Andy staples islesboro maine1/13/2024 Water has always been central to life on Islesboro. The same traditions are adapted to 2015.” “There is the same keen interest in sailing and racing as in the early days,” says Train. In her book In Those Days, which chronicles, in part, her childhood summers from 1926 to 1940, Train writes, “The sounds of summer and freedom are still typified by the slap, flap, stamp, of sneakers, bare feet, and flip-flops, running down the long vibrating docks and bouncing gangways to the floats kids yelling back and forth the splash of oars the slatting of sails being hoisted….” I’m sure that these sounds and smells and feelings are familiar to many kids, like Train’s grandchildren and great- grandchildren, who spend their summers on the island today, learning to ride horses at the island’s Pripet Riding Program and to sail at the Tarratine Yacht Club or Big Tree Boating. On the shady white porch of her current home in Pripet, looking out toward Isle au Haut and sipping lemonade, we discuss her childhood in Dark Harbor, how the island has changed, and how it stays the same. Train is a highlight of my latest visit to Islesboro. Randlett) for ice cream or provisions and at the nearby tidal basin, which the village children used “for community swimming and show-off diving contests,” resident Frances Cheston Train tells me. In Dark Harbor, on the southern end of the island, this meant gathering in places like the Dark Harbor Shop (formerly E.M. Simply for convenience’s sake, those living in each of the island’s villages- Dark Harbor, Pripet, and North Islesboro- tended to keep to themselves. Before cars were allowed on the island in 1933, residents traveled by boat or by horse-drawn carriage, making the island seem like a much larger place. In power boats, outboards, or skiffs they visited nearby family and friends’ houses for lunch or dinner, made trips to the Tarratine Golf Club, cruised in yachts about Penobscot Bay in the afternoons, and raced Herreshoff 12.5-footers in the evenings. Wealthy families built elegant homes on the island, traveling by train from cities such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia to spend summers at the water’s edge. Islesboro was home to the largest commercial shipping fleet in the bay in the early twentieth century, but following the Civil War the island became best known as a summer resort. From these winding roads, it is possible to catch glimpses of some of the island’s famous estates-expansive English Tudors, soaring Victorians-but like most everything on Islesboro, these homes are typically oriented toward the water, and views are often best from a boat. In order to see the entire 14-mile-long island in a single afternoon it is necessary to drive, and when driving, a person can’t help but wonder about all that is invisible through the woods and down the private driveways, along the water’s edge. It keeps going and going, with no obvious center, unfurling in stretch after stretch of winding road, leading past homes of all shapes and sizes, rocky cove after rocky cove. Unlike the nearby islands of North Haven and Vinalhaven, Islesboro is long and thin. From the mainland ferry terminal in Lincolnville, a visit to Islesboro begins with a 20-minute boat ride. Grand is the first word that comes to mind when I think of the island of Islesboro in northern Penobscot Bay. In my experience, no other place along the East Coast demands such deference as this stretch of Maine. Beyond Rockland, the landscape is simply too big, too beautiful to be denied. East from Kittery, the coast gets rockier, the pines more plentiful, the islands more formidable, making the experience of adventuring up the coast kind of a daunting one. When people speak about the variety of the Maine landscape, they’re often speaking about changes in scale. A look at one of the midcoast’s most elegant summer retreats
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