I look out from the top of Mount Megunticook at the islands in Penobscot Bay. In a furry of evergreens are some long, irregular pieces of rock. Others are as round and rounded as gumdrops. The wind scrawls patterns on the sea under cirrus clouds. Camden is a postcard-perfect seaside town with a thumb-shaped harbor, white church steeples and a mountain backdrop.
It is rightly celebrated that the seaward view of the Camden Hills can be seen from there. It is said that the view inspired Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Renascence,” in which she describes the speaker gazing out at “three island in a bay,” and hearing “the creaking of tented skies / the ticking of Eternity.” Over the past 40+ years, I’ve climbed up this 1,385-foot peak dozens of time. Megunticook has to be the easiest and most rewarding hike in the entire state. The vast view and balsam-fir scent of the granite overlook at the summit comfort me as much as a hug from an old friend. Midcoast Maine is less crowded than the southern Maine. It begins, depending on whom you ask, just north or south of Portland. Then it runs northeast (or down, in local speak) until somewhere around rural Blue Hill Peninsula near Bar Harbor. It’s more Birkenstock than beachy. The Camden-to-Rockland stretch—the middle of the Midcoast—covers less than 10 miles but combines sea-and-mountain scenery and vibrant town life like nowhere else on the East Coast.
Camden Hills seen from Penobscot Bay are equally breathtaking. The bay is an ideal sailing area. Camden Rockland (the small seaside town that lies in between) and Rockport have a long-standing cultural importance that belies the size of their towns. Midcoast Maine ranks right up there in the history of American landscape paintings with the Hudson River Valley. The rugged landscape of Midcoast Maine has not only sustained farmers, fishermen, and sea captains for centuries but also attracted generations of artists. It is also a haven for preservationists and patrons of art. A new generation of entrepreneurs and makers has arrived in the Midcoast to modernize the lifestyle. They are aided by remote workers and the spending power that part-timers, or “summer folks” as they’re still called by some older people, have. I’ve traveled to my favorite coast to witness this gentle reinvention.
Aaron Britt says that in some towns, the main streets are distressed and there is a struggle to make them more cool and eclectic. The Midcoast Villager Last year, four historic newspapers merged to form a new weekly publication and community news website. Visitors can sense that Camden has the ability to avoid such a situation, even if only visiting for the Lobster Festival.
Britt moved to Portland in 2005 after working in New York City and San Francisco in the fashion and editorial fields. We chat over fried-haddock sandwiches at the Villager Café, a pine-floored breakfast-and-lunch spot operated by his employer. The offices are located upstairs. I have come to the meeting by taking the scenic route through Harbor Park. It was completed in 1931, and designed by the Olmsted Brothers, the sons of the architect who created Central Park in New York. The summer sailboats haven’t arrived yet, but still the scene—brick and clapboard storefronts, the Colonial Revival public library—is absurdly picturesque. The Megunticook River flows into the harbor through a 250 year-old dam. There is even a waterfall. There is a convenient footbridge that crosses the river next to an Ice-cream Stand. Britt’s perfect description of this charming storybook mix-up is “the Camden Snow Globe.”
Colin Page, a painter I meet that afternoon, is inspired by the sea. He moved from Baltimore to Maine, after studying at the Rhode Island School of Design, New York City’s Cooper Union and painting there. He bought a 28 foot sailboat, so that he can reach difficult-to-access places and paint them. On the wall of Page Gallery in front, a scene of a tidepool alive with pink granite and purple shadows is one of the results of his excursions. But Page admits that he was also drawn to sailing for the same reasons anyone else is: “Being out on the water for a couple hours at the end of the day, just focusing on the sea and what you’re doing—there’s nothing better.”
