Features

The Phantom of the Allagash

Eighty years ago, an act of shocking violence in the Maine woods kicked off a sprawling manhunt that captivated observers around the country and became a true-crime phenomenon.

By Andrew Vietze

Where There’s a Mill, Is There a Way?

The scrappy eco-insulation startup TimberHP is taking a big swing by bringing Madison’s shuttered paper mill back online. Can a novel pulp product sow the seeds of a homegrown green-manufacturing success story?

By Kathryn Miles

Keeping It 100

Maine’s 100 Mile Wilderness is a rugged sanctuary of windswept peaks, backcountry ponds, and the remotest stretch of the Appalachian Trail — but you don’t need to be a grizzled thru-hiker to enjoy it.

Departments

North by East

A bird carver’s grandson tries to re-form the flock, the history of Kittery’s Memorial Bridge spans a century, and a PMA exhibit takes a snapshot of 50 years at boundary-blurring photo workshops in Rockport. Plus, in Maine Dispatches, three rare orange lobsters caught in one week, by one guy.

Food and Drink

Chef Lulu Ranta brings a James Beard award home to Monson. It’s a Peaks Island pizza party all summer long (and since it’s BYOB, you might want to pack some canned cocktails before catching the ferry).

Good Things from Maine

A summer guide to Maine-made tools, toys, and other gear to haul upta camp, from towels to travel posters and from fire starters to fishing-rod racks.

Maine Homes

A mid-century ranch in Biddeford gets a modern makeover. A South Bristol gardener digs into her rocky yard. And do antique Puerto Rican front doors threaten the Old Port’s historic character?

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Where in Maine

Maine Moment

Dooryard

Editor’s note, responses to June’s Where in Maine, the masthead, and more.

Columns

Room With a View. Books: Beachy Maine Romance.

My Favorite Place

Opera singer Kate Aldrich, on the Damariscotta River.

On our Cover: The White Cap summit, by Chris Shane.

Additional Photos: Cara Dolan, Chris Bennett, and Dave Waddell

As part of a mental-health initiative, L.L.Bean posted photos of a campsite in a lush valley, overlaid with text that read “Off the Grid,” before shutting down its social-media feeds for an entire month.

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Sanford

On Discovery Channel’s Naked and Afraid: Solo, an in-the-buff survival show that leaves people alone in extreme environments for up to three weeks, Sanford resident Cheeny Plante lasted the whole time in South African grasslands. She ate lots of grubs.

Denmark

Tornadoes are rare in Maine, but a type of twister known as a landspout damaged buildings and trees after touching down in a rural area. Landspouts are usually less intense than supercell tornadoes — this one clocked relatively modest 55-mile-an-hour winds.

Ogunquit

When a pair of swimmers was spotted floundering in waves 150 yards from land, a fisherman gave first responders a ride out, and firefighter Nathanael Pierce jumped into the surf and helped both people swim to shore.

Acadia National Park

Six local fire departments responded to a blaze on St. Sauveur Mountain, and a Maine Forest Service helicopter dropped water on the flames. Together, they managed to contain the burn to just half an acre.

Portland

The nonprofit Portland Downtown teamed up with Maine College of Art students on snarky banners for city lampposts, and one — “We were here first, Oregon. You’re not even a port.” — made the news in both Portlands (as Oregon’s is, in fact, a major port).

Features

Do Go Chasing Waterfalls

From roadside chutes to backcountry cascades, tiny slides to dramatic plunges, here’s where to find our favorite falls.

By Adrienne Perron and Brian Kevin

Wet, Hot Lakeside Summer

Pontoon flotillas! Dance parties! Disco-themed booze cruises! The little town of Naples is one big party all season long — and nowhere else in Maine is quite like it.

By Jaed Coffin

Blasts from the Past

Restaurants come and restaurants go, but these time-tested diners, lodges, lobster shacks, and more only get better with age.

Departments

North by East

The high-tech equipment that aids LifeFlight of Maine, the end of the Maine Sea Goddess’s reign, and an Aroostook-reared poet with home on the brain. Plus, in Maine Dispatches, L.L.Bean goes dark on social.

Food and Drink

Gifford’s Ice Cream recovers from a factory fire, Trudy Bird’s Ølbar brings Scandinavia to North Yarmouth, and Veazie’s Korean Dad hosts a buffet of global pop-ups.

Good Things from Maine

A unique South Porland welding school blazes a path for those underrepresented in the trades. Also, a roundup of Maine-made skin-care and a visit with the volunteer knitters of the Loose Ends Project.

Maine Homes

Orono gardeners go big on hostas, determined cottagers go off-grid in Harpswell, and a Brunswick inn launches an innkeeper essay contest.

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Where in Maine

Maine Moment

Dooryard

Editor’s note, responses to May’s Where in Maine, the masthead, and more.

Columns

Room With a View.

My Favorite Place

Swordfishing captain Linda Greenlaw, on Surry’s Morgan Bay. 

On Our Cover: Long Lake, in Naples, by Mat Trogner.

Additional Photos: Benjamin Williamson, Kelsey Kobik, and Nicole Wolf

Features

101 Reasons to Love Summer in Maine

Piecing together your summer plans? Here’s a plethora of reminders why they ought to include regular rambles to every corner of the Pine Tree State.

By Hadley Gibson

A Spectacle of Abundance

As alewives return to historical migration routes, their restored runs are captivating wildlife watchers.

By Brian Kevin

What Was the Art Colony?

Maine’s towering role in American art owes, in part, to enclaves of artists gathering in out-of-the-way places. With the days of the rusticators long gone, how is the tradition holding up?

By Brian Kevin

Special Advertising Section: Freeport’s Future

For decades, outlet retail has anchored Maine’s most-visited downtown. Now, its champions say the next iteration needs more than big brands.

By Bridget M. Burns

Departments

North by East

Edgecomb’s champion oyster shucker honors the mollusk, Aquaboggan protects Maine’s oldest drive-in, a Maine Maritime Museum exhibit highlights an underwater mountain range, and a biography celebrates the life of Maine’s first Black state senator. Plus, in Maine Dispatches, a candidate for Maine’s state rock. 

Food and Drink

Milk Bottle Mixers make mouthwatering mixed drinks, a reinvigorated country store dabbles in refined cuisine, and an old bank becomes a bakery in Bethel.

Good Things from Maine

Woodworkers turn foraged wood into sculpted mushrooms, a Lewiston designer turns fabric into a dress worthy of the red carpet, and a statewide tour turns Mainers on to locally made pottery.

Maine Homes

A renovated Searsport home with a spiritual and artistic past (and present), a Bangor garden with plentiful peonies, and Maine Preservation’s annual Honor Awards.

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Where in Maine

Maine Moment

Dooryard

Editor’s note, responses to March’s Where in Maine, the masthead, and more.

Columns

Room With a View.

My Favorite Place

Author Steven Rowley, on the South Portland Public Library. 

On Our Cover: Deer Isle, by Amy Drucker.

Additional Photos: Benjamin Williamson and Tara Rice

Oceanside High School wrestler Maddie Ripley won in the 106-pound weight class at the state championships. She is the first girl to take home a Maine title. Her twin brother, Gavin, also won in his weight class.

Augusta

The Bureau of Motor Vehicles, cracking down on provocative vanity plates, nixed LOVETOFU. The plate’s owner, a vegan, was reassigned an unambiguously generic plate number. 

Bethel

A bill introduced by state senator Lisa Keim and supported by Maine Mineral and Gem Museum curator Myles Felch would make granitic pegmatite, found in 14 of Maine’s 16 counties, the official state rock. Presently, there is no state rock, but the state gemstone is tourmaline.

Fort Fairfield

Three bison went running down Route 1A after escaping from a local farm. Two were corralled by police later that day. The third remained at large until the following evening.

Ogunquit

Based on user reviews, TripAdvisor named Ogunquit Beach the ninth-best beach in the country. Last year, the beach placed 23rd.

Portland

Retired University of Southern Maine philosophy professor Robert Louden donated $300,000 to his former employer to fund a public lecture series bringing prominent outside scholars to the campus. 

Features

Maine Fauna A–Z

Husbandry and harvest, conservation and awe — they’re all a part of our way of life, as evidenced by this alphabetical menagerie of Maine animal stories. A few highlights:

C is for Caribou

More than 30 years later, a reflection on an ill-fated attempt to reintroduce a ghost of the Maine forest.

As told to Ron Joseph

D is for Dogs

The Science Dogs of New England are following their noses to endangered species.

By Kathryn Miles

H is for Hagfish

Getting to know the slimy star of Maine’s nastiest little fishery.

By Virginia M. Wright

P is for Puffins

The 50th anniversary of the renowned Project Puffin finds the species at a turning point.

By Derrick Z. Jackson

W is for Whitetails

Why are tens of thousands tuning in to see deer stuff their faces in Piscataquis County? A lot of reasons, it turns out.

By Nora Saks

Departments

North by East

Volunteers around Maine want to make way for amphibians. Is wildlife getting more photogenic or are trail cams really that good? A flock of researchers descends on the state’s birds. Plus, in Maine Dispatches, get your unicorn permit.

Food and Drink

From colorful dips made from ugly veggies to Kittery’s meatless sandwich shop to Biddeford’s tempeh touters, no animals were harmed in the making of these plant-based Food and Drink stories.

Good Things from Maine

The papier-mâché artist who sculpts animals with sundry personalities, the Maine makers who’ve developed useful products for various pets, and the pet shop that caters to all of Maine’s vastest county.

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Where in Maine

Dooryard

Editor’s note, responses to February’s Where in Maine, the masthead, and more.

Columns

Travel: Things to Do With Your Dog; Room With a View.

My Favorite Place

Penobscot wildlife artist James Francis, on Mud Pond Carry.

On Our Cover: A bull moose along the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, by Mark Picard.

Additional photos: Ethan Eisenhaur, Benjamin Williamson, and Danielle Sykes.

Octogenarian farmer Reid Chapman was pulling up cucumbers and tomatoes one afternoon in the summer of 1973 when two teenagers walked across his West Kennebunk field and asked to interview him for their high-school magazine project. Sure, said the canny old farmer. If they got picking and helped him get his veggies in before the rain, he’d sit and talk with them all they liked.

It was an appropriately down-home start to what has become one of the country’s most impressive and longest-running documentary storytelling projects. Today, it’s the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, housed at Portland’s Maine College of Art & Design. Fifty years ago, it was a student project launched by Kennebunk High School English teacher Pamela Wood. Inspired by Foxfire, a then-buzzy student-run magazine from Georgia, which collected lore and know-how from old-time Appalachians, Wood sent her students into the farm fields and boatyards and clam flats to interview and photograph Mainers who knew something of New England’s fading folk skills and traditions. The effort was part journalism and part oral history. In the first issue of a magazine the students named Salt, Wood declared, “Salt is new, young, and feisty. But we bring you what is old, mellow, and wise.”

In 1977, Salt became a standalone entity, moving into a Kennebunkport boatyard and guiding students in not just documenting but also learning skills like boatbuilding and snowshoe making. In the decades to come, the school would phase out the traditional-skills curriculum, start enrolling college and college-age students (and others) from outside Maine, and relocate a few times, including to Portland, in 1989. All throughout, Salt put out a little powerhouse of a magazine, its frequency varying from quarterly to sporadic, which gradually expanded its focus from folklife to cover contemporary issues and Maine culture as it’s lived. The black-and-white photography had a fine-art sensibility; the writing kept up the Kennebunk high-schoolers’ reverent, deeply subject-focused approach — as did the audio stories, after the school introduced its now-renowned radio-production track, in the late ’90s.

These days, Salt, which folded the magazine in 2008 and merged with the Maine College of Art & Design in 2016, offers 15-week graduate certificate programs in either radio and podcasting or short film, as well as shorter, non-certificate courses. Public-media newsrooms across the country are rife with Salt alumni, and its grads are behind some of the most listened-to products of the podcast boom (to such an extent that Salt may deserve some credit for fueling it). “Any place you look in media,” director Isaac Kestenbaum says, “scratch not far below the surface, and there’s some Salt connection — especially in the last 20 years in audio.”

Left: Pamela Wood, Salt’s founding teacher, with Reid Chapman. Wood, who died in 2018, spearheaded Salt through 2001. Photographer Jay York was part of Salt’s inaugural 1973 class and is still a working photographer, in Portland.

Today’s Salt students are no longer focused explicitly on “what is old, mellow, and wise,” but they share the commitment to immersion that led students into Reid Chapman’s field 50 years ago. “There’s more of an emphasis now on story and storycraft,” Kestenbaum says, “but what’s constant is the emphasis on fieldwork, on getting in touch with people who aren’t necessarily seeking attention and learning how to develop a responsible and ethical relationship with those people.”

And that old feistiness? “You look back now at a magazine that’s 50 years old, and ‘young and feisty’ feels hard to imagine,” Kestenbaum says. “But it was pretty radical for the people going out and telling these stories to be high-school students — it wasn’t the traditional voices of authority, the old white guy on your television. And I think we’re still trying to tell stories in a way that isn’t top-down, still trying to tell those stories in new ways.”

Plans for Salt’s anniversary include a one-off magazine collecting standout pieces and photography from the last 50 years; a podcast series of student work past and present, in partnership with Maine Public; and a photo-centric exhibit at the Portland International Jetport.

Explore 50 years worth of written pieces, video and audio stories, and images in the Salt Story Archive. For a taste of Salt students’ more recent output, stream the four-episode podcast series Sovereign, about the campaign for tribal sovereignty in Maine, on your favorite podcast platform.

From the archives: Read a profile of Pamela Wood and Salt from the April 1988 issue of Down East.

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The double whammy of pandemic and labor shortage eighty-sixed a lot of fine dining in Portland. Gone are Hugo’s, Piccolo, and Drifters Wife, to name a few. But momentum lately seems to have swung firmly back in the other direction. Bon Appétit named 2022 debutant Regards one of the country’s 50 best new restaurants, while the New York Times listed Twelve and Leeward as two of the year’s 50 best overall. Last year’s James Beard Awards tapped Chaval’s Damien Sansonetti, Cong Tu Bot’s Vien Dobui, and Woodford Food & Beverage’s Courtney Loreg as semifinalists for best chef in the Northeast, and this year’s semifinalist list repeats Loreg and adds Fore Street’s Tony Pastor and Isa’s Isaul Perez.

Has any news been more welcome, though, than the return of Miyake (468 Fore Street, Portland. 207-871-9170)? Chef Masa Miyake has been a Portland fixture since 2007, and he opened his elegant sushi bar in 2011, only to close it in 2020 and keep it closed, through a stretch of takeout-only service and renovations, until last December. Now, broiled Maine sea urchin, lobster tempura, and glistening cuts of raw tuna, mackerel, and snapper are back — a sure sign that Portland’s restaurant scene isn’t anywhere near swimming with the fishes.

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Features

Winter People

For some Mainers, the coldest months of the year are the best time to test their mettle outdoors.

By Adrienne Perron | Photographed by Tara Rice

Still Feisty

A look back — and a look ahead — as Maine’s Salt Institute for Documentary Studies marks 50 years.

By Brian Kevin

What We Talk About When We Talk About Character

An inquisitive look at a complicated word, as Maine grapples with age-old — but freshly relevant — issues of livability, growth, and belonging.

By Jesse Ellison

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Special Advertising Section: Moving to Maine

What every would-be Mainer needs to know.

By Bridget M. Burns

Departments

North by East

A classic candlepin alley is under new management, while the long-running CMCA Biennial feels extra new this year. A veteran mariner’s new book is a stormy ride. Plus, in Maine Dispatches, Sugarloaf starts carving out new trails.

Food and Drink

In Portland, Miyake is back (and so is the dining scene’s momentum). In Searsport, Rio’s finds its form. Around the state, Maine-made bitters are bettering beverages.

Good Things from Maine

A tip of the cap to Yarmouth’s five-panel hat maker. Taking the measure of New Balance’s factory expansion in Skowhegan. A Portland potter’s ramen bowls make a splash on a PBS docuseries.

Maine Homes

The revitalization of a 150-year-old home in Portland, the restoration of native Maine plants on a farm in Washington, and the big reveal of a hotly anticipated boutique hotel.

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Where in Maine

Dooryard

Editor’s note, responses to January’s Where in Maine, the masthead, and more.

Columns

Room With a View.

My Favorite Place

Movie writer and director Todd Field, on Rockport’s post office.

On Our Cover: More Women+ Surf members Pamela Chévez, Miranda Rico, and Britt Dahlberg at Scarborough’s Pine Point Beach, by Tara Rice.

Additional photos: Tara Rice and Dave Waddell

Features

Season Unseen

Acadia National Park’s summertime splendor attracts millions of visitors, but in the depths of winter, the park takes on a different character.

Photographed by Benjamin Williamson | Text by Ann Pollard Ranco

The New Maine Classics

The last 25 years have given us a bumper crop of motley, memorable Maine storytelling. We picked out 25 Maine-media artifacts — a sundry set of books, films, digital projects, and more — that’ll stand the test of time.

The World Through Kaleidoscope Eyes

Abstract paintings by the late Lynne Drexler are suddenly fetching upwards of a million dollars apiece. Who was Drexler, and why is her immense talent only just beginning to get its due?

By Will Grunewald

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Special Advertising Section: Retirement

How Maine came to be a pioneer in lifelong learning — and what’s on offer for those heading back to the classroom.

By Bridget M. Burns

Departments

North by East

Mainers love their pond-hockey tournaments, a novelist hates on “nor’easter,” and a new chief curator reflects on 75 years of the Farnsworth. In Maine Dispatches, Maine elects its first Black Speaker of the House.

Food and Drink

A Sunday River food truck slings sweet on the slopes, they’re lining up for waffles in Dover-Foxcroft, and a new Stephen King cookbook is more scrumptious than scary.

Good Things from Maine

Trying on our favorite Maine-y graphic tees and a Waterville mask maker’s masquerade pieces. Plus, checking in on Bangor’s vintage revival.

Maine Homes

A Bangor Garrison designed on the cheap, UMaine’s innovative 3D-printed houses, and a welcome historic designation for Portland’s Mechanics’ Hall.

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Where In Maine

Maine Moment

Dooryard

Editor’s note, responses to December’s Where in Maine, the masthead, and more.

Columns

Room With a View.

My Favorite Place

Maine Coast Heritage Trust president and CEO Kate Stookey, on Blue Hill’s Falls Bridge.

On Our Cover: Acadia National Park’s Jesup Path, by Benjamin Williamson.

Additional photos: Cait Bourgault and Benjamin Williamson.

Features

8th Annual Down East Reader Photo Contest

Our readers and fans understand better than anyone the essence of Maine — something our annual photo contest proves to us again and again.

This Woman Wants to Destroy Your Lawn

Heather McCargo and the Wild Seed Project want us all to think differently about what we plant (and, yeah, to think about it in winter).

by Peter Andrey Smith

Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Heating with Wood

But didn’t know who to ask! If you’re smitten with the romance of a well-made woodpile or a dancing flame, you have a few things to learn.

by Katy Kelleher

Departments

North by East

A celebrated Westbrook roller rink is reborn, the 75-year-old Maine Turnpike is revered, and Harpswell’s local paper is relaunched. In Maine Dispatches, News Center Maine’s Pat Callaghan is retired.

Food and Drink

A prominent Maine chain examines lobster’s carbon footprint, the food rivals the beer at Milo’s Bissell Brothers Three Rivers, and South Portland’s Knightville neighborhood hosts (arguably) Maine’s best food block.

Good Things from Maine

Looking down at a Brewer miniaturist’s doll-size furniture and back on 150 years of pioneering Maine-made winter wear. Plus, hand-carved wooden tap handles in Winterport.

Maine Homes

A resourcefully styled Bowdoin A-frame, photographer Chansonetta Stanley Emmons’s century-old domestic portraits, and more appraisals in our recurring antiques roadshow.

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Where In Maine

Maine Moment

Dooryard

Editor’s note, reader feedback, responses to November’s Where in Maine, the masthead, and more.

Columns

Books: Malaga Island Revisited; Room With a View.

My Favorite Place

Wilco bassist John Stirratt, on Jefferson’s Hidden Valley Nature Center.

On Our Cover: Port Clyde’s Marshall Point Light, by Kody Theriault.

Additional photos: Michael D. Wilson, Jason Frank and Benjamin Williamson.

Developers aiming to revitalize the ski area at Big Moose Mountain put plans on indefinite hold after negotiations with the existing owner — who owes the state millions in fines for mismanagement and illegal timber harvesting — went downhill.

Portland

News Center Maine’s Pat Callaghan signed off one last time, retiring after 40 years at the station and 33 years on the anchor desk. He started his career at New Hampshire Public Radio and WLBZ, in Bangor.

T15 R6 WELS

At Pennington Mountain, near the Aroostook County town of Eagle Lake, a group of geologists discovered deposits of rare minerals used in high-tech products, from cell phones to electric cars. Maine’s Land Use Planning Commission would have to approve any mining activity.

Benton

Construction began on Maine’s largest solar farm, on 926 acres across Benton, Clinton, and the unorganized territory of Unity. When the farm goes online, in 2024, it’s expected to provide enough power for 30,000 homes a year.

Trenton

In an effort to recruit skilled workers, boatbuilder Hinckley Yachts started a program to help pay off student loans for graduates of technical training programs who get jobs with the company. Hinckley employs about 260 people and is looking to add some two dozen more.

Augusta

The National Labor Relations Board ordered national quick-service chain Chipotle to reopen a location it closed when employees tried to unionize. The decision requires the company to offer the former employees their jobs, with back pay, and to allow unionization efforts.