North By East

Secret Mission 
The presidents of Zaire and Rwanda stopped off in Bar Harbor for several days before a summit meeting in Canada. Nan Lincoln, a local reporter, managed to track them down. One of the bodyguards demanded to know how she discovered their whereabouts. “I didn’t have the heart or French vocabulary to tell them that the sight of a dozen Africans, dressed in three-piece Italian suits, staked out in front of a little beauty salon in Bar Harbor was a dead giveaway,” Ms. Lincoln wrote.

Special Delivery
Sometimes the stork needs help from taxi drivers, but this time the assist came from Maine lobsterman Myron (“Red”) Robarts, Jr. Elise Thibodeau says she and her husband kayaked out to Mark Island but found themselves stranded due to weather. She went into labor and her husband tried paddling them back into Camden. Red Robarts, on his boat the Jesse F. Cross, spotted them and brought them to shore in time to reach a hospital. No doubt the baby will eventually want to hear the story of how he got the name Jesse.

Lobster Vs. Clam
Ever encounter an unnatural tame lobster? We haven’t either, but we saw an ad in a local Searsport paper offering “Natural Wild Lobsters, live or broiled.” We asked Aubrey Young’s seafood emporium in Camden what they had to top these “natural wild” crustaceans. Aubrey thought about it and said, “We just got in a nice mess of low-tide clams.”

The Maine Viewpoint
An irate gentleman visited our office the other day with a complaint: a local church, it seems, sounds its bells — or at least tapes of bells — early in the morning, and it wakes him up. Outrage! It is not even their aesthetic quality that makes them special, although many would argue that it is a beautiful sound. Rather, it is a reminder of the nature of the town itself: a town that has active churches, a town that basks in tradition, a town that is quiet enough to allow bell-playing to be heard. Sometimes these things wake us up. We should be grateful! — Bar Harbor Times

Maine’s Game Animals

Moose: 
Population estimated at 23,000
Only fifty years ago, the moose’s survival in Maine was an open question. The estimated population was around two thousand. In the sixties and seventies, however, paper companies up north began opening up acres of excellent moose habitat thanks to a new timber-harvesting method: clear cutting. No matter how anyone may feel philosophically — or aesthetically — about clear cutting, it makes for ideal moose ground.

Caribou: 
Reintro-duction now under way
Two-dozen caribou were captured in Newfoundland and brought to the University of Maine in an effort to reintroduce the species to the North Woods. Even supporters of the project acknowledge that caribou and deer could not typically share the same range in sizable numbers since the state’s growing deer herd would threaten the caribou with brain worm disease.

Down East Homes
Impressive Victorian on three acres only a short drive from Blue Hill in Sedgwick. Tastefully renovated with country kitchen and woodstove hookup. Three bedrooms upstairs with separate living area. Two-story barn offers many possibilities. $235,000.