In 1600, southern New England was home to approximately 90,000 Indians. Approximately 12,000 were Pokanokets, a tribe living at the head of Narragansett Bay. From 1616 to 1619, bubonic plague, introduced by European fishermen in Maine, killed up to 90 percent of the Indians in some areas along the New England coastline. Massasoit, sachem (leader) […]
Most people think of Rufus Porter as the itinerant muralist who traveled New England from the early 1820s to about 1845. His vivid landscapes are characterized by rural and coastal images and the open brushstrokes used to achieve his signature feathery trees. Porter’s art is so closely identified with the region that he has achieved […]
It has been said that art is the signature of a civilization. Like all signatures, it is unique and personal and binding. When a civilization vanishes, it is art that leaves an indelible imprint to tell the story of a people’s existence and their eventual demise. Such is the story of Tomah Joseph, a Passamaquoddy […]
Twenty-six years after the film, the image still lingers: Henry Fonda and Kate Hepburn, in the twilight of their lives, come for another glorious summer on Golden Pond. The movie and its 10 Oscar nominations created a valentine to a certain kind of timelessness, and a certain kind of lake. It was based on screenwriter […]
As dawn broke over the lake this morning, your daughter caught her first perch. A few hours later, your son paddled to Loon Island with a new friend while you read several chapters (in one sitting!) of a novel you’d been meaning to start for years. At dusk, after a gourmet lobster bake, you and […]
It happens often as you drive around Cape Ann, the rocky headland jutting into the Atlantic 30 miles north of Boston. You round a corner or crest a hill and wham! — suddenly you’ve driven into a painting. It’s something about the way the light refracts off the ocean on all sides, making ship masts […]
This special travel guide issue is a conversation between Yankee and you, our readers. We are talking about places we love in a unique corner of the world: New England. We all know that surge of excitement when we discover a new place and, whether by foot or bike or car, we set out and […]
Here’s a recipe for a good day: Take one lakeside home; add four friends and fresh local ingredients. Toss in laughter and good conversation. The friends — Ravi Gongaju, Karen Doris, and Anna and Timothy Blanc — originally met while working at Eastern Mountain Sports in Peterborough, New Hampshire, a few years ago and now […]
$71,000 amount generated by traffic tickets last year in Brighton, Vermont (pop. 1,200). Can you say “speed trap”? 4,180 cows now enrolled in Vermont’s “Cow Power” program, producing enough methane to power 1,229 Vermont homes 250 works of art in the permanent collection of the Museum of Bad Art (MOBA), located in Dedham, MA 216 […]
A paddle is a canoeist’s best friend; a good one delivers a powerful stroke with ease. This native white ash paddle ($48.50) is remarkable not only for its innate lightness, strength, and flexibility (all qualities essential in a good paddle), but also because paddle smith Ricky Kiem makes it from a single piece of wood […]
Mike LaVecchia and a few friends love to hang out at Long Sands Beach in York Beach, Maine. Sometimes they’re out there to surf for fun; sometimes they’re there to “work,” testing the boards they design and build. The wooden boards are inspired by those from the ’60s and ’70s and are made of native […]
For four precious weeks in early summer, strawberries by the ton come up out of Maxwell’s strawberry fields, which lie across Cape Elizabeth like random quilt squares. They come by the truckload to the Maxwell farm market, to Maine supermarkets, and into Elsie Maxwell’s kitchen and freezer. Ken and Elsie Maxwell are the fifth generation […]
