We began the day with a narrated bus tour of the town. One of the interesting differences here compared to Camden is that the big homes owned by the sea captains were not located on the seashore. They were located away from the shore. I am not sure why.

Perhaps it was because the shoreline was very industrialized with ship builders and processing plants for limestone. The local saying is “Camden by the sea; Rockland by the smell”.  As it turns out there are a tremendous number of limestone quarries in the area and the mined product was brought to the shore for further processing and then shipped to other parts of the world. We were driven past quite a few old quarries which are now filled with water and have become local swimming and fishing holes. Some quarries are 1/2 mile deep. I saw pictures of how they looked when mined in the 1800s by hand and horses used to carry the product out of the quarries. Limestone was the big business in Rockland.

Not being a big town (again about 5,000 people) the tour did not last very long. We were then driven the the now famous Farnsworth & Wyeth Museum where a docent led us on a guided tour of the exhibits. It turns out that Mrs. Farnsworth left several millions of dollars to the city after she passed in the 1930s to create an art museum. Later the Wyeth family donated many of Andrew Wyeth’s artwork to the Museum because his family had a summer home in the area and most of his watercolors  featured subjects in the area. I was amazed to see many of his pencil sketches he made prior to making a finished watercolor. Those sketches were works of art themselves-detailed in every way. Many of his watercolor originals are located here but his most recognized painting ” Christina’s World”  is owned by the NY Metropolitan Art Museum. Andrew’ s son, Jamie, also has a summer place here and I would imagine some of his work will eventually end up in this museum some day. Ironically 2017 is the 100th anniversary of Andrew Wyeth’s birthday and there is a special exhibit on display. If you recall we saw the special 100 year exhibit of John F. Kennedy a few days ago. There was really not enough time to really experience the museum as we were scheduled to meet at Sharp’s Point for our special group lobster boil.

We were greeted by a 4 piece folk band in a big tent with picnic seating. Nearby was a big wood fire blazing away with huge pots of boiling water. As we arrived the staff began throwing in dozens of lobsters and topping them with mussels, corn on the cob, seaweed and burlap. Twenty minutes later we were called to collect a plate of steamed lobster, corn on the cob, melted butter, mussels, cole slaw and potato salad. Ship staff showed us how to clean the lobster. Bibs were supplied and were needed as it became a messy proposition getting that delicious lobster meat out of the shell. Staff wandered around offering seconds to those who wanted them. Needless to say the lobster was tender and sweet. I was surprised at how good and mild the mussels tasted as they were fairly large in size. It was a wonderful, abiet messy meal.

Some people left to go to a transportation museum in town while we stayed around to visit with our host, Captain Jim Sharp, who proceeded to give us a narrated tour of his personal maritime museum that he built here. We all were blown away by the quality of the exhibits he has put together on boat building in olden days, lobster fishing equipment, sea navigation, tools used for building boats, ship models, and historical pictures of famous schooners built in the area. Captain Jim loves to tell stories about the history of maritime technology and his time spent as a schooner builder and sailor. He would have talked for hours had we not had to return to our ship. His maritime museum is truly world class. It was an impressive afternoon.

 

We returned reluctantly to our mother ship where we were treated to an after dinner lecture by Sam Ladley, the historian who led us on the walking tour in Camden. His subject tonight was on Coastal Maine and the lobster industry. The gentlemen is a native and a wealth of knowledge about the area and its history.

 

Maine was originally populated by Europeans who wanted to farm. Unfortunately they quickly learned that there is no soil here (typically 2-3 inches); it got pushed into the ocean during the ice age. People had to turn to fishing. Centuries ago fishing was abundant because of the currents and continental shelf. Early reports said you could “walk across the water on the back of fish”, but, as expected, the area eventually was overfished. The famous Grand Banks and much of the area is closed for fishing as they try to rebuild the fish stock. That will take generations to do.

Sam explained how Maine prospered in the 1820-1830 era because of its ship building expertise and all those trees. Not surprisingly he said at one time there was not a tree left within 20 miles of the coastline; they were all cut down for boats  and for firewood. Eventually the industrial revolution and steam power killed the schooner business here.

Unfortunately, it has been downhill for Maine since those days. One very bright spot however is the lobster industry. Lobster harvest has grown from 20 million pounds/yr to 150 million pounds/yr, mainly because the loss of cod (because of overfishing) permits more lobster eggs to hatch. Sam explained how there is rigid  self-policing by the local lobster fisherman to conserve and maintain this family oriented industry. Yes, there are commercial lobstermen but they are tightly controlled and monitored. Again we could have listened for much longer than he was willing to speak.

The entire day was special- full of new experiences and knowledge.