By Robert Selwitz
Maine serves up a unique blend of vast forests, craggy seacoast, and a commercial and cultural capital whose attractions many much larger cities should envy. While 90 percent of Maine is covered with trees, Portland — home to some 66,000 residents — revels in its revitalized, now-dynamic port area, fine dining and shopping, and a pulsating verve that draws crowds of visitors.
This wasn't always the case. Decades of decline made this an area many avoided. But in the 1980s restaurant operators and other merchants started to return, responding at first to low rents and then to the potential a revitalized working waterfront posed.
Today former warehouses enjoy second lives as eateries and shops visited by the crowds who flock here for Casco Bay tours and other harbor diversions. Indeed while there are many choices for those wanting close-up water excursions, there are also opportunities other ports can't offer. The 90-minute Lucky Catch Lobster Boat Cruise, for example, encourages participants to sail on a real lobster boat and help crews do their jobs.
Moving to locations where their lobster traps have been placed, the crew provides rain gear so passengers can stay dry while joining in the tasks. These include hauling traps onboard, removing caught crustaceans, changing the bait, banding the claws of caught lobsters, and making sure they are of legal size and are not pregnant. Those that are pregnant or too small are returned to Casco Bay.
On land, particularly for anyone with limited time, there is a "Discovery" trolley. In less than two hours it is possible to see and hear descriptions of Portland's major sites. These include elegant neighborhoods replete with glorious architectural treasures, particularly the grandest Victorian survivors of the July 4, 1866, fire that leveled much of the city. Portland Head Light, Maine's oldest standing lighthouse (commissioned by George Washington in 1787), opened here in 1791.
Two other highlights are definitely worth a return and on-the-ground exploration: the childhood home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the Portland Museum of Art. Longfellow, one of America's greatest poets, was raised in the house at 489 Congress St. and lived there for more than two decades. His sister, however, lived here her entire life and left it to the Maine Historical Society upon her death in 1901. A vivid example of upper-middle-class 19th-century life, the brick home features much of its original furniture. There's also a lovely garden at its rear.
The Portland Museum of Art at 7 Congress St., occupying an I.M. Pei-designed structure, is best known for its Winslow Homer, Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper paintings. Other major American artists with works on display include Rockwell Kent, Louise Nevelson and John Singer Sargent. The PMA collection also includes paintings by Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Rene Margritte, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The museum also oversees — and runs tours of — Homer's seafront studio. Though little of Homer's furniture or artifacts remain inside, the site is quite near the shore where he created some of his most famous works. The studio can also be viewed from the outside by taking a scenic mile-long path that begins close to the elegant Black Point Inn. Though rugged and seemingly remote, this area is just a 20-minute ride from downtown.
Heading north, it's a short ride to Freeport and the friendly L.L. Bean retail store as well as to Bath, home of the 130-year-old Bath Iron Works, which continues to produce vessels for the U.S. Navy. Via a Kennebunk River excursion operated by the Maine Maritime Museum it is possible to see a destroyer under construction. Ospreys and eagles are also occasionally sighted. Within the museum itself there are plenty of fascinating ship models, memorabilia and descriptions of such local industries as canning, which made the long-distance sale of lobster meat feasible.
Forty-four miles northeast lies Rockland, another pleasant town with a reason for art-lovers to stop. The Farnsworth Art Museum, comprised of a modern facility and former church, is dedicated to the works of Maine artists. The collection includes Homer but focuses particularly on the Wyeths. Paintings, sketches and studies by illustrator N.C. Wyeth and those of his son, Andrew, and grandson, Jamie, are prominent.
Also fascinating is the Olson family home in Cushing, some 10 miles from Rockland. This is the site of many of Andrew Wyeth's paintings, including his most famous work, "Christina's World."
Donated to — and now overseen by — the Farnsworth, the weather-beaten Olson farmhouse was the home where the disabled Christina and her beleaguered brother, Alvaro, who dedicated his life to her care, lived for decades. The house is open to visitors, and a superb guide relates the Olsons' fascinating and chilling story, Wyeth's involvement with the family and the many factors that led to the creation of the painting.
Another two hours northeast lies Bar Harbor, a hugely popular resort with a particularly, extraordinary asset — being next door to Acadia National Park. Bar Harbor itself, which occupies a small corner of Mount Desert Island, has slightly more than 5,000 official residents. But during warm-weather months that total swells incredibly via carloads of landlubbers plus masses of day-trippers from the many cruise ships that call here.
Originally patronized by the likes of John D. Rockefeller and his fiscal counterparts, many of these "rusticators" (as the locals dubbed them) departed following a devastating 1947 fire that destroyed a number of millionaires' seasonal "cottages" and much of the town itself. Upper-crust patronage also declined due to the many other vacation options long-haul aviation made possible in the post-World War II years.
Today, however, when warm weather reigns Bar Harbor is dominated by families who walk, shop and gallery-hop along its pleasant streets, enjoy local seafood, take a variety of water-focused excursions and roam all over Acadia's terrestrial wonders.
Covering most of Mount Desert island and other coastal islands, Acadia, founded in 1919, features Cadillac Mountain — at 1,528 feet the highest point along the Atlantic seacoast — plenty of forests and many lakes, and Thunder Hole, where waves are funneled into a narrow rock system that sometimes creates mini geysers.
Among Acadia's most appealing assets are some 67 miles of crushed-gravel carriage roads, a legacy of John D. Rockefeller, whose hatred of cars led him to ban all auto traffic from the roads he had built. Today all other transport modes, from foot to bicycles, are most welcome. Indeed these byways offer a unique serenity that draws flotillas of nature-lovers and cyclists.
Another Acadia plus is its multi-route free bus system based in Bar Harbor's main square. From the middle of June through early October, vehicles fan out throughout Acadia Park and its 20-mile-long loop road.
WHEN YOU GO
Black Point Inn is a grand and beautifully appointed oceanfront lodging choice in Portland's Prouts Neck sector that offers comfortable rooms and superb food. It manages to blend comfortable quiet luxury and a scenic site that is surprisingly close to downtown Portland: www.blackpointinn.com.
The Westin Hotel is a lovingly restored conversion replete with modern amenities that's close to the Portland Museum of Art and the nearby commercial district: www.westinportland.
Bar Harbor Inn and Spa is perfectly located for town and harbor access. This historic property has lovely accommodations at many price points from elegant main-building locations with great views to comfortable annexes with satisfying motel-like choices: www.barharborinn.com.
Lucky Catch Lobster Boat Cruise: www.luckycatch.com
Portland Museum of Art: www.portlandmuseum.org
The Farnsworth Art Museum: www.farnsworthmuseum.org
Robert Selwitz is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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