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Camden By Nancy and Richard Woodworth From where she stood in 1910, all that native poet Edna St. Vincent Millay could see were "three long mountains and a wood" in one direction and "three islands in a bay" the other way. Her poem, written at age 18 and first recited publicly at Camden's Whitehall Inn, captures the physical beauty of this coastal area known as the place where the mountains meet the sea. Today, the late poet might not recognize her beloved Camden, so changed is the town that now teems with tourists in summer. The scenery remains as gorgeous as ever, and perhaps no street in Maine is more majestic than High Street, its forested properties lined with the sparkling white homes that one associates with the Maine coast of a generation ago. Back then, when you finally reached Camden after the slow, tortuous drive up Route 1, you unofficially had arrived Down East. Those were the days, and visitors in ever-increasing numbers still try to recapture them in a town undergoing a bed-and-breakfast inn boom and a proliferation of smart, distinctive shops. A sign in the window of Mariner's Restaurant, proclaiming itself "the last local luncheonette," caught our eye: "Down Home, Down East; no ferns, no quiche." A small-scale cultural life and the pioneering new Center for Creative Imaging attract some; others like the outdoors activities of Camden Hills State Park. But the focus for most is Camden Harbor, with its famed fleet of windjammers setting forth under full sail each Monday morning and returning to port each Saturday morning. Camden has an almost mystical appeal that draws people back time and again. Sometimes, amid all those people, you just wish that appeal weren't quite so universal. Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places in New England, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2004. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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