Tide Clocks

A Place to Learn About the Peoples Who Have Inhabited the Maine CoastThere are what I would consider museums that could justify a trip. They tend to be in cities that have other reasons to visit (e.g., San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum, The Art Institute in Minneapolis). I couldn’t pretend that the Downeast Heritage Museum in Calais, Maine  is at all comparable (more like the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis). But for someone who is visiting somewhere “Downeast”* and iis nterested in how people have lived (and live) on the Maine coast, I can highly recommend a visit. Also, Calais has a number of striking historical houses to look at, and a riverfront park/walkway that is pleasant (St. Stephen’s, New Brunswick is on the other side of the river. Getting to its riverfront park is impeded by the lineup of vehicles backed up to get through the US blockade of the border—which seems more a job creation program than anything increasing “homeland security” in that the personnel seem to have no idea what to look for or at….) . And the Moosehorn Nature Refuge is nearby (we saw moose, deer, beavers, and some birds, including the generally invisible bobolinks there, but, not, alas woodcocks).Calais (the French pronunciation has been abandoned by locals, who pronounce the name the same as “callous”) is a short ways upriver from Saint Croix Island, the first (intended to be) permanent settlement in what is now the United States north of Florida). Since the settlement was dismantled by the French settlers and what they left was burned by the British, there is nothing except for a few nails from the village that staggered through the winter of 1604-05. There is a model of the settlement (it differs in the location of the warring Catholic and Protestant churches from the one on the bank of the river across from Saint Croix Island).