Downwind And East: The People And Cuisine Of Downeast Maine

Bryan O'Nolan

Bryan O'Nolan is the the most highly paid investigative reporter at Ordinary Times. He lives in New Hampshire. He is available for effusive praise on Twitter. He can be contacted with thoughtfully couched criticism via email. His short story collection Mike Pence & Me is currently available from Amazon.

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10 Responses

  1. This is wonderful, Bryan. Thanks so much for writing it!Report

  2. Rufus F. says:

    My father lives on Long Island, off Portland, and catches lobster. Most of that side of the family is there now, and I wish I was too. I enjoyed this article quite a bit. Thanks for writing it.Report

  3. Bryan O'Nolan says:

    AN ANECDOTE FROM THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR:

    While up in Maine when I was working on this story my 10yo son me a celebrity. Of sorts.

    We stay at my in-laws place up there and part of their property abuts a tidal cove. It’s always been in the back of my mind that I should try digging for clams. So I checked the regulations at the town offices and found that, it was okay to do. I’ve dug clams on Cape Cod and it’s pretty rewarding.

    I just needed a clam gauge to make sure I didn’t dig illegally small clams.

    10yo and I hopped in the car and drove to the True Value in Machias. Circle the store for a while and decided to ask. It turns out they are in a locked cabinet next to the guns. (Keep in mind the gauge is a ring cut from a length of PVC pipe with a glittery paracord line from it so you don’t lose it.)

    We go back to the desk and standing there is Officer Curtis, from the TV show North Woods Law (he was in the first few series when it was shot in Maine and he is, by his own admission, “the one with the dog”.)

    My boys love the show and the binge the Maine episodes before we go, so this was a big deal for him.

    As for the clams the mud flat was so rocky I might have had success if I’d thought to use a backhoe mounted on a hovercraft.

    Maybe next time.Report

  4. Aaron David says:

    When I was 15 (1986), my mother and I drove from Boston up the coast until it was time to cut off for Leons. And after that we toured around New England, visiting BBQ joints (West Ossipee, New Hampshire) and Cheese farms (???). Along the way, we took a ferry across a river and a girl in a bikini top and shorts asked to drive the FIAT that she had stolen from her boyfriend in NYC off of said ferry, but had problems finessing the clutch.

    Some memories never fade. Thanks for this.Report

  5. Michael Cain says:

    Well written; I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

    That said, I want to ask the question, “When people say that X is a special place, why do they almost always mean that it’s a place mostly disconnected from contemporary America, where the population is shrinking, and nothing is a growth industry?”

    My wife and I, our two kids, their significant others, and our granddaughters all live in the northern half of the Colorado Front Range urban corridor. We all think it’s a special place and would be extremely reluctant to leave (well the granddaughters are a bit young for that decision). Part of what makes it special is that things will change. Industries will fail. New industries will grow. Children will do different things than their parents did.

    A million people per decade are moving here. It’s a special place.Report

    • Bryan O'Nolan in reply to Michael Cain says:

      Fair point. I think we are talking about two different kinds of special, perhaps. Part of the specialness, for me, is the very fact that it is to some degree disconnected from contemporary American culture.

      My wife’s family (which is how I was introduced to Downeast Maine in the first place) have noticed a significant and accelerating growth in tourism in the area, When they first came they were addressed as outsiders, now it is very common to see out-of-state license plates and people who come up from other parts of Maine during the summers.Report

  6. D. J. Jerry says:

    Very interesting. It’s a part of the country few outsiders know about. Very well written. A remote area well kept. I hope it stays that way.Report