Yankee Magazine September/October 2022

WEEKEND IN ACADIA 40 FALL FAIRS HARVEST TIME IN & BAR HARBOR & FESTIVALS AROOSTOOK

N E W

E N G L A N D ’ S

M A G A Z I N E

Great Fall Drives ROUTE 7: A THREE-STATE ADVENTURE > PEAKING ON MOUNT WASHINGTON > THE KANC, AND MORE...

SPECIAL PROMOTION 8 Terrific Ways to Enjoy Fall in Maine p. 58

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September / October 2022

CONTENTS

features

66 /// The Magnificent 7 With inviting stops everywhere you look, Route 7 offers a threestate fall drive to remember.

By Alana Chernila 78 /// Lessons of the Field In Maine’s Aroostook County, everyone chips in during fall potato harvest. By Erin Rhoda 86 /// Collision Course To save endangered whales, New England’s iconic lobster industry is facing unpopular and possibly dangerous changes.

By Bill Donahue THIS PAGE :

Cruising through New England’s fall foliage with the essentials: map, coffee, and cider doughnuts. Story, p. 66.

Photo by Corey Hendrickson

ON THE COVER : In New Hampshire, the famed Kancamagus Highway brings drivers into the heart of the White Mountain National Forest’s spectacular autumn display.

Photo by Chris Bennett

Yankee (ISSN 0044-0191). Bimonthly, Vol. 86 No. 5. Publication Office, Dublin, NH 03444-0520. Periodicals postage paid at Dublin, NH, and additional offices. Copyright 2022 by Yankee Publishing Incorporated; all rights reserved. Postmaster: Send address changes to Yankee, P.O. Box 37128, Boone, IA 50037-0128.

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More Contents

departments

home

8 CONTRIBUTORS & LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

20 /// The Influencer In creating a home “you don’t want to leave,” Sandra Morgan Downie has drawn thousands of followers to her online doorstep. By Mel Allen

10 INSIDE YANKEE

12 FIRST PERSON Connecting with a grove of hemlock trees shows how sanctuaries can appear where and when we need them most. By Tim Loftus

28 /// Open Studio Vermont fiber artist Hannah Regier dyes, weaves, and knits with nature’s colors.

By Annie Graves

34 /// At Home at the Table

For years, I ran from my Portuguese heritage—until I found my way back by preserving my family’s recipes.

By David Leite

UP CLOSE How a beloved TV witch came to cast her spell on visitors to the historic town of Salem, Massachusetts.

By Joe Bills

Yankee’s senior food editor, Amy Traverso, concocts two cozy dishes—one sweet, one savory—to showcase our favorite fall fruit.

46 /// Weekend Away

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When the temperatures cool down and the foliage color heats up, there’s no better place for a Maine autumn getaway than Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.

By Hilary Nangle

WEEKENDS WITH YANKEE Q&A Catching up with Vermont trailblazer Mirna Valerio, featured on Weekends with Yankee’s latest season.

By Ian Aldrich

ADV ERTISING RESOURCES

56 /// Fall Fairs & Festivals The harvest season brings a bumper crop of timeless community celebrations.

By William Scheller

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LIFE IN THE KINGDOM Sometimes contentment comes from realizing just how special an ordinary day can be. By Ben Hewitt

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54 /// Drive Time Yankee’s foliage expert, Jim Salge, shares his favorite fall drives for making the most of New England’s autumn spectacular.

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FIRST LIGHT Since 1906, this New Hampshire family has been keeping its eyes firmly fixed on the Mount Washington Auto Road. By Ian Aldrich

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40 /// Apples of Our Eye

travel

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Continuing Care Retirement Communities ..................... 31 Fall Gift Guide.................. 43 Retirement Living .............. 91 Marketplace .................... 114 Weekends with Yankee ..... 121

J OY E L L E W E S T ( D O W N I E ) ; L I Z N E I LY ( F O O D ) ; TA R A R I C E ( C O A S T )

food

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Connect with Yankee

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@ YA N K EE M AG A Z I N E

LOCAL COLOR A curated look at New England featuring standout shots from our Instagram community.

Mary Vican (@marytheona) Chester, Connecticut

Erika Johnson (@erikajohns0n) Greenville, Maine

Aubrey Yandow (@thecoastalconfidence) Glastonbury, Connecticut

Chandler Scott Anderson (@chandler__anderson) White Mountains, New Hampshire

Connor Corcoran (@connors_perceptions) Norwell, Massachusetts

Brian Johns (@brianjohnsadventure) Reading, Vermont

Use our Instagram hashtag #mynewengland for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue!

In the Yankee webinar Flavors of New England: Apples, a Fall Favorite, senior food editor Amy Traverso, author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, will take you on a journey into the fascinating history of this favorite fall fruit. Plus, learn which apple varieties to use for different dishes, get tips for making classic recipes like apple pie and apple crisp, and discover New England’s best orchards for apple picking.

When: 7 p.m. September 22 | Register: NewEngland.com/FlavorsNewEngland-Apples

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LE T TERS TO THE EDITOR

First-Class Delivery

CONTRIBUTORS ALANA CHERNILA A Berkshires native, Chernila found herself both revisiting old haunts and making new discoveries while taking an epic foliage drive through Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut on Route 7 [“The Magnificent 7,” p. 66].

Always top of mind: great places to eat along the way, as Chernila is a cookbook author and food writer whose work has appeared in Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple, and Fine Cooking, among others.

CHRIS BENNETT Though he’d hiked and skied to the top of Mount Washington before, traveling on and photographing its famed auto road [“Higher Calling,” p. 14] was a novelty for Bennett, whose work has been published by the likes of Outside and Men’s Journal. “I didn’t ride in the van much ...

I guess you’d say I’ve run up the auto road laden with camera equipment followed by a van,” says Bennett, who also shot this issue’s cover of the Kancamagus Highway.

VA N E S S A L E R O Y A Massachusetts-born freelance photojournalist and photo editor, Leroy says the hardest part of her Open Studio assignment [“Woven from the Land,” p. 28] was limiting herself to a “reasonable number” of pictures, given the beauty of the rural Vermont setting. “It was a failed attempt, because I took over 2,000,” reports Leroy, whose photos have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

D AV I D L E I T E Known for his award-winning The New Portuguese Table and the website Leite’s Culinaria, among other things, this acclaimed food writer shares his story of growing up as the American-born child of Portuguese parents and of the sense of “otherness” created by the differences in his family’s food from what he saw in the U.S. [“At Home at the Table,” p. 34]. “My journey away from and then back to our food is, hopefully, a story others can relate to,” he says.

T R I S TA N S P I N S K I As a photographer, writer, and filmmaker, Spinski often examines the intersections of culture, economy, and landscape—a theme he tapped into again for “Lessons of the Field” [p. 78]. “I admired how it takes a village to pull off a potato harvest,” he says. “From the kids working the fields to folks returning on their vacation to drive potato trucks, it seemed like every able-bodied person answered a community call to see the harvest through.”

BILL DONAHUE In “Collision Course” [p. 86], Donahue examines the important role that lobstering plays in small Maine towns, but also the hold that endangered right whales have on the human imagination. “We almost never see the whale, but we’re made deeper knowing it’s out there, transcending our puny world,” says Donahue, who lives in New Hampshire and writes for such publications as Bloomberg, Maclean’s, and The Washington Post Magazine.

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Your July/August cover is the best cover photo of any magazine ever! As I am a letter carrier on the Cape, I was delivering many Yankee magazines along my route, and the ice cream photo had my mouth watering the entire day. Props to you for this “best cover photo ever” achievement.

Kim Rose Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts

Inside Scoops After moving to Wisconsin from New Hampshire in 2017, we have continued to subscribe to Yankee. We love the articles and reading about our home state and region. But I was disappointed that your “36 Best Ice Cream Shops” [July/August] did not mention Sullivan Farms in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, which we discovered on our Nashua Trader Joe’s runs. Our favorite was mocha chip because they’re one of the few places that actually make the ice cream mocha, not just coffee. We’re sure you can get someone on the staff to check it out—the quality of this delicious ice cream will bring them back many times.

Pam Hoyt Madison, Wisconsin Somehow you missed Maine’s most delicious ice cream, Gifford’s, which began as a dairy farm. My husband and I think it’s the best.

Cynthia Pelliccia Wayne, Maine You missed the best ice cream shop in America, in little Watch Hill, Rhode Island: The St. Clair Annex!

Steve Goldstein Shelburne, Vermont Editors’ note: Need more proof that New Englanders are passionate about their ice cream? Check out additional reader comments—and feel free to leave your own—at newengland.com/ best-ice-cream.

SADIE CHERNIL A (CHERNIL A)

Dear Yankee

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7/25/22 11:45 AM

© National Park Service

FALL FOR BOSTON

Your Official Guide to Exploring Boston From foliage tours to immersive festivals, come experience our unique and vibrant Fall flair.

BostonUSA.com/fall

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Inside Yankee

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MEL ALLEN

Changing Landscapes

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Aroostook’s students still consider the work an important part of their lives, with lessons they will carry with them forever.

The changes in Aroostook have been coming for decades, but along the coast of Maine and Massachusetts, more controversial changes are coming quickly for lobster fishermen whose trap lines can entangle and sometimes kill endangered North Atlantic right whales. Bill Donahue’s “Collision Course” [p. 86] is a story of our time, when the ground seems to be shifting beneath so many of us, often catching us unprepared. There are no quick and easy fixes for protecting these magnificent creatures without threatening a time-honored and iconic way of life. Emotions get heated when livelihoods are pitted against possible species extinction. But there remains hope that new inventions and technology may somehow find a way for both whales and the lobster industry to survive before it is too late for either.

Nature has something to say about change, too, as “The Magnificent 7” [p. 66] reminds us. Each fall, as the temperatures drop and the daylight wanes, New England is gifted the world’s most stunning foliage. There is a lesson there that is easy to forget when the noise gets too loud, the ground too shaky. I will do my best to remember.

Mel Allen editor@yankeemagazine.com

JARROD MCCABE

n the last days of September 1978, I joined a potato harvest crew on Donald Gallagher’s farm in northern Aroostook County, Maine. I worked for 40 cents a barrel. To fill a barrel you bent over, put a basket between your legs, and picked potatoes with both hands. After only an hour my legs had stiffened, and my back and wrists hurt. We started shortly after daybreak, and I remember stopping once, certain it was lunchtime. It was only 9:30.

I picked alongside Aroostook County’s schoolchildren, who, as part of a long tradition, had three weeks’ break to work the harvest. One mother of two young pickers told me, “Our kids have learned there’s no easy money. Picking potatoes has put iron in their soup, and we’re proud of them. It will be a sorry time to see it disappear.”

The sights and sounds of that long-ago week came back to me when I read Erin Rhoda’s account of last year’s potato harvest and saw Tristan Spinski’s photos of the young workers on the McCrum farm in Mars Hill, about 20 miles south of the Gallagher farm [“Lessons of the Field,” p. 78]. I was struck by how much technology had changed things, with nearly all the harvesting now done by machines. But machines still need the human touch, and what survives today is that touch often belongs to someone too young for a driver’s license. And what also has not changed is that

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First Person

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TIM LOF TUS

The Sanctuary We find refuge where and when we need it most.

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y S A L LY D E N G

stand silently in this hemlock grove a few times each year. Collectively, every tree shares the same name: Tsuga canadensis, or Eastern hemlock, for those who only understand them to be just another commodity of lumber or pulp paper. But to me, each and every one of these trees is my friend, if such a thing can be said of a tree. They listen. I listen. I breathe in their breath, a mixture of evergreen scent and lifesustaining oxygen. They breathe in my breath, carbon dioxide, my gift to them to help sustain their lives.

This hemlock grove is perhaps 50 feet wide by 100 feet in length, bisected the long way by the Massachusetts Midstate Trail, a 92-milelong path that starts on the New Hampshire border and ends on the Rhode Island border. A granite marker near the path shows where the towns of Spencer, Paxton, and Leicester 12 |

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meet, but not where the boundaries are. I don’t know which town claims the roots of these hemlocks, nor do the trees. This information is useless to them, as it should be to me.

I discovered this hemlock grove more than 40 years ago during one of my rambles along a tiny footpath before it was incorporated into the creation of the Midstate Trail. The hemlocks were young—only a decade old, if that. They ranged in size from six to a dozen feet tall and grew so close together that it was hard to tell where one tree ended and another started.

These hemlocks made me feel welcomed whenever I meandered through the grove, their soft-needled young branches brushing against my face and hands as if they were caressing their human friend. And except for the whisper of a gentle breeze through their green fronds or the occasional thunder of beating wings from a startled

partridge in the branches, sound from the outside world did not exist.

I felt the healing powers of the grove soon after the unexpected passing of one of my best friends and hiking buddies since junior high. These evergreens absorbed my grief that one cool October afternoon more than two decades ago while I wept out my sorrow. And I have felt the grove’s cathartic energy every time I have entered that stand of trees and come out free from my burdens.

Since that time, the hemlock grove has changed. The path has widened, with more hikers passing through.

During the winter, snowmobilers widened the path further, leaving many of the broken or dead small trees to return to the earth. Dirt bikes and quads chewed up the path during the snowless months, opening the stand even more. Then there is just life. Not all trees survive to maturity. Disease, woolly adelgid infestation, lightning strikes, competition from spruce and white pine, and sometimes the chain saw took its toll.

The remaining hemlocks, a fraction of what was once there, are approaching 60 feet in height, their upper branches reaching skyward to harvest more sweet sunshine. Their lower branches, once abundant with soft green needles, no longer exist, long died off in the shade of the tree, having served their purpose as natural solar panels. Conservation of resources, as I understand it—no work, no food— letting go of the unproductive fraction of their lives, their version of a burden, for the body to remain healthy.

It’s their lesson to me, one that I need repeated over and over again.

While this hemlock grove looks quite different from years past, it is still, for me, a holy place—a place where I often stand quietly, eyes closed, imagining I, too, have roots reaching down to the bedrock to feel that timeless and purifying strength of something bigger than me rising like sap through my own body to bring me peace.

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Tobey Reichert, GM of the auto road

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Higher Calling One family has always kept its eyes on the Mount Washington Auto Road.

BY IAN ALDRICH PHOTOS BY CHRIS BENNET T Built by hand from 1854 to 1861, using shovels and black powder to clear rocks, the Mount Washington Auto Road (now fully paved) ascends over 4,000 feet of elevation from Pinkham Notch to the summit.

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hen he was growing up in Gorham, New Hampshire, Tobey Reichert would wait impatiently after school for his dad to come home. James Reichert worked the maintenance crew of the Mount Washington Auto Road, a celebrated 7.6mile drive that climbs to the top of the Northeast’s highest peak. Washouts, unexpected weather, and unprepared drivers were as constant as the road’s majestic beauty, and it was rare that the elder Reichert didn’t have a story from the day to share with his boy.

On special occasions Reichert would tag along with his father to work, and from the tall perch of his dad’s big dump truck he’d watch the road emerge like a movie as they journeyed up the mountain. “I’d peer over the edge of the road and just look down, a little scared,” says Reichert with a chuckle. “We might pull over to some place that had some history, and my dad would tell me about it—talk about the family connection, show me some pictures. He felt it was important that those stories and that knowledge were passed on to the next generation.”

Today, Reichert is doing the same.

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operated it, and over the past two and a half years Reichert has served as general manager of the family’s Mount Washington Summit Road Co., making him the sixth family member to helm what is touted as the oldest man-made tourist attraction in North America With that lineage, Reichert understands that the Mount Washington Auto Road is more than just a road.

How else to explain the next-level antics and daredevil-ism that it sparks?

There are car, bike, and foot races on the road, but also more idiosyncratic climbs: the man who pushed a wheelbarrow full of sugar to the top, the girls who Irish step-danced the entire distance, the roller skiers, camel riders, and pogo stickers. And, of course, there are the “This Car Climbed Mount Washington” bumper stickers that tell the world this is no ordinary drive.

“One of ou r g uy s bac ked a n entire kayak trailer up the road,” says

Reichert, shaking his head. “That takes some serious skill. Some of these other things, I don’t have that kind of imagination, but it’s cool to see.”

Like the road itself, Reichert’s path to his position wasn’t a straight line.

After graduating from high school in 1996, he had a short stint as an auto mechanic and then a longer one in law enforcement, where he rose to corporal in the Coos County Sheriff ’s Department. But in 2016, he began thinking about what might be next. As it happened, the leadership team at his family’s company was doing the same thing.

Over the previous three decades, Howie Wemyss, the first non-family member to manage the road, had overseen a substantial expansion of the business. But he was looking to retire, and the family wanted one of their own to succeed him. In Reichert, with his background in mechanics and working with the public, they had their candi-

date. In May 2020, after four years of working for Wemyss, Reichert was named general manager.

Reichert says he inherited a “welloiled machine,” and, as with most outdoor attractions in the past few years, business has boomed at the auto road: On a prime summer day, as many as 1,000 cars will journey to the peak.

Looking to the future, the question for Reichert isn’t whether he can keep the growth going, but how to manage it.

Still, even after all these years, Reichert understands and appreciates what draws so many to his family’s attraction. It’s why on certain days he takes his 9-year-old son to work and brings to life the same things his dad did for him. “I would love for him to follow in my footsteps,” he says. “How many places can you drive up a mountain like this? I take a lot of pride in what we do and what we can offer people, and I hope I can pass that on to my son.”

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YANK0922

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————— THE SWEETEST THINGS IN LIFE —————

are right here

FOR THE PICKING

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Hex Appeal

B

y now, almost everyone knows about the complicated historical connections between Salem, Massachusetts, and witchcraft. But in the town’s Lappin Park, at the western end of the Essex Street pedestrian mall, there stands a bronze reminder of the lesser-known role that a popular 1960s sitcom played in reshaping Salem as a tourist destination.

The statue, sculpted by New York’s Studio EIS as part of a publicity campaign by the cable channel TV Land, depicts actress Elizabeth Montgomery as her most famous character, the fictional witch Samantha Stephens, riding a broom past a crescent moon.

Montgomery, who passed away in 1995, had been a successful actress

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since the 1950s, but it wasn’t until the hit TV show Bewitched came along in 1964 that she rose to stardom. During the show’s eight-year run, she starred as Samantha, a witch who marries an advertising executive and attempts to live a “normal” life in suburban Connecticut (or New York, depending on the episode). Although she has vowed to live a magic-free life, Samantha frequently gives in to temptation, casting spells with a now-iconic twitch of the nose and a tinkle of xylophone. In 2002, TV Guide named Bewitched one of the 50 greatest TV shows of all time.

In 1970, when a fire damaged the Bewitched set in Hollywood, the show’s cast and crew hit the road to film eight episodes in and around Salem, as

the characters attended a “centennial witches convocation.” The episodes featured many local landmarks and sparked a tourism boom that continues to this day.

Some local residents protested the filming, concerned that it would dishonor the memory of the real people who were persecuted during the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693. But while plans for the statue sparked similar concerns, some 1,500 fans turned out for its unveiling on June 15, 2005.

History remains complicated, but for most, the Bewitched statue represents nostalgic fun and an irresistible photo op. So go ahead: Touch that famous nose, make a wish, and listen for that little tinkle. —Joe Bills

JIAWANGKUN/DREAMSTIME

How a TV witch came to cast her spell on visitors to Salem, Massachusetts.

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DIY SPOTLIGHT

Sandra Morgan Downie’s goal to create an earthy vibe of wood and white can be seen in the living room, whose brick hearth is softened with Romabio Classico limewash paint and topped with a custom mantel—“an important detail for creating art and display spaces,” Downie says.

OPPOSITE : Downie and her daughter, Gabrielle, in the kitchen. The exposed beams throughout the house were originally dark brown; Downie loved the beams but the color had to go, so she spent three days sanding them all to get the perfect hue.

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THE INFLUENCER

In creating a home “you don’t want to leave,” Sandra Morgan Downie has drawn thousands of followers to her online doorstep.

P H O T O S BY J OY E L L E W E S T

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O DIY SPOTLIGHT

ne day in early summer 2020, Sandra Morgan Downie found the house of her dreams. One she could reimagine from the ground up, to make into “the space you want to come home to, a place you don’t want to leave.” The house—a 1967 reproduction saltbox in a leafy neighborhood in Broad Brook, Connecticut—combined Colonial-period style with the modern touches that previous owners had added. “I like the feel of the old and new,” she says. “When I walked in, I saw the old wallpaper, the dark cherry wood. It was a very New England home that had not been updated. But I knew it had good bones, and I knew we would grow into it.”

In other words, it was exactly the kind of project she could share with people she might never meet but who regard her as a friend: her social media followers. For the past eight years, and through two previous home makeovers with her husband, Scott, she has gained an audience of more than 150,000, who come to her blogs and Instagram posts to learn what they could use not only in their own houses but also in their lives. “They come along for the journey,” she says.

She has no formal training in art or interior design. But from her early years, “I always enjoyed interior design. When I started posting just for fun, I noticed when I showed my design aesthetic, it resonated with people. So I said to myself, You know what? I’m just going to share what I love. People feel like I’m someone they 22 |

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7/14/22 12:17 PM

In creating her dream chef’s kitchen, Downie splurged on a retro-inspired European ILVE cooking range—but also snagged a bargain in the form of the kitchen island, a custom piece that popped up on Facebook Marketplace. Meanwhile, she and her husband applied some DIY magic to the empty back wall, now an artmeets-function space where hooks hold everything from tote bags to a gleaming French copper pot.

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Home

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DIY SPOTLIGHT

TOP LEFT : Removing the old facade and adding a new but appropriately classic front door surround refreshed the exterior.

TOP RIGHT :

Downie dressed up the mudroom by replacing the red brick floor with refined yet sturdy herringbone tile.

The curtains are painter’s drop cloths, which she recommends as a great and inexpensive way to decorate windows in casual spaces, and the buffet (another Facebook Marketplace find) ended up being stripped to its natural color after wearing successive coats of black, white, and gray paint.

BOTTOM :

Downie loves the added depth of color that she was able to bring to the foyer with wall paint from British-based Farrow & Ball, using a shade called Pigeon. The ceiling pendant is new, from Foundry.

can relate to. And there’s not a lot of AfricanAmerican women who do this.”

To Downie, “this” is showing how to create a home and life with style and decor that brings a sense of calm and serenity. She has redone a house inside and out, sanded beams and doors, all while maintaining her own balance and humor. She describes her aesthetic with phrases like “refined casual style” and “where modern

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meets vintage.” She believes that simplicity leads to beauty. That less is more. “I go into a space and clear it up,” she says succinctly. “Clutter affects your spirit.”

On this April day she has just returned from her father’s funeral in Jamaica. Denroy Morgan was a famed reggae pioneer, and his state funeral–like service was attended by Jamaica’s prime minister. “My father instilled respect, pride, and order in us,” she says. “He shaped us.” Many of the mourners didn’t know her, since she had grown up in New York and Massachusetts, and when her brother introduced her to everyone, he said she is called “the black Martha Stewart.” Downie hears that a lot. “I’m proud to be called that,” she says.

She begins the Connecticut house tour in the once-boxy kitchen. “That was not going to work,” she says. The space expanded to include her “movie theater” windows. “I need sunlight—I feel it in my soul, in my spirit.” She loves cooking as much as scouting for the perfect vintage detail, and here she looks out to the garden and a tree-lined yard. “I watch the seasons go by,” she says.

In every room it becomes clear that her art is as much about what is not there, as what is.

“Everything has been picked out for a purpose,” NEWENGLAND.COM

7/14/22 12:18 PM

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7/18/22 1:09 PM

Home

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DIY SPOTLIGHT

Downie effortlessly blends affordable and upscale, new and old, in her interiors. The striking mural in her office ( ABOVE ) is by Anthropologie, while a vintage print completes a timeless tableau ( RIGHT) with a Target cabinet and a candelabra from Amazon. In the kitchen ( TOP RIGHT), a porcelain farmhouse sink by Elkay and a gooseneck faucet from Whitehaus lend an elevated European air.

Above them are white oak shelves that were custom-built by Downie’s contractor to complement the white oak floors.

she says. “There has to be a space for it. You have to love everything in your home.”

Her goal in every nook and cranny is to create cohesion and harmony. She loves linen curtains for their texture and sense of timelessness. Each cabinet, each mantel, becomes to her eye a still life; she moves and adjusts pieces until she gets the perfect balance. Deciding what objects to place on a shelf above the toaster, she says, took her a week. There are no shortcuts.

She says only two bathrooms remain to renovate, then every inch, every fixture will have felt her touch. Now she wants to find property in Jamaica where she can create a small boutique inn. She is in discussions about a possible TV show with her daughter, Gabrielle, with New

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England as its setting. She hints that maybe her restless eye will find yet another country home that needs her as much as she needs it. Above all, she says, she hopes to use her platforms to influence people beyond her gifts of style. “What we need now,” she says, “is peace, love, and acceptance. Just acceptance of someone different from you.” —Mel Allen To enter Sandra Morgan Downie’s world, go to sandramorganliving.com.

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Home

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OPEN STUDIO

Woven from the Land Fiber artist Hannah Regier dyes, weaves, and knits using nature’s colors.

BY ANNIE GR AVES PH OTO G R A PH S BY VA N ESSA LE ROY

A patch of indigo grows alongside Bull Creek, giving no hint of the infinite range of blues hidden in its leaves. Tucked down a short hillside, and invisible from the road, the plants are watched over by Hannah Regier’s small stone studio, from a deck off the back, while its front faces a well-packed Vermont dirt road in the town of Athens, population 440, give or take.

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Artist Hannah Regier weaving an indigodyed bandanna at her Vermont home.

Directly across the slender byway sits a little brick home, built in 1820 as a schoolhouse, just marginally bigger than the studio, with an outhouse turned woodshed a few feet away.

There’s something about the light, the plants, the surrounding f ields, the cozy buildings, the scale of this NEWENGLAND.COM

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7/18/22 1:11 PM

Home

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OPEN STUDIO

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT :

Yarn dyed with a variety of farmed and foraged plants, mushrooms, and lichen; a sampler of the natural colors of the New England– produced wool that Regier uses for her creations; Regier’s creekside studio.

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“micro-homestead,” as Regier calls it, bridging both sides of the road, that makes her world of fiber art—gathered under the name Sky Like Snow—seem like someplace Bilbo Baggins could call home. Or the hidden domain of a medieval herbalist.

Here, working between the two buildings, Regier weaves and knits, seemingly out of the elements, shawls and hats and scarves that are suffused with the colors she gathers from the land around her. Colors drawn from plants she grows down by the creek, or in her backyard, or that she has foraged, gently, from the woods that climb behind the fields. Japanese indigo, wild madder, dyer’s chamomile, buckthorn, rhubarb, goldenrod.

Mushrooms that turn to teal, roots that go red, bark that stains orange, and leaves that go all shades of blue—the essence of nature, yielding colors as harmonious as nature itself.

Dyeing can be as simple as boiling mushrooms in a stainless-steel dye pot on the stove in her kitchen, straining out the mushrooms, and then stirring in skeins of yarn; or as complex as the multistep process of extracting and fermenting indigo over the course of days before the dye bath is ready. And the textures, soft and springy. “It’s the nature of the type of yarn I use— squishy and fine, from wool and alpaca that I buy from local farmers and have spun at a little fiber mill in New Hampshire,” Regier says.

She’s been knitting since she was 8.

Her mother has been a fiber artist, a weaver, since before Regier was born.

“I was just fascinated with the idea that you could make your own clothing and cloth,” she remembers. “That’s still a driving force. It’s so amazing that you can take these materials and make something solid.” And yes, she wears her own hats. Even indoors, and to bed.

Right now, on a traditional 32-inchwide loom that occupies most of the second-story loft of her brick house, she’s strung an entire spectrum of indigo-dyed threads that she’ll weave NEWENGLAND.COM

7/26/22 12:29 PM

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Home

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OPEN STUDIO

FROM TOP : Elements of earth, sky, and water come together seamlessly in an array of knitted hats; paste extracted from last year’s crop of Japanese indigo plants will be used to make an indigo vat to dye yarn.

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into large square bandannas that can be “draped over a chair, wrapped around your neck, wrapped around your head or waist.” Across the street, in her stone studio, it’s a trip back to the ’60s, with a knitting machine “from the avo-

cado-green era,” a treasure dug from her parents’ barn. Little teeth move the thread in a chattering, hypnotic stream, knitting a pattern that Regier has first painted with dye on the wool/ alpaca yarn. The resulting landscapes trail across finely wrought, small-stitch watch caps and slouch hats so soft it feels like you’re stroking a cloud.

The colors in the bandannas ebb and f low like breath. And when she spells out the provenance of all the colors in a single bandanna, it sounds like something Shakespearean, minus the eye of newt. “This purple comes from a lichen,” she says, pointing. “And this pink, that’s a mushroom. This is dyer’s coreopsis, and here is weld, overdyed with a tiny bit of indigo.” She says she doesn’t choose the color palette: “It’s really what the natural dyes give me.

So some of it is on the earthy side, but there are also wild pops of color from purples and indigo.”

She talks about terroir, that ineffably delicate interplay of land, water, and air that affects everything growing. We taste its effects in wine. But equally we see its effects on plants, mushrooms, and their dyes, varying from year to year. “I recently did a project where I collected Hydnellum mushrooms from 30 different patches that I’ve been visiting over the years,” she says. “It literally produced 30 different colors of teal.”

So when you look at one of Regier’s hats, or a scarf or wrap, you’re actually catching a glimpse of the landscape all around here, in Athens, Vermont. In any given year, it will be different. And it’s a peek at the secrets hiding in the indigo plant or that sliver of mushroom.

“It was kind of a light bulb going off when I connected the natural dying to being on the land, knowing the land,” she says. “Then realizing everything around me was a dye.” And there’s no predicting how this confluence of elements and materials will turn out—like this lovely woven wool and alpaca scarf drenched with memories of vibrant buckthorn bark. skylikesnow.com NEWENGLAND.COM

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7/21/22 2:47 PM

AT HOME AT THE TABLE

FOR YEARS, I RAN FROM MY PORTUGUESE HERITAGE—UNTIL I FOUND MY WAY BACK BY PRESERVING MY FAMILY’S RECIPES. BY DAVID LEITE

PHOTOS BY ADAM DETOUR STYLING BY CATRINE KELTY Blue and white pottery and tiles courtesy of Portugalia Marketplace in Fall River, Massachusetts (portugaliamarketplace.com).

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7/20/22 3:41 PM

H E R I TA G E C O O K I N G

| Food

Featured on the newest season of Weekends with Yankee, Massachusetts native David Leite is the founder of the James Beard Award– winning website Leite’s Culinaria.

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2022

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Food

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H E R I TA G E C O O K I N G

Pumpkin Soup (Sopa de Abóbora) (recipe p. 94)

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7/15/22 1:03 PM

Portuguese-Style Roast Chicken with Chouriço & Potatoes (recipe p. 94)

THE

early ’70s. A little before eight on a Friday night. I’m lying on the f loor of our den watching TV. My parents sit behind me in their recliners, talking in Portuguese over sections of The Herald News. As I wait for the commercials to end, the nubby carpet dimples a pebbly pattern into my propped-up elbows.

Then it starts. I shush my parents quiet. A crescendo of horns, then voices in unison: “Here’s the story / of a lovely lady / who was bringing up three very lovely girls….”

For the next half hour, I watch, enthralled by the shiny, quintessential American-ness of The Brady Bunch. Bake sales and class presidents. Mod clothes and Hawaiian vacations.

All blond hair and blue eyes. This is not my world. I am an American-born son of a large extended family of Azorean immigrants. If TV cameras were turned on us, they’d see something quite different—my Boston aunts in a basement kitchen pounding octopus tentacles with a mallet, their slippers clapping against the cement floor as they worked, while my grandmother, Vovo Leite, swathed in black, bobbles a rosary from her hands.

At our home in Swansea, Massachusetts, things weren’t much different. The house had that low-slung profile of the Brady house—my father, a carpenter, had built it not long before—and our furniture was sleek midcentury modern in every shade of ochre, umber, and sienna. Still, an Old World aura shone through. A statute of baby Jesus standing on a cloud, a real gold crown on his head, sat under a glass dome

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2022

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in my bedroom. In the kitchen, my maternal grandmother, Vovo Costa, sat with her pink-flowered housecoat hiked up, shelling fava beans into a pan between her feet. Whenever I walked in, she’d look up and beam. “Ai, meu coração,” she’d say. Ah, my heart.

By the time I hit my teens, I had come to believe that being Portuguese, with the crush of its dictums and traditions, was an unwanted inheritance, a birthmark I couldn’t remove. I wanted to be Brady-ized, homogenized, to run from my family, my DNA. I wanted to play golf, to sport cardigans with elbow patches. I wanted intellectual conversation, in English.

I wanted dinners of pot roast, mashed potatoes, and minted peas. I wanted all the things never played, worn, discussed, or eaten in my small, insular world. I was driven not just by the trappings of class or assimilation; with the dawning awareness that I was gay, fleeing also felt something like survival.

I spent more than a decade away from Swansea. During that time, I learned to cook non-Portuguese food, traveled internationally, and took classes in art. (I never did buy a cardigan.) Then, in my early thirties, I found my way back home.

That’s when Vovo Costa, my beloved grandmother, my North Star, died. I was unmoored. Bereft, I grasped at ways to hold her close. I found myself craving her recheio, a brickred bread pudding/stuffing studded with chouriço (pork sausage), and her sopa da galinha, chicken soup with rice and potatoes. But I soon discovered that her recipes were unrecorded. In my grandmother’s day, while some boys, like my | 37

7/20/22 3:45 PM

Food

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H E R I TA G E C O O K I N G

Portuguese Coconut Custard Tarts (recipe p. 96)

grandfather, were educated, she was never taught to read or write. Cooking became her vocation and her voice, a craft perfected through endless repetition, a memoir written each week on the family table.

There were other family recipes, of course. My mother had her own versions of the same dishes, as did my father’s side of the family. But they weren’t the same.

I began to understand that the culture I had left behind was now leaving me. My cousins, like me, were thoroughly Americanized. The older generation wasn’t cooking as much.

More recipes would be lost unless we preserved them.

To work my way back to my family’s food, I turned to my mother. I tackled her take on the classic carne assada em vinha d’alhos (roast beef in wine and garlic). She marinated the beef in my father’s wine, then nestled it with the 38 |

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onions, garlic, and potatoes he grew out back. Mom would stir in links of homemade chouriço that Aunt Irene made in her basement kitchen. In a bit of culinary reciprocity, Irene made the sausage using my dad’s massa de pimenta, a fermented, mildly spicy pepper paste. This fork-tender roast, with its rosy-orange complexion, greeted my father and me almost once a week. It is the taste of home.

Next, I tackled my Aunt Sally’s queijadas de coco, or coconut custard cups, which commanded their own real estate at christenings, birthdays, and Sunday suppers when the entire family ate at long tables in the driveway or, in bad weather, in the garage.

They contained nothing more than eggs, milk, sugar, coconut, and butter. In time, I took the liberty of adding a dollop of jam to the slight indent in the pastry’s crown. Superb, and a cinch to make.

Eventually, I strayed from the confines of my family’s recipes, but never abandoned them. The roast chicken with potatoes and chouriço recipe that follows these pages is my homage to Mom and her never-ending inventiveness with roasts. And while the pumpkin soup recipe can claim no ancestral connection to my family’s recipes, it’s a tip of the hat to my dad and the garden where he grew Blue Hubbard squash the size of VW beetles.

It’s been 30 years since I returned to my family’s table. Since then, these recipes have regularly graced the table I share with my partner, Alan. We’ve created our own family traditions, blending his Pennsylvania Dutch roots and my Portuguese favorites. New family traditions deeply and irrevocably rooted in heritage—a heritage I now happily and proudly embrace.

(For recipes, see p. 94) NEWENGLAND.COM

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Lupine field looking west to spruce and mountains

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7/18/22 1:15 PM

Food

|

IN SEASON

Amy Traverso is Yankee’s senior food editor and cohost of our TV show, Weekends with Yankee.

Apples of Our Eye Two cozy dishes— one sweet, one savory— for fall’s favorite fruit.

BY A MY TR AVER SO ST YLED AND PHOTOGR APHED BY

L I Z N E I LY Grilled Ham, Cheddar & Apple Sandwiches

pple season begins when t he f i rst Jersey Macs and Paula Reds ripen in late July. It’s always a surprise to see them, although not always a welcome one. I cling to summer like a barnacle to a breakwater, so I don’t want any midsummer reminders that it’ll come to an end. But get me through Labor Day, and I welcome apples like cherished children. That’s when I start to crave dishes such as these, both of which are inspired by two favorite recipes in my book, The Apple Lover’s Cookbook.

The grilled cheese serves up all the fall f lavors: cheddar, apples, ham, 40 |

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honey mustard, and some sage leaves that you press into the buttered bread and fry for a fancy f inish and some great f lavor. The gingersnap apple crisp [pictured on p. 4 of this issue] resembles the classic oat-topped dish, but it’s shot through with warm spices from the cookies, which you blitz in a food processor. Both recipes can be made with whatever apples you have on hand, though I don’t recommend using only McIntosh in the apple crisp. That variet y turns to mush pretty quickly, so it’s always good to mix it with something f irmer, like Cortland, Honeycrisp, Jonagold, or Northern Spy.

GRILLED HAM, CHEDDAR & APPLE SANDWICHES 4 large slices crusty bread, preferably sourdough 1½ tablespoons salted butter, softened 2 teaspoons honey mustard 2 slices deli ham ½ large apple, very thinly sliced 6 ounces sharp cheddar, thinly sliced 6 fresh sage leaves

Take one large and one medium heavybottomed skillet and set them both on the stovetop over medium heat, or preheat a panini press to 350 °F. Butter one side of each slice of bread, then lay them butter-side down on a NEWENGLAND.COM

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IN SEASON

cutting board. Spread 1 teaspoon of honey mustard over each piece, followed by a slice of ham, then half of the apple slices, then half of the cheddar. Top with the remaining slices of bread, then butter their tops and press three sage leaves into each.

If using skillets, place the sandwiches, sage side down, into the large heavy-bottomed skillet. Set the smaller skillet on top. (If it isn’t very heavy, weigh it down with a filled kettle.) Remove this skillet “press” after 2 minutes, then f lip the sandwiches and cook until the bottoms are nicely browned, 2 to 3 minutes more. If using a panini press, lay the sandwiches on the press and bring down the cover.

Cook until the sandwiches are golden brown and the cheese is melted, 4 to 6 minutes. Yields 2 sandwiches.

GINGERSNAP APPLE CRISP

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9 large apples (preferably both sweet and tart varieties), peeled, cored, and cut into ½-inch slices 20 gingersnap cookies ½ cup firm-packed light brown sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon kosher salt 10 tablespoons cold salted butter, cut into small pieces ¾ cup rolled oats ½ cup pecan or walnut halves Vanilla ice cream, for serving

Preheat your oven to 375 °F and set a rack to the middle position. Arrange the apples in an even layer in a 13-by9-inch baking dish.

In a food processor, pulse the cookies, sugar, cinnamon, and salt until the mixture has a sandy texture. Add the butter, oats, and nuts and pulse until the nuts are the size of small peas and the mixture looks like wet sand.

Spread the mixture over the apples and bake until the topping is golden brown and the juices are bubbling, 50 to 60 minutes. Let cool 20 minutes, then serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Yields 8 servings.

NEWENGLAND.COM

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BAR HARBOR & ACADIA NATIONAL PARK IT’S HARD TO BEAT AUTUMN ON THE MAINE COAST. B Y H I L A R Y N A N G L E • P H O T O S B Y TA R A R I C E

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OPPOSITE , CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT : Fresh-baked popovers at Jordan Pond House; downtown Bar Harbor; lunch at the Terrace Grille; a detail of the Abbe Museum exterior; sweet treats at Ben & Bill’s Chocolate Emporium; a carriage road in Acadia National Park.

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The Ocean Path in Acadia National Park, with Otter Cliffs in the distance.

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No matter how often I drive, pedal, or hike the Ocean Drive stretch of Park Loop Road in Acadia National Park, it’s never the same. Tides ebb and flow, sunlight dances with shadows, waves whisper or roar. Sometimes Thunder Hole lives up to its name; other times, as a ranger quipped, “it’s a gurgling gulch.” Sun, rain, fog, and even snow add their quirks and splendors, as do the seasons. But during Bar Harbor visitors can take to the water in style aboard the four-masted schooner Margaret Todd.

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autumn, nature pulls out all the stops in its zeal to impress. Mountains dressed in seasonal couture plunge to rugged granite shores and rim freshwater lakes, their ref lections rippling in the waters. Add the softer light and sweater-weather temperatures, and it’s hard to beat autumn in Acadia.

Acadia is both a natural wonder and a cultural one with constructed treasures, such as the Park Loop, carriage roads, Jordan Pond House, and stair trails. Unlike most other national parks, it was created from private lands, assembled piece by piece from donations by wealthy summer rusticators as well as locals of modest means.

Its porous, hodgepodge boundaries nudge backyards and downtowns.

The town of Bar Harbor’s history is woven into these boundaries. Staying here underscores and eases the transition between town and park, then and now, human ingenuity and nature’s grandeur.

I love strolling along the harborhugging Shore Path in the predawn stillness before Bar Harbor’s waterfront emerges from its overnight hibernation.

I might linger by the town pier to watch the sun peek over the horizon, radiate across the water and Porcupine Islands, illuminate the schooner Margaret Todd ’s four masts, and turn a pebbly beach into shimmery starbursts.

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EXPLORING BAR HARBOR & ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

EAT & DRINK ▲ Terrace Grille: The front-lawn tables at the Bar Harbor Inn’s restaurant offer sweeping views of Frenchman Bay. Opt for the full lobster bake with potatoes, corn on the cob, and blueberry pie. barharborinn.com The Barnacle: Maine beers make the perfect pairing with Maine oysters at this laid-back pub. the barnaclebarharbor.com Havana and Parrilla: One of the island’s best tables, Havana offers fine dining with Latin flair, a Maine accent, and an eco-conscious ethos. More casual is Parrilla, its streetside outdoor tapas bar and grill. havanamaine.com Café This Way: Follow painted footsteps down an alley to this casual, artsy favorite serving globally inspired, eclectic fare. cafethisway.com Project Social Kitchen & Bar: Sit indoors, on the porch, or in the garden, and enjoy craft cocktails, small plates, and crepes. socialbarharbor.com

Locally owned shops and restaurants invite exploring on Bar Harbor’s Main Street.

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Rosalie’s: Bring quarters to feed the Wurlitzer jukebox, playing retro 45s, while savoring scratchmade pizza, calzones, salads, and pasta dinners. rosaliespizza.com

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STAY Saltair Inn: Immerse yourself in the Gilded Age at this handsomely updated waterfront B&B along Millionaire’s Row. saltairinn.com West Street Hotel: Although smack-dab in the center of Bar Harbor’s action, guests can retreat to the adultsonly rooftop pool with dreamy views over the Porcupine Islands. theweststreethotel.com Bar Harbor Inn: Since its 1887 founding as the Mount Desert Reading Room, this resort has occupied a prime location along the Shore Path. barharborinn.com

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Even on cooler autumn nights, the al fresco grill and tapas bar Parrilla is a warmly inviting spot for drinks and a bite.

ABOVE : Established more than a century ago, the Shore Path offers a scenic 1½-mile outand-back stroll along Frenchman Bay.

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If the tide cooperates, I’ll cross the namesake sandbar tethering Bar Harbor to Bar Island and hike into Acadia, climbing gently through gold-and-orange-speckled hardwoods preening amid the spruce on the Bar Island Trail. The high point reveals the town backed by Champlain and Dorr mountains.

The return frames Millionaire’s Row, as the grand “cottages” fronting the shoreline were called during Bar Harbor’s Gilded Age. The Bar Harbor Historical Societ y’s 41-room La Rochelle Mansion and Museum fills one of those cottages. Stepping inside peels away the centuries, as its furnishings and exhibits tell the town’s side of Acadia’s story: the Wabanaki and European explorers, artists and rusticators, farmers and fishermen, the wealthy summer elite and the island folk who answered their needs. Images recall the Great Fire of 1947, which put the final punctuation on Bar Harbor’s Gilded Age. By walking or pedaling rather than driving, I better engage with both town and park: I discern pebble beaches from cobblestone ones along the granite shores; perhaps spy an eagle or hawk soaring overhead or hear a red squirrel’s nattering. I can pedal from town to Acadia’s carriage road circling Witch Hole

Holbrook House: The home-cooked breakfast alone is reason to stay at this in-town B&B with 12 guest rooms—some honoring its Victorian origin, others decorated in a light, contemporary style. holbrookhouse.com Highbrook Motel: This meticulously maintained older motel offers spacious rooms a mile from downtown Bar Harbor. highbrookmotel.com SHOP

▲ Island Artisans: Peruse works by over 100 Maine artists and artisans. islandartisans.com The Naturalist’s Notebook: Delve into art, science, and natural history through engaging exhibits, intriguing books,

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and fascinating treasures. thenaturalistsnotebook .com Rock & Art Shop: Gift shop? Art gallery?

Natural history museum?

Actually this unusual shop is a bit of all three. therockandartshop.com PLAY La Rochelle Mansion and Museum: The Bar Harbor Historical Society shares local lore in this Georgian Revival mansion on Millionaire’s Row. barharborhistorical.org Abbe Museum: Discover the stories of the “People of the Dawnland,” Maine’s Wabanaki Nations, at the only museum in the state to be affiliated with the Smithsonian. abbemuseum.org

TOP :

Bikers cruise down a carriage road alongside Acadia National Park’s glaciercarved Jordan Pond. ABOVE : Curator Starr Kelly at the Bar Harbor location of the Abbe Museum, whose collections represent 12,000 years of Native American culture and history in Maine.

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Pond, where f lamboyant maples, birches, and oaks frame the turreted, triple-arched Duck Brook Bridge.

One day I walked into history when I came upon Compass Harbor, a wooded, vest-pocket shorefront park parcel about a mile from downtown. George Dorr, who devoted most of his life and fortune to founding and growing Acadia National Park, lived here. He also contributed his name and left footprints at Sieur de Monts Spring, a gentle walk from downtown via the Great Meadow Trail and Jesup Path.

I can spend the better part of the day in this woodland oasis shadowed under the face of Dorr Mountain. Human-made treasures here include a nature center, the Wild Gardens of Acadia, the original Abbe Museum, an ornate springhouse, and inviting stair trails zigzagging Dorr Mountain’s face.

Those trails, works of art built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, flow with the mountain, easing the way with granite steps and natural balconies. On a brilliant autumn day, there’s no finer place to pause—gazing over color-splashed woods, craggy coast, and ocean waters—and appreciate human ingenuity in service of nature’s grandeur.

St. Saviour’s Episcopal Church: View 11 Tiffany stained glass windows inside this 1878 church. stsaviours.me Downeast Windjammer Cruise Lines: See Acadia’s glorious coastline from the water on a morning, afternoon, or sunset sail from Bar Harbor. downeast windjammer.com ▼ Acadia National Park: Signature experiences abound at this 49,000-acre treasure, from taking in the sunrise from the top of Cadillac Mountain to enjoying a horse-drawn carriage ride. nps.gov/acad; acadiahorses.com

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Photo: Plimoth Patuxet Museums

Thanksgiving Served Here

See Plymouth SeePlymouth.com Destination Plymouth

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visitma.com

Town of PLYMOUTH

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DAY T R I P S

Designated a National Scenic Byway, the Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire offers some of New England’s finest foliage viewing.

Yankee foliage expert Jim Salge’s favorite fall routes. fter months of watching the forecasts and studying the health of New England’s forests, I’m ready to hit the road to see the beautiful leaves as they actually arrive. Here are a few of my favorite places to do just that.

Route 26 Newry, ME, to Colebrook, NH My first fall drives are always to places where I can get an early preview of the color show, and Route 26 is a great example. Running through New Hampshire’s Great North Woods and Maine’s western mountains, it passes through Grafton Notch and Dixville Notch, both of which have short hikes to beautiful waterfalls and steep treks to dramatic vistas. In Dixville Notch State Park, the route to Table Rock above Lake Gloriette may be an Instagram sensation, but it’s still rarely crowded—and the view is amazing.

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Kancamagus Highway Conway to Lincoln, NH A week or so after the first hints of fall foliage begin to appear, you can expect to see bright colors covering the higher-elevation hillsides all over the north country. One of the best places to photograph this sea of changing leaves is from the Kancamagus Highway (Route 112), which climbs to nearly 3,000 feet from the Saco River Valley near Conway. With dozens of places to stop and stretch your legs along its 35-mile route, the “Kanc” allows for short but memorable hikes to 100-mile views, ponds, waterfalls, and streams.

Route 52 & Mount Battie Auto Road Camden Hills, ME After foliage on the inland mountains slides past peak, it’s time to head to the coast—and in Maine, my go-to is the Camden Hills. Route 52 winds

Route 102 Southern Rhode Island For late foliage in southern New England, look to Route 102 in Rhode Island, which arcs wide around Providence and includes a stretch between Exeter and West Greenwich, known locally as Ten Rod Road, that’s been designated a Rhode Island Scenic Byway. Stopping at Audubon’s Fisherville Brook Wildlife Refuge in Exeter, with its miles of hiking trails through diverse habitats, is always one of my highlights of late fall.

Jim Salge will host the upcoming Yankee webinar New England in the Fall, sharing his travel and photography insights for making the most of the foliage season. For details, including when the webinar will be held and how to register, go to NewEngland.com/FallFoliage.

CHRIS BENNET T

Drive Time

along the eastern shore of Megunticook Lake, whose namesake mountain looms in the rearview mirror. The colors along this route usually peak before those you’ll see from Mount Battie, in Camden Hills State Park, which has a scenic, winding auto road to a beautiful view eastward back toward the lovely town and the sea.

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DIVE INTO FALL COLOR IN MASSACHUSETTS Drives and hikes across the Bay State offer a leaf peeper’s delight

W

hile Massachusetts is home to more New Englanders than any other state in the region, rooted in and around its bustling cities and towns is another diverse, thriving population that takes center stage every autumn: trees. More than half of the state is forested—nearly 3 million acres—mainly by the kinds of northern hardwoods that paint the fall landscape in crimson, orange, and gold. Even better, they cascade down from mountainsides to coastal lands, each area peaking at different times and spreading the opportunities for leaf peeping across the season.

Want to get a front-row seat to the Bay State color show this year? These classic drives and favorite foliage spots will get you started.

Hit the Road (or Rails)

CARL TREMBLAY (MOHAWK); DENIS TANGNEY JR./ISTOCK (QUABBIN)

More than a dozen official scenic byways and countless beautiful rural routes make fall day-tripping an essential Massachusetts experience. Among the standouts: • western ma: Explore the majestic Berkshires on the Jacob’s Ladder Trail, rolling farmland on the Connecticut River Byway, and charming New England towns aplenty on the nation’s first scenic automobile route, the Mohawk Trail.

• north of boston: Maritime heritage meets foliage color along the Essex Coastal Scenic Byway, linking 14 coastal communities.

Mohawk Trail

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Quabbin Reservoir

• central ma: The 40-mile Lost Villages Scenic Byway offers a quiet ride past working farms, forests, and historic towns and landmarks.

• greater boston: From Arlington to Concord, hear the echoes of Revolutionary history on the Battle Road Scenic Byway.

• south of boston: See another kind of fiery fall color—the crimson of cranberry bogs—on the 62-mile Cranberry Course through Plymouth County.

• cape & islands: For seaside autumn splendor, try a different set of wheels: the Cape Cod Central Railroad, offering scenic rides through October.

Take a Hike (or Your Bike)

With 150 state parks, 100 Trustees of Reservations properties, 15 national park areas, five national heritage areas, and three national trails, Massachusetts’s treasure trove of natural assets means that no matter where you go, you’re not far from a foliage spot perfect for exploring at your own pace.

For a bird’s-eye view of the autumn canopy, try one of the state’s many stunning summit hikes, which are especially abundant in Western Massachusetts. Mount Greylock State Reservation offers the chance to tackle the state’s tallest mountain (3,491 feet), but less-ambitious peaks offer equally eye-popping views, including Monument Mountain (1,642 feet), Mount Sugarloaf (935 feet), and Mount Holyoke (652 feet).

Waterfalls, lakes, and rivers add a certain

magical sparkle to foliage excursions. For proof, head to the sprawling Quabbin Reservoir in Central Massachusetts, a magnet for autumn hikers and bikers, or the Taconic Mountains’ Bish Bash Falls State Park, home to the state’s highest waterfall. And of course there’s the timeless appeal of Concord’s Walden Pond, made famous by Massachusetts native son Henry David Thoreau.

Bird-watchers and nature enthusiasts can take their pick of 60-plus Mass Audubon wildlife sanctuaries, whose autumn beauty is as diverse as their locations: from the mountainside setting of Pleasant Valley in Lenox, to the former farmlands of Wachusetts Meadow in Princeton, to the salt marsh of Wellfleet Bay on Cape Cod. Another collection of pristine properties not to be missed is managed by The Trustees of Reservations, the nation’s first and Massachusetts’s largest preservation and conservation nonprofit. At the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, discover glorious views of the Nashua River Valley amid a former 19th-century Transcendentalist colony. The five miles of trails at Bartholomew’s Cobble, a National Natural Landmark in Sheffield, wind through fields, forest, and marshes on the way to the foliage vistas from atop 1,000-foot Hurlburt’s Hill. Finally, for a uniquely coastal spin on fall color, head to Martha’s Vineyard, where Menemsha Hills blends awe-inspiring seaside panoramas with flashes of red from blueberry bushes and ripening holly berries.

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EVENTS

The Topsfield Fair’s classic midway lights up the night in Topsfield, Massachusetts.

Fall Fairs & Festivals utumn in New England is all about f inding color— the stunning foliage variety, of course, but also the kind of local color you find at harvest celebrations.

This is the season when visitors and locals alike converge on fairgrounds to see magnificent draft horses, eat fried dough, and stroll the midway. They also f lock to town centers for fall festivals, to taste prize-winning apple pie and watch kids playing on the village green. More than anything, though, t hey go beyond lea f-peeping to embrace the autumn experience in all its many forms. Here are some classic fall fairs and festivals where you can do just that. —William Scheller 56 |

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CONNECTICUT APPLE HARVEST FESTIVAL, Southington.

One weekend isn’t enough for this salute to fall’s favorite fruit. Southington’s lovely town green hosts the event featuring rides, a crafts show, music, and food, with apples making their appearance in pies, fritters, slushies, and by their own crisp, sweet selves. Evenings are capped with fireworks, and a parade along a one-mile route highlights the opening weekend.

9/30–10/2 and 10/7–10/9; southington.org BERLIN FAIR, Berlin. This central Connecticut tradition has all the favorites: farm animals and fat pumpkins, carnival rides (including the famed Himalaya), and music ranging from big-name acts to local talent. But the standout is the amazing array of food, all prepared by church groups and charitable organizations. After wolfing down clam chowder, eggplant

fries, and peach fritters, come back the next day for a “Veggie Power Blend Sandwich.”

9/15–9/18; ctberlinfair.com DURHAM FAIR, Durham. Connecticut’s largest agricultural fair combines the harvest season’s abundance of fruit and vegetables with livestock competitions, arts and crafts exhibits, live music, and of course plenty of food, games, and rides along the midway. There’s a monster truck rally and a lumberjack show (ax-throwing, anyone?). 9/22–9/25; durhamfair.com FOUR TOWN FAIR, Somers. Dating to 1830, Four Town is one of New England’s oldest harvest fairs. In addition to traditional livestock, garden produce, and crafts exhibits and competitions, things get lively with eating contests (pie, corn on the cob) and doodle bug pulls. What’s a doodle bug, you ask? It’s a small tractor,

(Continued on p. 98)

KINDR A CLINEFF

Harvest season brings a bumper crop of timeless community celebrations.

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discover FALL IN CENTRAL MA g o r g e o u s hi kes

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fu n fe s tiva l s

visitor tip Find fall events on our Events Calendar:

plan your next adventure at DISCOVERCENTRALMA.ORG and on social media

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8 WAYS TO ENJOY FALL IN

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AROOSTOOK COUNTY: Larger than Rhode Island and Connecticut combined, Aroostook offers endless byways and back roads for foliage adventures.

1 GO NORTH

(WAY NORTH) FOR AN EARLY FOLIAGE FIX Perfect for leaf peepers eager to get the color show on the road, Maine’s northernmost county, Aroostook, can reach peak as soon as the end of September.

Discover a rolling landscape painted in red, gold, and green as you drive the Fish River Scenic Byway between Portage and Fort Kent or explore the hiking trails of Aroostook State Park, and discover why “The Crown of Maine” shines brightest in fall.

PHOTO: L AUREN BL ACK WELL / RED LE ASH PHOTO

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THE KENNEBEC VALLEY: Rushing waters meet changing leaves on a guided trip led

by West Forks–based outfitter Three Rivers Whitewater.

2 FLOAT INTO AUTUMN Although Maine’s famous whitewater rafting scene winds down in October, it makes a splashy exit amid waterways now blazing crimson and orange. With the summer crowds gone, guided rafting or kayaking trips on the Dead, Kennebec, and Penobscot rivers tend to be smaller and more flexible— all the better to lose yourself in the stunning seasonal beauty.

P H O T O S : T H R E E R I V E R S W H I T E W AT E R ( A B O V E ) ; M A R K F L E M I N G ( O P P O S I T E )

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MIDCOAST & ISLANDS: Kids clamber up an autumnal Mount Everest at Beth’s Farm Market in Warren.

3 GET IN ON

THE FUN AT A FARM STAND No fall day trip would be complete without a bag of fresh-picked apples or a few cheery pumpkins riding along on the drive home. Farm stands abound throughout the Pine Tree State, many offering not only a cornucopia of locally grown produce and home-baked treats, but also the chance to make memories: bouncing along on a hayride, exploring a corn maze, and maybe even meeting a friendly farm animal or two.

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ACADIA & DOWNEAST: The Milky Way lights up the night over Acadia National Park.

4 PEER INTO A SEA OF STARS Autumn is prime time for stargazing—it gets dark early, but temperatures haven’t plummeted yet—and Maine, a largely rural state, offers some of the most pristine night skies imaginable. Here you’ll find one of only 15 International Dark Sky Sanctuaries in the world, at Baxter State Park, while on the coast, the Acadia Night Sky Festival draws thousands each September to marvel at celestial displays gorgeously reflected in the waters surrounding Acadia National Park.

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THE MAINE HIGHLANDS: The official state animal of Maine, in all its majesty.

5 EXPLORE

FALL FLAVORS AT A MAINE CRAFT BREWERY Pilsners and IPAs have had their day in the summer sun. When sweater weather comes on, it’s time for the darker—and somehow more warming—varieties of beer to shine: stouts, porters, red ales. Maine boasts 165 licensed craft breweries, giving it one of the highest numbers per capita in the nation. And while many make their home in Portland, the scene’s foamy hub, the Maine Beer Trail is ready to guide you to autumnal tastings across the state.

GREATER PORTLAND & CASCO BAY: Belgian-style brews at Allagash Brewing Co.

6 GO MOOSE-

SPOTTING AMID THE FOLIAGE In terms of inspiring awe, few things compare with the sight of a moose—unless, that is, you happen to spy Maine’s largest animal framed by glorious autumn color. An estimated 70,000 moose live in Maine, the biggest population in the lower 48 states, mainly in its northern woods and western mountains. Fittingly, a favorite spot for moose-watching is the Moosehead Lake area, where guided tours by land or water offer the closest thing to a guaranteed sighting of this legendary animal.

P H O T O S : M A R K P I C A R D ( T O P ) ; A L L A G A S H B R E W I N G C O . ( A B O V E ) ; N AT E L E V E S Q U E ( O P P O S I T E )

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7 HIKE INTO THE FALL COLOR

No matter what kind of outing you prefer—stroll, ramble, or trek—you can find your own path in Maine.

More than one-fifth of the state, 4 million acres, is protected; in addition to state- and federalowned properties, land trusts and conservation easements invite you into Maine’s natural landscape at its most pristine—and in fall, its most colorful. Tackle a summit climb in Maine’s Lakes & Mountains. Hike to a waterfall in the Maine Highlands.

Wander the coast of the Maine Beaches. And immerse yourself in autumn, one step at a time.

8 JOIN IN

A TIMELESS TRADITION

MAINE’S LAKES & MOUNTAINS: Small-town spirit gets a big-time showcase at the beloved Fryeburg Fair.

Home to more working farms than any other New England state, Maine wears its agricultural heritage with pride at more than two dozen country fairs, held in summer and fall in towns across the state.

But the biggest one is saved for last: The 172-year-old Fryeburg Fair returns October 2–9 with livestock shows, sheepdog trials, tractor pulls, skillet and anvil throws, and plenty more old-fashioned fun to delight modern-day fairgoers.

P H O T O S : T R I S TA N S P I N S K I ( T O P ) ; R A C H E L A N D R E W S D A M O N ( A B O V E ) ; JERRY MONK M A N/ECOPHOTOGR A PHY (OPPOSITE)

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THE MAINE BEACHES: Blazing-red blueberry bushes brighten a coastal hike on the Timber Point Trail in Biddeford, part of the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge.

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7/26/22 12:14 PM

Magnificent THE

WITH INVITING STOPS EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK, ROUTE 7 OFFERS A THREE-STATE FALL DRIVE TO REMEMBER.

BY ALANA CHERNILA PHOTOS BY COREY HENDRICKSON

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Snugged up against Route 7 in Massachusetts is Mount Greylock State Reservation, where a winding 16.3-mile summit road pays off in prime Berkshire foliage views as well as, at the top, a vista that encompasses five states.

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“PROCEED TO THE ROUTE,” the GPS voice demands, as we have, once again, deviated from her course. Over the past few days, my husband, Joey, and I have made these detours again and again with a shushing of the GPS. As before, we turn off the main road, winding our way around ruts in the pavement. The road feels particularly enchanted—there is a canopy of red and orange that opens into a wide field banked by the Vermont hills all around us. As the narrow road curves, a little house 68 |

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with a sloping roof and a red door appears, a woman staining a chair in her driveway. Up the hill, two blond heads erupt from a carefully raked pile at the exact moment we pass, creating a snow globe of leaves in every color. It is our own little postcard in motion, almost too idyllic to believe.

“Was that real?” Joey asks.

I can only nod. And I know that this moment is why we took that turn.

“Proceed to the route!” the voice demands again, and we make our way back to the main road. Because she is right: NEWENGLAND.COM

7/18/22 11:44 AM

At Vermont’s Shelburne Farms, a stunning former Gilded Age estate turned education nonprofit and sustainable working farm, autumn colors settle over endless acres of fields and woodlands shaped by famed landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted.

This trip is all about the route. We’re driving the length of Route 7, the road that runs from the Canadian border all the way down into Connecticut. Sometimes it’s a major thoroughfare, other times a lonely winding road, but I know few drives that offer so many foliage views and so much art, history, great food, and tempting stops along the way. I’d also wager that Route 7 leads us to more covered bridges than any other, and we are determined to find them all.

Without travel these past few years, like so many others I’ve felt bound to the smallness of my life. I love to go to SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2022

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places where people live, to shop in their stores and experience their sunsets and feel as if the world is much wider than the life I live from day to day. As we planned this trip, I knew it had to feel safe and expansive at the same time. I wanted to explore as much world as I could see, while still easing into the experience of venturing out. Route 7 felt like the perfect anchor.

The parameters were as follows: Although Route 7 officially stretches from Norwalk, Connecticut, to the Vermont/Canada border, we shortened our route slightly from | 69

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Shelburne, Vermont, to Kent, Connecticut. It spans just over 200 miles, and, if driven in one shot, would take about five hours. We’d take four days; the road would provide the plan and we’d leave the rest to chance. We would follow a bit of Historic Route 7A as well, and take any turn that beckoned—as long as we didn’t veer more than five miles off the main route—always stopping for pumpkin patches and cider doughnuts, farm stands, breweries, maple creemees, historical landmarks, and even old cemeteries.

There is something so enticing about sticking to one main road, and taking time to know it in its near-entirety.

As long as we stay mostly on track, it feels as though anything can happen.

PA R T 1: S H E L B U R N E , V E R M O N T

I am in an Adirondack chair at the very top of the world.

The air is cool but the sun is warm, and the leaves are going out with a bang, with reds and bright golds almost electric against the blue of the sky and the deeper blue of Lake Champlain. We have claimed the two best chairs in the gardens of the Inn at Shelburne Farms, the grand main house of the Vanderbilt estate that has now become the 1,400-acre campus of a working farm and educational center. When I told friends that we would start our trip here, in Shelburne, I encountered the same response more than once: “Shelburne Farms is one of my favorite places on earth.”

Every step we walk here pulls me deeper into that fan club. My friend Emily works at O Bread Bakery on the farm, and we begin there, poking our heads in the door to breathe in the breads and pastries filling the racks. Emily meets us outside, shielding her eyes from the sun with a raised arm, shooing us off toward her favorite nooks of the property with a paper bag full of warm brioche chocolate rolls.

Exploring the farm, there is a simultaneous feeling of fantasy and real life. The place itself is so grand in scope that it’s hard to connect it with anything other than its Gilded Age history. But in the end, it’s not a museum but a working farm, an educational nonprofit dedicated to sustainability, food, and land stewardship. And as we make our way through the cheese-making room, both past and current missions coexist with such clarity that it inspires conversations of our own dreams as we walk the wide gravel paths.

Somehow, with history so close, it makes me more hopeful.

A f ive-minute drive brings us to the Shelburne Museum, a collection of Americana housed in 39 structures across a 45-acre property. This is an homage to the beauty of everyday spaces and useful objects. My favorites surprise me: the fully restored Ticonderoga steamboat, which we wander from end to end; the bustling printing shop; and the Horseshoe Barn, a massive building that holds an array of horse-drawn carriages that includes a 1910 school bus sleigh—basically a beat-up orange shed on skis with two long child-sized benches and a small 70 |

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP : “Rutland City Buildings” by Persi Narvaez is one of more than a dozen eye-catching murals that invite art-loving day-trippers to explore Rutland, Vermont; just off Route 7 south of Rutland, Emerald Lake State Park is a popular spot for picnicking, hiking, fishing, and more; take a detour onto Historic Route 7A in Vermont to see where poet Robert Frost lived his dream of being an apple farmer, now the Robert Frost Stone House Museum.

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7/20/22 4:24 PM

I L LUS T R AT I O N BY T R I SH A K R AUS S

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woodstove that once carried children in northern Vermont to their one-room schoolhouse. It has less beauty and more use than its carved and gilded neighbors in the barn, but something about that little bus elicits an image as clear as if I had been there myself, a mother to kids from another time, bundled in wool coats as they compared the clouds of their frosted breath.

We come across the first covered bridge of our adventure, a rare two-lane bridge that originally spanned the Lamoille River in Cambridge, Vermont, but was moved to Shelburne in 1949 by museum founder Electra Havemeyer Webb. She had the massive bridge dismantled and reassembled at great expense because, as we learned on the banks of the pond that now holds the bridge, “it was just too good to resist.” This bridge has elements of everything I love about Shelburne—it is grand and stunning and deeply steeped in history.

A word about covered bridges: Over the course of our Route 7 trip, the bridges will somehow surprise us every time, even when we know we’re looking for them. Covered bridges are, in their essence, nothing particularly magical.

They are simply timber-truss wooden bridges topped with a protective roof. But in order to understand what is so special about a covered bridge, you need only to step inside one. Is it the shifting sensation of wood over water? The light as it comes through the entrance and exit, creating a quality that is both dim and bright at the same time, turning everyone who walks through into a Rembrandt? Or the acoustics that reflect and deepen every tone, so we find ourselves singing just to hear the sound? Whatever it is, the bridges pull us like children to a playground, and we stop the car every time and wander through each bridge, testing the sound, stomping on the floor, making wishes and holding our breath according to the old superstitions, noticing what makes each one both different from and the same as the others.

PA R T 2: S O U T H E R N V E R M O N T

We come upon our next covered bridge by accident. The Hammond Bridge in Pittsford has the feel of the forgotten. It’s blocked off and beloved by bittersweet vines, and I imagine another time when the bridge was the only way from one place to another. It all feels lost and lovely, waiting to be found.

A bit farther south, we drive around the streets of Rutland, awestruck by the larger-than-life murals that adorn buildings seemingly around every corner. The murals began in 2010, and every year more artwork appears, stopping visitors in their tracks.

When we leave town, Route 7 leads us about 25 miles toward Manchester, and right before town we join the Route 7A byway and grab a burger at Zoe’s Double Hex before heading to Hildene, the grand home of the only child of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln who grew up to have a family of his own.

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Robert Todd Lincoln first came to Manchester in 1864, when his father was working to hold the country together.

Years later, when it was time to build a summer house for his family, he discovered this site. The 1905 home is perched on a hill between two mountains, and I wander the manicured gardens to the little observatory that seems almost to float over the trees.

Just south of Manchester off Route 7A we take the Skyline Drive toll road to the top of Mount Equinox. The twisting 5.2-mile climb brings us to the 3,848-foot summit and the viewing center built by the Carthusian monks who reside on the mountain, and it’s at least 20 degrees colder at the top than at the base. We are surrounded by mountains on all sides: the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the Berkshires, and the Taconics. The colors of the leaves are more vivid than any we’ve seen on the trip so far, and the clouds, near enough to touch, squeeze out a few snowflakes to add to the vision. And then, armed with the little sheet of instructions handed solemnly to me in the welcome center—“Stop regularly to give your brakes a break!”—we wind back and forth down the mountain, stopping at every pullout to take in the color.

We are not in a race to see everything on our way. But these hills inspired Robert Frost, and so we know we want to stop in Shaftsbury to visit the Robert Frost Stone House Museum, a bright little stone and clapboard house with an orchard in the yard. The house is one of the oldest around, a rare example of Dutch Colonial architecture built in 1769, and now maintained by nearby Bennington College. It’s almost the end of the day, and the light moves through the two main rooms of the house that compose the museum. I chat with the Bennington student working the front desk— we talk about the world opening up again, and she tells me how nice it is to have people back in the museum.

On our visit, the featured exhibit is a room full of the erasure poetry of Mary Ruef le, Vermont’s poet laureate.

Frost wrote his most famous poem in this house, and Ruefle’s exhibit includes her take on “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which has been written out on the wall in the main room. Erasure poetry works with existing text, blacking out certain words to create a new work. Here, in this little light-filled house, I am floored by the transformation from that moment in time to this one, the past made present. In its new form, the poem is called simply “Stopping.” I think I know / now / a / frozen / year / The only sound’s the weep / of / promises / and/ sleep.

PA R T 3: T H E B E R K S H I R E S

As we pass into Massachusetts, the towns grow denser, the bright orange hills tighter and gentler on either side. This is familiar territory for us, closer to home, but we steer away from our comfort zones, seeking out new views and new pathways.

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7/18/22 11:55 AM

Heading into Pownal, Vermont, on Route 7, you can’t miss Armstrong Farm and its cheerful array of pumpkins stacked on wagons, lined up in rows, and arranged to spell out “VERMONT” on a side lawn.

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We’ve done this stretch as tourists before, back in 2015, when Joey and I endeavored to walk the length of Route 7 as it extended through Berkshire County from Vermont to Connecticut, a 56-mile stretch that doubles as Main Street through most towns along the corridor. That trip was all about taking what felt familiar and changing its context. For eight days, we walked the routes we had driven for years, but we took them slowly, on foot, developing new relationships to the places we’d grown tired of driving by day after day.

It was so nice to be back on this stretch of road as a tourist, although this time, by car, we’re using the familiar as a springboard for new experiences. We watch the sun set on Mount Greylock before wings and a beer at the Olde Forge, and spend a night in downtown Pittsfield at Hotel on North, the swanky boutique hotel that embraces Berkshire idiosyncracy, each room different from every other.

Stockbridge has one of the most famous Main Streets in New England, because while many towns look as if they’re “right out of a Norman Rockwell painting,” Stockbridge is literally the town that Rockwell painted. It’s also thick with history—from the house and gardens at Naumkeag, to Mumbet’s grave, to the Norman Rockwell Museum, complete with his fully reconstructed studio. We wander down this bit of Route 7 that makes up the famous Main Street, and stop for a drink on the rocking chairs of the Red Lion Inn’s porch before heading to dinner at Once Upon a Table.

The restaurant is under new management, and the tiny space is updated from the old kitschiness I remember, the SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2022

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OPPOSITE :

A visit to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, inevitably includes exploring Railroad Street, aka the “restaurant row” of this Berkshire foodie mecca.

ABOVE , FROM LEFT :

The lobby of Hotel on North, a boutique hotel housed in a pair of 19th-century buildings in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts; road food doesn’t get any tastier than at the Bistro Box in Great Barrington.

now-white walls glowing in the low light. We share exquisitely cooked lamb chops with couscous and peas, and a beet salad that sits on a bed of something creamy I want to lick right off the plate.

The Berkshires have always had an inherent quirkiness, a lure to those who are outside the norm. In past centuries, writers and artists have been drawn to this remote county, and there is evidence of their work and presence all along Route 7. We pay tribute as we come upon them: Thoreau’s words on the top of Mount Greylock; Edith Wharton’s grand home away from the stuffy society of New York and Newport; the spot on Monument Mountain in Great Barrington where Melville and Hawthorne took refuge in a rainstorm and began a lifelong friendship (or romance, depending on who you talk to).

And our next covered bridge? Spanning the Housatonic River, which lines much of this part of Route 7, the Old Covered Bridge appears in Sheffield, just before Massachusetts runs into Connecticut. It is a common place for neighborhood dog walks and, in 1969, was apparently the site of the | 75

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PA R T 4 : T H E L I T C H F I E L D H I L L S

As Route 7 heads into Connecticut, it becomes more deeply tied to the Housatonic River, the road a dance partner to the water. Our first stop is in Falls Village, a tiny segment of Canaan that feels like a step into the 19th century, complete with a grand Victorian inn. We wander into the Falls Village Café for an egg sandwich, and end up next door at Furnace–Art on Paper Archive. We take in the current show, and then explore the gallery itself, which has rows of drawers of artwork that can be pulled out and inspected.

We pore over it all with the person who is working at the gallery for the day. “I usually teach swimming,” we are told.

“But I love being around all this great work.”

I’ve always thought of Vermont as the be-all and endall of foliage, but as we drive through Connecticut, everything is more vivid—deep maroon, mustard yellow, poppy orange. There is ever the sound of rushing water, and each place we stop, whether a farm stand or a junk shop, seems to have a grassy bank and a picnic table out back. We come to a covered bridge I have known about but never seen, in West Cornwall. This bridge is fully integrated into the town, the 76 |

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ABOVE , FROM LEFT :

Nature’s color display complements the human artistry on display at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts; covered bridges along and near Route 7—including this wellknown Connecticut gem—offer the chance to drive into a New England postcard scene.

OPPOSITE :

Co-owner Birdie Joseph at the Bistro Box in Great Barrington.

first that we can drive over. It feels so Connecticut to me— it’s less past-meets-present than the past is alive and well.

It’s almost as if we have traveled back in time ourselves, and that this road, following the same path it did even before it was called Route 7, dictates not just the place, but also the time to which we travel.

Before we end our trip with a night in Kent, we spend an afternoon at Kent Falls State Park. The falls are a true wonder of nature, with a staircase to the sky that we ascend to the very top. The falls drop 250 feet in a quarter of a mile, and we follow them back down until they empty into a calm little brook that f lows to the Housatonic. The day is warm, and we take off our shoes, stepping into the water downriver from a little girl who splashes her way across the stones. We sit on the banks of the brook, watching everyone around us celebrate this warmth, this place, this day. Even here at this waterfall in Connecticut, I hear German, Japanese, Hindi. And I think of where we began, on the shores of Lake Champlain, just a little further up this wonderful road with all its adventures, waiting to be found.

NEWENGLAND.COM

7/20/22 4:31 PM

CORE Y HENDRICKSON (THE RED LION INN, FALLS VILL AGE C AFÉ); ANDY DUBACK (SHELBURNE MUSEUM)

most verifiable UFO sighting in U.S. history. I find this bridge, like the others, to be oddly emblematic of the region around it. Like the Berkshires, it is a perfect mix of past and present, bustling and well visited, and decidedly off beat. It takes a change of perspective to see my own county as a visitor, but here, driving through, I see it and I love it.

ROUTE 7: THE ESSENTIALS

CORE Y HENDRICKSON (THE RED LION INN, FALLS VILL AGE C AFÉ); ANDY DUBACK (SHELBURNE MUSEUM)

EAT >> Rustic Roots, Shelburne: Bountiful and creative farmto-table fare for breakfast and lunch. Reserve ahead for a sweet outdoor table. rusticrootsvt.com >> Vermont Cookie Love, North Ferrisburgh: Come for the cookies, stay for the maple creemees, which are some of the best you’ll find. vermontcookielove.com >> Zoey’s Double Hex, Manchester: A bustling and cozy local spot with phenomenal burgers and friendly service. zoeys.com >> Blue Benn Diner, Bennington: A true Vermont institution that serves some of the finest diner food in New England. Try the homemade doughnut grilled and topped with vanilla ice cream. bluebenn.com >> Olde Forge Restaurant, Lanesborough: Cozy pub at the base of Mount Greylock, with great wings and an impressive beer selection. yeoldeforge.com >> Marjoram + Roux, Great Barrington: Excellent coffee, pastry, and lunch options, right at the top of Railroad Street. marjoramandroux.com >> The Bistro Box, Great Barrington: Be prepared to stand in line, as their bacon-jam burgers, truffle fries, and local shakes are always in high demand. thebistrobox.rocks >> High Lawn Farm, Lee: Enjoy a towering ice cream cone while getting to know the cows that provided the key ingredient. highlawnfarm.com

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Falls Village Café

>> Roberto’s Pizza, Sheffield: Terrific brickoven pizza and fresh salads. Sit inside or grab a picnic table out back. robertospizza413.com >> Falls Village Café, Falls Village: An expansive high-ceilinged café with something for everyone, nestled in the heart of the village. fallsvillagecafe.com

STAY >> Swift House Inn, Middlebury: A stunning hilltop house that offers the full Vermont experience.

The bonus? There’s a fantastic restaurant on-site. swifthouseinn.com >> The Inn at Manchester, Manchester: An upscale B&B with a delicious breakfast, a pool, and a pub stocked with Vermont beer and spirits. innatmanchester.com >> The Four Chimneys Inn, Bennington: Unique rooms in a historic mansion, and a cozy lounge for unwinding after the day’s adventures. fourchimneys.com >> Maple Terrace Motel, Williamstown: A rare budget find in the area, with neat, tidy rooms and a pool with a view. mapleterrace.com >> Hotel on North, Pittsfield: A beautifully curated

boutique hotel with an urban feel, right in the center of Pittsfield. hotelonnorth.com >> The Red Lion Inn, Stockbridge: Sip cocktails on the massive porch, swim in the outdoor heated pool, and find a bit of history in every corner. redlioninn.com >> The Briarcliff Motel, Great Barrington: A petfriendly, fun, modern motel opposite Monument Mountain, complete with an expansive fire pit where you can meet fellow travelers. thebriarcliffmotel.com >> The Falls Village Inn, Falls Village: This historic inn was renovated in 2010, and the decor in every room has been meticulously crafted by renowned interior designer Bunny Williams. thefallsvillageinn.com

The Red Lion Inn

PLAY >> Shelburne Farms, Shelburne: Learn about sustainable farming in Vermont while taking in the grand scenery, including views of fields, mountains, forests, and Lake Champlain. shelburnefarms.org >> Shelburne Museum, Shelburne: An experience of American history, culture,

Shelburne Museum

and design like no other. shelburnemuseum.org >> Hildene, Manchester: The house at Robert Todd Lincoln’s sweeping estate is stunning, equaled only by the gardens and mountain vistas around it. hildene.org >> Robert Frost Stone House Museum, Shaftsbury: This historic spot preserves and shares the legacy of one of America’s most celebrated poets. bennington.edu/robertfrost-stone-house-museum >> The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown: A lovely 140-campus surrounds a trove of American and European art. clarkart.edu >> Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge: Both the museum’s collection and curated shows are worth the visit. Be sure to head up the hill to visit Rockwell’s studio. nrm.org >> Kent Falls State Park, Kent: Bring a picnic, hike up to the falls, and spend a blissful afternoon marveling at the wonders of nature. portal.ct.gov/deep/state-parks

MORE ONLINE!

Discover 50+ additional editors’ picks for dining, lodging, and attractions at: newengland.com/ best-of-route-7 | 77

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Colin McCrum, 10, keeps an eye on a bin piler as it loads potatoes into a warehouse at County Farms.

His father, Darrell McCrum, is co-manager of the farm and a fifthgeneration member of the McCrum family running what is now one of Maine’s largest potato operations.

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lessons of the field

In Maine’s Aroostook County, everyone chips in during fall potato harvest.

By Erin Rhoda

P H O TO S B Y T R I S TA N S P I N S K I

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n the first day of last October, Lane McCrum steadied his tractor on the slick earth of one of his family’s 4,600 acres of potato fields in Maine. He was pulling a windrower, a giant machine that scoops up multiple rows of potatoes and spills them into a line on the ground to then harvest. The job meant Lane had a great deal of responsibility, particularly for a 17-year-old.

Looking out from the tractor cab, the high school junior from Mars Hill could see how much work he and his family had left to collect Maine’s most valuable agriculture crop—in weather that was barely holding. The clouds darkened.

Every year Maine’s potato harvest is a battle against time and the elements. The farms—all of which are run by families—typically have only three weeks in September and October to pull the potatoes from the ground before colder weather brings a frost. During those weeks, entire communities in Maine’s northernmost county, Aroostook, which grows the vast majority of Maine potatoes, turn to the task. Children and teenagers, too.

With only 10 people per square mile in Aroostook County, potato farmers have an urgent and temporary demand for labor. That’s why for decades many of the schools shut down for what is called the potato harvest break. Instead of going to class, kids like Lane drive tractors, steer trucks carrying 30,000 pounds of potatoes, operate forklifts at the warehouses where potatoes are stored, separate rocks from potatoes on conveyor belts, and clean the potatoes before they are shipped.

Breaking from school for the harvest is a tradition that people in “the County” acknowledge likely won’t last forever, however. As farming technology improves, fewer students are needed, prompting more school districts to drop the break. Working on a potato farm is an education all its own, though, making both farmers and educators lament the thought of losing the kids’ involvement.

“Even though they’re not in a classroom,” said Bobbi McCrum, Lane’s mother and a teacher at Central Aroostook Junior-Senior High School, “they’re learning.”

At County Farms, a multigenerational potato farm based in Mars Hill that’s run by the McCrum family, kids from the surrounding area can work 12 hours a day, six

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days a week, in the cold, heat, dust or, as was the case for a few days early last October, mud. The lessons are real and immediate. Some people speak wistfully of the potato harvest of decades past, when people picked potatoes by hand.

But the work was backbreaking, and no one is working today for nostalgia’s sake.

“That’s not the reason we’re doing it. We’re doing it because kids learn the value of hard work. They earn money. They’re providing a huge service to the farmers.

We’re so appreciative of it,” said Nick McCrum, who is married to Bobbi and runs County Farms with his cousin, Darrell McCrum.

Lane was responsible for digging up six rows of potatoes at a time and depositing them into a long line that filled three additional rows. Paired with another windrower, clockwise from lower right :

Nick and Bobbi McCrum at County Farms in Mars Hill, land that has been farmed by the McCrum family since 1886; Hailey Brewer, 16, one of the local junior high and high schoolers helping with the County Farms harvest; Nick and Bobbi’s oldest son, Lane, 17; Elaine Boulier, who grew up on an Aroostook County potato farm and now serves as superintendent for the school district serving Mars Hill and Blaine. The district is one of only two in the state that still give all students the traditional three-week harvest break.

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Elaine Boulier, Superintendent of Schools, Mars Hill, Maine.

Ask teenagers what the harvest break teaches them, and they usually talk about the value of hard work. But the work often involves dealing with less-than-ideal circumstances, which leads to something else: resilience. which also dropped them into the same line, a harvester could then scoop up 15 rows of potatoes at once.

The process requires precision.

“If you stop paying attention, things start breaking,” Lane said, as he alternated between looking ahead, checking a screen that showed the potatoes traveling up metal tracks and down a chute to the ground, and watching the progress of the other windrower next to him and the harvester behind him. The harvester poured potatoes into a waiting potato truck, the two moving in tandem down the rows. “I like doing this a lot,” Lane said. “You get to learn things you wouldn’t learn in school.” One such lesson is how to diagnose problems, he added.

At that moment he stopped the tractor, unwittingly showcasing his point. “I’ve got to get out real quick,” he said. Outside, he used a metal rod to clear out potato vines from a wheel that turned a component of the windrower.

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Back in the cab, we stayed in place, waiting for the harvester behind us. The rows seemed unbounded, and it was only one field; his family farms potatoes in nine towns in Aroostook County alone.

Adding to Lane’s problems, rain began to fall. Farms can’t store wet potatoes or else they might rot, making rain an enemy of the harvest. The harvester needed to stay close, so the newly unearthed potatoes wouldn’t get soaked. But as the harvester approached, we could see the potato truck next to it was full. Workers rolled a tarp over the truck to keep the collected tubers dry, and it headed back to the potato warehouse to unload. The potatoes Lane had already dug up lay exposed to the drizzle.

Ask teenagers or preteens what the harvest break teaches them, and they usually talk about the value of hard work.

But spend time with them, and it becomes clear that the work often involves troubleshooting and dealing with lessNEWENGLAND.COM

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than-ideal circumstances, which leads to something else: resilience.

“You’re going to have long days and not very good days, but that’s all part of it,” Lane said. “When something breaks, you can’t do anything about it. You’ve got to stick with it and do everything to fix it. Not every day will be as good as you planned it.”

Taking a pause from school doesn’t just help farmers get in their crop. It also helps students like Lane learn essential parts of the family business, so one day he might run it, which he hopes to. He or his brothers would be the sixth generation of McCrums to grow potatoes. I asked Lane what he didn’t know about the farm. “Really anything you can think of,” he said. “I learn new stuff all the time.”

As we waited for another potato truck to arrive, Lane showed me what his heavy equipment could do. An autosteer feature allows the tractor to move through a field without a human holding the steering wheel. That’s why the rows are so straight, he said: They’ve been planted by technological design. In his right hand was a remote that controlled the windrower’s boom, spade, and steering. A digital display told him how much fuel he had left, the temperature, and many other measurements. What’s more, the harvester behind us evolved from earlier models that required people on them— often kids—to pick out rocks. Today the harvesters are so SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2022

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At County Farms, the McCrums nearly double their workforce for the potato harvest, with students on break from school—like Reed Birmingham, 14, ( LEFT) and Delaney McKeen, 15 ( RIGHT)—accounting for about 30 to 40 percent of those extra hires. As Millie Couture, 14, put it, “It’s a good way to prepare yourself for other jobs in the future.”

efficient at funneling out the rocks that there’s not even a place on them for people to sit, Lane said.

But potatoes are still not impervious to too much rain.

With the storm worsening, Lane and all the other workers would have to stop for the day, after being out for only a few hours. The ground was muddy, but Lane knew how to keep up enough momentum to prevent his machines from getting stuck as he exited the field. He had done this before.

As mechanization keeps changing the industry, and a declining number of students work the harvest, Don Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board, can envision when the harvest break will no longer happen. “I think for the next few years you’ll continue to see it. I think at some point in time it probably will no longer exist. But is that within the next five years? Probably not. Is it within the next 20? Probably.

“Someday it’ll be a story that we’ll tell our grandkids,” he continued. “It won’t be anything they’re very familiar with or have ever seen at some point in time.”

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Mars Hill and home to the McCrums, and the nearby Easton School Department are the only two out of 14 districts where all students have a three-week harvest break, according to Ben Sirois, president of the Aroostook County Superintendents Association. Students start school at the beginning of August, so they can break in late September and early October. MSAD 42 Superintendent Elaine Boulier, who started in the district in 1986 as a first-grade teacher, said the break does not harm student academics. “It teaches an unbelievable work ethic. It teaches kids about time management, money management. It gives them an experience they won’t forget,” she said.

Boulier knows the harvest well. She grew up an hour and a half north of Mars Hill, on a potato farm in St. David, and used to wake up at 5 a.m. to be in the fields by 6 a.m. for the harvest, just as students do today. Sometimes, when the machinery got stuck in the mud or broke down, and work stopped, she would lie between the rows, her face to the sun, to take a nap.

Despite the grueling work schedule, there is also camaraderie.

“It’s my favorite time of year,” said Colin McCrum, 10, of Mars Hill, whose father, Darrell McCrum, is co-manager of County Farms. He enjoys seeing his friends and being part of the operation. “It keeps me busy, and I like that.” Before the rain shut down work on this day, Colin had a lot to do, including running a stinger, which funnels the potatoes from trucks onto a conveyor belt, and a bin piler, which empties the potatoes from the conveyor into a potato house. The potatoes had been “pretty muddy” that day, he said, but “they’ll be OK.” When there was a lull, he cleaned up the dirt that had accumulated on the ground and in the warehouse. Otherwise, it would reach his waist, he said.

Nearby, Audrey Milliard, 15, of Mars Hill worked her first harvest as a racker—someone who picks off rotten 84 |

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A R O O S T O O K C O U N T Y P O TAT O P I C K I N G , M A I N E , 19 5 4 . P H O T O G R A P H B Y V E R N E R R E E D ; © H I S T O R I C N E W E N G L A N D

A young girl harvests potatoes by hand in Aroostook County c. 1954.

Taking a formal harvest break from school—aka “potato recess”—was a regional tradition that began at the end of World War II. But in recent decades, four of the county’s 14 school districts have discontinued the break, and most of the rest have shortened the length of the break or allow only older students to participate.

potatoes, rocks, and clumps of grass from the conveyor belts heading to the potato warehouse. “If you have the opportunity, take it. Work. You’re only young for so long, and this is an experience that a lot of the older generation had,” she said.

Most of the students said they planned to save their money—which averages out to $3,000 each for the three weeks—for college, or to buy a car, a snowmobile, or basketball cards.

The following morning, work started late, 8 a.m., to let the fields dry out. But it didn’t prevent several trucks from getting stuck in the mud. By 9:30 a.m., Abram McCrum, 15, had avoided such a fate, but he had a different problem.

Oil had been leaking from the truck he normally drove, so he was left with a truck of last resort that didn’t like shifting into gear. It sounded like giants grinding their teeth. “It’s not that bad once you get used to it,” said Abram, who had learned to drive a standard the previous year. As one of five high school students driving potato trucks, out of 25 trucks total, he had gotten a special permit to operate the vehicle for work; he didn’t have a driver’s license yet.

As the middle son of the McCrums, he also hopes to continue working on the farm long-term, he said, as we drove down the road to pick up a load of potatoes from the same field Lane had dug the previous day. “It’s a family business, and I want it to keep going. I like farming,” Abram said. We passed several Amish neighbors steering their horses and buggies down the road. Abram waved to each one.

The gears creaked as he slowed down to turn onto the potato field, and the sound worsened to a scraping noise as he switched to field gear. “It doesn’t like to shift in the field gears,” Abram said, as he drove slowly through the field of potatoes.

He pulled up next to a tractor pulling a harvester, and it began dumping potatoes into the back of his truck. Despite thousands of pounds of potatoes falling behind us, all we could hear was the rumble of the truck and the tractor next to us. We crept forward along the row. After 10 minutes, the man steering the harvester waved to Abram to tell him the back of the truck was full. Abram’s gearshift scraped again as he pulled ahead.

As we drove back to the warehouse, a blue truck passed us, heading in the other direction. It was the one Abram normally drove. It was 10:37 a.m., and the truck appeared to have been fixed already. It felt like a good omen. Riding high above the other cars, we could see the sun filtering between the clouds. The weather had turned.

Abram pulled into his family’s gravel parking lot and backed up to the stinger to unload, as he would continue to do again and again. The crop would prove bountiful after all, gathered by people younger and older who steadied themselves to the task, learning from one another and the earth that was their classroom.

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A R O O S T O O K C O U N T Y P O TAT O P I C K I N G , M A I N E , 19 5 4 . P H O T O G R A P H B Y V E R N E R R E E D ; © H I S T O R I C N E W E N G L A N D

“It’s a family business, and I want it to keep going.

I like farming,” Abram said. We passed several Amish neighbors steering their horses and buggies down the road. Abram waved to each one.

Still a year away from being able to apply for a Maine driver’s license, Abram McCrum, 15, has a special permit to drive potato trucks on the family farm.

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COLLISION COURSE

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First seen entangled in fishing gear in spring 2021, the North Atlantic right whale known as Snow Cone swims with her calf in December of that year, still trailing two lines.

To save endangered whales, New England’s iconic lobster industry is facing unpopular and possibly dangerous changes.

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ON A COLD MARCH DAY LAST YEAR, whale researcher Brigid

McKenna gazed out the window of a low-flying small plane to the gray water off Cape Cod Bay and thought, Oh no, not another one.

A right whale—50 feet long, mostly black—was in trouble. Two long ropes dangled from the left side of its mouth, and McKenna suspected that the line was snarled in the whale’s baleen, the fine comb-like grill it has in place of teeth so that it can filter into its gut the 2,500 pounds of crustaceans that a right whale ingests every day. It seemed that the rope might also be caught in the whale’s rostrum, or snout; just 10 days earlier, off the coast of South Carolina, another right whale—Cottontail, it was called—was found dead after living for several months with its own rostrum wrap.

“You worry about infection when there’s a rostrum wrap,” says McKenna, who’s been a whale researcher for the Center for Coastal Studies, in Provincetown, since 2013. Rostrum wraps also pose serious challenges for rescue teams, who work out of small boats, wielding grapples and knives as they endeavor, like surgeons, to disentangle whales. As McKenna notes, “The rescuers have to be very close to the animal.”

And getting close to a right whale is dangerous. In 2017, Joe Howlett, a 59-year-old fisherman working with the Campobello Whale Rescue Team, died off the coast of New Brunswick, Canada, when he was struck by the tail of a whale he had just disentangled.

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Looking at the whale in Cape Cod Bay, McKenna knew what was at stake. Today there are fewer than 400 North Atlantic right whales left on earth, out of a historic population of more than 9,000. This creature whose genetic roots go back 20 million years has been on the brink of extinction for more than two centuries, thanks to the early New Englanders who decided that this was the right whale to hunt— it was so big and blubbery, so slow-moving, so inclined to glide in toward shore.

A 1937 ban halted the hunt worldwide, but in the 1960s advances in polymer technology for fishing lines began to pose a new threat. Since then, the lines have gradually become so strong that right whales can no longer break through them. Since 2017, of the more than 30 unusual whale deaths known to scientists, nine have been due to entanglements. Eleven were ship strikes, and 13 deaths were of an unknown cause.

The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that 85 percent of today’s right whales bear scars of entanglement. Many have been left weakened, as entangled whales have trouble eating and lose weight.

They may move more slowly, leaving them more vulnerable to being struck by ships, and they may have difficulty getting pregnant and bringing calves to term.

Federally listed as endangered since 1970, the North Atlantic right whale is now so scarce in its range, which stretches from Florida to Newfoundland, that researchers

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Lobster buoys and traps on the wharf in Friendship, Maine, a Midcoast town that’s home to a large and active fishing fleet.

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7/15/22 11:16 AM

LEFT : Surveying the catch on a lobster boat out of Monhegan Island.

RIGHT : Kristan Porter, head of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, in his home port of Cutler; in the background is one of his fishing boats, named for his two daughters.

ABOVE :

Aboard the research vessel Shearwater, Stormy Mayo of the Center for Coastal Studies communicates with a spotter plane while looking for right whales off the coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts.

LEFT : Fishing ropes wrap over the blowhole of a severely entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Canada. Fishing gear entanglement is a leading cause of death in North Atlantic right whales.

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Lobster boat captain Mike Sargent of Milbridge, a fourth-generation fisherman.

keep dossiers on individual whales and have named many. The one McKenna spied was a 17-year-old female called Snow Cone, on account of the snow cone–shaped scar atop her head.

Back in 2020, Snow Cone had given birth to a calf only to see the newborn die that same summer, after it was struck by two separate ships off the coast of New Jersey. Still a possible breeder, Snow Cone was key to the survival of her species.

McKenna called the Center for Coastal Studies’ whale rescue team, which has disentangled about 200 whales since it was founded 1976.

Within minutes, the team’s six members were in their cars, scrambling toward the dock in Provincetown.

A HUNDRED MILES OR SO NORTH, up

Route 95, past Portsmouth, and past the big green highway sign that says, “Welcome to Maine,” the future of another endangered species was also in question: the Maine lobsterman, one of the most recognizable and revered figures in the state.

Today, there are 5,000 licensed lobster boats in Maine. They harvest 80 percent of the lobster sold nationwide and collectively grossed $725 million in 2021. Recently their industry has been f lourishing—last summer, lob-

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stermen had a jackpot season, earning more than seven dollars a pound for their catch.

But the average Maine lobsterman is now 51 years old. Younger Mainers are less and less interested in investing hundreds of thousands in a boat to chase after a marine resource that may well be scarce in a generation.

As climate change warms the Gulf of Maine, lobster habitat will suffer.

And since 1997, the entire U.S. lobster industry—which fishes in waters stretching from the Canadian border to Long Island Sound—has been required to make increasing accommodations for the right whale, nearly all aimed at reducing threats from vertical rope lines in the water.

In 2009, NOAA forbade lobstermen to crowd the water’s surface with ground lines linking their traps. To comply, new rules meant fishermen would need more expensive, less durable rope. Last August, NOAA released the At lantic Large W ha le Take Reduction Plan. Besides the emphasis on weaker ropes, it also placed more than 950 square miles in the Gulf of Maine—Lobster Management Area 1—off-limits from October through January. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) estimated that its members would take a $2 million hit.

And restrictions on Maine lobstermen are likely to mount. Because the right whale is critically endangered, NOAA is obliged to protect it. In July the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity and its allies convinced a federal court that NOAA’s new rules do not, in fact, do that sufficiently.

For lobstermen, the danger posed by restrictions goes beyond economics.

A regulatory fence has been thrown up in the face of New England’s famously independent sea foragers. For decades, Mainers have been allowed to f ish 800 traps per boat license every day of the year. Now, daily life in lobstering towns like Stonington, Winter Harbor, and Lubec seems poised to change. And change does not come easily to such towns.

Patrick Keliher, commissioner of Maine’s Department of Marine Resources, reacted to NOAA’s rule announcement by saying, “They’re painting a big target on the back of the Maine lobster industry.” And even Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, a climate change activist who once climbed into a black bear den to extoll “treasured wildlife,” called the NOAA decision “extremely disappointing.” Nodding to “heritage,” (Continued on p. 106)

C O U R T E S Y O F M A I N E LO B S T E R M A R K E T I N G C O L L A B O R AT I V E

“[LOBSTERING] IS LIFEBLOOD OF THESE LITTLE DOWN EAST VILLAGES. AND WHEN THOSE VILLAGES LOSE THEIR SPIRIT, WE WON’T GET THEM BACK. THEY’RE GONE.”

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7/21/22 10:45 AM

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At Home at the Table

2–3 tablespoons piri-piri sauce or hot sauce, or to taste 2 tablespoons olive oil

(Continued from p. 38) PUMPKIN SOUP (SOPA DE ABÓBORA) The gourd family is a favorite of the frugal Portuguese, as the fruit can be picked and then kept for months. A curious storage technique, which I discovered during an autumn trip through the vertiginous rural side of the island of Madeira, is to line up the colorful globes on a house’s tiled roof.

This is an adaptation of the soup I thoroughly enjoyed while dining with Dirk Niepoort, scion of the Niepoort wine and port family, at his estate in the Alto Douro. It calls for butternut squash, the closest in taste to a Portuguese pumpkin.

4 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch chunks 2 medium yellow onions, quartered 3 garlic cloves, crushed 4 fresh sage leaves 3 tablespoons olive oil Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 5 cups chicken stock or low-sodium store-bought broth 2–3 cups water ¾ teaspoon ground cumin 1½ tablespoons white wine vinegar Fresh sage leaves, for garnish

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 400 °F. In a large bowl, toss the squash, onions, garlic, sage leaves, salt, and pepper together. Transfer mixture to a large rimmed baking sheet. Roast the vegetables, f lipping them occasionally with a spatula, until the squash is very tender, the onions are edged with brown, and the sage has shriveled but not burned, 50 to 60 minutes, depending on how firm the squash is.

Working in batches, scoop the vegetables into a blender or food processor, tip in a ladleful or two of the stock, and whirl until smooth. Scrape the soup into a large bowl. Stir in the rest of the stock and 2 to 3 cups water to achieve desired thickness.

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FOR THE CHICKEN 1 chicken (3½ to 4 pounds) Salt and pepper 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 1-inch cubes ¾ pound yellow onions, peeled and cut into 1-inch wedges 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 link (about 10 ounces) Portuguese chouriço, linguiça, or other cooked spicy sausage, such as Spanish chorizo, sliced into ¼-inch coins

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Pour the soup through a fine-mesh sieve into a large saucepan, grinding the solids with the back of a ladle to get every bit of squash. (Don’t cheat here—it takes time, but the velvety texture is worth it.) Discard the little bit of solids you can’t force through.

Bring the soup to a gentle simmer over medium-low heat, sprinkle in the cumin, and let burble until hot, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper if needed, and stir in the vinegar. To serve, ladle the soup into warm bowls and garnish with fresh sage leaves. Yields 6 to 8 servings.

PORTUGUESE-STYLE ROAST CHICKEN WITH CHOURIÇO & POTATOES Portuguese chouriço sausage is widely available around New England, but you can substitute any other cooked spicy sausage, such as dry-cured Spanish chorizo or andouille.

FOR THE PAPRIKA PASTE 4 tablespoons paprika: sweet, smoked, or a combo of both ¼ cup dry red wine 8 garlic cloves, minced 1 tablespoon tomato paste Zest and juice of ½ lemon 1½ tablespoons kosher salt

Position a rack in the center of the oven and crank the heat to 425 °F. Line a roasting pan with aluminum foil and set aside.

First, make the paprika paste: Buzz all the ingredients except the olive oil in a small food processor or mini chop. Scrape down any chunky bits from the sides of the bowl. With the motor running, pour in the olive oil until a thick paste forms. Set aside.

Then, prepare the bird: Remove the excess fat from inside the chicken and discard the giblets. Pat the bird dr y. Spoon 5 tablespoons of the paste into a cup and, using your fingers, smear the paste over the entire bird and inside the cavity. Tuck the wings behind the back and tie the legs together with twine. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Set aside.

In a large bowl, toss the potatoes and onions with ¼ cup paste and 2 tablespoons oil. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to the foillined roasting pan. Place the chicken breast-side down on top of the potatoes, or, preferably, on a V-rack over the potatoes.

Roast the bird for 35 minutes, then, using tongs, turn breast side up. Stir the potatoes to coat with the drippings. Brush the breast lightly with a bit more of the paste. Lower the heat to 350 °F. Roast for 30 more minutes and then stir the chouriço in with the potatoes. Continue cooking until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the NEWENGLAND.COM

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thigh reads 165 °F, 20 to 30 minutes more (longer if the chicken came straight from the refrigerator).

Remove the bird, tent with aluminum foil, and let sit for 10 to 15 minutes. To serve, place the chicken on a platter and surround with the chouriço, potatoes, and onions. Yields 4 to 6 servings.

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Preheat the oven to 375°. Adjust the oven rack to the middle position.

Line a 12-cup muff in tin with 11 paper cupcake liners.

In a small bowl, whisk the cornstarch into ¼ cup milk. In a food processor, pulse the coconut f lakes for 30 seconds. In a large bowl, stir the eggs and sugar together with a wooden spoon. One by one, add the cornstarch mixture, the remaining milk, the coconut, melted butter, and lemon extract, stirring well after each addition.

Ladle the custard into the paper cups, filling each ¼ inch from the top. Make sure to stir the custard frequently to keep the coconut evenly distributed. You’ll be able to fill 10 to 11 liners. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the coconut is nicely toasted. Cool completely in the muffin tin before serving. Top with a spoonful of raspberry or cherry preserves. Yields 10 to 11 tarts.

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artifacts. 9/16–9/18; guilfordfair.org

WOLCOTT COUNTRY FAIR, Wolcott.

Wolcott’s big weekend packs what just might be Connecticut’s most eclectic assortment of fair spectacles, contests, and events, from Dock Diving Dogs to karate demonstrations to a pizza-eating competition to a “Forged in Fire” knife making exhibition. Not enough? Then head for the equestrian obstacle course, catch some live music, and see who takes the title of Little Miss Wolcott. 9/23– 9/25; wolcottfair.com WOODSTOCK FAIR, Woodstock. A Labor Day mainstay of Connecticut’s “Quiet Corner” for more than 160 years, the Woodstock Agricultural Society’s fair combines traditional displays of farm and garden bounty, sheep-shearing demonstrations and ox pulls, and a horse show with rides and music ranging from local to national acts. Fair food abounds—as does an unusual citrus twist on all the fun, in the form of grapefruit bowling. 9/2–9/5; woodstockfair.com

MAINE BLUE HILL FAIR, Blue Hill. This “down to

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earth” fair was the model for the one in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, and to this day, a special tent holds all the animals from the book (which was written in nearby Brooklin). The rides, farm exhibits, and fair foods that Charlotte and Wilbur’s human friends enjoyed are here, along with sheepdog trials that draw competitors from all over. 9/1–9/5; bluehillfair.com

COMMON GROUND COUNTRY FAIR,

Unity. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association puts a NEWENGLAND.COM

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EVENTS

sustainability spin on its annual celebration of members’ produce, livestock, and crafts.

Tasty homemade food, demonstrations of old-time agricultural techniques, a straight-from-the-farm fiber marketplace, animal exhibits, and a farmers’ market are just a few of the highlights. 9/23–9/25; mofga.org CUMBERLAND COUNTY FAIR, Cumberland.

Turning 150 this year, southern Maine’s biggest fall festival packs in events as diverse as truck and tractor pulls, a rodeo, a demolition derby, nightly fireworks, and 10 live-music acts spanning blues to bluegrass and everything in between. And who needs pies when there’s a burrito-eating contest?

9/25–10/1; cumberlandfair.com FALL FOLIAGE FESTIVAL, Boothbay.

Boothbay’s fall event takes place on handsome four-acre town green, done up as a “vintage village” featuring art exhibits, food trucks, booths selling local crafts, live music, and a children’s corner.

Take a ride on a steam-powered train at Boothbay Railway Village, and visit the adjacent antique car museum. 10/9–10/10; railwayvillage.org; boothbay.org FARMINGTON FAIR, Farmington. Central Maine’s big September event delivers the expected—a lively midway, tractor and horse pulls, lots of good fair chow—plus events including harness racing, an ugly veggie contest, and a “Drag Your Neighbor” competition, where you can floor your ride without getting a speeding ticket. 9/18–9/24; farmingtonfairmaine.com FRYEBURG FAIR, Fryeburg. Since its start in 1851, western Maine’s harvest fest has grown into an eight-day celebration of the region’s farms, gardens, foods, and crafts. Midway rides and oxen pulls, calf and pig “scrambles,” and an anvilthrowing contest vie for popularity with midway rides and a farm museum, and the Woodsmen’s Field Day draws loggers from across the U.S. to test their mettle.

10/2–10/9; fryeburgfair.org HARMONY FREE FAIR, Harmony. Yes, it’s free. And for a town with fewer than a thousand folks, Harmony stages a surprisingly big event. Along with local music acts and traditional agricultural and animal exhibits, the accent is on friendly competition, with tournaments in volleyball, cornhole, arm wrestling, horseshoes, skillet and hammer throwing, and even cribbage. And it all ends with a big Labor Day parade. 9/2–9/5; harmonyfreefair.weebly.com NEW PORTLAND LIONS FAIR, New Portland. Up near Skowhegan, far from the “old Portland,” the local Lions pair their midway, food booths, and agricultural attractions with plenty of lively competitions, such as wrestling matches, a demolition derby, and a kids’ “eel race,” done on hands and knees with participants holding on to their teammates’ ankles.

9/16–9/18; newportlandlionsfair.com

MASSACHUSETTS BELCHERTOWN FAIR, Belchertown.

Hometown spirit sounds off when Saturday’s fair parade follows a concert by the local high school band. The fun starts Friday, when fall festival exhibits, farm animals, rides, and food combine with events including a K-9 demo and a baby contest, and a stilt-walking juggler strolls the grounds. Entertainment is free, including this year’s Fleetwood Mac tribute band. 9/23–9/25; belchertownfair.com EASTERN STATES EXPOSITION, West Springfield. In New England, the “Big E” tops them all. It’s the third largest agricultural fair in the U.S., with a mindboggling array of food (BBQ brisket sundae, anyone?), midway rides, big-name music acts, a farmers’ market, and those amazing butter sculptures. The horse, dog, and farm animal shows draw competitors from all over. 9/16–10/2; thebige.com FRANKLIN COUNTY FAIR, Greenfield. The fair’s 173rd edition holds to tradition with an emphasis on livestock competitions: Draft horses, oxen, dairy cattle, sheep, and goats all vie for best-of-breed status.

Hit the rides all day long with a oneprice wristband, and enjoy local music acts, “Swifty Swine,” magic shows, and a demolition derby. 9/8–9/11; fcas.com SPENCER FAIR, Spencer. This harvest celebration takes its agricultural exhibits beyond giant pumpkins and garden produce, to sunflowers and other field crops. There are antique tractors on display, pulling competitions involving everything from enormous oxen and draft horses down to lowly garden tractors, an amateur log-sawing contest, concerts, and rides including Air Force One, open to POTUS wannabes of all political persuasions.

9/2–9/5; spencerfair.org STERLING FAIR, Sterling. At New England’s largest free fair (rides do require tickets), there’s an antique engine and machine show, helicopter rides, and judging of crafts and goodies ranging from photography to chocolate chip cookies. This year’s event includes a Lego show, with kids up to age 17 bringing their creations to compete for awards. 9/8–9/11; sterlingfair.org THREE COUNTY FAIR, Northampton. Since 1818, Hampshire, Franklin, and Hampden counties have been showcasing the bounty of the Pioneer Valley and western Massachusetts. Staying true to its mission of promoting “agricultural education and science,” the fair draws farmers sharing techniques and families viewing livestock and prize produce, while offering food and fun that the founders never imagined.

(There were no demolition derbies in 1818!) 9/2–9/5; 3countyfair.com TOPSFIELD FAIR, Topsfield. America’s oldest continuously operating fair is the prime North Shore harvest season event.

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Follow the Faerie House walking trail and marvel at the artistry and magic of over 30 pint-sized dwellings. This year, explore a Wee Faerie amusement park called

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EVENTS

“thrill,” monster trucks, horse and oxen pulls, and the New England Rodeo, plus competitions that range a pumpkin weigh-in to fine art to canning to winemaking. Hungry? Try the Gobbler (“Thanksgiving dinner in a sandwich”) or maybe some deep-fried Kool-Aid. 9/30–10/10; topsfieldfair.org

NEW HAMPSHIRE APPLE HARVEST DAY, Dover. Dover’s one-

day celebration of all things apple is held right downtown, with more than 60,000 people gathering along the banks of the Cochecho River for a family-focused event comprising a craft fair, five stages of live entertainment, 5K run, activities for kids ... and, of course, an apple pie contest.

10/1; dovernh.org DEERFIELD FAIR, Deerfield. Harvest season between Concord and the coast is punctuated by one of New Hampshire’s biggest fairs, with all the favorite farm and garden exhibits, plus a pros-only excavator rodeo, puppet shows for kids, and the famed Flying Wallendas. Musical entertainment is eclectic, with bluegrass, rock, blues, reggae, and Irish traditional.

9/29–10/2; deerfieldfair.com GRANITE STATE FAIR, Rochester. The midway rides, livestock exhibits, and traditional fair food aren’t what sets this southern New Hampshire event apart, but rather the performances both weekends by the 100-year-old Circus Hollywood, as well as an unusual twist on that crowd-pleaser, the demolition derby.

In addition to a showdown among cars, there’s a bus derby and a trailer derby (with predictable vehicular mayhem). 9/15–9/18 and 9/22–9/25; granitestatefair.com

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY AGRICULTURAL FAIR, New Boston. Just 16 miles west

of Manchester but a world apart, Hillsborough County’s fairgrounds are the venue for one of New England’s oldest agricultural festivals. Expect all the classic attractions: farm animals for show and pulling contests, prize fruits and vegetables, midway rides, good things to eat, and a special emphasis on 4-H accomplishments, including dog training.

9/9–9/11; hcafair.org HOPKINTON STATE FAIR, Hopkinton.

Farming is the focus here, thanks to the Morrill Family Farm Museum and an array of modern agriculture and animal exhibits. Equines are front and center, from draft horses to miniatures, plus pony rides for kids. The Northeast Six Shooters dazzle with their horseback skills, using blanks to pop balloons from the saddle.

A midway, petting zoo, and sugarhouse round out the fun. 9/1–9/5; hsfair.org LANCASTER FAIR, Lancaster. The North Country’s biggest Labor Day weekend celebration spotlights local agricultural and craft traditions, along with special

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events such as Cruise Night, featuring ’50s cars and trucks; “Farmer for a Day,” for kids; sheepdog trials; pulling competitions; and a demolition derby.

Midway rides are included with admission. 9/1–9/5; lancasterfair.com SANDWICH FAIR, Sandwich. With a nod to New Hampshire’s lumberjack days, Sandwich’s fall festival includes log skidding with oxen. There’s also an antique auto parade, performances by the Granite State Disc Dogs, and a horseback gymkhana. Crafts? Expect plenty, at the hometown of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. 10/8–10/10; thesandwichfair.com

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RHODE ISLAND AUTUMNFEST, Woonsocket. Rhode Island’s

biggest fall festival is a Columbus Day weekend extravaganza featuring rides, a food court, continuous performances by local and top-name bands, comedians, crafts displays and marketplace, classic and muscle car shows, a wine garden— and on Monday, a Columbus Day parade.

10/7–10/10; autumnfest.org HARVEST FAIR, Middletown. More than 70 of the region’s finest crafters and artisans gather at the 325-acre Norman Bird Sanctuary for two days of displaying and offering their creations for sale. For kids, there are pony rides, midway games, and a mud pit; grown-ups can enjoy the bands, food trucks, and beer garden. 10/1–10/2; normanbirdsanctuary.org MISQUAMICUT FALL FESTIVAL, Westerly.

Misquamicut State Beach, southwestern Rhode Island’s great stretch of sand on Block Island Sound, turns into a seaside carnival in mid-September with live music, dancing, arts and crafts, food, and midway rides along the shore. Right down the road is Watch Hill, with its shops, restaurants, and antique carousel.

9/16–9/18; misquamicutfestival.org

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Castle, a 1678 home built by early Rhode Island settler Richard Smith, the harvesttime festivities have an emphasis on history, with costumed docents leading tours of the “castle.” Enjoy an afternoon of live music, crafters’ displays, games and pumpkin painting for kids, and a scrumptious annual tradition, apple crisp.

9/10; smithscastle.org

VERMONT 19TH-CENTURY APPLE & CHEESE HARVEST FESTIVAL, Stafford. The

Justin Morrill State Historic Site hosts a celebration of two of Vermont’s signature products with tastes of heirloom apples and apple pie, local artisan cheeses, and cider making on an antique press. Learn about life on a small farm like the one that Vermont Senator Justin Morrill lived

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EVENTS

on here in the 1800s, play period games, and enjoy country fiddling and accordion music. 9/25; morrillhomestead.org CHAMPLAIN VALLEY FAIR, Essex Junction.

Vermont celebrates summer’s end with the state’s largest event, welcoming more than 100,000 fairgoers for 10 days of midway games and rides, acrobats and magic, home and garden exhibits, food concessions galore, prize farm animals, and the bounty of Green Mountain agriculture. 8/26–9/4; cvexpo.org CHESTER FALL FESTIVAL, Chester.

Celebrated on the green in a town famed for its stately stone houses, Chester’s foliage-season community party brings artisans demonstrating and selling fine pottery, woodenware, jewelry, fiber art, glass, and more. Kids can meet friendly farm animals, while local foods, concerts, raffles, and field games round out the fun.

9/17–9/18; chesterfallfestival.org FALL FOLIAGE FESTIVAL, Burke. Autumn festivities on East Burke’s village green kick off with a parade, followed by a day of music, horse-drawn wagon rides, craft shows and sales, and even rubber ducky races. There’s a farm animal petting zoo, silent auction, quilt raffle, a live raptor show presented by the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, and an all-day barbecue. 9/24; burkevermont.com ORLEANS COUNTY FAIR, Barton. Along with the rides, food, animal exhibits (4-H even has a dog show), and pulling contests one would expect at a county fair, Orleans County packs its big autumn celebration with special events and attractions: a bike stunt show, mechanical bull riding, marionette performances, a horseback gymkhana, and an appearance by the Axe Women of Maine. This year’s concert stage features an AC/DC tribute band.

9/7–9/11; orleanscountyfair.net PERU FAIR, Peru. Just a short hop from Weston and the Vermont Country Store, and in the shadow of Bromley Mountain, tiny Peru hosts an old-time country fair featuring crafts, antiques, and art exhibits and sales; clowns, magicians, and pony rides for kids; live music and clog dancing; and plenty of homemade foods.

Save room, though, for the afternoon’s crowning culinary event, the annual pig roast. 9/24; perufair.org WORLD’S FAIR, Tunbridge. This small-town event with the big name turns Tunbridge into a world apart each September.

For 150 years, the fair has stuck to its agricultural roots—you’ll never get closer to 4-Hers’ prize livestock—but has grown to include the rides, food, and entertainment fairgoers love. Visit a oneroom schoolhouse, see antique machinery at work, wander a museum filled with artifacts of yesteryear’s domestic life, and take a trackside seat for harness racing.

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(Continued from p. 90) Mills vowed, “I will always stand up for the interests of Maine’s lobster industry.” She added that NOAA’s changes “disregard fishermen’s time, money, and safety.”

On that last point, safety: Lobstermen have long been accustomed to attaching one, two, or three traps to each buoy. Now, per NOAA’s plan, they will often need to attach more, to reduce the number of lines that could ensnare a whale. Thus lobster boats will need to carry more traps to their f ishing grounds. Their boat decks will be more cluttered, and clutter can be dangerous when, after traps are emptied, the trawl line is spooled back into the water so quickly that it snaps and dances about the deck.

In 2016, Jon Popham, a 28-yearold Maine lobsterman, drowned off Jonesport after his foot got caught in a fast-moving line that pulled him overboard. It was an accident that has been repeated scores of times over the decades.

When I spent a few days late last summer visiting with Maine lobstermen, I encountered almost unmitigated bitterness toward NOAA. One evening as I sat at a waterfront picnic table in Friendship, Maine, tucking into fresh lobster with a few fishermen, a 35-year-old local named Gabe Gilchrest sidled up from his boat and broke into a pained soliloquy. “Who are these people putting all these rules out?” he said. “And why are they so determined to shut us down? Do they not care about our families? And how do they make a living? By trying to make sure we can’t make a living? I wish they’d come to Friendship so I could show them what they’re trying to ruin.”

T he ne x t even ing, 112 m i les up the coast, in Milbridge, I drove toward a fishing dock with lobsterman Mike Sargent. He pointed out newly purchased million-dollar-plus vacation homes as we passed them, their lawns an eerie bright green.

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the dock, parked, and then lingered on the water’s edge, leaning on dinghies. Sargent, who’s 29, showed me the tattoo on his right arm, an homage to his late father, a lobsterman, who inspired Sargent. “Dedication Discipline Determination,” his arm read, the words wrapping a spiked trident held by a comely mermaid with a scaled green tail.

As the sun set, Sargent expounded on the joys of the lobstering life. “I go out and see the sunrise every day,” he said. “I watch the seabirds nesting

EVEN STORMY MAYO, WHO BEGAN TOUTING THE PROMISE OF ROPELESS TECHNOLOGY DECADES AGO, CONCEDES, “WE’RE STILL EIGHT OR TEN YEARS AWAY.”

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on the rocks. I watch their babies get bigger. I read the book of nature every day. I look at the moon, the tides, at what’s happening in the climate. I add all that together with a lifetime of learning about how lobsters behave, and then I move my traps. I put a certain fish in them, based on what I’ve seen, and if I do it all right I come back successful. It’s such a unique life we have here, and we’ve got it only because we have access to lobsters.

That’s the lifeblood of these little Down East villages. And when those

villages lose their spirit, we won’t get them back. They’re gone.”

THAT MARCH DAY, a f te r Br i g id

McKenna had alerted the Center for Coastal Studies, the entanglement team found Snow Cone by 2 p.m.— and the team’s leader, Scott Landry, took a close look at the whale’s rostrum.

“There was a pretty severe laceration there,” he tells me, months later, “and the rostrum is where a whale’s flesh is the thinnest—there’s not a lot there before you start infecting the skull.”

The cut was weeks old, Landry guessed. It was healing, and the rope was no longer embedded there. It was simply jutting out of the baleen and trailing at the whale’s sides, and Snow Cone’s health seemed “not that bad,” says Landry, who’s responded to 100 whale entanglements over the past quarter century. “She was actively feeding—a lot of entangled whales can’t do that.” She had energy, too.

Seemingly feeling harassed, the whale began evading the scientists by plunging deep under the surface.

Sometimes she’d stay down two minutes, sometimes 20. In the long intervals, the rescuers could only wait as they guessed where the whale would surface.

Those 20-minute plunges, the halfmile swims that right whales take in the cold darkness between breaths; their 15-foot-wide flukes and the way those flukes move so slowly, like great, powerful engines grinding along in low gear—none of this computes in human terms. All we can do, in the presence of a right whale, is register awe, and it’s probably that awe—and the improbable delight that, in our anthropocentric world, there’s still a force larger than us—that makes the North Atlantic right whale one of the most studied, most defended creatures on earth. In New England alone, there are more than 30 groups working on right whale preservation.

All for an animal that, according to Stormy Mayo, the senior scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies, is “now so rare that it’s not playing a huge role in the ecosystem. There are so few that a school of herring is performing the same general role.”

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When Snow Cone surfaced, the scientists chased her. They latched a buoy onto her, to reduce the length of her dives. She dragged it under. The scientists waited, and in rare moments over a two-plus-hour struggle, they got within 20 feet of her, warily. Right whales are the hardest whales to disentangle. “They have a lot of stamina and strength,” Landry explains, “because they move through the water with their mouths open, filtering food—that’s like swimming in a pool with a bucket in front of you.”

To remove rope from Snow Cone’s mouth, the team had to position their boat directly in her path, and she was certain to see their presence as hostile.

“They’re intolerant of being captured,” Landry explains. “You feel like you’re taking a small child to the hospital.”

Except the child weighs 50 tons and can, in fits of irritation, thrash its tail forward until it touches its nose.

Carefully, Landry thrust a grapple aff ixed with a knife toward Snow Cone; with about 10 such throws, he cut 300 feet of rope off the whale.

It was a decent pruning job, but also an incomplete one. And with the sun going down, the light became too flat to work safely.

When Landry’s team headed back to the harbor, Snow Cone swam away.

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its two ends extended for about 60 feet behind her f lukes. A certain doom seemed to envelop her. No right whale had ever given birth while still entangled in rope.

TWO DAYS AFTER his Snow Cone mis-

sion, Landry wrote on Facebook that the rope his team pulled off the whale was “consistent with what we see in different types of fisheries.” He didn’t say which fishery, but Chatham, Massachusetts, lobsterman Nick Muto still felt attacked. Muto minted a Facebook hashtag, #showustherope, that elicited media attention and a slew of online fist bumps from his lobstering brethren.

The hashtag was unlikely to convince NOAA to place the rope in a glass display case and bring it on tour of New England lobstering towns. Nearly all lines and buoys recovered from entanglements land, per long-established NOAA protocol, in a Rhode Island warehouse, where NOAA investigators painstakingly examine them, seeking to piece together the larger story of how right whales get trapped.

Still, Muto spoke out because he saw Landry’s online photos as proof that the lobstermen on and near Cape Cod Bay weren’t to blame for Snow Cone’s troubles. “That was 5/8-inch rope on that whale,” he tells me, “and we don’t use anything thicker than 11/32.”

BRIAN SKERRY

Propelled by its powerful fluke, or tail fin, a North Atlantic right whale breaches in the Bay of Fundy.

Muto is probably on solid ground, refusing to be blamed. If Snow Cone’s wounds were, as Landry surmised, several weeks old in early March, she wouldn’t likely have incurred them anywhere near Cape Cod. The Cape is the easiest place in the world to see large groups of North Atlantic right whales, and for this reason its waters are closed to lobstering all winter.

As to where the whales are at other times, it’s never quite clear. Often, pregnant mothers go south, to Georgia and Florida, to deliver. But they don’t always do that, and other whales swim there as well. “Nothing about their movement patterns is carved in granite,” says Stormy Mayo.

T he u npr e d ic t a bi l it y m a k e s entanglement-blame a political football. After NOAA crimped Maine’s lobster fishery last fall, MLA president Kristan Porter suggested that right whale deaths weren’t Maine’s fault.

“We can’t stop whales from getting killed in Canada,” he said, speaking to The Ellsworth American.

Porter was alluding to the summer of 2017, when Canada played host to a devastating right whale tragedy.

Twelve corpses were found one by one that summer, amid sparse fishing regulations, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, northeast of Nova Scotia. Two years later, six more died.

But Colleen Coogan, a marine mammal biologist for NOAA, argues that Maine’s fishermen actually do play a role in Canadian whale deaths.

Right whales travel through Maine, she says, “and they’re not easily seen there, because in Maine they’re probably not in large aggregations. I don’t have evidence that the gear from the Canadian deaths came from Kristan Porter’s port in Maine, but the gear is highly concentrated there, and wherever there’s both gear and right whales, there are entanglements.”

Coogan adds that the New England Aquarium has studied 1,600 right whale scars, and in only 15 cases was it able to identify where the fishing gear came from. Almost always, the telltale buoys and markers fall off in the water.

But NOAA isn’t in the business of assigning blame. It assumes, reasonably, NEWENGLAND.COM

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Page 1

The Promise A Most Unusual Gift of Love

that malice never plays a part in entanglements, and it never prosecutes fishermen. Its charge is to protect the right whale throughout its range. And in the waters of the northeastern U.S., 93 percent of the ropes that run from surface to seafloor—the ones most likely to entangle whales—come from the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries.

AS SNOW CONE CHURNED AWAY from

THE POEM READS:

Scott Landry near Plymouth, a few dozen New England lobstermen were testing a new technology designed to mitigate whale entanglement. First popularized in New England four or five years ago, “ropeless” lobster traps sit on the bottom like all other traps but are not marked by surface buoys, which means that they can function without adding a vertical line to the water column. They’re remotecontrolled, so if a lobsterman wants to bring one up, he presses a button.

A transponder then sends an electronic signal to a small motor in the trap’s lid. The motor unscrews the lid, which has buoys attached to it, and the whole trap then comes floating up to the surface, dragging along with it a string of other traps.

In Maine’s Area 1, NOA A is allowing licensed boats to harvest lobster during the October to January closure if they use ropeless traps.

But these traps can cost nearly $4,000 apiece, and to go ropeless, a lobsterman needs to buy one such trap for each of his trap lines. For a Maine lobsterman, that could easily amount to an outlay of over $100,000, or about half of an average boat’s gross annual revenue.

When I first heard that number, I still considered ropeless as a feasible fix for the right whale conundrum, and I was on board with the billboards that began appearing around Massachusetts last year, asking consumers, “Is your lobster whale-safe?”

But then I spent a morning off Massachusetts’s South Shore with Mike Lane, a 46-year-old lobsterman who for three years has moonlighted as a NOAA contractor, helping the agency to f ield-test ropeless technology, including a trap made by a

A Most Unusual Gift of Love “Across the years I will walk with you— in deep, green forests; on shores of sand: and when our time on earth is through, POEM READS : in heaven, too,THE you will have my hand,”

“Across the years I will walk with you— Dear Reader, The drawing you see above is called The Promise. It is completely composed of green forests; on ashores ofplaced sand: dots ofin ink.deep, After writing the poem, I worked with quill pen and thousands of these dots, one at a time, to create this gift in honor of my youngest brother and and when our time on earth is through, his wife.

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7/15/22 12:13 PM

Central Massachusetts company called EdgeTech.

Lane’s principal gift as a gear reviewer is his candor. When a digital map told us we were near the ropeless trap, Lane fished out a black, fist-size EdgeTech transponder and wrangled a long, awkward cord connecting the unit to a handheld tablet. “This transponder,” he said, “is a pain in the ass.”

EdgeTech does make a hull mount for its transponders; Lane simply doesn’t have one yet. But he summoned up his 15-trap line seamlessly. Then he celebrated his catch with a gruff “Eight lobsters, not bad,” and spooled his trap line back into the water. The rope lashed about on the deck, and Lane told me about a friend of his who, years ago, got pulled under and drowned.

“Usually, when a guy goes down like that,” he said, “you can see the buoy attached to the rope, and you pull it up. With ropeless, though, you can’t do that. They need to have a panic button on these things, and they don’t have one now. Right now, ropeless is about as advanced as cell phones were in the 1980s.”

When I spoke to Kristan Porter, the MLA president, about ropeless traps, he was more skeptical as he explained a problem specific to Maine.

“We fish in crowded bays here,” he said. “All the boats are almost on top of each other, and if you’re fishing ropeless, without buoys on the surface, how am I going to know where your gear is?

I’m going to set right on top of you and we’ll spend all day untangling ropes.”

Even Stormy Mayo, who began making grand speeches about the promise of ropeless technolog y decades ago, concedes, “We’re still eight or ten years away.”

When I met one afternoon with the inventors of a ropeless trap, they agreed. Kevin Rand and Richard Riels are the masterminds behind the Sea Mammal Education Learning Technology Society (SMELTS). We convened on a dock in Woods Hole. Reils, who is SMELTS’s director, told me, “You’re coming in at the foundation of an emerging technology.” He added, “The U.S. space program didn’t fly a man to the moon on day one.”

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Eventually, Riels and Rand heaved their 60-pound trap into the shallow water. Riels pressed some buttons on his phone, manipulating a SMELTS app, and we waited in the expectation that the traps would rise to the surface in a moment. Then we kept waiting.

Minutes passed, awkwardly. Riels and Rand punched at their phones. The trap didn’t come up.

“It’s like when you get a new cell phone,” Rand explained. “You have to get used to it.” The electronics on the trap are “more finicky when you’re not out on the water,” he said. “Here on shore, there’s a lot more Bluetoothing interference.”

Ten minutes passed. Then, finally, the trap emerged from the murk.

AS THE SPRING OF 2021 came on and

the water warmed, Snow Cone moved north, through Maine. No one saw her there, but in early May, a whale observation crew f lying aerial surveys for the Canadian government spotted her in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The

rope was still in her mouth, but the next day, when the nonprofit Canadian Whale Institute sent out a rescue team, she seemed to be thriving. “She was in there socializing with other whales,” says Mackie Greene, a fisherman who was driving the rescue boat that day, “and she was strong. We tied her to the boat and just let her give us a Nantucket sleigh ride. I’ve never seen a whale pull so hard.”

Greene’s team spent four hours trimming more rope off of Snow Cone.

Afterward, the rope was still in her baleen. But, Greene tells me, “it was older rope, and it looked like it was wearing out.”

This wasn’t the only ray of hope I encountered in reporting this story. I came across a 2020 research paper that suggested that whale-related restrictions might not kill Maine’s economy and culture after all. Writing in the journal Marine Policy, lead author Hannah Myers, an Alaska graduate student and a guest scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, looked at lob-

ster fisheries in Massachusetts and in Canada’s vast Lobster Fishing Area 34, off Nova Scotia. Both fisheries have endured closures. Still, profits are soaring. In Area 34, Myers found, Canadian fishermen were catching 3.7 more lobsters per trap than their Maine counterparts.

Myers suggested that Maine’s lobstermen would bring home no less product if they worked fewer days and burned through less gas and money.

She added that, with climate change poised to reduce the state’s lobster stock, “it is in the best interest of fishers to scale back effort in advance of an ecological or economic crisis.”

In Maine, Myers’s take is widely dismissed. “That paper,” Porter told me, “is full of errors.” I asked him for specifics, and he said, “I didn’t read it.

It wasn’t even peer-reviewed.”

The paper was peer-reviewed, actually. But I understand Porter’s being skeptical of insights brought in from outside Maine waters. In lobstering, wisdom tends to be local.

Still, fisheries evolve. I think back now on my visit with Mike Lane on the South Shore. Lane was as salty as any lobstermen I’d met, his yard scattered with busted ancient traps and his diction rich with old-school profanity. Still, he’d changed how he selfidentified. He told me that once at a lobsterman’s gathering, he overheard some Mainers saying, “There’s these assholes in Massachusetts who are fishing ropeless.”

Lane interrupted them, saying, “I’m one of those assholes.”

“Look,” he told me, alluding to the Massachusetts closure, “we got the rug pulled out from under us. All of a sudden, they told us, ‘You can’t go fishing for three months.’ Once you’re faced with a closure like that, it wakes you up. You have to ask, ‘Is there another way forward?’ I’m just trying to keep an open mind.”

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transpired off the coast of Georgia. Snow Cone gave birth, becoming the f irst-ever entangled right whale known to have done so. She and her calf, still unnamed, its sex NEWENGLAND.COM

7/15/22 12:13 PM

still unknown, swam north to Cape Cod this spring, and researchers there spotted the baby nursing off its mother, brushing up against the rope still protruding from its mother’s mouth. The baby seemed healthy, and 40-plus years into his work with whales, Stormy Mayo could only marvel at nature’s tendency to surprise. “The reason I do this,” he said, “is that there’s so much mystery in the right whale. How to save them is a mystery, and so are their movements and their social structure and their history and their future. All scientists like me can do is nibble at the edges.”

Snow Cone’s good fortune is an outlier, a fluke. The right whale is still in trouble, and Mayo worries about a segment of rope looping Snow Cone’s upper jaw. Tissue there could become “severely infected,” he said. Septicemia could kill her.

W hales like Snow Cone will soon gain more protection, though.

NOAA is expected to impose additional regulations on lobstermen in 2025, and this means that Maine’s fleet will likely keep thinning. When I last spoke to Mike Sargent, he’d made the difficult decision to downscale his devotion to his late father’s work. He’s selling his dad’s 42-foot, 808-horsepower lobster boat to a scallop fisherman and electing to work instead from a less-powerful 35-foot craft with fewer amenities: no generator, no extra gas tanks.

Sargent will no longer be able to fish for lobster offshore. He’s going to stay close to land now, limiting himself to day trips, and he’ll fish only from July to November. It’s a change.

“My father and my grandfather,” Sargent told me, “they went out all winter, but I’m not those guys, and with the new laws coming, I don’t want to overextend myself. I don’t want the overhead or the stress.” In winter, Sargent will do taxidermy, and he’s just getting started on a possibly lucrative shoreside project. He’s not ready to disclose the details, but it involves casting and molding plastic.

Yes, the habitués of the sea come and go. The ocean is ever-changing, and so is Maine.

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Life in the Kingdom

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BEN HEWIT T

The Perfect Day Sometimes contentment comes from knowing how special the ordinary can be.

ILLUSTR ATION BY

TOM H AUGOM AT

he most perfect day of the year will most likely arrive in late September, though it’s also been known to come sometime in October. Last year it was October 21, if memory serves, but it had been an unusually warm summer; the creeks had been running low all fall, and it wasn’t until the middle of October that the rains came and filled them again, and everyone knows you can’t have a perfect day when the creeks are low.

The perfect day generally starts like every other day of those 364 nonperfect days. It’s not as if you know it’s going to be the perfect day the moment you arise; it doesn’t announce itself.

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There’s no fanfare, no trumpets, no sign from the heavens. You awake in the half-dark, like you always do. You make your coffee on the woodstove, like you always do. You do chores, like you always do: fill the cows’ water, check to see if the swath of pasture grass they’re on can hold them for another day (it can—if not, it probably wouldn’t be a perfect day). Check the lambs, too: They’re always getting into trouble, but today they’re all the things that people think lambs are going to be before they’ve actually lived with them. You give the tame one a scratch behind his ears. You imagine he’s looking at you with affection, but it might

just be that he’s a bit dumb. Hard to say.

Affection, stupidity: There’s not always a great distance between them.

Did I mention that you’re almost— but not quite—shivering a bit? You see, the perfect day is not entirely about comfort. But maybe you knew that already, because by now you’ve lived long enough to understand all the ways in which comfort is overrated. You need to get a little cold, because how else can you fully appreciate standing by the fire while your second cup of coffee brews, watching the early light sneak up the grassed knoll, listening to the muffled noises of your son stirring directly above your head? He turns 18 in a few NEWENGLAND.COM

7/14/22 11:20 AM

weeks. Someday soon, he’ll be stirring elsewhere, so you listen carefully.

You want to remember exactly what it sounds like.

You make the boy breakfast. You put the toast directly on the cast-iron top of the woodstove, just to the side so it doesn’t burn. You put the frying pan right where the stove gets hottest, drop in a tablespoon of lard, wait for it to hiss and pop. You crack the eggs, flip the toast. The boy gets dressed while you cook. You’re not sure whether he likes that you cook breakfast for him or merely tolerates it. But you also don’t care much either way.

You gather your saw and head to the woods. You don’t do this every day, but you’ve been doing it every perfect day since perfect days were invented, and this one is no different. You don’t need to cut a lot of wood to make it a perfect day, but you need to cut enough so that when you’re done, you can look at the pile and feel the way a person can feel only when that person has accomplished something fundamentally useful. What does “fundamentally useful” mean? You’re not actually sure, but you know what it feels like, and that’s enough.

There are no bugs on the perfect day, of course. I mean, the discomfort of the morning chill is one thing, but blackflies are entirely another. That’s another reason you don’t often find perfect days before September, though it’s true that early May has been known to enter a contender or two, before those winged devils have begun their annual torment.

After cutting wood, you eat lunch with your wife. The two of you sit on the grass, faces to the sun, plates balanced on your laps, and when you bring your food to your mouth, you can smell the day on your hands. It smells like firewood and bar oil, coffee grounds and sheep’s wool. You’re thinking that maybe you should have washed your hands before you ate, but also that you don’t generally wash your hands before you eat, and it’s not hurt SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2022

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you yet. At least, not that you can tell.

At this point, do you make a third cup of coffee? You might, though the perfect day does not require it. On the other hand, it can be the factor that tips an otherwise merely excellent day into the realm of perfection. So, yeah: Why not? The stove is still going from lunch, anyhow. One more cup of coffee and maybe just a small piece of that blueberry cake your wife made a few hours back. It’s still just the slightest bit warm.

OK, two small pieces, then.

The perfect day is not warm enough that a dip in the pond is a given, but it is warm enough that a dip in the pond is an idea that, once thought, cannot be unthought, which is how you find yourself executing the sad little doggie paddle that’s passed for swimming your whole life, while your wife swims effortless laps around you. Still, you know this might be the final swim of the year. You

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Evening is coming on. You do chores, put your chainsaw and chaps away, head inside to cook dinner. Your son will be home from work soon. Your wife is in the garden, spreading mulch hay, tucking in the soil for its winter nap. The fire takes with one match, and you stand at the kitchen window while you wait for the stove to heat, watching your wife work, watching the cows amble across the hill, watching the light slowly fade from the sky, suddenly realizing that this was it: the most perfect day of the year.

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Weekends with Yankee Q&A

|

IAN ALDRICH

at Chickering Bog Natural Area [in Calais, Vermont]. It’s maybe a mile out and back, and it’s just spectacular. At some point you get to this fen, and you can hear all these birds singing and you’re surrounded by this gorgeous forest. It’s so quiet and restful.

Q. What about some bigger peaks, for when you want to work up more of a sweat?

Stowe Pinnacle. It’s definitely a difficult hike and it can be technical in places, but you get these amazing views: Camel’s Hump, Mount Mansfield, the Waterbury Reservoir, a lot of the Worcester Range. Outside Vermont, I love the Cobbles in the Berkshires. It’s not long but you have these expansive views. You really feel like you’ve accomplished something.

And of course there’s Mount Battie in Maine. The sunrise. You can’t beat it.

to talk about the magic of a New England autumn, favorite fall hikes, and where she finds respite from her busy schedule.

I really want to do some of the 48 4,000-footers in the White Mountains.

Actually, I’d like to do all of them eventually. [Laughs.] I can’t choose just one. Closer to home, I’ve never done Camel’s Hump—I’ve just hiked around the base. It’s one of the tallest mountains in Vermont, and it’s got that iconic shape. And then there are some other hikes on the Long Trail I’d like to do.

Q. What do you remember most about your first autumn here, after moving to Vermont in 2019?

Q. OK, so having lived in New England for a while now, are you officially an autumn person?

Catching up with a Green Mountain State trailblazer and featured Weekends with Yankee guest.

O

ver her decade-long run as a professional athlete, Mirna Valerio has finished 11 marathons and 14 ultras, including some of the most grueling trail races in the country. She has also garnered sponsorships from brands such as Lululemon, L.L. Bean, and Merrell, which—along with her blog, The Mirnavator—serve as a rebuke to an outdoors culture that is mostly white and obsessed with body types that don’t look like hers. “I just want to see what my body can do,” says Valerio, whose memoir, A Beautiful Work in Progress, was published in 2017. “I want to know what the limits are.” We recently caught up with the Montpelier, Vermont, resident 120 |

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I took my teenage son apple picking.

We went to Burtt’s Apple Orchard in Cabot, and it was just this gorgeous day. Families were out, it smelled good, we had cider doughnuts—I mean, we did the whole thing.

Q. Is there a special place that you like to go hike or run in the fall?

One of my favorite, favorite, favorite hikes is a really short one

[Laughs.] You could say that—I’m a fall baby, after all, and I really love the fall. But you know, I also love running in the snow. The colder it is, the more interesting it gets.

Mirna Valerio is featured on season six of Weekends with Yankee, which airs on public television stations nationwide.

To find out how to watch, go to weekendswithyankee.com.

COURTESY OF MIRNA VALERIO

Mirna Valerio

Q. Are there any hikes still on your bucket list?

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