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Where in Maine?

Where in Maine March 2017
Photo by Benjamin Williamson

Can you name the village where this wharf awaits the return of lobster-mad tourists?

You wouldn’t know it now, but this weathered wharf is the second-biggest attraction in a long and narrow island town. Make that islands town: Connected to the mainland by a string of bridges and bounded by two river mouths, the community is in fact composed of 35 islands, one of them large, with about 84 miles of shoreline, and the rest rather small. The wharf is the hardworking heart of a fishing village on the big island’s eastern shore. Here, fishermen unload their catch year-round. Come summer, they labor under the curious gaze of visitors who flock to feast on lobster and clam dinners that are steamed just inside that red sliding door (the lobsters are plucked live from large saltwater tanks). An adjacent snack bar is housed in a 19th-century building that gets its name from its reputation as a place where fishermen had trysts with their girlfriends before going home to their wives (whether that’s myth or truth is anyone’s guess). As for the community’s number one draw — that’s a park with a pair of sandy beaches just a couple miles south of here.