East Quoddy Lighthouse, NB

East Quoddy Head Light

(Head Harbour Light)

The lightstation at Head Harbour, one of the oldest lightstations in Canada is located on the northern extremity of Campobello Island, which is the largest island in the area of Passamaquoddy Bay near the Maine-New Brunswick border.  This light is known locally as "Head Harbor Light." Campobello Island is closer to the coast of Maine than it is to the mainland of New Brunswick.  Its road link with the Canadian mainland is across the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge to Lubec, Maine and then a 60 mile drive to St. Stephens in Canada.

By the 1820s, trade was flourishing and traffic grew between Campobello Island and the Maine Coast. Fishing, shipping, and shipbuilding were very important activities in Passamaquoddy Bay, but the famous Fundy fogs, high tides, and treacherous rocks around Campobello Island were a threat to these industries. Head Harbour's light was the first Canadian response to this danger, built in 1829 to warn sailors approaching the craggy rocks and shoals around Campobello Island.

Detail of East Quoddy Light Lantern Room

Today, the waterways in the region are still busy and the natural hazards to navigation have not diminished.  180 years later the light continues to provide an essential service to the marine community in the area.

The rocky outcropping on which the station is set becomes an island at high tide.  The station is accessible by foot at low tide.

The light tower is a white wood, shingle-clad, tapered octagonal structure about 51" in height .  The original lantern was replaced by the present cast iron model in 1887.  The red cross has been on the tower at least since Confederation to distinguish the tower from windrows of snow in late winter and early spring.  Photos of the station show that it has remained fundamentally unchanged since at least 1902.

The Head Harbour Light is now fully automated and no keeper is in residence.
 


 

Campobello, NB

After leaving Eastport, we had to backtrack across a series of small islands connected by bridges and causeways to Highway 1.  From there we headed to Lubec, the easternmost point in the United States, so that we could visit President Franklin Roosevelt's boyhood summer home, Campobello.  The home is actually located on a New Brunswick island off the coast of Maine.  You cross the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge to reach the island and the Roosevelt Campobello International Park.  This park is the only one of its kind because it is run by both the Canadian and American governments, even though the park is located in Canadian territory. 

Photo by:  Cherri

Roosevelt House and Museum

Kale Garden and FDR Shield on doorway of museum.  Notice the house in background.

Campobello always relied heavily on fishing as the mainstay of the island economy; however, the Passamaquoddy Bay region's potential for tourism was realized about the time Bar Harbor was beginning to develop. Campobello Island became home to a similar, although much smaller and more exclusive, development following the acquisition of some island properties by several private American investors. A luxurious resort hotel was built and the island became a popular summer colony for wealthy Canadians and Americans, many of whom built grand estates there.

Included in this group were Sara Delano and her husband James Roosevelt, Sr from New York. Sara Delano had a number of Delano cousins living in Maine, and Campobello offered a beautiful summer retreat from the New York weather, where their family members could easily visit. From 1883 onward, the Roosevelt family made Campobello Island their summer home. 

Their son, Franklin D. Roosevelt, future President of the United States, would spend his summers on Campobello from the age of one.  Loving the island and remembering his youth sailing on the nearby Bay of Fundy, Roosevelt acquired a larger property and built a 34-room "cottage," which he would use as a summer retreat until 1939. It was here that Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., was born in August 1914. 

It was at Campobello, in August 1921, that the future president fell ill with polio, which resulted in his permanent paralysis from the waist down. Roosevelt did strive for seven years to try to regain use of his legs but never again walked unassisted.

Today Roosevelt Campobello International Park serves as a memorial to FDR and a symbol of cooperation between the U.S. and Canada.

Maine Fishing Villages

After coming up Highway 9 in Maine, going northeast, we arrived at the bridge of the nose on the face of Maine, at the St Croix River.  Here we were able to look across the river into St Stephens, New Brunswick.

Photo by:  Cherri

While standing on the side of the road on Hwy 1, I took this picture of some wildflowers at my feet:

Looking out across the water to the New Brunswick side, we saw a huge cruise ship which turns out to be The World.  This is a ship of floating luxury condominiums, all privately owned.  Nothing like seeing the world without ever having to leave the comfort of home.

Photo by:  Cherri

Wonder what it would be like to live aboard this ship?  Here is a quick little video about what life is like aboard the ship:  http://aboardtheworld.com/video.htm

We encountered this ship again, the next day at Bar Harbor and I'll have a little bit more information about it on that post.

Here is a photo of the harbor at Eastport, Maine:

Photo by:  Cherri

This is a Coast Guard boat in from of the station at Eastport:

 

Photo by:  Cherri

That afternoon we continued around a loop on Hwy 1, eventually ending back in Bangor.  Tomorrow I will post photos of the West Quoddy Head Light east of Lubec and President Franklin Roosevelt's summer home on Campobello, New Brunswick.

Maine Fall Color 1

On our second day in Maine, Bruce and I went in search of "Fall Color."  The trees along the coast had not yet completely turned so we headed inland.  We drove up Highway 9, northeast toward New Brunswick.  

If the map of Maine is a person in profile, we drove to his nose and then back south along the coast 'til we headed inland back to Bangor. We visited Campobello in New Bruswick and then more lighthouses and fishing villages along the coast.   We "tickled Maine's mustache" as we came back south.  I will be posting these photos soon.

Today, I'm sharing some of the colorful leaves as we headed northeast.

Photo by:  Cherri

 Bruce particularly likes the color here in Maine.  It is interspersed with Evergreen trees and he feels it makes it more interesting.  We have similar fall color in the Pacific Northwest.

Photo by:  Cherri

 Another shot of this stream running along highway:

Photo by:  Cherri

All the trees had not yet turned, but the weather report was projecting cold weather that night.  Unfortunately, they were also projecting wind, which could blow the leaves off the trees.  The next day we headed into Maine's North Woods to see what we could find.
 

Here is a video of the above river.  Bear in mind that I'm new at taking videos.  I promise I'll improve.

Maine Fishing Villages

Toward the end of our first day driving, we took these photos of a couple of Maine's picturesque fishing villages.

Rockland, ME

Photo by:  Cherri

The Pearl Restaurant on a pier at Rockland, ME

Photo by:  Cherri

As night was falling we found ourselves here: 
 
 Camden Harbor

Photo by:  Cherri

Maine Roadsides

Big Indian, US1, Freeport

Bruce and I were driving along US 1 toward Freeport when we came across this Indian statue.  We snapped a picture of it at high speed, but didn't know what it was, since it didn't seem to be a sign for any of the businesses next to where it stands.  It is in front of the Conundrum Wine Bistro.  Just beyond it is a sign for Winter People Image Marketing. 

After searching on the internet I found that the current owners, Winter People Image Marketing specializes in corporate and retail clothing that coinsides with the "Maine Way of Life."  the statue is known as, The Big Indian or BFI by the locals.  We can only assume the "F" stands for Freeport.

The Indian was commissioned in 1969 by the owner of the Casco Bay Trading Company, Julian Leslie, which sold "Native American souvenirs and curios, largely made in Japan. The statue is a large male Indian scultped by Rodman Shutt, Julian Leslie, and Mike Leslie.  The Indian is also known as Chief Passamaquoddy for the tribe that used to reside in the Casco Bay area.  It was built for $5000 and is 40 ft tall and 15 ft wide.  It is painted epoxy resin and fiberglass over welded steel angle irons or steel rods, chicken wire and papier mache, secured with wood braces and guy wires added for support after a hurricane.  Its base is concrete.

When Julian Leslie retired, the buildings and statue were sold to the Badger or Badge-A-Minit Ltd. company, who then sold the building to Levinsky's clothing store.  Phil Levinsky had the sculpture restored.  The facelift included structural reinforcement and a repainting using weatherproof marine paints to bring back the Indian's bright colors.  The restorers even had to pull arrows out of the beleaguered Indian that had been shot by archers.

The Big Indian has seen it all: once standing in front of a Native American goods store, to clothing outlets, to a ski equipment company, and now an image-marketing firm, Winter People.
  

This Indian statue is included in the Art Inventories Catalog of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  As impressive as this statue is, as you are driving along US 1, the Smithsonian reports that the statue has been the subject of some controversy.  Native Americans feel the statue is inappropriate and disrepectful of their heritage.  

In researching who Chief Passamaquoddy was, I find no reference to an actual person, but only to a tribe that are the original natives between Maine and New Brunswick.  There is a great website designed for kids that gives a quick overview of this tribe:  http://www.bigorrin.org/passamaquoddy_kids.htm.

Maine Lighthouses 5

Spring Point Ledge Light

This lighthouse marks the dangerous ledge on the west side of the main shipping channel from the south into Portland Harbor. Many vessels ran aground on the ledge before requests from seven steamship companies in 1891 convinced the federal government to build a lighthouse. The steamship companies had carried more than 500,000 passengers through the area during the previous year.  

Built on a cylindrical cast-iron caisson, the lighthouse is a typical "sparkplug" style of the period, but unlike many such structures, the tower is constructed of brick, rather than cast-iron.

The 54 foot lighthouse has a storeroom and cistern in the basement, topped by four levels, including a keeper's office, a watch room and two levels of living quarters.  A fifth-order Fresnel lens was installed and a fog bell hung on the side of the tower, which sounded a double blow every 12 seconds by means of a striking mechanism powered by a clockwork mechanism with 800 pounds of weights..  An oil room in the basement contained a 239-gallon tank for the kerosene that fueled the light in its early days.  It was electrified and automated in 1934.   In 1951 the 900 foot breakwater was constructed joining the lighthouse with the mainland. 

Spring Point Ledge Light was considered a "stag station," with a male keeper and assistant keeper living inside the tower.  Keepers had to be creative in their means of exercise. Somebody figured that it took 56 jogs around the tower's main deck to make one mile. It is told, once, a keeper was running laps in this fashion and forgot to close a trap door. He slipped through the opening and only a ladder prevented him from falling 17 feet to a rock ledge and swirling waves.

The lighthouse is easily accessible and the Spring Point Museum is located on the adjacent Southern Maine Technical College campus.  It is now owned by the Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse Trust.  Occasional open houses are held in the summer.