Bike Acadia!

Somehow I grew up in Maine without knowing about the Acadia Carriage Trails. I love biking so this was

an oversight of some significance! My husband mentioned them to me on our way home from a visit Downeast. I looked into it and it turns out they are a well-known hiking and especially biking destination. They are on the National Register if Historic Places, having been built by John Rockefeller in conjunction with the National Park Service, in the early to mid 20th century. 57 miles of packed crushed gravel roads wind between the ponds and mountains.

Acadia is not a compact park. It consists of several separate areas, and even the main area is an irregular lobed shape that winds in and out of the settled areas of Mount Desert Island. The town of Otter Creek is completely surrounded by parkland, for example. We entered the park at the Hull Cove Visitors Center. 

We took the Witch Hole Pond Loop, and the Eagle Lake Loop on purpose...and the Paradise Hill Loop by accident. I don't know which of the ponds was Witch Hole! But they were all beautiful. 

My bike (on the left) is at least 25 years old. I bought it used in 1994 for $200 - it seemed like an extravagant amount at the time but has earned its cost many times over. Doug's bike is also secondhand. One of the reasons I love biking is, you don't need fancy gear or special shoes or dedicated clothes. Any bike, any shoes, (almost) any clothes, and you are in business. 

We saw these two turtles basking together. They are Painted Turtles - the larger on about as big as those get, in Maine, the small one the smallest I've ever seen in the wild. 

When we found ourselves at the Duck Brook Bridge we declared ourselves officially lost. This was a little alarming - you can get pretty lost in 57 miles of road, and it was getting late in the day. Luckily there was a map kiosk at the bridge, that showed us where we went wrong. 

There's still so much of Acadia to see! Next time I will print a map, though. :)

The Barrens in August

My mom grew up in Cherryfield, a small town Downeast. As she hates when I tell people, she was the Maine Blueberry Queen of 1950! Who even knew there was such a thing.
For the past few years, my husband & I have been spending some time in the area. We reserve an adorable cabin on the Machias River, (gas lights & cooking! I've done plenty of campfire cooking, and while I wouldn't rule it out in future, I do like my camping on easy mode.) The way passes through miles of blueberry barrens, the late-season red foliage of which gives the town of Cherryfield its name.
These are wild blueberries, the fruit small & intensely flavorful, which grow nowhere so well as the Downeast region of Maine. They are not to be confused with their high-bush cousins, the fat berries you see in the supermarket.
(Free opinion: it is a waste of good blueberries to put them in a pie, full of cornstarch & sugar. It renders them gloppy and the flavor insipid, and also turns your teeth purple.Pancakes, yes; muffin, yes; yogurt and salads and cream cheese, yes; by the handful YES PLEASE.)

The soil of the barrens is a highly acidic thin layer over ledge. It's called a "barrens" because not much except the very low-growing wild blueberries can thrive there. The proximity of the Atlantic keeps the air humid, which helps the shallow-rooted plants survive. The image above is in mid-August, during the picking season. The bushes that have not yet been harvested are heavy with fruit. I imagine this place before colonization, what a blessing this wild abundance must have been, and just below it, Wigwam Falls, popping with Atlantic Salmon, back in the day. (Atlantic Salmon are far rarer now, but there are groups working on their restoration - the Downeast Salmon Federation has a hatchery in East Machias where they raise salmon the the parr stage and then release them into Maine rivers - salmon return to their home rivers to spawn.)

Here's my favorite blueberry recipe:

Blueberry-Banana Smoothie

In blender:
3/4 cup wild Maine blueberries
1/2 banana, frozen
3/4 cup orange juice
Quick shake of nutmeg

Blend until smooth. Enjoy!

Upta Camp: Welcome to the Wigwams

Nothing is more relaxing than a weekend upta camp. We've just come back from The Wigwams, a camp belonging to the Downeast Salmon Federation.

Located on Lower Wigwam Falls (hence the name) on the Machias River, the Wigwams is as close as you'll get to glamping anywhere Downeast. It boasts a gas stove & lights, and a screened porch where you can sit in comfort and watch the river go by.

Though quite out of the way - one drives through miles of blueberry barrens to reach it - the Wigwams is accessible by truck. (I wouldn't try that road in any vehicle without a pretty high undercarriage.) Just below the falls is flat water - you can put in a canoe & paddle downriver and then easily back upriver.

It's a 3-season camp, as it has a wood furnace for comfy nights even in cool weather.

Though the Wigwams was originally a salmon camp, located where the Passamaquoddy had historically placed a dwelling to take advantage of the fine salmon fishing, there are, sadly, very few salmon in the Machias River these days. The Downeast Salmon Federation is working on that!

If you'd like to stay in the Wigwams, you can do so for a small donation to DSF, who also owns two other cabins in the region. Those are more rustic, and I haven't been there yet. Wigwams, though? Fantastic. Rustic, peaceful, but easy and clean and convenient. Camping for people who aren't into camping. 🙂

Sunset in the Sunrise County

Sunset over the blueberry barrens, Washington County.

Pickers Cabins, Columbia Falls, Maine

It's nearly picking season in Downeast Maine. The pickers will come and live at the barrens in rustic little camps until the work is done.

 The barrens are a spare but beautiful landscape, upon which little will grow except blueberries, because below a very thin scrim of soil lies solid bedrock, scraped clean by glaciers. The blueberry foliage turns deep red in early August, and stays brilliant until the snow covers it. The town of Cherryfield - right next to Columbia Falls - got its name, oddly enough, from the red foliage of its blueberry barrens. My mother is from Cherryfield, and she worked in Wyman's food processing plant as a teenager, plucking sticks and rocks from a conveyor belt of blueberries. She hates when I tell people this, but she was crowned Maine Blueberry Queen of 1950! You probably love wild Maine blueberries - everybody does. They are a superfood, you know! These barrens are, in fact, wild; the blueberries were here before there were companies to cultivate them. They may have been here before there were any people to enjoy them! The pickers cabins in the photo above are the accommodations provided by the Passamaquoddy Wild Blue Berry Company. 

Ready for picking! July 2017

Ice Shacks on the Pleasant River

See more about Maine rivers, fishing, and habitat preservation at the Downeast Salmon Federations' Facebook page.

Pleasant River, Columbia Falls

Rainbow smelt net drying shack, low tide, Pleasant River, Columbia Falls, Maine, April 18, 2015.

Photo by Douglas Watts