Tag: Photos

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 Its mission has been in acquiring and presenting wide-ranging collections of artworks and historical documents reflecting the coastal region, as well as educational and preservation efforts that include eight significant buildings in the town – four of them in the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.

Heavenly rest? The Pepsi sign always raises a chuckle

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
The Cloud 9 Motel sign stands out along State Route 9. Initially, the name seemed to reflect some misplaced hip ’60s jargon. What we encounter is far from a plush, consummate destination. Eventually, I connected the “9” to the highway. Ha-ha.
As you can see, there’s no motel, just a sand pit, on Maine Route 9 – the Airline Highway – four miles west of Wesley.
A postcard shows the place in its prime in the ’70s. It had eight heated motel units and sold gasoline, groceries, beer to take out, and light lunches in what it touted as the heart of some of the finest hunting and fishing in Maine. Many of the sportsmen returned annually, but times change. The buildings came down in 2015.

Deep Cove boatyard  

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
Eastport has the only big boatyard between Halifax and Bar Harbor, and, as they boast, the cheapest one on the East Coast.
Moose Island Marine Inc. operates the sprawling yard out of a modest office.
It’s a legacy from earlier days when shipbuilders popped up everywhere along the shoreline.
I do have to learn to identify the various boat styles.

 

 

 

The road was named before there were even airplanes

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Except for a highway way up north, there are only two east-west routes across sprawling Washington County, either one requiring an hour-and-a-half drive from Eastport to the county line and the rest of the nation (and that’s including a shortcut, if you can find it).

One is U.S. 1, which more or less follows the coastline – or the Bold Coast, as it’s also designated. It passes through some lovely seaport towns and includes spectacular views of Mount Desert Island and its Acadia National Park as well as the northern reaches of Penobscot Bay.

The other is more direct. State Route 9, or Airline Highway, stretches 90 miles from Bangor to the Canadian border at Calais. Much of it passes through uninhabited townships of scraggly forest and swamp or along ridges with blueberry barrens and views that stretch for miles. It carries major truck traffic to and from New Brunswick.

There aren’t many services along the way. This is the most prominent.

But Airline? For a road?

The name, it turns out, comes from the Air Line Stagecoach company, which began using the oxcart trail in 1857. At the time, “air line” was a term for the straightest line between two points – or, in another common phrase, “as the crow flies.”

Its backers hoped to encourage settlement and economic development along the route, but the land was too rocky for commercial farming and the blackflies and mosquitoes could make even summer miserable. Later, mechanization reduced employment in the logging industry, depleting what little population there was.

Today, some stretches look like this. This is eight miles without any utility lines.