Down East Dispatches

Opinions, advisories, and musings from the length and breadth of Maine

Dispatches
Caribou

Some 40 snowmobilers jumpstarted the racing season at the second annual Caribou Grass Drag — a misnomer, since the grass has been stripped from the racetrack to expose the clay. More than 500 spectators were on hand.

Madison

Miss Stone is teaching French and Spanish at Madison Area Memorial High School this year — Miss Rosetta Stone, that is. The school pressed the language-learning software into service after no one applied for the full-time teaching job.

Katahdin woods and Waters National Monument

Maybe there really is a brew for every occasion: a month after the creation of the new national monument, Freeport’s Maine Beer Company released Woods & Waters, a piney India pale ale.

Sabattus

Sarah Hokom, of Freedom, California, threw, putted, and tomahawked her way to the U.S. Women’s Disc Golf Championship crown at Sabattus Disc Golf, the first Maine course to host the event.

Calais

After being denied entry into Canada the customary way, a 25-year-old Calais man paddled across the St. Croix River to St. Stephen, New Brunswick, on an air mattress. He was walking into town, drenched and carrying his shoes, when he was arrested by Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Rockland

The Monhegan, an 84-foot former ferry, broke loose from its mooring and was heading for a collision with the Rockland Breakwater when it was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard. Rockland city officials consider the boat a nuisance because it has been unattended since its owner died in 2014.

Portland

A 45-ton, 43-foot-long right whale was hauled down Congress Street on a flatbed truck bound for Gorham, where a team of scientists was to perform a necropsy. Found floating off Boothbay Harbor, the whale had been towed through the water, first to Phippsburg by the Maine Marine Patrol, then to Portland by the Coast Guard.