Down East September 2010

September 2010

The table of contents from the September 2010 issue of Down East.

Features

Wilbur’s World

Nearly sixty years after E.B. White penned Charlotte’s Web, Elizabeth Peavey returns to the Blue Hill Fair in search of Wilbur and friends. By: Elizabeth Peavey. Photography by: Jennifer Smith-Mayo

 

Fiasco di Gelato

A Brunswick gelateria gives Italy’s frozen treat a Maine touch. By: Kathleen Fleury

 

Two Cities, One History

Long separated by more than just a great river, Biddeford and Saco are today coming together amid exciting new possibilities. By: Joshua F. Moore. Photography by: Jennifer Baum

 

Watching the River Flow

As it nears the Atlantic, the Saco River reveals its salty side.

 

Camp!/Swim!/Hike!

Maine’s state park system is turning seventy-five this year and you are hereby invited to attend the celebration. By: Virginia Wright. Photography by: Alan Lavallee

 

In The Footsteps of Thoreau

Photographer Dan Tobyne sought to retrace the famous journeys of Henry David Thoreau through the Maine woods. In this excerpt from Thoreau’s Maine Woods, award-winning author Bernd Heinrich imagines what Thoreau might have made of the political battles in the North Woods today.

 

The Taming of the Ledge

A Bar Harbor landscape architect has developed an intimate relationship with the stones that make up the Maine coast. By: Rebecca Martin Evarts

 

Why Biddeford

How I found hope in the urban decay of a mill town.

 

State of the Parks

After three-quarters of a century of preserving Maine’s most scenic places, the state park system is still learning that it can’t manage these lands all on its own. By: Joshua F. Moore

 

Departments

Where in Maine?

Have you ever visited this famous vessel? Photography by: Dean Abramson

 

What Brings Us Back?

In uncertain times, finding your way home means paying close attention to small clues. By: Martha White

 

Letters to the Editor

Read what our readers have to say about Maine. Photography by: Alan Lavallee

 

Brewing Up a Storm

The state most associated with GOP moderates has suddenly become a Tea Party hotspot. By: Colin Woodard

 

A World of One’s Own

A new book revisits the mysterious Kellams and their four-decade stay on Placentia Island. By: Richard Grant

 

Soda Buzz

The days of super-sweet commercial soda made with high fructose corn syrup are definitely numbered. So get out ahead of the curve and switch to Maine’s newest soda. Green Bee All-Natural Soda (800-494-0802, greenbeesoda.com) uses only Maine wildflower honey for sweetener, an enzyme-, vitamin-, and antioxidant-rich (not to mention local) alternative to sugar or corn-based sweeteners. Owner Christopher Kinkade bottles the soda at his wife’s catering company, Belle Fete, in Brunswick.

 

Editor’s Note

In The Maine Woods, Henry David Thoreau wrote that “the tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there.” By: Paul Doiron

 

Painted Lady

A Portland newlywed graphically demonstrated her devotion in 1925. By: Joshua F. Moore

 

North by East

Eating blueberry potato chips in Beijing, Motorcyclists sing Madawaska’s praises, and more.

 

Family Pies

Heirloom recipes rule at Camden’s newest pizzeria. By: Kathleen Fleury. Photography by: Amy Wilton

 

Briefly Noted

Mainer Elisabeth Tova Bailey is bedridden due to a rare illness, but when a friend brings in a pot of transplanted violets with a common woodland snail attached, her one-room world transforms. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating (Algonquin Books, New York, NY; Hardcover; 208 pages; $18.95) is the splendid first-person account of Bailey’s long illness seen through the lens of her observation of the snail — eating, sleeping, moving, and just being.