THE PINE TREE STATE

"Storm Warning" by Paul E. Marquart

Today's rain and cold temps evoke memories of the winter I spent in Limestone, Maine, many, many years ago. Although I endured below 15-degree weather numerous days during that sojourn, the memory of living in the bitter cold of an old farmhouse clinging to a low hill in Aroostook County makes me shiver. I feel compelled to write that the rugged scenery of that State held some appeal in an aesthetic sense and acknowledge that Maine's license plates advertise it as "Vacationland." Still, I've never regarded it as a place of enchantment.

My former husband and I were part of Army personnel attached to Loring Air Force Base, a Strategic Air Command Base in the town of Limestone, Maine. At that time, the U.S. military suspected that Russian air attacks would be made on America's far northern shores.

Limestone, situated in Aroostook County, boasted mainly bumper potato crops, which began burgeoning in the 1920s. We lived inland and never enjoyed touring the coast country rife with lofty lighthouses (like my brother Paul's painting above) that mariners built along Maine's shores. In Maine's maritime history, these lighthouses, such as Saddleback Lodge Light Station, have been preserved and are a picturesque part of the sea life surrounding the Pine Tree State.

During the era of sailing ships, the direction of the wind impacted mariners' safety. Lighthouses abounded along the rugged Maine coast, each tower operated by a keeper who made certain the light was always burning. Electric lights caused the lighthouse keeper's job to become obsolete; however, sixty lighthouses still stand on Maine's shores.

When we lived in Maine, we were far from the sound of the Atlantic Ocean and near islands, some of them just mossy rocks rising above the waves. However, I always wanted to visit Acadia National Park, and Bar Harbor on the island's eastern tip was a "wannasee" destination. We were confined inland to wooded areas where deer, raccoons, skunks, possums, and ubiquitous squirrels roamed freely.

A major nesting ground for birds, Maine harbors warblers, thrush, wrens, and other birds familiar to Louisianians, but I'd never heard the weird cry of loons that often carried across lakes and ponds that we approached. We welcomed the sight of ducks and herons, our Louisiana water birds. Still, I never got to see the famous puffin shorebird that gathered beyond the mouth of Penobscot Bay on an island bereft of humans and reputed to be noisy with raucous bird cries.

Army duties prevented weekend tours, even as close as jaunts to Portland because my husband seemed to stay on 24-hour alerts, but I had a list — maybe it's now a bucket list — one that Covid keeps me from completing… but when I get my travel plans certified again, I hope to follow Route 1 from Kittery in the south to Madawaska in northern Maine, to buy a sack of those Aroostook County potatoes and Texas pinto beans, both of which kept us alive and well while living in "vacationland" (?) many winters ago. P.S. I gained ten pounds on that fare.

"Storm Warning," a painting by Paul E. Marquart; photographed by Laurel Marquart

Maine-ly Cold…

Painting by my brother Paul Marquart

So you think that the temp at 32 degrees (and lower with wind chill) in Louisiana is icy? Think of Limestone, Maine at 22 degrees below zero this morning! I say Limestone, Maine, because years ago I experienced 52 degrees below zero (wind chill factored in) one winter night in this northernmost land of winter gales on the northeastern tip of the U.S. near the border of New Brunswick, Canada. I spent one year among potato, dairy, and beef farmers on the Aroostook Plateau because the U.S. Army had sent my husband to Maine. He worked in a radar shack perched at the border of the U.S. and Canada, on “Alert,” searching for any enemy planes that might fly overhead. In the upper story of a farmhouse equipped with an ancient oil stove and a red electric blanket, we survived a bitterly long winter, peering out of the upstairs window at nearly 100 inches of snow that season.

Maine is a place where the sun rises first in the U.S., so we saw sunlight before anyone in my native Louisiana, and I was told that the air was one of the healthiest in the U.S. However, if a person has no indoor interests like reading, listening to music, or writing (and no one owned a television set in my neighborhood), she’s likely to develop a raging case of cabin fever. Think of a place once covered with thick glaciers that smoothed and rounded the hills and mountains, filled rivers, and moved rocks around, and you may be able to envision where I spent that winter. Much of the surrounding land near Limestone included white pine, fir, maple, oak, and spruce trees in dense forests that added to our feelings of isolation. 

But potatoes made Aroostook County, Maine famous. Potatoes formed the mainstay at mealtime for struggling non-commissioned officers in the U.S. Army, and pinto beans came in a close second for a regular table staple. This menu proved so fattening that when we returned to Louisiana, our families marveled at our girths. “How did you gain so much weight living on next to nothing?” they asked. On this poor person’s diet, we managed to become rosy-cheeked and round, despite suffering from the extreme cold. On payday, we sought platters of fried oysters and mugs of beer down the road in Houlton, Maine, but this was a once-a-month occurrence.

Maine’s cold winters have fostered a pantheon of writers; e.g., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Stephen King, disparate types of literary giants; however, both were born in Portland, Maine, and are examples of those who survived merciless winters by writing and reading. As did Sarah Orne Jewett who wrote a series of interconnected sketches of New England life and whose Country of the Pointed Firs became a literary classic. I also think of the essayist E. B. White, but he had enough sense to schedule his visits during summer months.

At one time in the Maine backwoods, moonshine was a thriving industry, and smugglers hid boatloads of illegal whiskey in coves along the Maine coast — a gracious plenty of bathtub gin and rum running provided farmers with extra income. By the time we arrived, prohibition had long ended, but today I wonder whether the dense forests hide illegal activities like meth labs.

Caribou, Maine lay right down the road from us and still has an extensive collection of artifacts from the Red Paint people, but we didn’t frequent places of culture during our stay in Aroostook County, although I should have done more research since French-Canadians in my background formed a large part of the population in my area of Louisiana. The Acadian Historic Village outside Van Buren, Maine contains sixteen fully restored or reconstructed buildings showing how Acadians lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. 

We left Aroostook County near the time of the great Northern Maine Fair and the Crown of Maine Balloon Festival, two occasions during warm weather that brought people out of hibernation. We had endured perhaps the worst winter of my life, and I’ve never returned to that region — perhaps I’ll venture to the Acadia National Park or Monhegan Island one day, but a re-run to Limestone, Maine isn’t on my bucket list.

By May, defrosting had begun in northern Maine, and freezing temps (32 degrees) like those we have been complaining about in New Iberia as “unbearably cold” actually allowed us to go outdoors in shirtsleeves. By June, we had been home in Louisiana one month, just in time to escape the scourge of Maine’s north woods black flies that descend in June and hover in gray clouds of thousands that leave no patch of human skin unbloodied (shades of Louisiana mosquitoes). 

In 1998, a storm President Clinton dubbed as a national disaster covered some areas of Maine with three inches of ice. Are you readers feeling warmer yet?

Painting by Diane’s brother Paul

WHEN WINTER COMES...

During these wintry days of Arctic blasts and below freezing temperatures, I think of the winter I spent in Aroostook County, Maine where the average temps frequently reached 20 and 30 below zero. It was a long and bitter winter that began in late October and ended in late May. We lived in the second story of an old farmhouse in Limestone, Maine, a town in the heart of potato-producing country not far from Madawaska. As I'm of Acadian descent and lived near enough to Madawaska to enjoy the Acadian Festival held every year in June, I've always regretted that we missed this festival because we beat a hasty retreat in May, eager to leave the "winter of our discontent."

A lifelong southerner, I braved the first month of the severe Maine winter in clothing fit for a Louisiana frost with bare legs, wearing a lightweight coat, socks and loafers. I slipped on the ice twice before buying my first and last pair of fur-lined, heavy-soled shoes, and I learned to go outdoors with enough body coverings to ward off frostbite, even investing in earmuffs. For those readers who enjoy trivia, the earmuffs were first designed by a Maine resident named Chester Greenwood, a fifteen-year old boy from Farmington, Maine. Greenwood patented the earmuffs in 1876 and they earned him a comfortable living for the rest of his life. Farmington still honors Greenwood and celebrates his "invention" at an annual festival.

Although we lived close enough to glimpse the aurora borealis, or northern lights, which are caused by electrical charges in the atmosphere of the far north, we never saw this phenomenon that occurs beyond the Arctic Circle and sometimes travels south to northern Maine. We did claim the distinction of being able to celebrate the sunrise before any other state because the sun rises first in this most northeasternly tip of the U.S.

Part of the Appalachian Trail actually lies in Maine, a trail that winds for 2,000 miles through fourteen states, beginning near Mount Katahdin in northern Maine and ending at Springer Mountain in Georgia. Because of steep climbs and wild woods, the Maine climb of the Appalachian Trails is reputed to be one of the most challenging trails for seasoned hikers. Hikers and naturalists love Maine's natural beauty. At one time, John D. Rockefeller, fearing that development threatened to destroy this natural beauty, purchased 11,000 acres of land and helped create Acadia National Park in Maine, laying out fifty-seven miles of roads to be used only for horse-drawn vehicles. Today, cars are still forbidden to travel those roads.

It's a human tendency to romanticize places that we've visited or where we've lived that are located quite a distance from our roots, but I find it difficult to romanticize that severe winter I lived in the northernmost part of Maine. We heated the living room with an aging oil stove, kept the kitchen warm by lighting the oven and opening its door, and almost suffered frostbite in the bedroom and bath, which had no heaters. We survived with an electric blanket, a small portable radio, a 45 rpm record player, two decks of cards, books from the local library, and a set of Tchaikovsky's symphonies. Our fare consisted mostly of pinto beans and the potatoes raised in sandy soil on local farms that produced enough plentiful crops to place them sixth in potato production in the U.S. I was nineteen years old, and despite the monotonous fare and the frosty days I spent outdoors sledding and shepherding the neighborhood children, I returned to Louisiana glowing with good health and an appreciation for warmer climes.

 

I might add that Maine has a formidable list of Who's Who poets and authors, including Sarah Orne Jewett, Stephen King, Henry Longfellow, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edward Arlington Robinson, and others.

Several years ago, I published a novel entitled The Maine Event, based in Aroostook County, Maine where I lived, and although I don't know the identity of my readers, I still sell a few copies of this book monthly and often wonder if these readers are located in the Pine Tree State—perhaps live in the cold north woods near Limestone, Maine.