Experience the Best of Maine in Fall, From Oyster Boats to Pumpkin Regattas
Observer · · g5746545
New restaurants, private oyster cruises, L.L.Bean’s $50 million refit and the harvest rituals that make it worth driving from Portland to Katahdin.
Summer sees Maine through a lens of lobster rolls on paper plates and cottages with docks, although autumn has always frankly carried the better material. By late September, salt marshes have bronzed and colder water is fattening the oysters, just as maples flare around Moosehead Lake. The color works its way south over several weeks, less a single jackpot weekend than a relay from Katahdin to the coast.
Route 1’s retreating traffic makes space for the state’s more peculiar habits, with apples pressed at the world’s last active Shaker community and a 1929 schooner squeezing in one final Penobscot Bay sail. Damariscotta, apparently convinced October needed a regatta, hollows hundred-pound pumpkins into boats. Up the coast, the Farnsworth gives Betsy James Wyeth the exhibition she merits, revealing the designer and preservationist who managed the Wyeth world rather than merely posing beside it.
The old rituals have sharp new company this year, from a Portland dining room folding soul food and Ethiopian cooking into one menu to a cult Connecticut housewares shop newly installed in Wiscasset beside a bakery working with Maine-milled grain. Even L.L.Bean emerges from a $50 million store overhaul on Sept. 18, with the giant boot mercifully untouched. Foliage makes a perfectly respectable alibi for the drive, although colder seas and a state no longer playing to its summer audience justify the mileage.
Custom departures from Portland Casco Bay Custom Charters turns its restored 1960s motor yacht Monhegan over to Ilma Lopez and Damian Sansonetti , the couple behind Chaval and The Ugly Duckling, for a private six-course sunset dinner. Up to six guests eat at one table while the boat moves through the harbor, with chef, crew and dinner covered by the $1,260 charter. A longer $1,485 Madeleine Point outing visits an oyster farm for shucking and unlimited bivalves.
95 Main St., Freeport, ME 04032, with cider at 255 Elmwood Road, Pownal, ME 04069 After a $50 million renovation, L.L.Bean unveiled its completed 155,000-square-foot flagship during a Sept. 18 to 20 reopening weekend. The Freeport institution now has a larger trout pond, underwater viewing at the stream tank, a 1912 Café and a Custom Shop for monogramming, engraving and embossing, while the giant Bean Boot keeps its post out front. Ten minutes away in Pownal, Portersfield Cider pours dry, small-batch releases in a salvaged 19th-century timber frame, some available nowhere else, from a farm planted with more than 225 apple varieties.
54 Water St., Wiscasset, ME 04578, with Brill’s Bakery at 27 Summer St., Wiscasset, ME 04578 Michael DePerno and Andrew Fry have fitted the sensibility of Plain Goods , their cult New Preston, Connecticut, store, into a 600-square-foot historic house in Wiscasset, where Japanese workwear, English knitwear, antique furniture and hand-turned Maine bowls reward a slow circuit. Friday through Sunday, start around the corner at Brill’s Bakery, opened Sept. 5 by father-daughter team Steve Brill and Emily Clark . Maine Grains flour feeds naturally leavened loaves, molasses oat porridge sourdough and seasonal focaccia, alongside shio pan and banana-pudding whoopie pies.
926 Main St., Waldoboro, ME 04572 Fashion designer Alexa Stark restored an 1880 Italianate house built by ship captain John B. Stahl as The Waldoboro Inn , converting its carriage house into Ida’s , a wine bar that feels closer to a friend’s kitchen than a hotel amenity. Natural producers share the shelves with more classical bottles, and the garden catches the season’s last plausible evenings. Food pop-ups, guest cooks and small cultural events change weekly, though a cheese plate and whatever the staff has open can settle matters nicely.
79 Sidelinger Road, Nobleboro, ME 04555 At Wanderwood , dinner begins in the field that fed it, with owners Kelsey and Matt Stiles setting long tables inside their timber-framed Nobleboro barn and letting each visiting cook respond to what came from the soil that week. Brent Foster and Ariel Knoebel of Husky Boi take over Oct. 10 for cocktails, small bites and a $170 family-style dinner with wine, with David O’Brien and Hayley Hastings of Greenleaf and Sonder arriving on Oct. 22.
683 Forest Ave., Portland, ME 04103 Martin Beavers and Esperance Yende opened Culture House in Woodfords Corner on Sept. 4, folding two family traditions into one counter-service room without flattening either, with Beavers handling catfish, oxtails, collards and exceptionally crisp gluten-free fried chicken while Yende cooks Ethiopian stews and conducts weekend coffee ceremonies. Brown-butter beignets arrive with banana pudding inside, so calorie counting is best practiced elsewhere.
274 Jones Woods Road, Newcastle, ME 04553 Turn inland from Route 1 and Oxbow’s Newcastle farmhouse brewery appears among the fields and forest where its mixed-fermentation ales make the most sense. Goods From the Woods returns Oct. 3 with artists, food and live music, while admission covers an event glass, three pours and two bottles to take home, sparing everyone the indignity of drink tickets.
Departures from Damariscotta, with farm visits in Edgecomb Cold fall water tightens a Damariscotta oyster and sharpens its brine, useful conditions on a river that produces roughly 80 percent of Maine’s crop. Damariscotta River Cruises spends two hours moving among working leases and opening oysters from several farms, with trips through Oct. 18 and $45 adult tickets. At Glidden Point Oyster Farm in Edgecomb, visitors can tour the operation and learn to shuck at the outdoor bar. Taste upriver and closer-to-sea oysters side by side, and the differences emerge faster than they do from a menu’s adjectives.
Damariscotta and Newcastle Atlantic giant pumpkins weighing hundreds of pounds arrive in Damariscotta on Oct. 8, and by Oct. 11, several have been hollowed out into boats for the Damariscotta Pumpkinfest and Regatta . Running through Oct. 12, the festival sends costumed competitors paddling or motoring the seaworthy candidates through the harbor while artists carve and paint the remaining gourds along Main Street. A parade, pumpkin drop and derby fill the interval.
294 Crosby Brook Road, Unity, ME 04988 Draft horses pull, sheepdogs work and timber framers raise joinery at the Common Ground Country Fair , which celebrates its 50th edition in Unity from Sept. 25 to 27. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) keeps the emphasis on agriculture, with seed saving, political talks and food grown largely within Maine, even as the traffic plan acquires its own moral seriousness. Arrive at opening and take the free shuttle if possible, then head first to the working demonstrations.
Statewide On Oct. 3 and 4, Maine Craft Weekend opens studios and small-batch workshops that ordinarily require an introduction or a commission. Hundreds participate statewide, so choose two or three makers and build the day around them. Belfast, Ellsworth, Gardiner and Biddeford anchor useful clusters, with brown-ash basketry, boatbuilding, handwoven wool and ceramics fired near the clay source appearing along the way.
707 Shaker Road, New Gloucester, ME 04260 At Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village , the world’s last active Shaker community presses apples from its historic orchards during a free Harvest Festival on Oct. 12. Beekeepers open a hive, musicians play among the 18th- and 19th-century buildings and volunteers demonstrate the practical crafts that shaped daily life here. The famous furniture makes more sense after watching that discipline in motion and remembering that its makers belong to a living religious community.
Farnsworth Art Museum, 16 Museum St., Rockland, ME 04841 “By Design: The Worlds of Betsy James Wyeth,” at the Farnsworth through Dec. 31, shifts attention to the woman who shaped many of the places associated with her husband, Andrew. Betsy restored buildings, designed rooms and gardens and managed the Wyeth legacy with a force that the demure word “muse” cannot contain. Material from Broad Cove Farm, the Olson House and Southern Island reveals how carefully those familiar painted rooms and coastlines were constructed, furnished and maintained.
Camden, Rockport and Rockland From Sept. 17 to 20, the Camden International Film Festival spreads nonfiction features, shorts, panels and late-night gatherings across Camden, Rockport and Rockland. One screening might take place in an opera house, the next near the harbor, with the Points North Pitch bringing six filmmaking teams before an audience and industry jury. The program favors formally adventurous documentaries and keeps directors close enough for an actual conversation after the credits.
Birch Bog Farm , 41 Dundee Road, Albany Township, ME 04217 Birch Bog Farm dry-harvests organic cranberries from low vines in Albany Township, which means the field never becomes the red lake familiar from television commercials. Picking generally begins in the second week of October, when visitors can walk the rows, learn how the fruit grows and fill a bag themselves. Weather and crop conditions control the brief season, so call before making the drive, bring cash and wear shoes suited to damp ground.
J. & E. Riggin, departing Rockland From Sept. 30 through Oct. 4, the 1929 schooner J. & E. Riggin closes its season with a four-night foliage sail priced at $1,365 per person. The captain chooses the route by wind, weather and color along Penobscot Bay, stopping for island walks or small harbors as conditions permit. After dark, passengers gather around the galley’s woodstove for meals cooked aboard, mulled cider and pumpkin carving.
Isle au Haut Boat Services, departing Stonington A passenger ferry from Stonington guards the quieter side of Acadia National Park on Isle au Haut, where limited services keep the crowds far below Mount Desert Island levels. Fall boats reach Duck Harbor through Oct. 12 after a 65-minute passage through the Deer Isle archipelago, placing hikers near the Western Head and Goat trails. Pack water, lunch and layers, since no car waits at the dock and cell service cannot rescue poor timing.
Western Maine, from Rumford toward Rangeley At Height of Land , Route 17 rises above Mooselookmeguntic and Upper Richardson lakes, with mountains folding toward New Hampshire and color usually strongest from late September into early October. Southeast of the overlook, the South Solon Meeting House hides a far stranger interior behind white clapboard. Between 1952 and 1956, 13 artists connected to the Skowhegan School covered the 1842 church in frescoes.
Young’s Guide Service , Greenville and the Moosehead Lake region A private outing with Registered Maine Guide Chris Young is a better use of dusk than repeatedly circling Route 15, since moose pay little attention to sightseeing schedules. Young adjusts three- to four-hour trips to current conditions and uses a four-wheel-drive vehicle or boat to reach ponds, logging roads and feeding areas around Moosehead Lake. Rates begin at $450 for two guests, with additional passengers at $25 each, and dawn or evening departures bring better odds with kinder light. Photographers can reserve a slower trip built around a long lens.
Taylor’s Katahdin View Campground, 38 Swift Brook Road, Stacyville, ME 04777 By late afternoon on Oct. 3, telescopes begin appearing in the open field at Taylor’s Katahdin View Campground, where Stars Over Katahdin uses the mountain as a horizon and an International Dark Sky Sanctuary as its ceiling. The free gathering starts with solar viewing and family programming before campfire talks, music from the Burnurwurbskek Singers and night-sky sessions take over after dark. Reserve online, bring a red-light flashlight and dress for an inland evening that will be colder than the coast suggests.