink, and dance hall all fondly recalled by youths of the time.
The murals and ceiling were long hidden by a dropped ceiling and rediscovered only shortly before 2014, when the building was gifted to the Tides Institute and Museum of Art.
Tony Castro of New Gloucester, Maine, has been renovating the murals. Despite severe water damage, they may be the only surviving interior of their kind in the state.
The Tides Institute has also been gifted with important Civil War artifacts and documents, which may be displayed as the museum adds gallery space.
Come on down to where the town really connects
Locally, it’s known as the Breakwater, rather than the town pier or wharf or dock or safe harbor. And it’s the heart of Eastport, the centerpiece and focal point, as well as the home of the commercial fishing fleet and U.S. Coast Guard station.
It even broke down and collapsed in the winter of 2014, taking a few fishing boats with it.
Rebuilding was another matter. Officially, it reopened in September 2017, though details may have been completed later. The versions differ, up to “two winters before last.”
Eastport has the deepest natural harbor in the continental United States and is said to have rivaled New York’s in shipping at one point. I’ve seen photos of a cruise ship tied up here, and it truly overwhelmed the dock and town in its size.
The waterfront has – and had – other piers, with pilings that can still be seen – the old vaudevillian appearing steamship dock, for one, or the more recently gone Northeast Marina and Fuel Depot, as prominent examples. And, yes, definitely, what was once the world’s largest sardine cannery, as well as a solitary brick shell from the era still standing over the water with some folks hoping for a redevelopment before it caves in.
Significantly, there is the Cargo Terminal, our industrial shipping complex at Estes Head just around the bend. It has both high security and tractor-trailer traffic, so you don’t stroll around there.
Still, the breakwater at the end of Sullivan Street beckons us, even with its seemingly perilous heights above the water at low tide.
Late afternoon ripples
Our glorious dawn is much more than just sunrise
Except on overcast or stormy mornings, the early light of day in Eastport is amazing. Campobello Island in Canada blocks the first rays of the rising sun from striking us directly. Instead, the beam is deflected from the ocean into the air to become an ethereal rosy radiance, sometimes against a dark bank of clouds hovering off over the neighboring Fundy islands. And then, with that doubly-illuminated sky mirrored in the two-mile-wide channel separating Eastport from Campobello, the overhead color spreads out below as well.
When the sun itself finally swells into view, the blaze is nearly blinding, winter or summer.
Note to self: Keep sunglasses at hand.
Why L.L. Bean started making all those kayaks, canoes, and duck boots
Maine is bigger than you’d think, and half of it is still unpopulated.
In fact, the easternmost county in the USA is more than twice the size of Rhode Island or New York’s Long Island – or, if you prefer, bigger than the two of them put together. And it’s merely half of Downeast Maine, with Hancock County comprising most of the western flank.
Washington County, aka “Sunrise County,” has a population of only 32,000 – about the size of Juneau or Fairbanks, Alaska, or Dover, New Hampshire, my home of the previous 21 years. You know, the one I repeatedly referred to as a small city. My, how my perspective’s changing!
Most Downeast folks live near the rugged coastline, with the largest municipality in Washington County being Calais, the connection to mainland Canada, followed by Machias-East Machias, Eastport, Lubec, and Jonesport.
The four largest public high schools have about a hundred graduates a year – combined.
There are many reasons Downeast reminds me of the Far West, though it’s generally much wetter. In fact, 21 percent of the county is covered with water, much of it as big ponds running along the valleys between the low-elevation mountains. Many of these often island-specked bodies extend two to five miles in length and at least a mile across. And that’s before getting to the bogs and fens or wild rivers and tide meadows or marshes and swamps or prolific beaver ponds. The technical definitions vary, depending perhaps on how wet your shoes get. Quibble as folks might, the northern half of the county seems to be more lakes and wetlands than solid ground. I’m not sure if the Atlantic bays and coves even count in this tally. Quite simply, we’re surrounded by a lot of liquid, so watch where you step.
What also strikes me is how little development rings the shoreline of the lakes. Many have only a few “camps,” as we New Englanders call the cabins, trailers, or cottages and their docks, with the remainder in full, unspoiled forest. Make a bid, if you must.
It does make for a lot of unspoiled tranquility, for those who are so inclined, if you can deal with black flies and mosquitos. Moose often come as a bonus.
My wife has long insisted I have a face made for the 19th century
Among the artists-in-residence the Tides Institute invited to town last year was tintype photographer John DiMartino from Brooklyn.
He was certainly the most visible, with his big camera and tripod everywhere and his workaholic hours. He was enthralled with the place, its light, and its people.
Curiously, his medium gave everything he shot a back-in-history quality, as well as reversing the subject before him.
Here’s what he did to me.
For more of his portfolios and other characters he captured in town, check out his website, johndimartinojr.com.
Nerida alone in the snow
Sea smoke
Driven by low temperatures and low humidity, vapors known as sea smoke rise from the warmer waters of the sea below. Not that they’re anywhere what you or I would call warm. Still, some mornings you cannot even see the water from any distance but only a churning cake frosting, and when it races in a stiff breeze, the effect is eerie, like looking down on a storm.
Jnana's Red Barn 