1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (8 page)

Five minutes from downtown Blue Hill, Kneisel Hall was founded in 1902 by Austrian violinist and concertmaster Franz Kneisel, and today maintains its position as
one of the country’s foremost chamber music schools. Each summer, it hosts a series of weekend concerts presenting works from Beethoven and Brahms to Ned Rorem and Henry Cowell. Elsewhere in town, the Bagaduce Music Lending Library began in 1983 as a teatime idea hatched by three Maine musicians and artists’ managers with the goal of making sheet music available to the general public. The library expanded quickly with the help of generous donations, moving from its original two-car garage to the top floor of a storage barn. Today it’s one of the largest lending libraries of sheet music in the world, with more than 200,000 titles and a million copies of printed music.

Near the heart of the village, just uphill from the bay and facing 950-foot Blue Hill Mountain, the Blue Hill Inn has welcomed visitors continuously since 1840. The 11-room Federal-style house offers a perfect mix of old-fashioned country ambience and high-end grace notes. Nineteenth-century antiques fill the cozy rooms and public areas, while old pumpkin pine floorboards creak reassuringly. Mornings begin with multicourse breakfasts; evenings include a daily innkeepers’ reception in the main parlor. The fireplace warms guests on the outside and an extensive wine list takes care of their insides.

W
HERE:
135 miles northeast of Portland.
K
NEISEL
H
ALL:
Tel 207-374-2811;
www.kneisel.org
.
Cost:
concert tickets from $10.
When:
late June–Aug.
B
AGADUCE
M
USIC
L
ENDING
L
IBRARY:
Tel 207-374-5454;
www.bagaducemusic.org
.
When:
closed Sat–Sun.
B
LUE
H
ILL
I
NN:
Tel 800-826-7415 or 207-374-2844;
www.bluehillinn.com.
Cost:
rooms from $138.
When:
main house May–Oct.
B
EST TIMES:
summer weekends for Kneisel concert series; 4th of July weekend for the Blue Hill Pops Festival, featuring everything from choral music to klezmer and Dixieland jazz.

Pursuit of Romance and Adventure

Brooklin, Maine

It’s a fantasy shared by wage slaves and cubicle inmates all over the world: to build one’s own boat and sail away to romance and adventure. Maine’s WoodenBoat School doesn’t promise romance and adventure, but it can sure
get you started on boatbuilding. Founded in 1981 by the publishers of
WoodenBoat
magazine and situated on a gorgeous 64-acre coastal estate, the school offers expert instruction in boat design and construction, repair, seamanship, and woodworking. “Fundamentals of Boatbuilding” courses teach the craft from a global perspective, with students constructing difficult vessels on the theory that if they can build those, they can build anything. Many courses focus on specific types of boats, from sea kayaks and traditional wood-and-canvas canoes to ketches, skiffs, and dories; others teach basic seamanship, the mechanics of sailing, coastal navigation, joinery, ropework, and even bronze-casting your own marine hardware. With courses lasting one and two weeks, students have time to work, learn, explore Brooklin and other nearby towns, and take the school’s rowing and sailing craft out onto some of the Northeast’s best waters.

Days begin early, with American-style breakfast served in the dining hall, followed by classes from 8
A.M
. to 5
P.M
. After the evening
meal, some students resume work on their boats, while others pick the brains of their instructors, visit the research library, go sailing, or just enjoy the cool summer evenings. Some return year after year, fueled by the same love of tradition and craft that animates the teaching staff. It’s an admirable enterprise, a perfect antidote to our all-too-disposable culture. Maybe they do offer romance and adventure after all.

W
HERE:
40 miles south of Bangor; 41 WoodenBoat Lane. Tel 207-359-4651;
www.thewoodenboatschool.com.
Cost:
1-week courses from $600; room and board $400 per person, per week, doubles with shared baths.
W
HEN:
late May–mid-Sept.
B
EST TIME:
Sept for the annual WoodenBoat Sail-In, when the schooners of the Maine Windjammer fleet gather in the harbor for music and tours.

Skiing—or Golfing—in the Woods of Maine

Carrabassett Valley, Maine

Though Sugarloaf is often called the best ski resort in the Northeast, it’s not for everybody, which may be one of the reasons its aficionados are so dedicated to it. Credit the long drive (about four hours from Boston) and
the bitterly cold winter winds that can whip through the mountain’s higher reaches. But what are a few small inconveniences when balanced against such phenomenal skiing and small-town friendliness?

Opened for skiing in 1951, the resort came into its own in the 1970s with the construction of additional chairlifts and trailside condos. Today it’s got a continuous one-mountain vertical drop of 2,820 feet (the longest in the East); the only lift-served, above-treeline skiing in the East; 133 trails totaling more than 54 miles and accommodating everyone from kids to the most expert experts; two snow-boarding half-pipes (one of them Olympic quality) and three world-class terrain parks; and an alpine village that’s nicely glitz-free, keeping the focus on the snow. For the ultimate challenge, head to the Snowfields and take the very steep White Nitro run. The friendly, low-key atmosphere also makes Sugarloaf a great place to introduce kids to skiing, with a kids’ program that offers lessons as well as nonski activities for all ages.

At 4,237 feet Sugarloaf is the second highest peak in Maine.

Accommodations range from the Grand Summit, a classic mountain hotel with 120 rooms and stupendous views, to more than 1,000 mountainside condos and town-house apartments. Après ski, stop by the Shipyard Brewhaus, a ski-in/ski-out pub managed by Portland’s Shipyard Brewing Company, Maine’s largest microbrewery.

In summer, Sugarloaf transforms into a golf resort, home to an 18-hole Robert Trent Jones course that’s consistently rated the best in Maine and one of the top 100 courses in the country. It could well be the finest wilderness
mountain course in America, carved from pine and white birch forests and stretching to nearly 7,000 yards.

W
HERE:
125 miles north of Portland. Tel 800-THE-LOAF or 207-237-2000;
www.sugarloaf.com
.
C
OST:
lift tickets $61; greens fees from $69 (off-peak), from $89 (peak).
W
HEN:
mid-Nov–Apr for skiing; mid-June–mid-Oct for golf.
G
RAND
S
UMMIT:
Tel 207-237-2222;
www.sugarloaf.com.
Cost:
from $153.
B
EST TIMES:
Jan for the smallest crowds; Mar for the heaviest snowfall; 2nd weekend of Apr for Budweiser Reggae Festival (
www.sugarloaf.com/reggae.html
).

A Leading Player in the
Preppy Handbook

Freeport, Maine

It all began with the boots. Back in 1912, Leon Leonwood Bean stitched a leather upper to a waterproof rubber shoe and made up a flier advertising his Maine Hunting Shoe, “designed by a hunter who has tramped Maine woods
for the past eighteen years.” When most of the boots were returned to him with stitching problems, he issued full refunds and used the experience to perfect his product. It was a business model that over the next half century made his clothes the de facto uniform of New England: trustworthy, traditionally styled, and weatherproof as a duck.

The flagship store in Freeport is an institution. Opened in 1917, the walk-in business grew so large that in 1951 they took the locks off the front door, and have been open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year ever since. They have expanded and modernized along the way and now the place is as big as a small mall. It has its own zip code and greets some 3.5 million visitors every year. In addition to all the boots, sweaters, khakis, parkas, and rain gear you could ever need, there’s an outdoor department that stocks camping, boating, cycling, fishing, hunting, and winter sports gear; and introductory courses in kayaking, fly-casting, archery, clay shooting, snowshoeing, orienteering, and outdoor photography are offered at just $12 per person. During the summer, Bean’s outdoor concert series features a mix of jazz, rock, country, and whatever else comes along, with big names like Suzanne Vega and Don MacLean highlighting the list. Come fall, Bean sponsors a hunting expo; a spring expo concentrates on fishing.

The Bean Boot stands 17 feet tall outside the L. L. Bean headquarters.

Be sure to plan some non-Bean time in Freeport too: The town is home to scores of outlet stores. Respite can be found at the family-run Harraseeket Inn, just two blocks from Bean, complete with mahogany paneling, charming antiques, cozy fireplaces, and the award-winning Maine Dining Room.

W
HERE:
15 miles north of Portland. Tel 800-559-0747 or 207-877-8372;
www.llbean.com
.
H
ARRASEEKET
I
NN:
Tel 800-342-6423 or 207-865-9377;
www.harraseeketinn.com
.
Cost:
from $115 (off-peak), from $189 (peak); dinner $45.
B
EST TIMES:
summer weekends for local events; Oct weekends for foliage and great weather.

“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.”—Benjamin Franklin

Maine

If you had to pick one symbol to represent coastal Maine, it would have to be the lighthouse. Standing out on a cliff, or atop a storm-racked island, these beacons act as earthbound stars to sailors on the dark sea. More than
60 of them dot the state’s shoreline, from Cape Neddick in the south to West Quoddy Head in the north, at the Canadian border; and many of them are accessible to the public.

Cape Neddick Light, aka the “Nubble Light,” sits on a small, characteristically rocky Maine island just 100 yards off the mainland. First lit in 1879, it’s one of the most picturesque lighthouses in the country—so much so that the crew of the
Voyager II
space probe, launched in 1977 in the hope of finding extraterrestrial life, brought a picture of the Nubble with them, intending to use its image to represent all earthly lighthouses.

Farther north up the coast, the majestic Portland Head Light is Maine’s oldest, dating back to 1791. Though the tower isn’t open to the public, the grounds and outbuildings are: The former keeper’s quarters houses a museum, while the Cliff Walk trail winds along the coast, offering spectacular views. Nearby, South Portland’s conical “sparkplug”-style Spring Point Ledge Light sits at the end of a 900-foot stone breakwater that allows pedestrians and fishermen to walk out onto Casco Bay. At the foot of the jetty is the Portland Harbor Museum, with exhibits chronicling the history of the port.

South of Bath, at the mouth of the Kennebec River, the Seguin Island Light is perched on what looks like a Scottish moor. Though the present tower dates to 1857, lighthouses have occupied the site since 1797. The Maine Maritime Museum in Bath offers boat tours that visit the Seguin Light and up to nine others.