Thursday, August 13, 2015

Up North or Down East in Maine

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte's column in the August 13, 2015 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.


    I moved away from Massachusetts as a young child and returned for a long visit at the age of 19. Here in New England as a young adult, the Boston Bruins and fried clams had me at hello. I also fell in love with a Boston boy, which I don’t entirely regret because he was the reason I returned to live in Massachusetts a year later.

    I quickly picked up New England slang and colloquiums like “packy” and “wicked” and “the Gahden.”  However, I never quite got the hang of “down Purity” or “down Zayre’s”.  It seemed a disgusting grammatical habit of my group of Bostonian relatives and friends to leave out the prepositions "to" or “at.” No one cared about my annoying complaints, though. Purity Supreme and Zayre’s eventually disappeared as they were swallowed up by competitors and the habit seemed to disappear with the 20th Century.

    Interestingly, another similar New England expression, “Downeast”, has a very valid explanation. According to Down East Magazine, ships sailing to ports in Maine from Boston were actually traveling downwind and to the east. (When they returned, they were sailing upwind to Boston and sailors might still say “up to Boston”.)

    Downeast, of course, technically refers to those destinations such as Calais, Bar Harbor, and Blue Hill, which are all very north of Portland. Today, however, Down East has been adopted by the entire coast and eastern portion of the state of Maine.

    I love Maine and have vacationed there for over 40 years.  We summer camped in the tiny, inland town of Waterford (near the exotic towns of Paris, Sweden, Norway, and Poland), and winter skied in resorts in Bethel and Stowe. While the entire coastal region, from Freeport to Kittery has become a favorite year-round destination, it’s the coastal city of Portland that’s won my heart over in the past decade. Did you know that another great city, Portland, Oregon, is named for Portland, Maine? One Francis W. Pettygrove bought half the town in Oregon and named it after his hometown, Portland, Maine.

    Maine’s largest city, Portland (with over 230 restaurants) is a delicious and delightful place to visit. Its cobblestoned streets on the waterfront, with restaurants galore, has a nightlife unrivaled in any season.  Portland just might be New England’s city-that-never-sleeps (although there’s hardly a comparison to the Big Apple.)

    My favorite restaurant in Portland is the tiny, 32-seat Duckfat. There is lots of hype, but Duckfat is worth the inevitable wait and the long line. Much of its menu, from the Belgian fries to the Poutine with a sunny side egg, is made with delicious duck fat. Everything is made in-house, and practically all of the ingredients are from local farms and vendors. If you get to Duckfat before their 11:30 am opening, you will find a spot to squeeze into or sit outside in good weather. They have a killer beer list at their teeny bar, and their blueberry milkshake is to die for.

    I have other haunts in Portland but driving north to Freeport is another adventure.  My favorites include the Maine Beer Company (a yummy Pale Ale called A Tiny Beautiful Something) and the Mother of Purl Yarn Shop just on the southern outskirts.

    A book written by bloggers Jillian and Malcolm Bedell, Eating in Maine (2014) is written for those wanting recipes from New England, for those looking for reviews of Maine’s best restaurants, and also for those seeking a travel guide for foodies winding their way up and down Maine’s roads. Their blog, (From Away dot com), lists their top places to each pizza, breakfast sandwiches, and lobster rolls in Portland.

    Another food lovers’ guide is Portland Food by Kate McCarty (2014). Another food writer (she blogs on MaineEater dot com), McCarty claims Portland as the culinary capital of Maine. With half a million people living in this metro area, there are many of them to wine and dine using the local bounty from fisheries and sustainable farming and agriculture.

    So, there’s more to do in Portland and Maine than eat, of course. There are breweries, distilleries and wineries galore, many of them along the coast, but still others inland. There are also many other adventures in 100 Things to Do in Portland Before You Die (2015). Author Bob Witkowski started with over 265 things and whittled it down to 100.  He claims the Holy Donut’s dark chocolate sea salt dunker is authentically Maine. But there is more than donuts and lobster rolls on this list. Celebrations and events are listed, as are wine bars and concert venues.

    If you want to get out of the city of Portland, AMC’s Best Day Hikes along the Maine Coast was published just months ago in April 2015. Carey Kish includes advice in the four-season guide and narrows it down to “50 of the best trails from Maine beaches to Downeast.” Trail maps are included and lots of details for safe hiking in the state where the Appalachian Trail terminates at Mt. Katahdin.

    Of course, if you’d rather travel in an easy chair, you can choose to read the fully-annotated of Henry David Thoreau’s The Maine Woods.  It was edited by my fellow librarian and friend, Jeffrey Cramer, director of the Thoreau Institute Library in Lincoln, MA.  “On the 3rd of August 1846, I left Concord in Massachusetts for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine,” wrote Thoreau. The wilderness of Maine enchanted Thoreau probably more than the coastal towns of Downeast.


   So, it’s agreed.  Both the woods and the towns and cities of Maine are treasures of New England.