For a while now I’ve wanted to direct potential visitors to a video about the Maine Acadia area they could view in the comfort of home. I believe that such a video would give folks a good reason to come and experience our beautiful area for themselves.  Acadia Always is a fairly new effort (released Jan, 2010) narrated by Acadia fan and former NBC reporter Jack Perkins. Besides Jack’s predictable stunning flyovers, the film adds a great historical section covering the glacial period all the way to present day. For those whose connection is too slow, the video can be purchased at Amazon for $19.95.

Acadia National Park from Maine Office of Tourism on Vimeo.

A quiet celebration of small sail and rowing boats took place at Lamoine State Park on July 28- Aug 1. This fifth annual Small Reach Regatta has grown too big for it’s former hosts and so moved a few more miles downeast to our spacious State Park on Frenchman Bay.  Sponsored by The Small Reach Regatta Club and Traditional Small Craft Association Downeast Chapter, the well organized event drew small boat enthusiasts from at least (by casual count) eight states. The typical craft was of wooden construction, traditional design and about 15 to 20 feet in length.

The Regatta was not advertised as a spectator event, but kept quiet; for the benefit of the participants. I had no idea it was happening until it was well under way. Next year I’ll know better.  Most boats were trailered in and by the time I got there most were back on their trailers for the evening. Still, it was a nice opportunity to feast the eyes on the craftsmanship afforded by close inspection. The boat below for example, is actually two halves bolted together along a bulkhead so that it can stow in a smaller space. Other boats were just like fine furniture or works of art. My pictures don’t do them justice.

There are more Regattas this month. The Eggemoggen Reach Regatta, about an hour away from Bar Harbor, will happen on the 7th. It is a serious race among sailing wooden boats at least 26 feet in length. The wooden boat culture of the Maine coast is due in no small part to the presence of Woodenboat Magazine and the Woodenboat School,  located at the finish line of the Regatta, near Brooklin Maine.

Nearby Castine is hosting the Castine Classic Yacht Regatta on August 5th in cooperation with the Eggemoggen Reach Regatta. Boats will race from Castine to Camden. When it’s time to get to Brooklin, the fleet will engage in the Camden Classic Yacht Race on August 6. At the end of August (27-29) the Shipyard Cup will take place in Boothbay and will not be limited to wooden craft.

Tidepools are pockets or pools of ocean water trapped in rocky ledges after the tide has gone out.    Low Tide happens twice a day around Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park .   In order to explore this small world, you have to time your visit just right, as it’s only possible to safely visit this small world about 2 hours  around low  tides.   However one of these will most likely be at night, so really there is only one chance each day.   This next week these are the times you can visit the tide pools.

So if you are visiting this week, you have some great middle of the afternoon time between 2:00  P.M. and 5:00 P.M. to visit a tide pool.   This low tide time will keep cycling about an hour later each day, so check on the best time for you right before you plan on your visit.

Second, you need to be careful, as this environment is often slippery. Wear sturdy shoes with good gripping soles.     If you bring a see-through container with you and fill it with cold ocean water, you can observe some of these creatures from the bottom up.

The facts in this article came from a book called Discovering Acadia A Guide for Young Naturalists By Margaret Scheid   A copy for you to read yourself can be found at SeaCat’s Rest.

The most numerous creatures there are the barnacles.  They are one of the first things you will step on while looking for a tide pool.    If you look at them closely, they resemble tiny volcanoes.   Their shells are grayish white with sharp edges, and they cement themselves permanently to rocks (they are at the bottom of this collection of shells photographed at our shore)  .   If you want to see them in action, look for a tide pool where they will be under water.   If they are not “out” swish the water a bit with your hand for a few seconds and they come out to eat the plankton (microscopic food) that you have stirred up.   Out of water their shells are closed up tight, in the water they use six pairs of feathery legs to sweep food into their mouths.

The next creature most abundant are the Dog Whelks.      Looking like a snail with a pointy end, Whelks are carnivorous animals that love to eat the barnacles.  They have a drill like tongue called a radula (rad-you-la), it lets them bore through the shells of the animals they like to eat.   Their shells come in many colors and patterns.

Mussels will be found often too numerous to count, other times, hardly there.  They have black shells and are also vegetarians, feeding on plankton, but they use siphons to filter their food from the water.   They act like straws, bringing in sea water.   As long as they are under water and not disturbed, you can watch them feeding through the two siphons.   Under crashing waves, they attach to rocks with their strong Byssal (Bis-all) threads to hold them in place.   Adult mussels can be up to 4 inches long.    Mussels also get eaten by those dog whelks you read about just before this paragraph, look for a small hole in a shell and you know what happened.   Mussels are also fed upon by starfish, who may look pretty, but attack shell fish just the same.   This picture is a batch of baby mussels.   For scale, the shiny thing in the picture (to the left) is a quarter.

Have you found any green or brown weeds that seem to be growing on rocks?    Look in the picture with the quarter.   That is  Rockweed.   There are two kinds around here.   The Knotted Wrack, which looks like a rope with hollow bumps or knots called air bladders (on the left in the picture).   And the Bladder Wrack which has air bladders too but flat branches (on the far right).   Like most seaweeds they have no roots.   They absorb the water, carbon dioxide and nutrients they need through their surface.   Through the process of photosynthesis (fo-toe-sin-tha-sis) the rockweeds use the sun’s energy to make their own food.   The bright green item in the little mussel picture is another kind of sea weed called sea lettuce.

Sea Stars would be rare to find in a tide pool, but if you kayak in front of SeaCat’s Rest at low tide (or out by the big rock around Old Point) you will find them hanging out on the sea floor.   Mussels are among their favorite foods.   They have to work hard to get that shell open, they squeeze the shell really hard, and get one of their feet inside and then eat the sides of the shell for dinner.   The big spot on top is called a madreporite (Mad-ra-por-ite).   This opening lets water in and out of a sea stars’ many tube feet so they can move around.   The underside of  each foot has many tubes that help sea stars grab onto things and move about, or stay in one place as they wish.

The green round spike thing you might see is called a sea urchin.   Of course, while they look scary, they are not mean.   They have tube feet like their cousins the sea stars.  While they are under water, their feet often stretch out beyond the spines, holding on to rocks and helping the sea urchin to travel.    After they die the  sharp spines fall off and a beautiful delicate shell, called a test is all that is left.   At sand beach in Acadia National Park, the sand includes many broken green spines, see if you can find a few.   Gulls love to eat the  insides of sea urchins-and so do sushi lovers.   Look for  five, white teeth underneath.   They’re great for eating seaweeds and animal remains.

Periwinkles.   Called ‘Winkles”  you find them  just about everywhere in the tide pools.   They are vegetarians, that eat plants, especially algae (Al-jee) that they scrape from rocks with a radula (file-like tongue)  You can tell winkles apart from  the carnivorous dog whelks by a teardrop shaped opening.   Look carefully.   If you touch a winkle, they will retreat into their shell.   All you’ll see is a door-like operculum(o-pur-cue_lum) which keeps the animal inside moist and protected.   There are three kinds of Periwinkles in Acadia.   Common Periwinkles, Smooth periwinkles and rough periwinkles (above high tide)  The biggest are the common periwinkles.

Limpets are vegetarian snails too.   Because of the shape of their shell they are also called chinaman’s hats.   They have one shell and no protective operculum like the periwinkles.   Instead, their foot acts like a suction cup, holding on tightly to rocks.   This keeps limpets from drying out at low tide, or getting knocked around at high tide.

Last but not least are the crabs.   Look for them under rockweeds and boulders, hiding from hungry sea gulls.   There are four kinds of crabs around here.   Rock crabs, have a smooth-edged shell.   Jonah crabs have a rough edged shell, green crabs, and hermit crabs that live in the empty shells of snails after they die.   As they grow, they look for bigger shells.

Once a popular way to get to Acadia for vacation, train service has been absent  for a quarter century. Originally starting at Brewer, the  train used to stop at Hancock Point where passengers would hop onto a steamship to take them to Bar Harbor. For the first time in over 25 years train whistles will be heard in Ellsworth, Maine.     Starting Saturday July 31, 2010  you can climb aboard for a ride.

Leaving only twice a day on weekends (on Saturday and Sunday at 10:30 and 1:30pm), who could resist a scenic 90 minute ride in a classic ca. 1916 passenger car?    It’s an experiment after all.   So if you are a train buff, come support the efforts of a group of 500+ volunteers who love trains just like you do. They call themselves The Downeast Rail Heritage Preservation Trust.

Like my brother-in-law who has much of the Colorado train system modeled in his basement, this effort is a labor of love for the local die-hard train buffs, just full scale. Rides last 90 minutes and travel to Ellsworth Falls, reverse and then to Washington Junction and back to the depot. The depot is at the site of the old one; on Maine Street just northeast of High Street. But tickets can be purchased at Cadillac Mountain Sports at 32 High Street; since the boarding platform is between the two sites, it’s best to park by the store. The ride costs $12 for adults and $8 for kids 4 to 12. For a special ride, try the caboose for $17 and $13.

Future plans call for extending the trip to Green Lake, another 10 miles. Take the trip for a chance to see Ellsworth and environs as only the rails can offer. Now and Then: Not so long ago rail travel was a real option for folks coming here for vacation. Maine Central Railroad used to offer passenger service deep into Maine’s interior. Those rails are in most cases still available for future service, though serious upgrading is necessary. Today, you can take the train from Boston’s  North Station to Portland for $24. Then you’re on your own! Plans and funding have been approved to extend service to Brunswick. Stay tuned.

Maine Central Rail map 1923

From the August issue of Travel+Leisure Magazine

Travel+Leisure magazine has released the results of its 2010 reader poll for best island to visit in North America, and it’s our Mount Desert, home of Acadia National Park. The survey asked readers to judge islands on five qualities:

1. natural attractions
2. activities/sights
3. restaurants/food
4. people and
5. value

Those are some pretty nice islands, and it’s great to see how we stack up. Especially interesting is #5, value. Not only are our accommodations affordable (especially here in Lamoine), but most folks don’t have to spend a fortune to get here or endure increasingly impossible airline dramas. Millions of Americans are within a car drive of one day and millions more within two days. No currency conversion fees on your credit card, $3+/gallon gas  nor worries about border crossings and lost passports. The activities are free or reasonably priced and a full price range of restaurants are available. Even the lobster is cheap this year, in the $3-4 range for soft shell.

fall foliage on Northeast Creek, MDI

Hey, September is a terrific month to see the island, so what are you waiting for? Come see the best vacation island in all of North America, Mount Desert Island, Maine. Stay with us and we’ll lend you the kayak in the photo!

photographed in our spruce tree, Aug, 2010

Bald eagles, America’s national bird,  have been nesting here around Acadia National Park for a very long time. This bird is an inspiration to see flying overhead.     Here at SeaCat’s Rest we  have our resident pair of eagles which swoop over our house.  Their nest is on the Twinnies–little islands just off the Bridge to Mount Desert Island (see the “A” below).

It’s a perfect place to nest, isolated from people, but close to a rich place for food for the birds.   Just what do eagles eat?   Here along the coast, it’s a combination of fish/seafood, and some small land mammals.    The eagles have a routine flight circuit around the bay.    Usually they hang out around our place in the middle afternoon.   Yesterday it was between 3:30 and 5:00 P.M.    We have a tall spruce tree where they routinely stop at.

The eagles are easy to intercept if you spend a day here.   First you will hear the flock of crows or sea gulls announce the eagles’ arrival.   They fly around and around the eagle, trying to chase it further down the coast.   The eagles respond with a loud call like a squeeky wheel. When I think about it the eagle competes with the crows for carrion or dead fish and animals.   It’s no wonder they try and get the eagles to leave the area.   In the mornings you can often see the big birds hanging around our neighbor’s freshwater pond.    We used to assume they were there for a drink of fresh water, but then we heard about how our neighbor leaves out food for the birds.   

We have the eagles around here most of the year, but each year they go off on vacation when the weather turns really cold and their access to fresh water freezes up.   In the months of January and February, the eagles fly south.   They end up around western New York or the hills of Pennsylvania.  I suppose you could call them snow birds like we call our elderly white haired neighbors that also seek warmer climates when it gets a bit cold downeast.

Benjamin Franklin didn’t want the eagle to be chosen as the national bird.   His nomination was the turkey

Not all people wanted the bald eagle to be chosen as the national bird.  Some felt it was a bad choice.  Benjamin Franklin wrote:

I wish that the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country, he is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly, you may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk, and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to its nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him… Besides he is a rank coward; the little kingbird, not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district.  He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest…of America…. For a truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America…
a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on.

1967: Bald eagles south of the 40th parallel were listed under the Endangered Species Preservation Act, the 1966 statute that preceded today’s U.S. Endangered Species Act. A comparative study of eagle nesting during the 1960s in Alaska, Florida, Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin revealed relatively low numbers and chronically poor reproduction, especially in Maine’s remnant population and the subpopulation along the immediate Great Lakes shorelines.

In 1962, Charlie Brookfield and Frank Ligas (biologists with the National Audubon Society) began annual monitoring of bald eagles in Maine. Early efforts were limited, but their counts could only document 21-33 pairs of nesting eagles and only 4-15 eaglets fledged each year between 1962 and 1970. Average productivity among Maine eagles during the 1960s was only 0.34 eaglets per nesting pair: at least 60% lower than rates considered normal.

If you look carefully, you can spot the Twinnies eagle nest on this 1967 map….so “our” nest has been around for quite a long time.

Steam ship Cangarda, built 1901, in Castine harbor August 6, 2010

Visitors to Acadia National Park soon learn about the devastating 1947 fire which wiped out much of the evidence of early settlement on Mount Desert Island. Fortunately an hour or so away there is a genuine jewel of  history, Castine.

Known variously through history as Pentagoet, Bagaduce and finally Castine, it lies on a peninsula at the mouth of a “huricane hole”, a natural harbor offering substantial protection from bad weather. Also, the high elevations offer good lookout and cannon sites. For these reasons, Castine was a coveted military settlement since 1626, and unlike Bar Harbor, many of the colonial structures remain. There were more invasions and flags flying over Castine than are easily summarized, but here goes:

English, 1626-1632;

French, 1632-1654;

English, 1654-1670;

French, 1670-1674;

Flemish/Dutch, 1674-1687;

French, 1687-1690;

English, 1690-1693.

Let’s not forget the Indians, who played their military hand as well. Things settled down a bit during the early 1700s with a truce of sorts between the English and the commercial interests of Frenchman Baron Castine. Things heated up again in 1779 when the English dug in for a fight with Washington’s rebels. They got the chance in 1780 when an American force of 19 armed vessels and 24 transports stormed the peninsula. Colonel Paul Revere was in charge of the munitions. The outcome of this battle was not one of America’s proud military moments, as the overly-cautious commander Dudley Saltonstall gave the order to retreat. British ships soon arrived and chased Saltonstall’s fleet up the Penobscot River, where he ran them aground and set them all ablaze. His troops then headed back to Boston by foot. Revere was acquitted of any wrongdoing in this debacle, but his reputation suffered. This has been long known as the greatest defeat of the American side in New England during the Revolutionary War, and our greatest Naval defeat of all time.

Throughout the town are signs marking historical structures and events. With a little advance preparation like reading Redcoats at Castine, available at Seacat’s Rest, a visitor can relive this exciting history. Visit the lighthouse and the earthworks of the two forts or take a tour of the huge 500 foot State of Maine, the floating classroom of Maine Maritime Academy. Quick or sit-down restaurants, pubs and souvenir shops are plentiful. You won’t need your passport, Castine has been in American control since April 28, 1816.

Here in  the Acadia area there are many locally made movies to choose from. There’s no mistaking it, A Lobster Tale (2006) is the worst movie about Maine I’ve ever seen. First of all, the main character is played by Colm Meaney, known to Star Trek: Next Generation and Deep Space Nine fans as Miles O’Brien. Not only did he have to shed his Irish brogue, but he had to adopt a working class Maine fisherman’s accent to play the part of  Cody Brewer. He didn’t succeed. Neither did his screen wife Alberta Watson, who only started with a Toronto accent. A few painful “ahs” at the ends of words ending with “r” just don’t make it. I checked out the website for the movie and now they’re saying it’s about a New England lobsterman, so I guess they heard the criticism.

I could have ignored the accents if I could have fallen into the story line enough to believe it. The plot was about as stupid and far-fetched as I could have imagined. A down on his luck lobster fisherman, who can’t even get his outboard started pulls up a (wooden!!) trap with a clump of moss growing on it. The moss turns out to instantly heal any human ailment (including regrowing severed limbs) while emitting a blinding halogen light. Right. Amazingly, the screenwriter never bothered to find out that moss doesn’t grow under saltwater. I guess if it can heal and emit halogen light, it can grow under saltwater. Seems like they could have called it seaweed, but employing a common sense fact check person wasn’t in the budget.

But wait, there’s more. You’d think that a movie about Maine would be filmed here. After all, the scenery is free and help is cheap. But no. This was a Canadian production so we get Nova Scotia. I love Nova Scotia, don’t get me wrong, but the scenery is just….different. Different boats, different shoreline, different houses. So close but no cigar. It ain’t Maine.

As the story develops, word gets around about the magic healing moss and everybody in town wants a piece to cure their warts, etc. The poor fisherman is offered a huge sum of money by a drug company, refuses and sets the moss in a jar in his living room. Whaddya know, someone steals it. The best part of the movie comes in the form of the quirky, littering Native American sheriff played by Graham Greene, who pursues the case in a comical way that almost rescues the movie.In the end, nothing really changes except that everyone feels good, mostly because the movie is over. The scenery is beautiful, but not Maine. The people are interesting, but not Mainers. The plot is awful; a weird combination of Disney fantasy and adult themes wrapped up with an unsatisfying conclusion. They could have called it a movie about a Nova Scotia lobster fisherman and avoided the accent and scenery problems. But they would have only been halfway there.

From the Schott Foundation website

In several measures, the state of Maine and especially Mount Desert Island finish toward the top in public education. The recent release of the Schott report titled,  “The 2010 Schott 50 State Report on Black Males in Public Education” shows the high school graduation rate for black males at a whopping 98% in Maine. The average for the rest of the country is 47%. This puts us at the top of the country in this statistic.

Why does Maine do so well? First of all, our non-white population is very small and this may magnify statistical variations. 98% in 2010 may fall to 89% in 2011 simply because we are dealing with a small group of  black students. The important point is that Maine performs well above the national average in graduation rates for all of our students. Here in Acadia, our MDI High School graduated 83% in 2009 and 91% in 2008. The national average for the whole country was 69% in 2007 and dropping, according to edweek.org. The 2009 rate for the state of Maine was 80.4% according to this report.

I believe there are three reasons why Maine does so well. First, we have small class sizes, rarely exceeding 25 students and usually in the high teens. Our high per-pupil cost reflects this.

Second, Mainers live in mostly small communities and tend to stay put. If there are problems, everybody knows and tries to help. Social pressure makes parents more involved and accountable.

Governor Angus King

Finally, we had a visionary independent governor, Angus King from 1995-2003. His great gift to our future was to put a laptop computer into the hands of every 7th grader in the fall of 2002. For us, this was especially timely, since our daughter was just entering 7th grade. Kids could also access the fast wireless internet connection at school any time. Fortunately, the program was quickly upgraded to allow those 7th graders to keep their laptops all the way to graduation. As usual, political tightwads slammed the program from every editorial page. From the Main Learning Technology Initiative website:

In speaking with other governors, Governor King realized that all states were undertaking very similar investments in areas like education and economic development and if Maine wanted to jump ahead of these other states it would require a sharp departure from what Maine had done in the past. Immediately, everyone recognized that education represented the most crucial area for this major change and Gov. King recalled a conversation he had had with Seymour Papert a year or two previous where the idea of how to transform education was discussed. During their conversation, Papert convinced King that a major transformation would happen only when student and teachers worked with technology on a 1 to 1 basis and that any other ratio would not produce the transformation everyone sought.

The laptop program has had widespread benefits. Almost immediately teachers noticed a drop in absenteeism, an improvement in writing and test scores. Students were excited about learning. The sophistication of their work even challenged the comfort zones of parents and teachers. Some older teachers, quite frankly, had to retire! Tests were taken on laptops and handed in with the “send” button. Reports were sent in electronically. The revolution is continuing into college and adulthood. Thank you Governor King!

My daughter points out that the laptop resource was mismanaged in the early days, the victim of clueless teachers and undeveloped and untested procedures, but she also says these problems were worked out quickly and the “coolness” of being the first in the nation to give computers to students made the program very positive for her.

Maine’s educational system has many of the problems of many other states; recession worries, aging buildings, dropping enrollments and high energy costs but still we do much with what we have; more it seems than most other states. Our graduation rates show it.

Driving towards Acadia National Park in the mornings around SeaCat’s Rest, you are very likely to find a flock of turkeys in the road.   This is a new trend here in the Northeast.    This group of birds has been surviving and growing into a real spectacle around here.   We want these birds around for three reasons.

First, they are entertaining and eat things we don’t want around.   Funny birds making funny noises in the woods.   They wander around the neighborhood.   As they go they consume mass quantities of small insects, including the deer tick.   The deer tick is famous for spreading lime disease here in Maine, and anything that reduces it’s population should be encouraged.    Turkeys have keen eyesight and can find the small ticks in the fields and woods.

Second they are a source of wild food for people.   Yes, you can hunt turkeys and eat them.   Maine has two turkey hunts each year, spring and fall.

Third they support other wildlife as food.   For the small mammal predators, turkeys are an excellent source of food in the winter when it can be tough to find enough food to survive.    The turkey is a native bird that was hunted out of the area by people.   This left the many small  mammals without the safety net of a this prey species in the environment.   That in turn led to more predation on our domestic animals like chickens and other birds raised for meat and eggs by our local folks.   When I raised guinea fowl the predators were incredible and included owls, red hawks, foxes, and raccoons.   I’m sure the bobcats and fishers were around too, although I didn’t actually see them.    Guinea hens fill a similar niche in the environment as turkeys do.  I had many fewer ticks to pull off my cats in those years.

Did you know that turkeys roost in trees at night?   Except for when the female turkeys are sitting on their nests, you can find them perched high up in trees.    They will often fly into the trees for safety in the daytime when they feel threatened.

Giving Thanks for Wild Turkeys
Feathered dinosaurs of the American woods

By Robert Winkler
About the Author

While most Americans in late November think about eating turkey, I think about seeing one—not the overweight, pale, domesticated bird that ends up on the Thanksgiving table, but rather its streamlined, bronzy ancestor: the wild turkey.

This ground-dwelling native of North American forests is fairly common now, but only 30 years ago it was nonexistent across much of its historic range, a casualty of overhunting and deforestation.

English naturalist John Josselyn was one of the first to note the turkey’s decline. In 1672, after an extended visit to Maine, he wrote: “The English and the Indians having now destroyed the breed, so that ’tis very rare to meet with a wild Turkie in the woods.”

The estimated 10 million turkeys that roamed North America before European settlement dwindled to a fragmented population of 30,000 by the early 1900s. They had been extirpated from 18 of 39 states they originally inhabited.

I glimpsed my first wild turkeys in the late 1970s at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, but it took another decade for me to find them in my home woods.   By then, reintroduction programs in New England and elsewhere were proving successful.

Members of remnant populations had been captured in rocket-propelled nets and moved to forested regions where no wild turkeys had been seen for a century or more. Sustained by good habitat—extensive, open woods with waterways and adjacent fields—and protected by hunting suspensions, many of the relocated birds thrived.

Wild turkeys now occur in all of the lower 48 states, and their number has risen to more than 5.5 million.

One of the advantages of staying here in Lamoine, and not in an urban area on your vacation is the chance to see wildlife that we cherish around here.    We do have many  predators include great horned owls, bobcats, and foxes, so wariness is in their blood. Unleashed dogs take a heavy toll, and their return has put their worst enemy—human hunters—back on their trail.

So, slow down and let the turkeys wander as they search out their breakfast food.   You’ll be richer three ways.