Maine Magazine by Metro Guide Publishing

January // February 2022

FISHING ON THE LINE

TO CREATE A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR MAINE’S FISHERIES, FARMED SCALLOPS TAKE ROOT.

RADIO STAR

MAINERS HAVE BEEN WAKING UP TO IRWIN GRATZ FOR TWO DECADES

TABLE FOR TWO 9 ROMANTIC RESTAURANTS AROUND THE STATE

CROWNING THE WINNER OF

MAINE'S TOP DOG CONTEST January // February 2022 95

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RE TH A

MAINE MADE US COMMUNITY

HEA

O KS F

To a Healthier Maine and a Healthier You. For the hard work we do, it’s important to stay healthy too. That’s why we’re making it easy for you to stay on top of your health and wellness through accessible primary care, telehealth, and more. Because behind Maine is a healthier you, and behind you is Northern Light Health. Don’t wait. Find a provider today at MaineMadeUs.com

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t Foliage, we believe exceptional cannabis starts with one thing: living soil. Two years ago we made an important decision to take our all-natural approach one step further by switching to living soil. Why? Because we believe in our plants’ natural power—not in synthetic nutrients or chemicals. Living soil is an agricultural process of combining organic matter such as compost, manure, worm castings, aged tree bark, and coco-coir. This blend of soil promotes life for millions of microorganisms that are then able to break down organic matter and produce bio-available, naturally occurring nutrients seldom found in synthetic fertilizers. This means easier absorption of nutrients by the plants, reduced need for watering, and higher resistance to pests and diseases. The results can be seen on our shelves here at Foliage - Denser bud structures, better terpene and flavor prof iles, and f rostier nugs. That’s just the beginning of what makes Foliage different.

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CULTURE

CONTENTS

INTERVIEW 014 Maine Public’s Irwin Gratz

Maine’s Top Dog Contest 056

HOW WE LIVE 016

For our inaugural Maine’s Top Dog Contest, we asked our readers to send us the best photos of their Maine pooches— and they delivered in spades.

Gretchen Legler

ARTS

018 Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences

LIKE A MAINER 022

Mountains into Horizons 062

How to Toboggan

An inclusive ski program opens up new opportunities for people of all abilities.

VIEWFINDERS

024 Mark Marchesi’s Greater Portland Project

by Jenny O’Connell | Photography by Andy Gagne

Scallops on the Line 070

Underwater, between buoys near Buck’s Harbor in Brooksville, a garland of shellfish adds diversity to Maine’s fishery. by Sandy Lang | Photography by Peter Frank Edwards

TR AVEL+ OUTDOORS 48 HOURS Portland

Winter-Ready Road Trips 080

030

PROFILE 032

From a dip in a cliffside hot tub to dining with views of a snow-covered Katahdin over a frozen lake, these experiences can only happen in wintertime in Maine.

Cold-Water Swimming

FOOD + DRINK

by Paul Koenig | Photography by Peter Frank Edwards

DINING

Flux

040

BEER

046 Lucky Pigeon Brewing Company

THE LIST 050 The Best Restaurants for Romantic Winter Date Nights RECIPE 052 Traditional Oyster Stew

AT HOME SHELTER

086 Architect Kevin Browne’s Sugarloaf home

TO OUR READERS 011 CONTRIBUTORS 013 CAPTURE 092

on the cover

Andrew Peters of Vertical Bay Maine holds young scallops grown at his aquaculture operation in Penobscot Bay. Photography by Peter Frank Edwards

on this page

Andrew Peters in the wheelhouse of the 32-foot Sammy G. on the way to his scallop farm, Vertical Bay Maine. Photography by Peter Frank Edwards

070

WE LOVE MAINE. Maine magazine tells compelling stories about the people and places that make our state special, with a particular interest in Mainers who are using their creativity and ingenuity to propel the state forward. Each issue includes stories on Maine’s exceptional food and drink scene, artists and artisans, and interesting homes. In our 48 Hours features and travel stories, we highlight the vibrant communities, the iconic landscapes, and the spirit that make up Maine. All of this is accented by beautiful photography and design that gives readers a true sense of place. We are advocates for Maine as a place for people to live, stay, and thrive—a place for people from away to move to, a place to raise children, a place to start and operate a business, and a place to visit and explore. Our community engagement goes well beyond our pages—through our events, daily encounters, and social media. WE ARE PROUD OF OUR AFFILIATION WITH THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS: The American Institute of Architects | Architalx | Best Buddies | Boothbay Harbor Fest | Bowdoin College Museum of Art | Camden Opera House | Camp Sunshine | Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation | Center for Grieving Children | Center for Maine Contemporary Art | Creative Portland | Dempsey Center | Friends of Acadia | Friends of Fort Williams Park | Full Plates Full Potential | Goodwill Northern New England | Greater Portland Landmarks | Harbor House | Indigo Arts Alliance | Junior Achievement of Maine | Lobsterman Triathlon | Maine Audubon | Maine Children’s Cancer Program | Maine Crafts Association | Maine Development Foundation | Maine Farmland Trust | Maine Media Workshops | Portland Community Squash | Portland Ovations | The Public Theatre | Spurwink | Startup Maine | STRIVE | Susan L. Curtis Foundation | Trekkers | Wendell Gilley Museum | WinterKids

READER POLL Last October a Maine state senator proposed a bill to make the lobster roll Maine’s official sandwich. Although the bill did not advance, an important question raised by the bill led us to ask our Instagram followers:

Is a lobster roll a sandwich?

Caviar is a love language 262 Commercial St. Portland, Maine 04101 (207) 775-7560

NO 36% YES 64%

brownetradingco brownetrading.com 10

maine | themainemag.com

TO OUR READERS Photo by Christina Wnek

Monique Brouillette, Craig Fear, Hilary Irons, Sandy Lang, Gretchen Legler, Kate McCarty, Jenny O’Connell, Dave Patterson PHOTOGRAPHERS |

Artisan Agenda, Peter Frank Edwards, Andy Gagne, Mark Marchesi, Tara Rice, Jeff Roberts, Nicole Wolf

PUBLISHER | Karen Middleton MEDIA SALES MANAGER | Anne Kelley DIRECTOR OF FINANCE + ADMINISTRATION | Melissa Olander SALES + CIRCULATION MANAGER |

Anna McDonough DIGITAL STRATEGIST | Zach Muller NEWSSTANDS | Sarah Lawrence

MAINE HOME+DESIGN |

Danielle Devine, Joel Kuschke, Rachel Hurn, Hadley Gibson, Orion Poulin

ADVOCATE MEDIA USA PUBLISHER / VP MEDIA OPS | Fred Fiander EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | Crystal Murray SENIOR DIRECTOR CREATIVE DESIGN + PRODUCTION | Shawn Dalton

SUBSCRIBE | themainemag.com

Maine is published nine times each year by Advocate Media USA Editorial and subscription information: 207.772.3373 80 Exchange Street | Suite 200 | Portland | Maine | 04101 Opinions expressed in articles or advertisements, unless otherwise noted, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher, staff, or advisory board. Every effort has been made to ensure that all information presented in this issue is accurate, and neither Maine nor any of its staff is responsible for omissions or information that has been misrepresented to the magazine. Copyright © 2022, Advocate Media USA. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission, in writing, from the publisher. Printed in Canada. themainemag.com

he start of the year is often seen as a time of renewal and change, and we’re leaning into that sentiment with this issue. You’ll notice some of the changes in the next few pages. We’ve added new departments to the beginning of the magazine, including How We Live (p. 16), an essay about life in Maine, and Like A Mainer (p. 22), which will provide expert instructions for a classic Pine Tree State activity (in this month’s column the head of the U.S. National Toboggan Championships in Camden will teach you how to race a toboggan). The themes of this issue’s stories also encapsulate change. There’s a photo essay of images from Mark Marchesi’s book Greater Portland Volume III, which documents the evolving architectural landscape of Maine’s largest metro area (Viewfinders, p. 24). Some of the sites captured by Marchesi had already changed when he published the book at the end of last year, including the iconic B&M Baked Beans factory, which lost its smokestack and shut down production. Another story follows a line-grown scallop operation in Penobscot Bay (“Scallops on the Line,” p. 70). The new practice aims to diversify Maine’s fishing industry, largely dominated by lobstering, and to provide a sustainable opportunity to make a living on the water.

Evidence of another change at the magazine can be found on our masthead to the left. Toward the end of last year Advocate Printing and Publishing Company in Nova Scotia purchased Maine magazine and our sister publication, Maine Home+Design. In an industry that has only been made more challenging with the pandemic, the sale is welcome news for the publications—and for anyone who cares about magazines. Advocate is the largest commercial printer in Atlantic Canada and has more than 20 publications, including a handful of similar regional titles like Saltscapes, East Coast Living, and Unravel magazines. Being part of the Advocate family will allow us to continue investing in quality storytelling about Maine. We will continue to evolve in the coming issues and hope you’re as excited as we are for the New Year.

Paul Koenig Editor pkoenig@themainemag.com

January // February 2022 11

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CONTRIBUTORS

MARK MARCHESI graduated from Maine College of

MONIQUE BROUILLETTE is a journalist whose work

Art in 1999 with a concentration in photography. His images have been exhibited widely, and his work has been supported by Maine Arts Commission, Maine Historical Society, and other organizations. Marchesi’s long-term project Greater Portland chronicles the changing cityscape of Maine’s largest metro area (Viewfinders, p. 24).

can be found in various outlets including National Geographic and Scientific American. Her story on cold-water swimming was inspired by Puranjot Kaur’s attempts at circumnavigating Mount Desert Island. She is looking forward to taking a dip this winter near her home in Kittery Point (Profile, p. 32).

Editorial assistant HADLEY GIBSON moved to Maine at age nine. After attending college in Massachusetts and then working in the ski industry in California (with a brief stint on a dairy farm in New Zealand thrown in), she joined other “boomerangs” and returned to Maine in late 2019. For this issue she reports on the goings-on in Portland, Maine magazine’s own backyard (48 Hours, p. 30).

Photographer JEFF ROBERTS has worked internationally from Boston to Burma to Budapest. When not behind a camera, Roberts can be found home-brewing beer in a blizzard, shucking fresh oysters, stoking bonfires, exploring the Maine woods, and willfully getting lost in new places throughout the world. For this issue, he photographed the Sugarloaf home of architect Kevin Browne and his family (Shelter, p. 86).

January // February 2022 13

CULTURE

INTERVIEW

Good Morning, Maine AS THE HOS T OF M AINE PUBLIC ’S MORNING EDITION, IRWIN GR ATZ HAS BEEN THE TALKING TO M AINERS IN THE MORNING FOR NE ARLY THREE DEC ADES . BY

PAUL KOENIG

PHOTOGR APHY BY

NICOLE WOLF

As the voice of Maine Public’s Morning Edition, Irwin Gratz is an early riser. His alarm is set for 3:30 a.m., and he’s at his desk by 4. “For the first two hours, I’m the only guy in the building,” Gratz says. He starts his day by figuring out what local stories to include on the morning broadcast and writing what he’ll read on air (ad-libbing is “not a good idea when you’re in news,” Gratz says). From 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., when most others are just arriving at the station, he’s on air every 10 minutes. It’s been Gratz’s schedule since he first took on the role on a contract in 1992. After a couple months of filling in, Gratz was hired by Maine Public permanently. “I think I probably really got the job in part too because nobody else really wanted to do it,” Gratz says. “Who wants to get up that early in the morning?” When did you know you wanted to be on the radio? I didn’t realize it at the time, but I do now realize that what I’m doing is what I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a child. I used to sit there at the breakfast table in the morning with the radio on the shelf overhead. And we would turn it on every morning and listen to the news during breakfast. I always did think that it would be really cool to be one of those guys on the radio. It sounded like they were having a good time. I just thought radio was a cool medium. Nothing has ever really dissuaded me from it. I mean, I’ve done just enough with television to think that I’d still rather do radio, where I don’t have to have a makeup artist. It’s just for me. It’s always been more fun. How does it feel to be the one person deciding what news in Maine is most important every morning? Because I’ve done it for so long, it’s a question I don’t really dwell on much

anymore. I don’t even think about it. It’s just the thing that I do. When you do this business for any period of time, especially in the confines of the way I work, in a studio with no windows on the outside or anything, after a while the audience almost becomes a fiction. You don’t know that they’re out there because there’s no feedback whatsoever. It’s just me in a room, making sure that I go from step A to step B. Sometimes I have to remind myself of the real importance of what it is I’m doing. I get reminded of it sometimes when I’m outside, when people run into me and talk about how much they listen. And it’s like, oh right, there are people out there. But you’d be amazed at how much it doesn’t feel like it when you’re in a studio in the morning.

“

People now tell me they ’ve been listening to me their entire lives, if they ’re in their 20s. That ’s kind of scar y.”

How often are you recognized in public from your voice? Now it’s quite often. My wife tells a really good story. When I used to work at WPOR, the radio station had an interesting demographic, at least back in the 1980s. It was very well known outside the city of Portland because it was a country music radio station. Most of the time when I was in Portland, not much would happen. However, I would wander into stores in Gorham and Standish, and as soon as I opened my mouth, people knew exactly who I was because they all listened like crazy. I had just met [my now wife]. We were going out to dinner at Sapporo’s down on the waterfront one evening. She was asking me that same question, and I’m like, “Doesn’t happen very often.” By then I had been at Maine Public for the first couple years, and as soon as I said that a guy turned right around and said, “Are you Irwin Gratz?” My credibility on that was just shot. January // February 2022 15

CULTURE

HOW WE LIVE

Tracks

Writer and professor Gretchen Legler finds a connection between the animal tracks surrounding her agrarian home and the humbling 21st-century opioid crisis.

uncapped, some not. I’d never seen that before. I’d heard of needles washed up on New York City beaches, but now here they were, dropped beside the road so near our home. The scattered syringes brought to mind the son of a neighbor who had nearly died of a heroin overdose. We had known him since he was a boy. He’d helped take care of our goats and chickens while we were away the year my mother was ill. His mother told me he’d gotten addicted to prescription painkillers after he’d

BY GRETCHEN LEGLER

ne morning I woke to deer tracks crisscrossing the yard—delicate proofs in the snow, a step here, a step there, a chain of steps entwined with more chains of steps. They had come in the night, lit by stars and moon, when the woods and yard were still. We had always known there were deer in our woods. I hunted them in the fall and knew some of their routes and resting places. But they had never before come so close to the house. I felt an excited delight and a strange chill—these creatures had been awake, circling the house, while we curled under our covers, dreaming, unguarded.

“

If you were young and jobless and could not afford college, you might try any drug, just so you felt you were a part of something bigger than your little Podunk town."

I found myself at the upstairs bedroom window after dark for many nights after that. I wanted to see the deer, moving in the moonlight, unaware that I was watching. I would check at 10 p.m. just before going to bed. I would glance out at midnight when I got up for the bathroom, and I would check again at 4 a.m., an hour I habitually stir. I thought I might keep vigil all night with a cup of coffee and a book, but I didn’t. I never saw the deer; they eluded me.

been severely injured in a terrible car accident. When his refills ran out, the boy turned to heroin. After he was released from jail and started treatment, he asked his mother to take him to his appointments. “Mom,” he said, “the dealers drive up and down the roads looking for guys like me.” They’d track him down, he told her, and offer him the stuff for free to get him hooked again. They knew his routines, his hangout spots, the places he was likely to show up sooner or later. It unsettles me—dealers in their pickup trucks, their ball caps low over their faces, their glove boxes full of needles and drugs, cruising the back roads. I waved at someone I didn’t know the other day, that casual country wave, and he didn’t wave back, not even two fingers raised off the wheel or a nod of his head. Could he have been one of them? I don’t like feeling afraid. Do we need to start locking our doors?

The day before, out walking on the country road that runs past our house, [my wife] Ruth and I found four hypodermic needles scattered in the sandy gravel beside the blacktop. The orange caps over the needles and the plungers stood out in the monotone winter landscape of white, brown, and gray. Some of the syringes were

Maine, it turns out, is a perfect place to be a drug dealer. With the closures of the toothpick and clothespin and paper mills, the shoe and shirt factories, the sardine canneries, the job prospects in rural Maine dwindled. If you were young and jobless and could not afford college or were afraid to be the first person in your

maine | themainemag.com

family to try, you might get bored. You might feel isolated up there in the country where they grew potatoes, and you might try any drug, just so you felt you were a part of something bigger than your little Podunk town in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe you just needed the money that selling drugs would bring. Or maybe that’s not the story; maybe you worked at a mill, or in the woods, or you fished for lobster. You did hard, dangerous work with your body. You did okay, moneywise, until you got hurt. When you were out with a bad back, there was no money

coming in. So, you took this wonderful painkiller that made it all okay. No wonder drug dealers set up shop in rural Maine. When I went out after that, across the yard to the barn for chores, into the woods for a ski, or for a stroll along the road, I was even more alert to tracks. I felt surrounded by invisible presences, some benign, even lovely, others malevolent. I thought it strange that I should find deer prints in my yard, that deer would come out of the woods and circle the house at night, just as I thought it curious that my path and my neighbor’s son’s path should intersect with the paths of opium poppy farmers from Central America, drug lords from Mexico, dealers who’d come from New York City to launch heroin startups. But perhaps I was being naive. There must be no limit to the lives that exist unbeknownst to me and that connect with mine, no limit to the number of beings that go about their usual business while I am somewhere else, asleep, or not paying attention. This is excerpted from the essay “Tracks” in Gretchen Legler’s new memoir, Woodsqueer: Crafting a Sustainable Rural Life, to be published by Trinity University Press in February 2022.

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CULTURE

ARTS

Artists and scientists collaborate on an immersive exhibition at an East Boothbay research institution to create conversations about climate change in the Gulf of Maine. by Hilary Irons Photography by Tara Rice 18

maine | themainemag.com

The Art of Science O

ver this past summer, artist Pamela Moulton worked in her screened-in studio at Hewnoaks Artist Colony in Lovell, at the foothills of the White Mountains. Carefully deconstructing and reassembling fishing materials washed up from the ocean floor, she tells the story of the ghost gear that lies tumbling underwater, beyond what we can see from boats and beaches. At the same time, Andy Rosen, a South Portland– based artist, was working at the shop of fabricator and craftsman David Mahany. Bit by bit, pieces of plywood, driftwood, and sections of roots and branches grew to reveal the skeleton of a massive North Atlantic right whale, alive with movement and subtle color. Architect and sculptor Joe Hemes applied his knowledge of producing lightfi lled sculptural objects to create scientifically accurate depictions of bioluminescent ocean creatures. And Anna Dibble, the artist who spearheaded all of these activities, collaborated with educator Lee Chisholm to create threedimensional bird forms while building and refi ning her plan for an immersive, ethereal installation of all these suspended sculptural objects that bridges art and science at East Boothbay’s Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. For the past three years, Dibble, a North Freeport–based artist originally from Vermont, had been looking for a way to build a community art-making experience centered on environmental concerns. After participating in a theatrical funeral procession for the dwindling Atlantic codfish, organized by the Artists’ Rapid Response Team in 2018, Dibble became focused on fi nding a way to more fully embrace

communally generated artwork in her own practice. For Dibble, the codfish parade brought to mind immersive communal artworks like artist Red Grooms’s 1975 installation Ruckus Manhattan, a 10,000-square-foot reproduction of the borough of Manhattan created with the help of many artist assistants. Dibble envisioned a similar project centered on environmental concerns in the Gulf of Maine. Remembering a project at Bigelow Labratory by artist Carter Shappy, she reached out to the research institution. “I went there with only a crazy dream idea and a lot of enthusiasm,” she recalls, and the enthusiasm was immediately returned by Bigelow’s community of scientists. Reaching out to fellow artists also brought a wave of energetic responses, and soon her crew of creative collaborators included people who could not only dream up but organize and help to build the artwork, such as project manager Christopher Sullivan and Rosen’s fabricator colleague, the woodworker Mahany. Nick Record, a senior research scientist of ecosystems at Bigelow Laboratory, was a crucial touchpoint in the development of the project. Guiding the artists through some of the technical aspects of the Gulf of Maine’s unique biosphere, Record used his own creativity and his perspective as a scientist to help integrate two worldviews. “I think both scientists and artists are trying to look at the world through new lenses and show the world in ways people haven’t seen it before. Curiosity and discovery, trial and error, and creativity are essential, whether you’re a scientist, an artist, or somewhere in between,” he says.

The lobby of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay is brought to life by the sculptural work of EcoArts artists Anna Dibble, Lee Chisholm, Joe Hemes, Pamela Moulton, and Andy Rosen.

January // February 2022 19

“

What I love about this show is that the size of the marine life and the position in the space makes me feel like a part of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem.”

CULTURE

The artists involved in the project worked from the same perspective, allowing the project, Majestic Fragility, to to operate as both as both contemporary art and as a learning opportunity for themselves and their communities, as the artwork took shape in their studios. Moulton, who collaborated with schoolchildren and educators throughout the state, researched not only the phenomenon of ghost gear, which is discarded or lost fishing gear in the ocean, but also the specific color index used in scientific diagrams to chart the acidity and other properties of ocean waters. Sculptor Hemes, working with the form of northern comb jellies, learned about that creature’s anatomical structure with the help of Record. “The eight ribs have iridescent cilia, which jellies use for mobility. I designed a light animation program to slowly change the color of the comb jellies from green to blue, with each jelly having slightly different colors and timing, so they seem more alive,” Hemes says. “By suspending the comb jellies [sculptures] on a single wire, they slowly move with the air in the lobby like they are underwater.” Rosen’s whale sculpture, like the rest of the work in the exhibi-

ARTS

tion, is also high above eye level, in a long, tall lobby in the Bigelow complex. Looking up toward the space’s ceiling, the whale floats, transcendent and otherworldly, among the rest of the sculptures, all of which reference marine life. Funded in part by the Maine Arts Commission, the Onion Foundation, and private donors statewide, the exhibition is on display through October 2023. “What I love about this show is that the size of the marine life and the position in the space makes me feel like a part of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem,” says Record. “People, scientists, whoever— we’re a part of the marine system, and the artwork makes me feel that every time I walk through. You can actually look upwards and see the organisms floating above you.” By transforming the space, the artwork brings the viewer into a world that is otherwise invisible to us, and in the context of an institution whose primary function is to research and fi nd ways to preserve that invisible world. Dibble’s vision of a multifaceted art experiment, bringing environmental narratives into the realm of communication and community, has taken form at Bigelow Laboratory in a manner that merges the earthly with the sublime.

Andy Rosen’s Atlantic right whale is encircled by Moulton’s ghost gear constructions and Hemes’s illuminated jellyfish forms.

January // February 2022 21

CULTURE | LIKE A MAINER by Rachel Hurn // Illustration by Olivia Ryder

How to Toboggan Like a Mainer According to Holly Anderson, co-chair of the U.S. National Toboggan Committee and assistant director of the Camden Snow Bowl

irst, consider your apparel. “This is not a fashion show. No Gucci,” says Anderson, who has worked at the Camden Snow Bowl since 2000. You want to dress warmly, in layers, and consider your feet. Think Carhartt, Dickies, practical Maine wear. When loading, do not sit knees to backs but lay as flat as you can on the sled. “If you’re sitting up like you’re driving a car, you haven’t done this before.” Wrap your legs around the person in front of you—the point is to go as fast as you can, and if you sit up, you create air blockage. “At the Camden Snow Bowl, hundredths of a second make a difference between who gets first place and who doesn’t get a trophy at all,” says Anderson. When you go down the hill, you want to squeeze your whole body, keeping your muscles tight the entire time. The Snow Bowl’s chute is made of hard ice, so you don’t want to fling an elbow out and catch it on the side. And while it might seem like a good idea to stick your foot out or drag your hands to slow you down at the bottom so you’re not drifting all the way across the pond, you can catch something that’s in the ice and be seriously injured. “Just stay on and enjoy the ride,” says Anderson, “and have a nice leisurely walk back talking about what you’re going to do better on your next run.” The 2022 U.S. National Toboggan Championships are scheduled for Feb. 11–13 at the Camden Snow Bowl. 22

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Thank you for a wonderful 2021. Wishing you and yours the happiest of holiday seasons. Cheers, Mary

trade up. pare down. move on.

January // February 2022 23

CULTURE

VIEWFINDERS

P OR T R A I T S O F A C H A NG I NG C I T Y A N E W B O O K F RO M P H OTO G RA P H E R M A R K M A RC H E S I D O C U M E N TS P O RT L A N D ’ S C H A N G I N G C I T YS C A P E A N D C H A RAC T E R .

BY PAUL KOENIG PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MARCHESI

hen Mark Marchesi studied photog- 2018 and last year, have already changed, including raphy at Maine College of Art, he an under-construction condo in the city’s East End focused on portraits of people. But that is now complete and the B&M Baked Beans on a series of extended road trips factory, which shut down production last year and around the United States, Canada, had its smokestack removed. Most of the buildand Mexico after college, he found himself taking ings Marchesi captures with his Linhof 4x5 field portraits of buildings instead of people. He contin- camera aren’t as iconic, but they provide the city its ued the practice when he returned to Portland in character, particularly when contrasted with new 2005 and has been documenting the area’s chang- development. The former site of Joe’s Smoke Shop, ing architectural landscape ever since. In the third which was torn down in 2015 and replaced with a volume of his Greater Portland series, published condo building, is an example of that, Marchesi says. at the end of 2021, Marchesi captures how quickly “It’s not a masterpiece of architecture, but it’s PortMaine’s largest city has evolved in recent years. land,” he says. “It was something that defined the Some parts of the city documented in the book, city. What went up in its place is one of these sort of which includes 48 carefully composed film photo- homogenized complexes that could be the same as graphs and 112 mobile phone photos taken between anywhere in the country.”

Opposite: Hill Street in Portland's West End. This page: Oakhurst Dairy on Forest Avenue.

January // February 2022 25

CULTURE

VIEWFINDERS

Clockwise from top left: Harmon Glass on Hanover Street, with Bayside Bowl in the background. The Time and Temperature Building on Congress Street. The Portland Food Co-op on Congress Street and a new condo building behind it.

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VIEWFINDERS | TKTKTKTKTKTK CULTURE | VIEWFINDERS

Clockwise from left: The Ambassador apartment building on Casco Street. U-Haul Moving and Storage on Marginal Way. The corner of Fox and Hammond Streets in East Bayside, with a condo building under construction in the frame.

PORTLAND in 48 Hours HADLEY GIBSON EDITORIAL ASSISTANT 01

With a thriving food scene, walkable neighborhoods built for exploring, and plentiful water views, Maine’s biggest city has much to offer the weekend traveler. Friday Cobblestones and cocktails Start your weekend in Portland with a stroll around the Old Port, home to historic buildings and a working waterfront. Sturdy footwear is recommended for walking its cobblestone streets. While you may be visiting for the boutiques and cafes, you will find cultural landmarks dotted throughout Portland, like Lobsterman Park—a cobblestoned square at the intersection of Middle and Temple Streets with a sculpture of a lobsterman and his catch— showing the roots of Maine’s largest city before it became known as a hub of world-class restaurants. Newly opened in summer 2021, the Canopy by Hilton Portland Waterfront hotel on Commercial Street serves as an invigorating home base for the weekend, with 135 rooms, plenty of chic sitting areas such as a tranquil, glassed-in library space, easy access to the gym (or, if you stay in a “Fitness Room,” an en suite Peloton gym), and eye-catching interior design throughout, including a moss wall installation in the lobby. Walk past the hotel’s cafe and bar, Salt Yard, and take the elevator to the top floor to start your evening with drinks and appetizers at Luna Rooftop Bar, an indoor-outdoor space featuring sweeping views of the waterfront. 30

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Now it’s time to hit the town. Make your way to the Portland Museum of Art (PMA), which has free admission for the general public on Fridays, and wander the galleries to view the permanent collection, including works by Winslow Homer, Dahlov Ipcar, and PierreAuguste Renoir, as well as the current exhibitions. North Atlantic Triennial: Down North, a collaboration with museums in Iceland and Sweden that the PMA museum is calling the first exhibition devoted entirely to contemporary art of the North Atlantic, will be on display starting February 18. It’s a short walk over to dinner at Wayside Tavern, located in a space adjacent to the Francis Hotel. The restaurant boasts an extensive wine list, delicious cocktails, appetizers and larger plates, and a cool-cozy vibe with bar and couch seating. On the way back to the hotel, stop for a nightcap at the Jewel Box (formerly the Bearded Lady’s Jewel Box), a cocktail bar with funky ambiance and fun drink options, such as the Dank Ocean, which delivers a smooth kick with smoky scotch, crème de menthe, and green bell pepper juice. Saturday Breweries and boutiques

@themainemag

Leave the peninsula for a morning walk around the Fore River Sanctuary, an 85-acre preserve on the western edge of the city with over five miles of trails for walking, trail running, and mountain biking. Make your way to Jewell Falls, Portland’s only natural waterfall, for a little bit of forest bathing before you dive into the day. On the way back into the heart of the city, stop by community hub Thompson’s Point, where you can grab a quick bite to eat at Rosemont Market and Wine Bar, a cup of coffee from Rwanda Bean, or if it’s a little later in the day, a drink from Bissell Brothers Brewing Company or Stroudwater Distillery. If you’re traveling with little ones, the newly opened Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine is a must-visit for imaginative fun, and the nearby open-air skating rink is a winter favorite. Plus, the International Cryptozoology Museum, which focuses on unknown or hidden creatures like sea serpents and Bigfoot, will leave your head spinning. You’ve held off long enough—it’s finally time to hit the shops. Stop by Mainely Noods, a noodle shop on Congress Street, for a quick boost of energy, and then make your way to Ember, a collaborative retail space featuring handmade ceramics from Campfire Pottery and jewelry and apparel from lifestyle brand

TRAVEL+OUTDOORS | 48 HOURS 04

Mulxiply. Head to the heart of the Old Port to check out boutiques like Blanche and Mimi, Gus and Ruby Letterpress, and Fitz and Bennett Home, and smell the spices at cooking store Skordo to get your taste buds tingling. If you need a quick pick-me-up, stop by Bard Coffee’s walk-up window, or grab an early dinner at Crispy Gai, known for Thai-inspired fried chicken, inventive cocktails, bright decor, and an exceedingly selfie-friendly bathroom mirror surrounded by neon lights, designed by Portland artist “Neon Dave” Johansen. Round out your day with a trip to the East Bayside neighborhood, known as a breeding ground for newcomers to Maine’s beer and spirit scene. Check out spots like newly opened Belleflower Brewing; Portland Zoo, a beloved locals’ bar; and Après, the hard-seltzer tasting room in East Bayside. Then clear your head on the walk over to West Bayside for a rousing game of bowl-

ing at Bayside Bowl, which features a rooftop bar with 360-degree views of the city. Finish up the night with appetizers and drinks at the stylish Batson River Brewing and Distilling, or grab a final beer at Banded Brewing, with standout brews like Charms and Hexes and Gourd Lord on draft. Sunday Savory snacks and ocean views Get your blood pumping on your final morning in Portland with a run around Back Cove, a 3.6-mile loop with generous views of the Portland skyline. Stop by Coveside Coffee post-run for a pastry and a warm chai, and be sure to admire the mural on the outside by artist Tessa Greene O’Brien of Better Letter Hand Painted Signs. If you’re craving something a little more health promoting, Blake Orchard Juicery on Forest

Avenue features smoothies and raw juices geared toward gut health. On your way toward Washington Avenue stop by Print: A Bookstore to browse the extensive array of works by Maine authors in addition to a top-notch selection of fiction, cookbooks, and memoirs sure to please any bookworm or gourmand. You’ve likely worked up a healthy appetite, which is good news because restaurants like the recently New York Times– recommended Cong Tu Bot, Tex-Mex standout Terlingua, and hoagie heaven Ramona’s are within walking distance. Plus, shops like the knife store Strata and fermentation hub Onggi will keep you on your culinary toes. End your trip with a stroll along the Eastern Promenade Trail, where you can watch sailboats and fishing trawlers glide across Casco Bay, hunt for sea glass on East End Beach, and take in the sights and sounds of Maine’s biggest city.

01 Breakfast from Salt Yard, the Canopy restaurant that is open every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 02 Fore Street in the Old Port is lined with cobblestones the historic neighborhood is known for. 03 A beloved landmark to locals and tourists alike, Maine Lobsterman by Victor Kahill sits in the center of Lobsterman Park. 04 The tap room of Bissell Brothers Brewing Company at Thompson’s Point. 05 In addition to a well-trafficked rooftop bar, the Canopy has numerous seating areas for relaxing during a trip to Maine’s biggest city. 06 The International Cryptozoology Museum at Thompson’s Point is a one-of-a-kind experience—and the only establishment of its kind in the world. 07 The exterior of Coveside Coffee features a custom mural by Tessa G. O’Brien of Better Letter Hand Painted Signs. 08 The foyer of the Portland Museum of Art, which offers free admission on Fridays. 09 Lunch from Mainely Noods on Congress Street is the perfect energy boost during a shopping spree in the Old Port. The Tokyo bowl features ramen noodles, braised pork, baby bok choy, corn, edamame, and a hard boiled egg. January // February 2022 31

TRAVEL+OUTDOORS | PROFILE

Cold Water Cure

Swimmers are turning up in Maine’s frigid waters not only for exercise and a social boost but for the undeniable health benefits. BY MONIQUE BROUILLETTE PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICOLE WOLF

“ I never thought I would have a sledgehammer as part of my swim kit, but now I drive around with one,” says Puranjot Kaur, cold-water swimmer and resident of Mount Desert Island. At least once a week throughout the winter Kaur meets up with a group of like-minded swimmers who aren’t afraid to take the plunge (sans wetsuit) into Maine’s chilly winter waters. The sledgehammer is necessary to break through the thick ice that forms on MDI’s inland lakes and ponds. Last year, she used it to carve out a little swimming hole in Echo Lake that was big enough for her and her cold-water companions. Other times they met at the beach and swam in the ocean. The 30-degree water and the negative windchill did not deter them. Kaur is an experienced distance swimmer who has made two attempts to swim around Mount Desert Island in the summer months. During the pandemic, when the indoor pool lost its appeal, she began swimming outdoors in the winter too. What started with just three or four friends has exploded into a group of 20 or more women around the island who meet weekly for cold-water dips. “It was kind of a perfect storm with COVID: people were looking for something to shake up their routines,” Kaur says. People are turning up on Maine’s frigid beaches for exercise and a social boost, but there are health benefits as well. Kaur says she has experienced a lot of improvements with inflammation issues, like headaches, and with overall mental health. Scientific research backs up her experience. A study from researchers in the United Kingdom showed marked improvements in the mood of a 24-year-old woman suffering from major depressive disorder that did not respond to conventional treatment. Scientists think that the anti-inflammatory effect of cold water and the increases in endorphins and even vagal nerve stimulation, which 32

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creates a relaxation response in the body, could explain the effect. Cold-water swimming has also been found to reduce the number of respiratory infections and increase swimmers’ white blood cells. Another study from researchers in Poland that followed people who regularly swam outdoors between October and April showed a lower concentration in the blood of triglycerides and homocysteine, an amino acid linked in heart disease. Mike Tipton, a physiology researcher who studies extreme environments, cautions those who wish to enter the sport that the cold water can be a cure, but it can also be a curse if not done carefully. “We are a tropical animal,” he says. “People need to realize that they are taking on a major stress to the body.” The risks of cold-water swimming can include cold shock, cardiac arrhythmias, hyperventilation, and eventually hypothermia. Before taking the plunge, he advises people to get a health check. He also says it’s important to stay in shallow water, keep the swim short, and have a partner with you. To get started, one of the best precautions is to adapt to the cold slowly, limiting time in

the water to less than ten minutes. According to Beat Knechtle, a Swiss physician, researcher, and ultramarathon athlete, swimmers should gradually adapt through regular exposure to the cold water. He suggests people “swim with the seasons,” starting in late summer and then continuing into the fall. That is the strategy of John Gale, Portland resident and longtime cold-water swimmer. Gale is a regular at an annual event in Vermont’s Lake Memphremagog, where swimmers compete in various races and sprints in a 25-meter pool carved out of the ice. When not racing, he meets up with a friend or two and heads out for openocean swims. “If you are prepared it’s fun, but it can be dangerous,” he says. Gale and his swim partners get used to the cold by gradually wading up to their knees, then their stomachs, before going all the way in. “Part of the process is the whining and complaining that it is cold. We stand there for a few minutes and talk and curse,” he says. Whether it’s a cold-water plunge, a true swim, or just a quick dip and curse, for these hardy souls cold-water swimming has lots to offer during the winter season.

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S P E C I A L A D V E RT I S I N G S E C T I O N

A GUIDE TO THE SUMMER CAMPS THAT MAKE SUMMER IN MAINE SO MEMORABLE PHOTO BY CHRISTINA WNEK

maine | themainemag.com

MAINE TEEN CAMP

Porter | Coed | Resident | Ages 13–17 teencamp.com | mtc@teencamp.com | 207.625.8581 Maine Teen is a coed camp in southwestern Maine, with several session options for registration. It offers an elective program, ranging from performance and creative arts to sports and trips. Tech-free and choice-led in a unique, diverse, and teen-centered camp environment.

WYONEGONIC CAMPS

ACADIA INSTITUTE OF OCEANOGRAPHY Seal Harbor | Coed | Resident | Ages 10–18 acadiainstitute.com | explore@acadiainstitute.com | 800.375.0058 AIO introduces young people to the exciting world of marine science through a unique hands-on curriculum that combines biological, physical, and chemical oceanography with field, classroom, offshore, and laboratory work. Each summer, 200 young people attend AIO from all over the United States and around the world to spend two weeks on the coast of Maine near Acadia National Park.

Wyonegonic and Winona Camps are the oldest sister/brother camps in the nation. The

Denmark | Girls | Resident | Ages 8–17

two separate camps are in beautiful forested,

wyonegonic.com | info@wyonegonic.com | 207.452.2051

lakefront settings. Campers choose from a broad base of traditional activities depending on individual goals and interests. There is

particular

focus

waterfront

activities,

outdoor skills, and wilderness trips.

BIRCH ROCK CAMP Waterford | Boys | Resident | Ages 7–16 birchrock.org | birchrock@birchrock.org | 207.583.4478 Birch Rock Camp models a life of simplicity, championing civility and mutual support. With only 85 campers, the camp community provides a nurturing place where boys can truly enjoy boyhood, disconnect from the electronic world, and reconnect to the natural wonders of life. A daily choice of exciting activities is offered in waterfront sports, field games, primitive skill crafts, wilderness trips, and more, balancing independence, structure, and fun. Two-, three-, four-, and seven-week options are available.

File Name: BirchRock_16 ounce Tumbler.eps HURRICANE ISLAND CENTER Size: 1.81" W x 2.50"H FOR SCIENCE AND LEADERSHIP

Hurricane Island | Coed | Resident | Ages 11–18 hurricaneisland.net | programs@hurricaneisland.net 207.876.6050 At Hurricane Island, students connect with the natural world and with one another. They participate in f ield work within a community of researchers in action. Middle and high school students can choose f rom a range of week-long ecology programs or in-depth two-week marine science sessions on beautiful Hurricane Island.

CAMP AGAWAM

CAMP CENTERSTAGE

At Camp Agawam, a boy learns to become his best self. Through a structured seven-week program filled with opportunities for leadership, teamwork, and healthy competition in a digital-free environment, boys develop character traits to play a positive role in their communities. Since 1919, sportsmanship, service to others, and stewardship of the natural world have been at the heart of the Agawam experience.

Camp CenterStage is committed to nurturing young artists of all experiences in a noncompetitive and encouraging setting. CCS’s invigorating program offers campers the opportunity to learn valuable life skills through a variety of arts and traditional camp experiences, including acting, music, photography, dance, creative writing, filmmaking, painting, swimming, hiking, yoga and more. CCS’s twoweek long sessions are: Standing Ovation, Barefoot Arts, and Under the Stars. It also offers a one-week leadership intensive.

Raymond | Boys | Resident | Ages 8–15 campagawam.org | 207.627.4780

Livermore | Coed | Resident | Ages 7–18 campcenterstage.org | 207.500.2233

CAMP O-AT-KA Sebago | Boys | Resident | Ages 8–16 campoatka.org | info@campoatka.org | 207.787.3401 Located on the shores of Sebago Lake in southern Maine, boys have been coming to O-AT-KA for over 117 years to explore interests, gain skills, make lasting friendships, and grow to be self-assured young men of character. Campers from around the world are immersed into a supportive, unplugged environment with robust arts, athletics, aquatic and wilderness programs. Sessions run from two to seven weeks.

CAMP TIMANOUS Raymond | Boys | 3.5 & 7 Week Sessions Ages 8-15 | timanous.org | 207.655.4569

We provide a simple, active lifestyle where campers grow in character and kindness alongside friends of all ages, mentored by engaging and supportive counselors.

CAMP

TIMANOUS BODY

•

MIND

•

SPIRIT

PORTLAND YACHT CLUB JUNIOR SAILING PROGRAM Falmouth Foreside | Coed Two-Week Sessions | Ages 6–17 portlandyachtclub.com | 207.781.9820

The Portland Yacht Club’s sailing program offers novice to advanced classes, STEM adventure, and travel race teams. Registration begins February 1.

PHOTO BY DENISE TRUPE

SPONSORED BY:

MEDIA SPONSORS

SUMMER: THE DONNA SUMMER MUSICAL NATIONAL TOUR

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2022 • 7PM THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2022 • 7PM MERRILL AUDITORIUM, PORTLAND

TICKETS PORTTIX • 207.842.0800 PORTLANDOVATIONS.ORG

The Zemrak Fontaine Team: Your Key to Home Sweet Home

MAUREEN ZEMRAK & EDIE FONTAINE are extremely knowledgeable agents with nearly 35 combined years of experience under their belts. In addition to being REALTORS® that you can trust, Maureen and Edie are owners of Locations Real Estate Group. Above all, they pride themselves in their approach to business. Customer service is their top priority, which includes impeccable communication and skill in the industry. Longtime residents of Falmouth, Maureen and Edie are deeply invested in supporting and being active members of their town and its surrounding area. If you are looking to buy or sell in Falmouth or the Greater Portland area, call the agents who know and love these beautiful communities the most. Call Maureen and Edie. You can reach the Zemrak Fontaine Team by emailing ZemrakFontaineTeam@gmail.com or by calling (207) 272-2202.

LOCATION

IS EVERYTHING! We are a community of agents who fundamentally believe client care is paramount.

190 US Route One, Falmouth, Maine (207) 805-1811 | LocationsInMaine.com Info@LocationsInMaine.com

Our mission at Locations Real Estate Group is to listen carefully, communicate clearly, and to execute competently. We cannot guarantee your experience with anyone but ourselves.

SIGN OF THE Flux embodies change in downtown Lisbon Falls.

by Kate McCarty // Photography by Nicole Wolf

FOOD+DRINK

DINING

January // February 2022 41

he town of Lisbon Falls has seen a lot of changes in the past half-decade. The defunct Worumbo Mill that anchored the town at its southern end was demolished in 2016, and a medical cannabis shop recently popped up on the site. The Moxie Museum, an homage to Maine’s iconic soft drink, shuttered after owner Frank Anicetti passed away in 2017. In its place came Frank’s Pub, which pays tribute to the museum’s charismatic owner with plenty of Moxie memorabilia on the walls. Then, in April 2018, brothers Jason and Tyson LaVerdiere opened their restaurant, Flux, serving modern American cuisine. As the name implies, the LaVerdiere brothers are embracing the wave of change they’re a part of in Lisbon Falls. Over the past three and a half years, the restaurant has built a loyal following with its 12 or so core menu items, which include a decadent poutine and a signature burger topped with Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and caramelized onions. “People would lose it if we took [those items] off,” Tyson says.

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Jason, an alum of the now-closed Walter’s in Portland, fulfills his desire for creativity with an extensive selection of specials, offering seven to eight additional dishes a night. The specials are “hyper-local, hyper-seasonal,” he says, and reflect what’s abundant at the farmers’ market or what foragers are finding in the woods. On a raw, rainy night in the late fall he served wild mushrooms alongside lemon sole and a warming pheasant and bean cassoulet. The night I am dining at Flux, a deep bowl of plump steamed mussels comes topped with a mound of fresh herbs and two long, buttery slices of grilled sourdough baguette. The dish is inspired by Bissell Brothers’ Substance Ale, with lemongrass and lime leaves added to mirror the flavors of the hoppy beer and cream sauce. I see why diners often order extra bread to sop up the remaining sauce—Jason reports he once saw someone put it in a glass and drink it. Much of the popularity of Flux’s fare can be attributed to Jason’s from-scratch approach to cooking. From pasta and

FOOD+DRINK

bread to fermented foods and stocks, nearly everything served at Flux is homemade. “We make everything but the ketchup,” Tyson says. The pair acknowledge that making many foods that can be purchased can be difficult, but they’re dedicated to the approach nonetheless. Jason lives two blocks away, so he can pop over and tend to longer projects, like the veal demi-glace that cooks for three days before becoming a part of the restaurant’s signature poutine. Jason studied biology before attending culinary school and uses his knowledge of microbiology in his many fermentation projects. A tangy, purple sauerkraut cuts through the richness of the fried chicken sandwich, while koji, a mold-inoculated rice used in the chicken’s marinade, intensifies the meat’s savory flavors. Chefs in the know love this Japanese technique, which amplifies

DINING

the flavor of anything it’s added to, making foods “taste more like themselves,” according to Jason. Jason employs other unusual ingredients to maximize a dish’s flavor, like sodium citrate in the macaroni and cheese. The acidic powder thickens the cheese sauce and keeps it emulsified, resulting in a rich sauce with the flavor of a tangy English cheddar and the smoothness of melted American cheese. It coats curly housemade cavatelli pasta without becoming oily or grainy. But the food at Flux doesn’t rely solely on chemistry tricks to deliver flavor. Jason uses classic techniques when making the poutine but then substitutes fried potato pavé for the French fries: thinly sliced potatoes are layered with cream and baked,

Opening spread: Chef Jason LaVerdiere gets creative with nightly specials like a pan-roasted ivory king salmon over Chinese sausage and mushroom fried rice. This spread, from left: Flux in downtown Lisbon Falls retains the facade of the diner that previously occupied the space. A mezcal margarita features Maine maple syrup and tamarind bitters. The signature Flux burger comes heaped with house-fermented sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and caramelized onions. Quail eggs wait to be hardboiled and served in a Niçoise salad made with seared yellowfin tuna.

January // February 2022 43

FOOD+DRINK

DINING

then pressed and cut into cubes. The layers expand when fried, creating crispy edges around a soft, creamy interior. The potatoes are topped with cheese curds and the veal demi-glace, then roasted in a mini cast-iron skillet. “It’s like highbrow stoner food,” Jason says. “It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever made.” The restaurant’s bread and desserts are all made by baker Kristal Robishaw, who took over the duties from Jason within the past year. Traditional desserts like cheesecake, tres leches cake, and chocolate cake impress with their modern plating. Take the latter, for example: a smooth shell of ganache covers a dome of chocolate cake atop a layer of rich mousse. Torn bits of cake surround it, and a few chewy beet macaron shells rest atop dollops of whipped cream. This elevated take on a standard is a fitting end to my fantastic meal. Cocktails at Flux also feature many housemade ingredients, like the jalapeno-infused tequila that warms up the Spring Heat, a margarita with the floral flavors of St. Germain liqueur. Twelve taps feature exclusively Maine-brewed beers, and there’s a varied list of wines, 30 of which are available by the glass. Flux offers options for nostalgic and adventurous diners alike. Order the classic Flux burger at every visit, or branch out and try one (or several) of Jason’s inventive specials. As his brother Tyson says, “You’ll never get flavor-bored here. Never.”

FLUX 12 Main St., Lisbon Falls 207.407.4109 fluxnomnom.com Serving American fare with modern techniques and a focus on scratch-made preparations. Asian and fermented ingredients add global influence to many dishes. Appetizers $14–$19 Entrees $17–$42 Dessert $9–$14 ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK The restaurant’s location was a diner before the LaVerdiere brothers took over, and Flux’s exterior still bears a retro stainless-steel facade. The former diner is rumored to be the inspiration for the time-travel portal in Stephen King’s novel 11/22/63, in which the main character attempts to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Fans of the Maine writer often ask to see the stairs to the restaurant’s basement, but so far no one’s reported discovering a way to turn back time. HOURS Dinner: Thursday–Saturday, 5 p.m.– 9 p.m. Clockwise from top left: An elevated take on poutine is one of the most popular dishes at Flux. Desserts like chocolate mousse cake (top) and spiced persimmon cream puffs (bottom) are made from scratch and impress with modern plating. The team at Flux includes (left to right) Cameron Goslin, Kristal Robishaw, Jason LaVerdiere, Tyson LaVerdiere, and Trevor Charette.

January // February 2022 45

FOOD+DRINK | BEER

BREAKING FREE Maine’s first dedicated gluten-free brewery is serving up artfully crafted ales that refuse to compromise on flavor.

idge clanks a pint glass out from beneath the bar and sets it under a tap. Cascading golden liquid fills the shapely glassware. A frothy head of tiny bubbles settles at the lip. She places the pint in front of a man perched at the corner of the bar. They exchange a smile, as if they’ve shared a secret. “That’s Chris,” Pidge says to me, motioning to the man now sipping the head off his IPA. “He was our first regular customer. Comes in every Friday. He always tells us how grateful he is that he can drink beer again.” Without missing a beat, she clicks on the tasting room lights and raises the music on the speakers. Lucky Pigeon Brewing Company in Biddeford is officially open for the weekend. Lucky Pigeon is Maine’s first dedicated gluten-free brewery, and only the second in New England. While Kathleen Pigeon, affectionately called “Pidge” by all who meet her, pours beer for eager patrons drifting into the tasting room, she takes me through the brewery’s origin. Lucky Pigeon is the passion project of two couples: Nic and Lesley Bramer plus Lesley’s sister, Beverly Pigeon, and Beverly’s wife, Pidge. While the four were vacationing together six years ago in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Pidge started dreaming out loud about opening a gluten-free brewery. A longtime beer lover and homebrewer, she’d recently discovered she had an intolerance to gluten; she still hadn’t found a beer that both tasted good to her palate and didn’t cause her physical discomfort. Nic asked if she was serious about her dream. She was. This conversation set the two couples on a journey of researching commercial gluten-free breweries, attending a national brewing conference, and scouring the homebrewing internet communities for tips, all of which resulted in the opening of Lucky Pigeon Brewing Company in August 2021.

maine | themainemag.com

by Dave Patterson Photography by Nicole Wolf

January // February 2022 47

FOOD+DRINK | BEER Our conversation is cut short by a patron ordering two four-packs to go. She explains they are for her husband, who has given up gluten for health reasons. Lucky Pigeon’s is the only gluten-free beer he enjoys. When the customer leaves, I ask Pidge if that happens a lot: people expressing gratitude for palatable gluten-free beer. “At least once a shift someone will share a story like that,” she says. “Some people have even gotten teary. One customer told me he hadn’t had a beer in 20 years.” Pidge explains she frequently observes patrons interacting with one another, bonding over stories of gluten-free life. “We’re building this community in ways I didn’t expect,” she says. When I ask about sourcing certified gluten-free ingredients that fit the flavor profile of traditional beer grains, Pidge admits there are challenges. Knowing how dangerous it can be for someone with a severe gluten allergy, like celiac disease, to ingest gluten, the owners at Lucky Pigeon meticulously scrutinize every step in the supply chain to guarantee their ingredients don’t contain gluten. They even have to be careful that the yeast they source isn’t grown on a medium with gluten. As a result, the ingredients Lucky Pigeon uses in its mash are three times more expensive than those used by traditional

breweries. Regardless, the team of owners is vigilant about keeping the cost of their beer competitive with barley-based brews. To ensure their beer meets the high expectations of modern craft beer drinkers—gluten-free and otherwise—Lucky Pigeon hired head brewer Scott Nebel. Clad in Carhartt bib overalls, Nebel leaves his post at the seven-barrel brewing system to join Pidge and me at the tasting room bar. With nine years of brewing experience split between Sebago Brewing Company and Maine Beer Company, Nebel was excited for the challenge of brewing with gluten-free ingredients. “Brewing isn’t easy, and making a great beer is hard,” the bearded Nebel laughs, “but when I came here, brewing with barley suddenly seemed easy.” After he signed on with Lucky Pigeon, Pidge dropped off her five-gallon homebrew system to Nebel’s Portland apartment, where he got to work experimenting with a new lineup of ingredients, including millet, rolled oats, rice, and buckwheat. “The goal from the start was to brew clean, drinkable beer people love,” Nebel states. And so far that’s exactly what he’s done. During my visit I sample the four beers available on draft. Rock Dove is a 6.5 percent IPA loaded

Opening spread, from left: A can of Eclectus, a crisp blonde ale with notes of fresh lemon zest. A sampling of gluten-free beer offerings from the Biddeford brewery. This page: Pours of Lucky Pigeon beer featuring gluten-free ingredients like millet, rolled oats, rice, and buckwheat. Opposite, from top: Owners Kathleen and Beverly Pigeon enjoy a beer in the historic Pepperell Mill tasting room. Head brewer Scott Nebel leans on a mash paddle in the seven-barrel brewery.

maine | themainemag.com

“

We’re building this community in ways I didn’t expect.” with hop notes of mango and grapefruit. The malt finish has the smooth characteristic of a craft IPA, with no off-notes or flavors that don’t fit the profile of an American-style hoppy ale. The blonde ale, Eclectus, is a bright, crushable beer offering a clean tasting experience from nose to finish. Columbidae offers a straight-ahead approach to an American ale with a pronounced malt finish. And Little Brown Job, Nebel’s take on an English-style brown ale, has rich notes of caramel and brown sugar with a velvety mouthfeel. The first compliment I’ll pay to this lineup of beer is that it tastes like, well, beer. Pidge notes that plenty of customers have finished a flight before they even realized they were drinking gluten-free beer. Nebel wants to continue to push the bounds of gluten-free beer in Lucky Pigeon’s oeuvre. He’s currently working on an American stout and a Belgian ale. The goal in the coming months is to fill all ten taps behind the bar with different beer styles. As the tasting room continues to fill, co-owner Lesley Bramer strides through the repurposed mill space. She hangs her jacket behind the bar and sets to work washing dirty pint glasses. Pidge tells me Lesley just flew in from Maryland, where she and her husband, Nic, live. Once a week, either Lesley or Nic flies into Portland Jetport and taxis to the Biddeford brewery to help run the tasting room for the weekend. Lesley smiles at a customer as she fills a pint glass with brown ale. She doesn’t look tired; in fact, she’s glowing. I ask how she manages a full-time job, kids, and regular trips up the Eastern seaboard. The frequent voyages to Maine are only temporary, the Ellsworth native explains, but they all agreed they need to happen to get Lucky Pigeon off the ground. Lesley also notes how gratifying it’s been to build this dream with the other three owners and to serve beer to a population that’s been longing for good beer for too long. Before I leave the Lucky Pigeon team to tend to the demands of the swelling tasting room throng, I ask how they chose the downtown Biddeford location, just around the corner from Banded Brewing in the Pepperell Mill. “When you step out onto Main Street you feel an energy. It’s tangible,” Pidge says. She pauses and looks down at her forearms, then adds, “I get goose bumps talking about it.” Pushing out into the dark fall night, I feel it—the energy. It’s a vitality made only more palpable by the addition of Lucky Pigeon Brewing Company and its carefully crafted gluten-free beer.

January // February 2022 49

FOOD+DRINK

THE LIST

THE BEST RESTAURANTS FOR ROMANTIC WINTER DATE NIGHTS Get cozy this winter at the most romantic restaurants around Maine. BY K ATE MCC ART Y // PHOTOGR APHY BY ARTISAN AGENDA

he challenge of eating outdoors last winter was sometimes fun (and necessary), but this year I’m ready to go back inside where it’s warm. Let’s reconnect with loved ones over a shared meal, surrounded by the pleasant buzz of strangers enjoying a night out. Maine has so many destination restaurants, so here’s a pared-down list of nine worthy spots for when you need to shake up your “Netflix and chill” routine. Ditch the sweatpants and put down the takeout menu: we’re going out.

Joshua’s

1637 Post Rd. | Wells | joshuasrestaurantandbar.com Cozy up with some farm-to-table fare at this restaurant located in a restored 1774 Colonial-style house on Route 1 in Wells. Chef Josh Mather serves upscale American dishes using many ingredients grown nearby on his parents’ farm. The dining room is partitioned into several small rooms, providing plenty of intimate corners in which to enjoy your meal. Share a dish of wood-grilled mushrooms with truffle butter to start, and don’t miss my favorite entree: roasted haddock with caramelized onion crust served over mushroom risotto.

The White Barn Inn

37 Beach Ave. | Kennebunk | whitebarninn.com This luxury inn’s restaurant is regularly voted one of Maine’s most romantic dining spots, and for good reason. With white tablecloths, a huge window that overlooks trees wrapped in twinkling lights, and even a piano player, the setting is primed for romance. Classic Maine dishes have luxurious touches, like caviar atop the lobster roll and sherry-laced lobster bisque. The Little Barn offers a more casual environment with a bistro menu, but you may find yourself envious of the diners in the main dining room.

North 43 Bistro

1 Spring Point Dr. | South Portland | north43bistro.com For the best view of the Portland skyline, venture across the river to South Portland’s Ferry Village neighborhood. The window-lined dining room overlooks Spring Point Marina, and the expansive menu offers dishes for everyone, from boar bolognese to miso-ginger-glazed salmon. A date night at this waterfront bistro will make you feel like you’ve gotten farther away than just South Portland.

Chaval

58 Pine St. | Portland | chavalmaine.com With its warm lighting and French- and Spanish-inspired cuisine, Chaval in Portland’s West End is a great date-night destination. Don’t miss the starters, like the simple pan con tomate or trumpet mushrooms with chorizo and duck egg. Entrees like swordfish a la plancha and coq au vin are hearty wintertime favorites. For a truly special evening, reserve one of the heated greenhouses on the patio and enjoy a private meal in comfort.

Via Vecchia

10 Dana St. | Portland | vvoldport.com Between the glam decor and the standout cocktails, a visit to this Old Port restaurant makes for a memorable evening. Velvet-lined banquettes and leather club chairs offer comfortable seating in the front bar area, while the mezzanine in the back provides a more intimate environment. Tropical cocktail lovers won’t want to miss the Averna Mai Tai, and there are a variety of housemade pastas and flatbreads perfect for sharing.

Evo Kitchen + Bar

443 Fore St. | Portland | evoportland.com Sit at the chef’s counter at this buzzy Mediterranean spot in the Old Port to watch the kitchen prepare modern takes on classics like baba ghanoush and chicken shawarma. Tables in the upstairs dining room offer more privacy for enjoying small plates of the restaurant’s signature chickpea fries and bluefin tuna crudo. Don’t miss dessert at Evo— pastry chef Maureen Hobby’s creative sweets are perfect for sharing.

Water Street Kitchen + Bar

15 Water St. | Wiscasset | waterstreetmaine.com With big windows that overlook the Sheepscot River from its enclosed porch, Water Street Kitchen and Bar’s ambiance creates the right conditions for romance. Chef Ed Colburn serves a menu featuring plenty of Maine seafood with French, Italian, and Spanish influences, like roasted lobster with tarragon butter and a shellfish paella. The recent renovation of this property makes it a great destination for a romantic midcoast road trip.

Nina June

24 Central St. | Rockport | ninajunerestaurant.com This Mediterranean restaurant from chef Sara Jenkins is located in charming Rockport, which feels like a getaway all on its own. The restaurant has great views of the harbor from its dining room, where a four-course prix fixe meal made up of Italian, Spanish, and other Mediterranean dishes is served. Enjoy the same ambiance with a more casual menu in the cafe seating. Take home a memento from the selection of imported groceries, like tahini, olive oil, or dried pasta.

The Fiddlehead Restaurant

84 Hammond St. | Bangor | thefiddleheadrestaurant.com Diners in Bangor love this casual yet elegant spot for its farm-totable fare and extensive list of unique cocktails. With exposed brick and hardwood floors, the restaurant has a cozy vibe that will warm you up on a winter night. Start with a plate of local cheeses, duck rillettes, and housemade tomatillo jam, or marinated mushrooms over farro. Entrees like vegetable chow mein and lamb tamales reflect the global influence of chef Melissa Chaiken’s international childhood.

Opposite: A cozy corner at Via Vecchia in Portland’s Old Port. January // February 2022 51

FOOD+DRINK | RECIPE

Traditional Oyster Stew BY CRAIG FEAR

n the days when oysters were plentiful and cheap, oyster stew was a staple dish up and down the East Coast of the United States. Prior to World War II, cookbooks were replete with oyster recipes. It is thought that the popularity of oyster stew gained steam when mid-nineteenth-century Irish immigrants, following their Catholic customs to avoid eating meat during certain religious holidays, adapted a traditional stew recipe that called for ling, a fish not found in New England waters. Oysters have a chewy texture and briny flavor that is similar to ling, so the adaptation was a natural one, and oyster stew was here to stay. The dish became customary to consume on Christmas Eve in many Irish-American communities, and it caught on around the country as a tasty, simple oyster dish. The key to a good oyster stew is simplicity. The shining star is the oyster liquor that flavors the milk or cream with an intense briny flavor that needs little adornments. Typically, a little cayenne, paprika, or celery salt might be added, but they are not necessary. Finally, there is one addition that I highly recommend, and that is a little dollop of butter. Yes, butter. Old-school New Englanders know this well (nor do they fear butter). It may sound odd to add butter to an already rich, milky stew, but it adds an extra depth of creamy richness that can be oh so very satisfying. Excerpted from New England Soups from the Sea: Recipes for Chowders, Bisques, Boils, Stews, and Classic Seafood Medleys. Copyright (c) 2022 by Craig Fear. Used with permission of the publisher, The Countryman Press, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

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INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

1 dozen Eastern oysters

Shuck the oysters and reserve the liquor. Heat the butter over medium heat in a small to medium saucepan. Add the onions and sauté for about 5 minutes or until softened.

2 tablespoons butter 1 small yellow onion or 2 to 3 shallots, about a half cup, diced into ½-inch pieces 2 cups whole milk, half-and-half, or heavy cream Optional seasonings, to taste: Freshly ground black pepper Dollop of butter Pinch of paprika, cayenne, or celery salt

Add the oysters and sauté until the edges start to curl, a few more minutes. Add the reserved oyster liquor and milk and bring to a very gentle simmer for a few more minutes. Remove from the heat and serve immediately. Ladle into individual bowls and add optional seasonings to taste.

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HERE'S TO THE DOGS

For our inaugural Maine’s Top Dog Contest, we asked our readers to open their phones and their hearts to send us the best photos of their Maine pooches—and they delivered in spades. We received nearly 800 entries (with 533 unique dogs!) featuring pups posing in front of lighthouses and buoys, dressed up as lumberjacks and superheroes, and thoroughly embodying the joy of four-legged life in the Pine Tree State. Let's see who came out on the top of the dog pile.

HOW WE DID IT

HONORABLE MENTIONS YURY FRENCH BULL DOG // LIBERTY

Farm dogs come in all sizes. Yury is a papa to the ducklings, an ear-cleaner for the sheep, and the light of his owners’ lives.

KODA SIBERIAN HUSKY // JAY

To determine the Editors’ Choice winner and honorable mentions, each member of the Maine magazine editorial team whittled the list of dogs down to their personal top ten picks. From there, the staff went through each pick one-by-one, ranking them on a scale of 1 to 10 based on photo quality, creativity, and editorial suitability. These points were tallied up, and the overall winner and three honorable mentions were chosen according to the highest cumulative points.

EDITORS’ PICK BEST IN SHOW

ERMA OPAL GERMAN SHORTHAIRED POINTER // SEBEC

Koda loves to be on the move! He loves hiking, camping and even kayaking. Koda also completed the 100 mile wilderness trail this last summer.

OLIVE

GOLDEN RETRIEVER // LOVELL Olive loves to hike, run, and find new sticks to bring home. She is constantly hunting for foliage with her parents!

Erma is a ten-year-old reading therapy dog. She visits schools and libraries to help children who are struggling with reading.

January // February 2022 57

CLASS SUPERLATIVES MOST MAINE

BEST DRESSED

BEST PORTRAIT

MILO

VIOLET

BOWDOIN

BEST ACTION SHOT

BEST BUDDIES

CLASS CLOWN

DJANGO + HILDI

TICKET (AND HER PACK)

HUCKLEBERRY

LABRADOR // OWLS HEAD

WIREHAIRED POINTING GRIFFONS // CAMDEN 58

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ENGLISH CREAM GOLDEN RETRIEVER // WESTBROOK

TERRIER+DOBERMAN PINSCHERS // SACO

GERMAN SHORTHAIRED POINTER // WEST GARDINER

LABRADOODLE // SOUTH PORTLAND

READERS' PICK

The Readers’ Choice winner was picked over the course of a month, starting with two weeks of open voting on our website. The eight dogs with the most votes moved on to a bracketstyle showdown on Instagram over the course of four days. In the end, Morty, a Chihuahua from Buxton emerged on top, winning each round with over 80 percent of the vote.

MORTY CHIHUAHUA // BUXTON

Morty is a social media star on TikTok and Instagram under the handle @MortyTheMisfit. He’s a special needs rescue from Texas who is now living the good life in Maine.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

KESSLER

MIKE

RANGELEY

Kessler enjoys staying cool in the water when her family gathers mussels on Chebeague Island. The only thing she loves more than hiking up snowy mountains and being with her favorite people is sniffing out the food that may be in your hand.

Mike is the center of attention wherever he goes! His favorite things to do are going on walks, trying to catch balls, and getting zoomies in the yard. He especially loves going to the beach and digging in the sand, even though he’s afraid of the waves.

Rangeley is a fun-loving, sweet, and cuddly dog whose favorite place is the beach. In this photo he’s saying that he’s not ready to leave quite yet.

BERNESE MOUNTAIN DOG // PORTLAND

GREAT DANE // GREENWOOD

GOLDENDOODLE // HARPSWELL

January // February 2022 59

SPONSOR'S PICK

ZEEK

ENGLISH SETTER // PORTLAND Zeek is a goofball, even though you can't tell from his serious face in this photo. He loves giving hugs and is often mistaken for a Dalmatian or Great Dane mix. Next year he is going to start training to become a therapy dog for people impacted by cancer.

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31 Maple Street, Lewiston

An inclusive ski program opens up new opportunities for people of all abilities. BY J E N N Y O ’C O N N E L L / / P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N DY G AG N E

maine | themainemag.com

January // February 2022 63

“S

kiing is calming. When I’m going fast, my stress goes away. I can just let it go,” says Ella Glover, a 13-year-old from Greene, as we ride the chairlift up the lower portion of Sugarloaf. It’s the kind of frozen, clear day that skiers and snowboarders hope for: the sky that deep, powdery blue that I’ve only ever been able to fi nd above mountains. Glover points out carved wooden animals hidden in the trees that I would have missed if she weren’t my guide. To her point, not once this morning has she seemed stressed. It’s her second lesson ever, and she’s making clean, measured turns and earning advanced tips from the ski school instructor. Glover is in the Horizons ski program, and I am her “ski buddy,” here to give a little extra support on the mountain, but it feels more like the reverse. Introduced to Horizons by my sister, Caitlin O’Connell, an occupational therapist in midcoast and southern Maine and an adaptive sports volunteer, I am here to ski with athletes with various abilities and to learn about accessibility. I also want to remember what I, rusty and out of

shape after years away from ski slopes, like about skiing. The best way I’ve heard it put in recent memory was when I asked Horizons skier Stella Reinhard, age 9, what she felt like going down the mountain: “In my heart, it’s scary fun.” Hampden resident Colby Gott, 17, started skiing ten years ago at New Hermon Mountain, and discovered quickly that he had a knack for speed. “I like the feel of adrenaline as I’m moving down the hill, and the wind blowing in my face,” Gott says. “The fastest I’ve ever gone on skis is 50 miles per hour.” Gott, who has autism, started racing in the Special Olympics when he was 10, but outside of that program it was hard to fi nd teams for him to race on. “Other places said no, because it is not a physical disability. And that, as a parent, was really hard to hear,” says his mother, Marilyn Gott. It’s a sentiment echoed by other parents of Horizons skiers. When she told cofounder Bruce Albiston about the situation, Albiston immediately recruited a coach and started a Horizons race team. Gott races every couple of weekends, and often takes home medals. “I would like everybody to know that you shouldn’t limit or underestimate somebody just because they have a disability,” he says.

Opening spread: Ella Glover whizzes down the ski slope during a Horizons lesson with her ski buddy. Opposite: Horizons volunteers help support success on the mountain by giving clear directions, setting attainable goals, and helping skiers understand what to expect out of their ski experience. This page: Inside the Horizons ski bus, program director Kayla Lee helps skier Jameson Morse prepare for a day on the slopes.

January // February 2022 65

Bruce and Annemarie Albiston were catapulted into unfamiliar territory in 2005, when Annemarie’s father, educator Andre R. Hemond, survived a massive stroke. One of the outcomes was aphasia—a common but lesser-known condition that affects speech and language. “We saw the isolation and frustration firsthand,” says Annemarie. To help others in her father’s position, she and Bruce established the Aphasia Center of Maine in 2012—like Horizons, it operates under the umbrella of the Albiston Foundation—and launched an annual retreat in Hemond’s honor. Eleven people attended the first session, which was focused solely on fun and quality of life. (When they held the 2019 retreat, there were over 120 participants.) Inspired by the positive impact of that first retreat, the Albistons vowed to do more. A longtime skier, Bruce had volunteered for adaptive programs in both the eastern and western United States. He noticed that there wasn’t yet an accessible ski lodge in the Northeast. “We decided that we would build a lodge, and hopefully they would come,” he says. The Adaptive Outdoor Education Center (AOEC) opened its doors in Carrabassett Valley in December 2015. While it has features you might expect from a mountain lodge—sleek bamboo flooring, a grand stone fireplace, plush couches, and board games galore—it also comes equipped with a wheelchair-accessible kitchen and bathrooms and alternative gathering spaces, curtained and tucked away, for those who prefer lower sensory stimulation. Anyone with a disability, or who is part of the world of people with disabilities, is welcome as an overnight guest. Six years later, the downhill ski program has expanded to

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New Hermon Mountain and Saddleback, and Horizons offers year-round opportunities for over 770 annual participants to engage in recreation, arts, education, and meaningful connection. The program nurtures collaborations with over 30 different groups, from outdoor organizations to Maine universities, and is always seeking to connect with more of the community. Two years ago, they doubled the size of the lodge. “So obviously, they’re coming,” jokes Bruce. AOEC adapts the environment, instruction style, and equipment of its programs to match the strengths and needs of participants to support meaningful participation in sports and other activities. However, as its offerings expanded, the organization shifted away from the word “adaptive,” becoming known, simply, as Horizons. “When you think of adaptive, you often think of separating people from their peers,” says director Kayla Lee. The hallmark of Horizons programming is inclusion. Whenever possible, participants are given the option to be in a larger group, with support. “If you just provide the right support and opportunity, it’s limitless,” Lee says. “They can do anything and everything.” This weekend on the mountain, Eddie and Shamus Roy, 15-year-old twins from South Portland who have been with Horizons since 2015, are skiing on tether. A Horizons volunteer follows behind each of them, holding long straps that allow the skiers to move independently but provide support with turning and stopping when needed. Eddie leans against his tethers to go fast. Shamus carves careful turns. As they whiz down the mountain, turning on their own and hitting small jumps, I can see the determined focus on their faces and, in their wide smiles, the depth of their joy.

The Horizons ski program at Sugarloaf is open to all abilities and ages. Many of the program’s skiers are navigating various developmental, cognitive, physical, or emotional abilities, including autism spectrum disorder, in which people are often managing varying tolerance levels for sensory input. “Our society often places the onus of what people can and cannot do on their disability, when in reality it’s often external and environmental factors that are the true barriers to participation,” Caitlin says. “Adaptive sports consider what can be done to change the environment—not the person—to make sports accessible.” Before skiers and families arrive at the mountain, they receive a social story from Horizons, complete with photos and text to relay information about what to expect from beginning to end of the ski day. Volunteers are trained to give concrete directions, set attainable goals, and most important, pay attention to the cues their skier is giving them. Consider the sensory experiences of skiing: the bright reflection of sun on snow, the noisy bustle of the lodge, the jerks and jolts of the chairlift as it starts and stops, the cold air on your face, a boot clipped too tight. For skiers with various sensory thresholds, navigating

these complex and sometimes unpredictable sensory environments adds an additional layer to the experience. “It’s about taking the time to support them in getting to whatever baseline is most comfortable and not trying to change their method of regulating or rush them into something they’re not ready for,” Caitlin says. Lily NobleGrosjean, who, like Caitlin, found her way to volunteering at Horizons through the University of New England’s occupational therapy program, sees the volunteer’s role as “translator” to the ski instructor. “We all have a threshold we can handle,” she says. “Something that’s not a big deal for you might be for somebody else. A mitten not fitting well could be the ender of the entire day, and a kid might not be able to communicate that in a way that’s understood. I can kind of translate that information, and then that child can still engage and be a part of that group.” Up ahead, Bruce Albiston plays tag with Jameson Morse from Cumberland, a pint-sized speed demon on skis whose outstretched hand is mere inches from Bruce’s jacket. “Can you catch an old man?” Bruce bellows, bobbing and weaving and stopping on a dime, and for a moment I can’t tell which one is 9 and which one is 71. When I ask Bruce about

Opposite: A tether is one adaptive tool that helps skiers stay in control on the slopes while still affording them full range of motion. This page: The cozy AOEC lodge is designed to be inclusive, with wheelchair-accessible kitchen and bathrooms and alternative gathering spaces for those who prefer lower sensory stimulation.

January // February 2022 67

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his favorite part of Horizons, “It’s about the relationships,” he says. “Watching people grow. Some of these kids, you challenge them, and nobody’s ever challenged them before. We don’t put in restrictions when they come. If you want to try it, we’re going to let you try it. We want people to try.” Morse catches him right before they reach the chairlift and hoots in triumph. Brunswick resident Shannon Landry’s son, Ethan, was born two months prematurely and had three strokes at birth. “He wasn’t projected to live, let alone be here at 17, walking and talking,” she says. Ethan has cerebral palsy and epilepsy and is partially blind. He skis with his best friend, Payne, in the winter, and sails and rock climbs in Horizons’ summer programs. “Doctors have kind of discounted our kid since day one. So, the fact that he skis and rock climbs and has other interests is just amazing,” says Shannon. “This just opens up his world so much more than I ever could have imagined.” The Albistons would say the same. “You open the door, and you walk through and see what happens,” Bruce says about their say-yes-to-everything mentality. “We’re all over the place, and we’re in totally different places than I ever thought we would be.” My last ski lesson of the weekend is with John Garrett, 16, from Portland, who has skied with Horizons since year one. As we practice our turns, I reflect on what I like about skiing—the “scary fun” in my heart as I speed down the slope; time spent cupped in the hand of a mountain. But I’m also coming away with a new understanding of barriers. I’m thinking about how it’s totally in our grasp to design something like a ski resort into a place that is universally accessible to everyone, with clearer signage, online social stories,

and training for ski school instructors. And I’m wondering what our world could look like if more people followed Horizons’ lead— by embracing people just as they are, and providing the support to meaningfully engage in adventure and community. Maybe what Horizons gives us is an opportunity to witness the potential of the human spirit. To believe everyone we meet is powerful, capable. To believe the same of ourselves. Garrett’s face lights up in a radiant smile every time we reach the bottom. As we ride the lift back up, I ask him what makes him so happy about this place. “There are champions who ski. A lot of people know how to ski. Being a skier with Horizons makes me feel part of the community,” Garrett says. “Being part of Horizons makes me feel part of the world.” Opposite, from top: “If you just provide the right support and opportunity, it’s limitless,” says director Lee, who designs and runs yearround Horizons programming: “They can do anything and everything.” The focus of the Horizons program is not on disability but on adapting the environment in order to make sports and activities accessible to people of varying developmental, cognitive, physical, and emotional abilities. This page, from top: Ella Glover found her passion for skiing when she hit the slopes with Horizons for the first time in 2021. For Horizons skier John Garrett, the feeling of being part of a community of athletes is the most powerful part of the program.

January // February 2022 69

SCAL

ON THE LINE BY SANDY LA NG PH OTOGR APH Y BY P ET ER FRAN K EDWAR D S

Underwater, between buoys near Buck’s Harbor in Brooksville, a garland of shellfish adds diversity to Maine’s fishery.

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LOPS

“Eighty-six, eighty-seven,” says Andrew Peters, captain of the fishing boat Sammy G. “Ninety,” adds David Loxterkamp, a friend and family doctor from Belfast who’s on board to help for the day. The two men keep counting, the numbers they call out bouncing through the air while the diesel engine chugs. In Grundens orange bibs and teal green rubberized gloves, the men are working through stacked crates of splashing seawater, sorting and counting the day’s haul of scallops. They need 1,200 scallops—cleaned and shucked—to fill the orders for this week.

So, this is a scallop farm. A few buoys are the only above-water evidence of the bivalves in the water column below us, growing in mesh lantern-shaped bags or suspended individually on rope to which they’ve been attached by a pierced “ear” portion of the shell. (When the young scallops in the mesh bags are large enough, Peters uses a drill press to make a small hole in each shell.) The scallops, seeded three years ago, are finally ready to be harvested this past summer and fall, and Peters has been busy. This is hands-on, hard work. His enterprise, Vertical Bay Maine, focuses on line-grown scallops, and is part of a budding aquaculture sector here that’s already garnered interest from chefs and home cooks—even as just a handful of farmers have jumped in so far. The cultivation of scallops is growing slowly and steadily as a practice, but line-grown scallops still represent only a tiny fraction of the scallops harvested in Maine, according to Dana Morse, who has studied scallops for more than 20 years. He works with the Maine Sea Grant College Program and University of Maine Cooperative Extension and has attended research trips to Atlantic

Canada and to Japan to see the methods used there that might translate well in Maine. The information he gathers is shared with farmers like Peters, who previously worked in breweries and on lobster boats, and he happens to have a degree in geology. “Andrew had fished commercially, lobstering, and he did his homework well to find the lease location in Penobscot Bay—for depth, protection from storms, and access,” Morse says. Line-grown mussels are often found on menus, and oyster-growing operations have multiplied over the years, but cultivated scallops have been less available. Last summer I was excited to find whole young scallops from PenBay Farmed Scallops out of Stonington in my seafood market—and then to learn of Vertical Bay’s operation off Bucks Harbor. Scallop farms are expanding the seasonality of just-caught Maine scallops because the harvesting of line-grown scallops isn’t limited to the wild scallop-fishing season in the state, typically December to April, when boats fish for the bivalves with mechanical draggers, or divers gather them one by one. Planning to buy more fresh scallops to bring home, I’ve already earmarked a few recipes.

Opening spread: Scallops growing on a line underwater at Vertical Bay Maine’s operation. This page: Owner Andrew Peters looking out from the wheelhouse on the way to his scallop farm in Penobscot Bay. Before cofounding Vertical Bay Maine, Peters earned a degree in geology from Middlebury College and worked as a sternman on lobster boats. Opposite: Peters lifts a section of the scallop line onto the boat with the help David Loxterkamp. Just-harvested scallops from the farm are sold whole or shucked and have been featured on restaurant menus, including at the Lost Kitchen in Freedom and the Hichborn in Stockton Springs.

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A SCALLOP MORNING IN MAINE The weather’s mild and clear on this early fall day when photographer Peter Frank Edwards and I are joining a harvest by Vertical Bay Maine, eager to visit the narrow section of water where the scallops are growing. Temperatures are already in the upper 50s at 7:30 on this morning of glassy calm water in Bucks Harbor. Peters, slim in a hooded sweatshirt, is at the Carolina skiff he keeps at the marina’s dock to motor to and from his fishing boat, which is on a mooring among sailboats and working boats for harvesting lobster and oysters. This harbor, tucked into Brooksville on the Blue Hill peninsula, is the one depicted with such clarity and charm in One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey. In the village up the hill, Condon’s Garage and the general store look just like the charcoal drawings in the book.

Peters’s 32-foot fishing boat hums along. Its name, Sammy G, is a nod to his wife, Samantha Gilligan Peters, and the investments they’ve made to launch the aquaculture venture, including buying out an original cofounder and purchasing boats and equipment with their savings. She continues her career as a nurse practitioner, and while the young couple worked together to launch the scallop farm, they became new parents: their son, Beauden, was born in 2021. By then Andrew had also earned a plumber’s license. “I promised Sam I’d do that, just in case we needed a backup plan,” he says. He worked plumbing projects into last year, but when he found he could sell as many scallops as he could harvest, he leaned into scallop farming, making it full-time. This isn’t a bad commute at all, I am think-

ing as we motor out to the farm. It is a jaunt of about 15 minutes to where Peters is cultivating tens of thousands of scallops below the surface along some 400 feet of line. We notice a seal swimming along the way, and in the distance are the masts of a schooner or two. When I see an osprey flying overhead, I imagine its hawk’s-eye view of us, on a boat nearly alone on an expanse of flat water in eastern Penobscot Bay, apart from the bracelet of small islands and ledges of Hog Island, Western Island, Pond Island, and Fiddle Head. Just to the north is Cape Rosier, where Samantha Peters spent summers growing up and where she still has family. When we motor up to the farm’s buoys, the depth gauge shows that the water is 60 to 70 feet deep. Here, Peters and Loxterkamp get to scalloping.

Opposite: Seawater and line on the floor of the 32-foot Sammy G., evidence of the day’s work of cultivating and harvesting scallops. This page: Getting ready to motor out to the farm from Buck’s Harbor Marina on the Blue Hill peninsula.

January // February 2022 75

TASTE THE MERROIR Once collected into bins on the boat deck, where saltwater is kept circulating, the live scallops can be evaluated and counted. I pull on some coveralls, too, and grab some palm-sized live mollusks that are opening and closing, showing glimpses of the soft bodies inside— some with a curved pillow of orange roe. Before counting each one, the men pull off some of the sea squirts and tiny starfish, mussels, and other marine creatures attached to the shells. Sometimes when he’s working out here, Peters says, large schools of mackerel swim past. Peters lifts a few scallops that have been growing on the line, clips the filaments, and shucks them so we can taste a scallop that’s just a few seconds from the sea. We’re tasting the bivalve’s one large adductor muscle—the dense medallion that’s recognized on menus and plates as a scallop. It’s cool and buttery, tasting absolutely clean and fresh. Togue Brawn, who sells and promotes scallops through her online business Downeast Dayboat, describes Vertical Bay Maine’s variety as “creamy and sweet with very little 76

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brininess.” Brawn, who previously helped to manage the scallop fishery for the Maine Department of Marine Resources, has a knack for describing the differences in the tastes and textures of fresh Maine scallops, depending on where, when, and how they were harvested. “Merroir” is important to shellfish, she explains, just as terroir affects the taste of wine grapes in vineyards.

“

scallops grow. Then mature farmed scallops release spat that can make their way back into wild beds via ocean tides and currents, which could help boost the wild scallop population. Growing the farmed scallop industry can also help to diversify Maine’s working waterfronts, Brawn says. The state’s fishing industry is overwhelmingly reliant on lobstering, which made up more than three-quarters of the total

I get a little excited about all of the benefits of a more diverse fishery in Maine."

Besides being a delicious and interesting food source, scallops and other mollusks are beneficial in the ecosystem because they filter water, Brawn notes. The farm-raised scallops are seeded with wild-produced spat (tiny scallops), and no added feed is introduced while the

value of commercial landings in 2020, and Brawn notes that scallop farming can provide an alternative to the state’s biggest fishery. “I get a little excited about all of the benefits of a more diverse fishery in Maine,” she says.

Morse, who has assisted Peters and other fisherman in starting their scallop-farming operations, has observed interest in scallop aquaculture in Maine growing in fits and starts over recent years. He notes it’s a labor-intensive prospect, and that it takes a few years “for farmers to get in tune with the ecology and seasonality rhythms of the site.” He’s optimistic about recent efforts and stud-

ies, though, and he hopes enterprises like Vertical Bay Maine will thrive. Morse says more than one seafood broker has told him that a Maine-caught wild scallop “is about as good as you can get in the global marketplace, and the same is true for a farm-raised scallop in Maine. Both taste fabulous.” The scallop possibilities certainly seem promising after an on-the-boat view. And

before we go, Peters mentions that he’s feeling confident after the strong summer season last year—both for scallops and for aquaculture in Maine generally. I’ve tasted more of the scallops since that day, and I have to agree. I don’t think he’ll even need that backup plan.

From left: Peters demonstrates how he pierces a hole in each scallop shell before tying the growing scallop to a dropper line. Scallop farming is a handson pursuit at every step; the fan-shaped shells are cleaned of sea squirts, mussels, and other biomass that can attach. Young scallops are grown in lanternshaped nets attached to the line. Shucking (and eating) a scallop while still on the boat.

SCALLOPS, TWO WAYS

SCALLOPS WITH GINGER, SESAME + SOY Serves 2 to 4 as an appetizer In honor of Japan’s influence on Maine’s scallop aquaculture, we found and modified a Japanese bar snack recipe. Scrubbed and washed scallop shells become the serving “plates.”

INGREDIENTS

1 sheet of nori or other dried seaweed 1 cup sake 8 to 10 fresh scallops in the shell 2 tablespoons melted butter ½ teaspoon sesame oil Splash of soy sauce 10 thin slices of jalapeño or habañero pepper (for garnish)

SAUCE

1 tablespooon soy sauce 1 tablespooon mirin (Japanese cooking wine) 1 tablespooon rice vinegar 1 tablespooon pickled shredded ginger or minced fresh ginger

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INSTRUCTIONS

Cut the nori sheet into 8 to 10 pieces and soak in the sake for a few minutes. Drain and set aside. Meanwhile, shuck the scallops. Scrub and dry the shells and set aside. Slice each scallop in half to make two “coins.” Whisk together the sauce ingredients—soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, and ginger—in small bowl. Heat the butter in a skillet over high heat and add the scallops, sesame oil, and a splash of soy sauce. Sauté for about 1 minute on each side and remove from the pan. In each clean, dry scallop shell, assemble two pieces of cooked scallop, a piece of marinated nori, and a pepper slice or two, then spoon some sauce over. Serve.

CREAM OF SCALLOP SOUP Serves 2 This is adapted from a scallop recipe in one of the final issues of Gourmet, the grand food magazine that, sadly, shuttered in 2009. (We’ve managed to keep a stack of copies that are frequent sources of inspiration.) Here it is, adapted with rosé, a single egg, and a “stock” made with instant soup base.

INGREDIENTS

8 to 10 shucked fresh scallops, each cut in half or thirds and seasoned lightly with salt ⅔ cup stock (we used vegetable bouillon) ¼ cup rosé wine ½ small shallot, finely chopped 2 thyme sprigs ⅔ cup heavy cream 1 egg yolk Salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste 1 tablespooon chopped chives

INSTRUCTIONS

Lightly sprinkle the sliced scallops with salt. Bring the stock to a boil with the rosé, shallot, and thyme in a heavy saucepan. Stir in the scallops and simmer 2 to 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove scallops and set aside. Cover the saucepan with a lid and simmer. Meanwhile, bring cream to a simmer in a small saucepan. Whisk the egg yolk in a bowl, then add a few spoonfuls of heated cream while whisking constantly. Add a dash of salt and black pepper. Whisk the egg-cream mixture into the stock. Warm over low heat until hot but not simering. Divide the scallops between two warmed bowls, pour some soup over, and garnish with chives.

January // February 2022 79

Winter-Ready Road Trips

81 Whoever first called our state Vacationland certainly didn’t have our winters in mind, but don’t let that dissuade you from planning an overnight trip or two this season. We rounded up our favorite wintertime escapes to make the most of these shorter days. From a dip in a cliffside hot tub to dining with views of a snow-covered Katahdin over a frozen lake, these experiences can only happen in wintertime in Maine. by Paul Koenig Photography by Peter Frank Edwards

January // February 2022 81

Western Maine What to do

Shawnee Peak in Bridgton is a family-friendly ski resort with six lifts and more night skiing than anywhere else in the state. If you’ve never skied before or want to brush up on your form, the mountain offers a package with a 90-minute group lesson, ski or snowboard rental, and a lift ticket starting at $119. For an animal-powered adventure, plan a tour with the Ultimate Dog Sledding Experience, which offers a variety of trips on snowmobile trails in Hebron, Casco, and Bethel, ranging from a one-hour ride to a two- or three-day intro to dogsledding package.

Where to stay

You’ll need a place to relax, and the Lovell Center Inn is a classic and elegant setting to unwind after a day on whatever kind of trails you chose. Built in 1803, the Georgian-style farmhouse and adjacent carriage house on Main Street in Lovell has ten guest rooms and historic details throughout, including exposed wood beams and two original fi replaces.

Where to eat

If you’re looking for a cozy, candlelit dinner, don’t go farther than the Lovell Center Inn’s dining room. Come for the five-course tasting menu, stay for the rum fl ight. For a more casual meal, head to Standard Gastropub in Bridgton for dinner and a fi ll-up. Located in a renovated gas station building, the restaurant serves from-scratch versions of your favorites, like macaroni and cheese with bechamel sauce and fried chicken sandwiches made with local, free-range birds.

Millinocket What to do

There are multiple groomed cross-country ski trail systems in the Millinocket area that are free to use. The Northern Timber Cruisers Snowmobile and Cross-Country Ski Club maintains around 20 miles of trails, including Bait Hole trails off Route 11 and another from their headquarters off Millinocket Road. New England Outdoor Center (NEOC) has nearly 16 miles of groomed cross-country ski trails for both Nordic and skate skiing. If you want more speed to go with the trailside views, rent a snowmobile at NEOC.

Where to stay

NEOC is a perfect home base for a weekend getaway to Millinocket, with more than 20 cabins and lodges, including large ones that can fit up to 14 people. Plus, dogs are allowed in the cabins.

Where to eat

There’s no need to venture too far, with River Drivers Restaurant at NEOC overlooking Millinocket Lake with Mount Katahdin in the background. If you want a more lively dinner scene, head to Blue Ox Saloon in downtown Millinocket for reliable pub food and cold beer.

Camden, Rockport + Rockland What to do

If your idea of a winter escape involves escaping the cold, try a trip to the midcoast’s museums and galleries. There’s no better place in Maine right now to see art. Rockland is the epicenter, with the Farnsworth Art Museum’s vast collection of work by American greats, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art’s unparalleled exhibition space, and well-curated galleries like Dowling Walsh Gallery. In Camden, artist Colin Page’s Page Gallery has a modest but mighty roster of distinctive artistic talents, and Peter Ralston’s iconic coastal photographs can be seen at Ralston Gallery in downtown Rockport (open by chance or appointment in winter).

Where to stay

The castle-like Norumbega Inn on Camden’s High Street is a beacon of warmth come winter. The interior’s intricate wood details are best appreciated while sitting by the parlor’s fi replace (perhaps with a glass of cognac in hand), and the 11 distinctive guest rooms offer a range of amenities to keep you cozy, including in-suite fi replaces and deep soaking tubs (one even has its own Jacuzzi-style tub).

Where to eat

While there’s nothing wrong with warming up with a bowl of noodles at Suzuki’s Sushi Bar, go with the chef’s omakase tasting menu for an extraordinary experience. Just call ahead for a reservation. Chef Keiko Suzuki Steinberger has received multiple James Beard Award nominations for her year-round, seasonally driven restaurant.

Ogunquit What to do

With its miles of white-sand beaches, Ogunquit has long been a summer destination, but a wintertime visit allows you to avoid the crowds and see the coastal beauty in a new, snow-covered light. Marginal Way, the just-over-a-mile paved walkway along the water, is especially beautiful after a winter storm. Just keep in mind: The trail isn’t maintained in the offseason, so conditions are at the whim of Mother Nature.

Where to stay

The luxurious Cliﬀ House Maine isn’t cheap but staying there is a singular experience matched by few other lodging destinations in the state. Many rooms at the cliffside resort offer uninterrupted ocean views, and watching whitecaps disappear into the horizon as steam rises around you from the waterfront hot tub is magical.

Where to eat

Northern Union feels welcoming no matter why you’re there. The wine-focused restaurant located in a former home on Shore Road is just as suited for a multi-course romantic dinner as it is for drinks with friends. The food, wine list, and cocktail program are all stellar, and the setting makes you feel like you’re visiting a thoughtful, stylish, and absurdly talented friend. PHOTO COURTESY OF CLIFF HOUSE MAINE

January // February 2022 83

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AT HOME | SHELTER

H A P P Y P L AC E Architect Kevin Browne and his family feel more at home in their renovated, low-maintenance ski chalet than anywhere else. BY RAC H E L H U R N / / P H OTO G RA P H Y BY J E F F RO B E RTS

hen architect Kevin Browne and his wife, Heather, bought their place in Sugarloaf’s Redington East neighborhood, the mountain became a huge part of their family’s life. Whether it’s summer or winter, they find themselves hitting the road on Friday after work and school and heading up north, not to return until Sunday. “The kids look forward to it as much as we do,” Browne says, calling Sugarloaf their happy place. They discovered their house eight years ago when visiting friends in the area. “We started skiing at Shawnee Peak when the kids were three and six, but then as they got older, we thought they were ready for a bigger mountain,” Browne says. Initially the couple was looking to simply rent something near their friends. One day while visiting they were supposed to go hiking but it rained, so they drove around looking at properties. The place had been on the market for around a year and a half. They went for it. After many renovations, upgrades, and experiments, Browne

says, “I think we’re done now.” Below, Browne shares with us some bits of advice for fellow renovators.

Don’t worry if something is dated. Worry about bones. “The neighborhood was started in the 1970s—other friends bought a home here with the original shag carpet. Ours was also dated, but the layout turned out to be more comfortable living than our home in Falmouth. The main space is on the second floor, and it’s nice and open, with a woodstove in the living room. We’ve been slowly updating, biting off a little more each year since we bought it—covering over the old textured wood siding (both inside and out), replacing the Formica countertops, the old stove and hood, tearing out nasty carpet and installing new carpet—and now I think we’re finally done.”

Opposite: Before adding a 10-by-10 mudroom, the exterior of Kevin Browne’s family ski retreat was just a three-story wall with a stair that went up to the second-floor entrance. “Adding the mudroom really helped give the house a little more curb appeal,” Browne says. This page: Browne, his wife Heather, and their two kids gear up for a mountain biking session, the family’s favorite summertime activity. January // February 2022 87

AT HOME | SHELTER

No mudroom? No problem. “The big thing we did to the original house was to add a 10-by-10 mudroom off the driveway side. Before, it was just a three-story wall with a stair that went up to the second-floor entrance. Adding the mudroom really helped give the house a little more curb appeal. Plus, people would just come in and drop everything—bags and shoes and gear—in the living room. I had a good friend of mine, Brian Stearns of Stearns Woodwork, build it, and he also installed the bench and builtins surrounding it. We use the house just as much in the summer as we do in the wintertime, for mountain biking and hiking, so the room had to be able to hang bikes on the wall in the summer and skis in the winter, and to store all the different boots that go with all the different types of skiing that we do. It’s great, just having that extra entry space and a place to take your shoes off.”

Consider the pantry. “There’s a space off the kitchen that used to be the second-floor entryway, and we had it converted into a big pantry. We have a lot of family and friends come to visit, and they always bring big bags of food. Rather than having them drop it all on the kitchen counter, that pantry space has been great for getting it all out of the way.”

Go big where it matters. “We’ve slowly replaced every window in the house with windows from Marvin Design Gallery from Eldredge Lumber in Portland. We’ve also redone the siding—in phases, with the last two sides not going on until last year. They were the expensive sides, with massive windows looking out toward Sugarloaf. The cabinets are original. We just painted them and had new countertops from IKEA put in. The table we got is also IKEA—there’s a lot of IKEA stuff. We were trying to make it a little more Scandinavian with the birch veneer plywood, brighten it up. It was dated and dingy, and it was fully furnished, too. We took a lot of trips to the dump.”

Get a little experimental. “The changes we’ve made in the house are a little more experimental than the work I normally do because, as I view it, it’s a camp and it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s been fun to say, ‘Yeah, let’s try this out!’ Like the mudroom: We were able to get one of the old ski-lift chairs from the Bucksaw lift that they took down probably five or six years ago. I just luckily saw it on Facebook—they announced they were getting rid of around 100 chairs and were asking like $250 or $350 for them. I was like, ‘I’ll buy one!’ They were gone in half an hour. We integrated it into the bench in the mudroom, with Brian building new chair slats for it, anchoring it in, and then building all the little cubbies around it.” Opposite, clockwise from top left: The mudroom features racks for bikes and skis, cubbies for boots and gear, and an old Sugarloaf ski-lift chair repurposed into a bench. The owners’ bathroom on the third floor has the best view of Sugarloaf; it was updated last summer from its original 1970s decor, including more storage and better plumbing fixtures. Hanging out around the firepit with friends in the evenings played a big role in getting the family through COVID. This page: Browne says the second-floor family room, complete with a woodburning stove and comfy seating, is the coziest room in the house.

January // February 2022 89

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CAPTURE

JUSTIN SMULSKI This was taken last February during a snowshoeing trip to Buckhorn Camps on Jo-Mary Island near the 100-Mile Wilderness. Bud Utecht, co-owner of Buckhorn and a Registered Maine Guide, took us bushwhacking to check his game cams. It’s fascinating to watch the area’s lakes transform into frozen highways every winter.

Justin Smulski is a freelance photographer based in Biddeford with a focus on outdoor/adventure, editorial, tourism, and aquaculture. You can follow him on Instagram at @tidetopine.

For the chance to be featured in a future issue, send us a photo and a 50- to 150-word story about your image at capture@themainemag.com.

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Articles inside

Mountains into Horizons

Winter-Ready Road Trips

Scallops on the Line