Monhegan---Out-To-Sea Island

The ferry ride from New Harbor, Maine, was a smooth one-hour ride to our destination: Monhegan Island, twelve miles (22 km) out to sea. There were eleven of us---all relatives or friends---in search of hiking exercise and a restful day of meandering around this very pretty little town (population around 75).

The Monhegan mailboat ferry from where it leaves in New Harbor.

Monhegan---the name comes from Monchiggan meaning "out-to-sea island" in the local Algonquian Native American language---has a small lobstering fleet that works most of the year. But in summer the island is a tourist mecca populated on a good day by a couple hundred people who arrive from New Harbor, Port Clyde and Boothbay Harbor. Like us, most are day-trippers who leave on the afternoon ferries.

The town of Monhegan.

It's mostly a day-tripper island and the first and most famous day-tripper was English explorer and colonist, Captain John Smith who arrived in 1614. Smith is probably the best-known explorer of that time in the East Coast of what would eventually become the USA not only because of his exploits (he brought Pocahontas back to England) but because of the somewhat exaggerated accounts he wrote about his voyages. He claimed to have been captured by Native Americans and was about to be killed when Pocahontas saved his life. From one of his accounts:

Pocahontas threw herself across his body: "at the minute of my execution, she hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted to Jamestown". 

Well...

The Island Inn is the big building in the background.

In fact when he brought his ships into Monhegan Harbor there was already a fishing station there and it had already been visited by another Englishman, Martin Pring, in 1603, Samuel de Champlain in the same year, "English" explorer John Cabot (born Giovanni Cabotto in Italy) and maybe various Vikings around the year 1000. And of course "discovery" takes on a new meaning when we consider that native Americans had already been living in this area for tens of thousands of years.

Very New England cedar shingle patterns.

Next year the Monhegan Islanders will be celebrating the 400th anniversary of Captain John Smith and if it's anything like Chowderfest (clam chowder) that we happened across this year along with the Island Brewery's Beerfest, it should be a lot of fun.

Burnt Head

The tiny town is on one side of the island and, under Maine law, is a "plantation" which is a local government category between a town and a township. Most of the island is parkland and never to be developed. Typical day-trippers to the island (us) land in the town and then walk around the rugged other side for a couple of hours before seeking out art galleries, chowderfests and beerfests before the ferry leaves again for the mainland. You don't want to miss the sailing because in summer there will be no room in the inn.

The undeveloped side of the island.

A brief raspberry stop on our walk.

Since the late 1800s, there many artists have either lived or just visited the island to find inspiration. Winslow Homer, George Bellows and various Wyeths were there but my favourite---at least as an eccentric personality---was Rockwell Kent who lived there year round for a few years. While living here, Kent painted a painting called "The Wreck of the T D Sheridan". It was good to find the wreck in much the same condition it was in 1949.

Rockwell Kent's 1949 painting "The Wreck of the D T Sheridan".

After 64 years the wreck has held up well.

So we walked, picked raspberries, saw whales and seals, bought a couple of paintings and filled ourselves with clam chowder, beer, coffee and blueberry muffins before returning to the mainland. A great day out.

We spotted a whale from here.

Among the other events on Monhegan is the annual circus. It began in 1912 and this year it will be on August 17th. By then I'll be back in Australia but I'd have loved to have seen it.

The view towards the mainland.

It's difficult to walk on the island without tripping over an artist's easel.

Here are some of the acts as advertised on the 1913 poster (designed by artist, Frederic Dorr Steele):

 SAVE YOUR PENNIES FOR THE CIRCUS 297 STAR ACTS INCLUDING AMONG OTHERS MLLE DOLLY DELERIA’S DEATH-DEFYING DIVE OVER SIX CAMELS * SIMULTANEOUS & SYNCHRONOUS PERFORMANCES BY TROUPES OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST PERFORMERS ON THE TRAPEZE * PROFESSOR BELLOWS’ LADY BAREBACK RIDERS * PROFESSOR DELICATESSO’S PERFORMING LIONS * PROFESSOR CAZALLIS’S MARVELOUS MONKEYS * PROFESSOR BOSS’S EDUCATED ARTISTS * COL. A BROWN’S TROUPE OF AERIAL ACROBATS DIRECT FROM LONDON, PARIS, BERLIN, & VIENNA * AND MANY OTHER CONSTELLATIONS 7 GALEXIES OF STARS * NOT FORGETTING AN ARMY OF HUMOROUS BUT REFINED CLOWNS!!!!!!

A seal pup sunning itself on a bed of seaweed.

Volunteers handing bowls of clam chowder and other food for Chowderfest.

Anyone who has dipped a toe into this water will know that jumping and
diving into it is a serious act of bravado---or stupidity.

Another week and a bit and we could have seen Monhegan's Cardboard Regatta.
Could it have been inspired by Darwin's Beercan Regatta?

Not quite Munich during Octoberfest but Monhegan Brewing Company
had its own beerfest for two hours on the day we were there.

Waiting for the ferry back to the mainland at The Barnacle.