"The mountaintops are barren of trees, covered in rock. I shall name this the Island of Desert Mountains."
- Samuel de Champlain (September 5, 1604)
Our journey to Mount Desert Island started back in March 2012, in New Haven's Union Station. Waiting for the 8 PM bus to Boston, I browsed a kiosk of travel brochures at the end of the station terminal, flipping through brightly colored photos of the Mystic Aquarium, the White Mountains, and the Portland Head Light. There was always a strong desire to go North, in those years. College had become a lame duck session, and Jane and I pondered destinations for the weeks between our meaningless final exams and nearly-as-meaningless commencement exercises. I brought with me to Boston a trifold brochure about Acadia National Park, paradise situated on a rocky granite island in the east of Maine. We got as far as plotting cottage rentals and driving routes before the price of the endeavor stymied us. We were even thriftier in those days, and too young to rent a car thriftily.
Maine has loomed large in the imagination ever since those years in New England. Even after moving away from Connecticut, I frequently thought and wrote about the changing of the seasons, the wind sweeping down from the autumn sky, and the vivid, burning woodlands; landscapes transformed overnight, turning everyday life into mystery, every walk into an adventure. I longed to see that transformation again, and to see in its most sublime and northerly form. All of which is to say that the circumstances of this trip were set long ago - long before Iceland and Scotland and even Baltimore, Maryland. The October of our 25th birthdays, even if only for a brief weekend, has belonged, and forever will, to Mount Desert Island in Downeast Maine.
Mount Desert Island, like many places in America, sits at a busy intersection of human and natural history. Shell middens dotting the shoreline are a vivid reminder of the Eastern Algonquian peoples who sailed and fished along the coast of the island they called Pemetic ("The Sloping Land"). This land served as a cultural battleground for French and English colonists, an object immortalized by the painters of the Hudson River School, and a retreat for prominent Americans of the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties. The mountains of Acadia date back to an Ordovician collision, their granite tops so weathered and worn as to be memorialized by Champlain in his sailor's journal. Comparatively recently, glaciers roared across the island in the Pleistocene, carving elaborate valleys that have since become deep ponds flanked by meadow, moraine, and woodland. This is an island of fearsome beauty; of nature living and breathing across the ages. It remains home to eighth-generation colonists and fourth-generation lobstermen, as well as more seasonal inhabitants: in the wintertime, whale-watchers; in the summertime, an influx of homeowners; and in the autumn, the leaf-peepers. Jane and I join the latter's ranks.
Having caught a morning flight to Bangor from Washington, D.C., Jane and I cruise down the highway toward the coast of Eastern Maine. We pass the towns of Ellsworth and Trenton, and cross the road bridge over the Mount Desert Narrows; we are in Acadia proper around noon. The autumn rain that pitter-pattered on our windshield as we left Bangor has dissipated; the skies are strewn with cloud, desperately blue and beautiful. The woodlands we left in Maryland have just begun their deciduous transformation; here, we have arrived at the peak of the season. The hillsides are lined with flaming birch, oak, and maple, admixed on the higher slopes with the dark rich hues of spruce, pine, and fir. The air is cool and crisp. We take a long, scenic route into Bar Harbor, cruising southeast along the first portion of the Park Loop Road and returning north via Schooner Head Road. Along the way, we stop at an overlook commemorating the Great Fire of 1947. We have arrived on its 68th anniversary to the day; indeed, the woods pouring west to Hulls Cove, north to Bar Harbor, and east to Champlain Mountain look very much ablaze. We stroll the marshy path in the Great Meadow two miles south of Bar Harbor, and sit beside Beaver Dam Pond in the shadow of the Champlain's wooded hillside. At Schooner Head, we walk down to the battered shoreline of the promontory. Jane tiptoes her way along the rocky cliff, and I photograph her standing on the ceiling of a sea cave flooded by the high tide, its entrance just visible beneath the surf. Across the small cove are seaside mansions perched atop the rock, barely shrouded by the protective tree line. We walk along the coastline, leaping over ledges and gaps in the rock. A light rain begins to fall, rendered almost imperceptible by the waves crashing upon the rock around us. We creep back up the forested path.
Driving north now, we pass the Jackson Laboratory - a genetics institute founded on the island in 1929 - and soon enter the quaint little town of Bar Harbor. We will be staying the next three nights at the Yankee Lady Inn, a charming Victorian bed-and-breakfast run by Ms. June Chaplin, whose family has lived in Bar Harbor for generations. "Come in, do come in!" She ushers us with our big backpacks into the foyer of her little house, and I know instantly we are in a good place. The stairwell is lined with topographic and naval maps of the island and its environs, and the wallpaper is dotted with a leaf motif. On the living room table sits a stack of crystalline rock samples, and in the dining room, a gigantic map of the continental U.S. stretches across the back wall. The ceiling is painted so that we are sitting beneath a lily pond as June treats us to afternoon tea and coffee. She takes out her maps and shows us good places to walk on the island. I ask her about the submerged path to Bar Island, and whether we can make it across the water before sunrise (the day paper's tide table forecasts low tide at 8 AM tomorrow). "Oh, you'll be fine," she says with a grin. "Just wear your boots. And don't tell anybody I told you."
We unload our bags and set off for a stroll around town. We walk two blocks north to Bridge Street, a gravel path that terminates at the water. It is high tide, and Bar Island's namesake sandbar is hidden beneath the waves gently rolling in from Frenchman Bay. We sit on the beach and gaze longingly at the pine-forested island across the water. Two blocks to the east, we stroll along waterfront inns and restaurants - charming, rustic buildings ported in from another century. Every establishment is selling lobster, even the coffee shop where we stop for tea and a fruit smoothie. We grab a bench in the village green and sip on our drinks as we watch the boats go by in the harbor.
A late afternoon rainstorm blows in as we walk along the harbor shore path. The wind gusts whip the bay into a frenzy, and whitecaps come crashing toward the docks. A bell buoy somewhere off in the harbor is clanging furiously, and a gray mist blots out the setting sun. We throw the hoods up on our windbreakers and make our way back along Cottage Street, ducking into The Thirsty Whale for an early dinner: two lobster rolls - toasted buns piled high with fresh claw meat - with a side of New England chowder. On our way home, we stop in the Hanaford Supermarket to stock up on trail food - a loaf of bread, a block of cheese, and a bottle of juice.
Back at home, Jane takes a nap while we wait for darkness to set in. I am determined to do some astrophotography work on Acadia's Atlantic coast, and Jane insists on accompanying me. I get the impression that this is more for my safety than for her own enjoyment. At 8 PM, we hop in the car and drive back down Schooner Head Road. As we leave town, the forested road grows dark; we turn on our high beams. At Park Loop Road, we turn south and pass a park entrance station, totally deserted. We peer ahead into the night as the road curves with the shoreline, through tree stands and along rocky cliffs. I am trying to find the right parking turnoff among many, on an unlit sea cliff road that we have never driven, in pitch-black darkness. A light rain continues to fall. Jane is audibly frowning next to me. "This one. I think it's this one," I say, as we creep up on a turnoff to a parking lot. "You think it's this one?" Jane asks rhetorically. It is not this one. Nevertheless, I am beginning to realize that my chance of finding my favoured shooting spot is low compared to my chance of driving off a cliff or walking off a boulder path into the ocean. We park the car.
It is utterly dark, and I have committed the cardinal sin of astrophotography: no headlamp. I coax Jane into at least letting me hop out of the car to determine how hard it is raining, and whether there is any cloud cover. Unfortunately for her, there is only a slight drizzle in the air, and when I look up, I see the Milky Way bright and brilliant, strewn like a riverbed of stars across the southeast sky. Jane exits the car muttering, but even she grows silent when I point up. We descend the parking lot slope by the flashlight on my phone, and skitter across the dangerously dark and winding roadway. On the other side, we descend a rocky footpath through the pines, down towards the cliff edge. We can hear the pounding of the surf just below us, but we can barely see two steps in front of our feet, let alone where the earth drops away to ocean. The path is uneven and wet; small puddles are gathering in the rock, and small streams roll down the hillside, freshened by the falling rain. "If I die," Jane begins hypothetically. She does not verbalize the remainder of her thought.
We eventually come to a break in the trees. The Atlantic waves are roaring in the dark around us, and we mutually agree that we do not need to risk following the cliff edge any further. "Tourists follow undeveloped footpath at night, plummet to watery death," Jane reports. I set up my tripod and go to work, knowing that every minute I spend here is an incremental strain on our relationship. Dearth of headlamps notwithstanding, I have, at least, learned one lesson since our night at the Grótta Lighthouse in Iceland - I've saved a preset for night shooting, and I am able to focus on framing my shots without fumbling with camera controls in the dark.
As the camera does its work, in 30-second intervals, our eyes begin to accustom. To the north, I can see the stars glowing over Schooner Head and, where it curves inland, the shore of Sand Beach. In the distance, the smooth pelagic horizon is met perfectly by the blue-green glow of the night sky; you can almost see the stars shine upon the ocean as if it were a mirror. Miles from us , a series of signal buoys emit a calming red glow through the darkness of the watery expanse. To our south, the center of the galaxy curls up skyward from a stand of pine trees, glowing with its density of stars and the golden-purple, hazy fluorescence of faraway nebulae. "I haven't seen stars like this before," says Jane, finally awestruck into silence. We are left with only the howl of the night breeze; the steady roar of the waves; the patter of raindrops on rock; the interval snap of the shutter. "Can we go now?" Jane finally asks. We drive back to town as I thank her profusely.
