‘Maine’ Archive

Inhabiting the Poor Farm 1 October 2012 No Comments

They say the place is haunted.  And when you encounter the Vinalhaven Poor Farm for the first time, it’s easy to understand why.  It’s a rambling sort of building, with long halls and odd staircases, with forgotten rooms and creaking doors that won’t stay closed.  The oldest part of the house is a traditional Cape […]

Drive In Down East 4 September 2011 No Comments

ME State Route 102 is a two-lane highway that stretches like a lazy figure 8 across the western lobe of Mount Desert Island.  It was built in the early 1930s as a continuation of the highway that connected Augusta, the state capital, with down east, via Belfast and Ellsworth along the coast.  In the late […]

I could live here 25 February 2011 No Comments

An article in the  New York Times about Derek Diedricken’s Gypsy Junker microshelter reminded me how much I like a hut myself. I didn’t really need reminding–I live with a large Scott Peterman photograph of an ice fishing hut in Maine (Sabbath Day Lake III, 1998)–but the article did get me thinking about how long […]

A Post-Script on Blueberries in Winter 23 December 2009 No Comments

It may seem odd to still be writing about Maine nearly four months after my return from Vactionland, but the Pine Tree State has a way of staying with you.  While this is due mostly to the essential quality of the place (see Genius Loci in Acadia), the quantity of made in Maine products that […]

Genius Loci in Acadia 29 August 2009 No Comments

On an island off the coast of the North American mainland, near the narrows of Somes Sound, across from Norembega Mountain, between Fernald Point and Clark Point, a few steps from the Atlantic, in Southwest Harbor, Maine (at 44.278º North and 68.311º West, to be precise), one is easily, happily, and phenomenologically seduced by the […]