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Down East, Maine/ Life is simple and relatively earthy (and watery) in these parts, although St. Andrews adds a touch of sophistication for those who wish. Because of the enormous range of the tides, a wide variety of marine life can be found in along the shore between high and low tides. Walk the beaches or explore the coastline to find shells, mussels, sea urchins, starfish, sand dollars and such. Traditionally the area’s biggest tourist attraction has been the Roosevelt summer home on Campobello. The new Kingsbrae Horticultural Garden in St. Andrews promises to be another major draw. Campobello Island Roosevelt Campobello International Park, Campobello Island. From 1883 when he was a newborn until 1921 when he was stricken by polio here, Franklin D. Roosevelt spent most of his summers on Campobello. Here are the cottage and the grounds where the Roosevelts vacationed, the waters where they sailed, and the beaches, bogs and woods where they hiked and relaxed. The park reception center provides a touching introduction both to the Roosevelts' tenure here and to the island. Movies like "Beloved Island" are shown on the hour; "Campobello, the Outer Island" was particularly helpful in understanding the unusual nature of this area. The Roosevelt Cottage, a 34-room red house high above Passamaquoddy Bay, is one of the most pleasant we've seen. The house still looks lived in, almost as if the Roosevelts had simply left for a quick boat ride to Eastport to pick up groceries. You can walk right into some of the rooms, which are human-size rather than grand. Unobtrusive hostesses answer questions or leave you on your own. Most of the furnishings were left by the family. You'll see the megaphone used for hailing latecomers to meals, a collection of canes, the large chair used to carry the handicapped President, the family telescope, and eighteen simple but inviting bedrooms. Outside are lovely gardens and paths to the shore. Next door is the Hubbard Cottage, the last Victorian summer residence in the park, now used as a conference center. Its rather luxurious main floor is open for tours except when conferences are in session. (506) 752-2922. www.fdr.net. Cottages open daily
10 to 6 (Atlantic Time), Memorial Day to mid-October. Park open
year-round. Free. Lubec The one-time sardine capital of the world is down to one remaining sardine packing plant. Other canneries now process and pack salmon harvested from pens in Cobscook Bay. Ex-Long Islander Vinny Gartmayer and his wife Holly took over an old smoked salmon business along Route 189 in 2002 and renamed it the Bold Coast Smokehouse, featuring “wicked good smoked salmon.” In his retail showroom near the smokehouse he offers samples of lox, kabobs, pâtés and gravlax that can be shipped across the country. Curiously, the easternmost point of land in the United States is at West Quoddy Head in South Lubec. The West Quoddy Light, an 1809 landmark with red and white candy stripes, stands atop a jagged cliff pounded by the open ocean. The 483-acre Quoddy Head State Park offers trails to the lighthouse, an island and a bog. A raised boardwalk goes through the coastal plateau peat bog, which has been declared a National Natural Landmark. Its dense moss and heath vegetation typical of the Arctic tundra are unusual. The Downeast Interpretive Center relocated from Lubec to the newly renovated West Quoddy Light Keepers Visitor Center. Summer is enlivened by the ten free Wednesday evening concerts offered by the faculty of the SummerKeys music school. Up to 200 concert-goers gather in Lubec’s Congregational Church, some of them arriving via a boat chartered from Eastport for the purpose. Eastport America’s smallest city is evolving ever so slowly from an isolated Down East fishing village into something of a tourist destination. After the great fire of 1886 destroyed the downtown and much of the surrounding area, Eastporters rebuilt within one year with impressive – and fire-resistant – brick and granite structures. Many are listed on the National Historic Register, and sixteen landmarks are outlined in an Eastport walking tour guide – a good thing, because most are not readily apparent. The waterfront is the scene of port and acquaculture development. The annual Old Home Week over the Fourth of July draws thousands of returnees from across the country for five days of activity, culminating in a parade featuring the governor and congressmen and an evening fireworks display. Stage East, corner of Dana and Water streets, presents five productions a season from April through November. More than 100 plant species and nearly 30 bird species have been observed at Shackford Head, a park with three miles of craggy shoreline jutting into Cobscook Bay. Shopping. On the outskirts of Eastport at 85 Washington St., Raye's Mustard Mill is a must stop. The country's last remaining stone-ground mustard mill produces the mustards in which the area's sardines used to be packed. Various mustards, other Maine-made foods and crafts are on sale in the Pantry Store. We generally buy enough mustard to last for a year. The mill offers guided tours of the operation on weekdays, and recently opened the Mustard Shed lunchroom for sandwiches. Downtown Eastport appears to be mostly ramshackle or vacant stores. Exceptions include Quoddy Crafts and Dog Island Pottery. The Eastport Gallery, 69 Water St., shows the works of local artists and craftsmen. Don Sutherland produces monumental pots and vases, some with amazing blue glaze, at Earth Forms, a most unusual pottery at 5 Dana St. If you can find the Harborfront Artist at Work, look up itinerant Pittsburgh artist Jim Levendosky, who has spent five prolific summers in Eastport – most recently in a convenience store whose use he bartered for a local oil painting until he could get his trademark yellow truck back on the road. Near Lubec, Cottage Garden out North Lubec Road is a fascinating enterprise where we could spend hours. Gretchen and Alan Mead share their many talents with visitors to their showy perennial gardens and an informative Shoreline Nature Center museum. The Maine Reflections and Art in the Garden shops are full of dried flower wreaths, birdhouses, twig frames, framed bird and botanical prints, hanging potpourri and even painted garden benches, all made by the owners. Their artistry extends to seven gardens on two wooded acres around their charming Greek Revival Cape house. With only an occasional assistant, they create and maintain an idiosyncratic showplace full of handmade wooden walkways and bridges, some leading to a new Asian garden that Gretchen vowed would be the last. Three artist/entrepreneurs lately set up shop along Lubec’s Water Street to showcase their own creations. One spins her own wool for the Water Street Fiberarts Studio. Another serves ice cream, waffles and crêpes at Peter’s Not-So-Famous Homemade Ice Cream. Monica Elliott and Eugene Greenlaw create spectacular bonbons, clusters and truffles at Seaside Chocolates. The unpretentious candy kitchen and showroom are upstairs in an old R.D. Peacock sardine cannery, marked by a lobster sign out front. The treats, based on recipes from her father’s chocolate business in her native Peru, cost $1.35 each (colorfully wrapped bags of twelve for $15) and are as delicious as they are caloric. Settled in 1783 following the American Revolution by United Empire Loyalists, some of whom floated their dismantled homes here from Castine, Me. (they were rebuilt and several are still standing), St. Andrews is said to have more examples of fine New England Colonial architecture than any other Canadian town. Everything from Cape Cod cottages to saltboxes to large Georgian houses with Federal detailing can be seen scattered across a grid of neatly squared lots, laid out by town planners two centuries ago and now designated a national historic district. More than 250 structures, many of them legacies of the prosperous era when St. Andrews was a port of call on the West Indies trade route and some of them quite odd-looking, are over a century old. Many are marked with descriptive plaques. The 1824 Greenock Presbyterian Church looks like any white Colonial New England church, except for the unique bright green oak tree carved on the exterior beneath its spire. Other St. Andrews churches, particularly those along King Street, are architecturally interesting. Other attractions are as diverse as the famed Algonquin Signature Golf Course (which recently completed a $7 million upgrading for championship golf at its most picturesque), the Aquarium at the Huntsman Marine Science Center, the informative Atlantic Salmon Interpretive Center, and the landmark St. Andrews Blockhouse, a two-story National Historic Site built of hand-hewn timbers in 1813 to protect St. Andrews from American privateers across the harbor in Maine. Costumed guides provide tours of the Sheriff Andrews House, an 1820 Neo-Classic historic site. Check out the trompe-l’oeil carvings decorating the facade of the old County Court House and Gaol, another National Historic Site. Whale watch, nature and sightseeing cruises are offered by six outfits from colorful ticket offices and gift shops in the jaunty Day Adventure Center at the entrance to the long, deep St. Andrews wharf. The area is great for whale watching as some of the best feeding grounds are found between Campobello and the Wolf Islands and out toward Grand Manan. The bar to Ministers Island is under seventeen feet of water at high tide, so you don’t want to get stranded out there. Visitors on guided tours to the 500-acre island get an inside look at Covenhoven, the 55-room estate of CP railroad magnate Sir William Van Horne, which is slowly undergoing restoration as a museum, and at the unusual bathhouse for a tidal swimming pool. Two-hour tours are scheduled twice daily in summer, timed according to the tides. They elicit fascinating insights on how one of the world’s richest men lived early in the 20th century. Ross Memorial Museum, an imposing red brick Neo-Classic house built in 1824 at 188 Montague St., is a true house museum. It was acquired and given to the town by Henry Phipps Ross and his wife Sarah as a means to display their extensive collections of decorative arts and furniture. Ross, a onetime Episcopal minister in Providence, R.I., and his wife, the daughter of the Bradstreet of Dun & Bradstreet in New York, summered here from 1902 to 1945. Guided tours are offered Monday-Saturday 10 to 4:30, mid-June to early October; closed Monday after Labor Day. Donation. Shopping. Cottage Craft, on the waterfront at Market Square, with brightly colored skeins of wool draped around its cork fence in front, shows knit goods in lovely colors, knitting bags (one shaped like a house in which the door opens), and the neatest collection of mittens for kids you ever saw. Boutique La Baleine stocks cute things like stuffed animals, books by local authors, cards, apparel and a large toy section. Truly unusual is Jarea Art Studio & Gallery, whose principals spearheaded the painting of scenic murals on the town water tower and a downtown storefront in 2003. Jantje-Blokhuis-Multer and her daughter and son-in-law produce wondrous oils, floor cloths and folk art with found objects (three of the latter now make a triptych in our living room). Don’t miss the Tom Smith Pottery behind the Windsor House on Edward Street. Tom’s wife Ellen, who manages the studio, makes the drawstring bags for Tom’s handsome raku teabowls. The dramatic Seacoast Gallery at 174 Water St. features fine works by New Brunswick artists and craftspeople. Another favorite gallery is The Crocker Hill Store, where soothing music draws passersby in to see and buy Steven Smith’s remarkable bird watercolors. A gardener of note, Steve also is known to open his back-yard garden for guided tours. Don’t miss the outstanding, one-of-a-kind textile art at Bertha Day Fine Art & Craft, 275 Water St. Bertha’s hand-painted and embroidered wall hangings, vests, T-shirts (some with lupines or fiddlehead ferns), landscape cushions, small purses, tea cozies and more are truly unique. We cherish the wall hanging of a St. Andrews landscape we bought for a big anniversary. Extra-Special Kingsbrae
Garden Lucinda and John Flemer, who sold the house that became the Kingsbrae Arms inn, donated an adjacent 27-acre property and funds to operate this world-class horticultural garden, which quickly was recognized as one of the ten best in Canada. On a hilltop overlooking Passamaquoddy Bay, it is a wonderland of 28 theme gardens. They vary from a pristine white garden along the entryway and a cool blue garden to sections for heath and heather, fruits, ornamental shrubs, birds and butterflies, wildflowers, scents and sensitivity, and edibles. There are a cedar maze and a thyme labyrinth, sand and gravel gardens, and a Harry Potter secret garden. The highlight for most is the perennial garden, where classical music wafts from in-ground speakers and a fascinating Japanese “deer clapper” works by water power to scare the roaming deer from the adjacent rose garden. We’ve been here at all stages of the growing season, never ceasing to marvel at the embankment of splashy rhododendrons, the showy oriental lilies, the peacock gladiolus, the dwarf cosmos, the late strawberries in bloom at Labor Day, and the prolific arugula in a vegetable garden in which the corn and tomatoes failed to mature. Still young, the gardens are not as drop-dead spectacular as, say, Butchart Gardens in British Columbia. But they are subtle, and represent about 2,000 varieties. There are surprises at every turn, from a cedar hedgerow so thick you could stay dry underneath in a thunderstorm to an 1894 children’s playhouse in which old-timers remember playing. Others are a working Dutch windmill circulating water to and from a duck pond, a therapy garden with raised beds accessible to patients in a nursing home adjacent, two life-size scarecrow figures made of flower pots and, for good measure, a fenced enclosure that shelters three friendly goats. A half-mile nature trail leads through a marked Acadian Forest, home to 32 species of trees beside the bay. One of four manor houses originally on the property is the site of the Garden Café (see Dining Spots), a small but exceptional gift shop and an art gallery with changing exhibits of regional art. (506) 529-3335 or (866) 566-8687.
www.kingsbraegarden.com. Open daily, 9 to 6, mid-May to early October.
Adults, $8. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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