Islands 7/10/06 A slate-colored New England sky merges with the mist-enshrouded expanses of water surrounding Maine's Mount Desert Island. On shore, gray stone seawalls, weather-beaten shingles and persistent, soupy fogs complete the monochromatic tableau. Despite the sometimes-somber hues, the town of Bar Harbor was originally dubbed "Eden." BLUE LOBSTERS, RES COCKTAILS OLD GHOSTS: A Visit to Bar Harbor By Jessica Maxwell E WERE FLYING east. Back W east. To the East Coast. And the Eastern seaboard. We were even flying Eastern Airlines, which, if you have spent your life on the West Coast and are privately convinced that the new century is cutting its teeth there, is the only way to maintain a perfect six-hour Eastern medi- tation. Your napkin, your place mat, even your little corrugated salt and pepper pack- ets are emblazoned with your mantra. It is, as they say, written. We were also flying downeast, which is to say northeast, that is, we were heading for the coast of Maine. Flying downeast is tricky; you have to change planes in Boston to do it. And airlines. "Flyin' to Bah-hah-bah, eh?" said the woman at the Bar Harbor Airlines counter. "Do you fly THERE?" my husband Joe replied. We both thought she had just asked if we were flying to the Bahamas. She gave us each a perfect New England silly goose look and said, "That's ow-ah name." ISLANDS 37 An absence of mundane distractions makes Mount Desert Island an ideal place for students attending the College of the Atlantic (below) to pursue their academic interests. An enterprising youngster from Southwest Harbor (opposite) capitalizes on the island's floral beauty. As it turned out, we were flying to Bah- "We-ah not all rich," protested Marian ing at the inn that night for a weekend hah-bah. Rather to Mount Desert Island - Burns, who was, at the moment, up to her seminar. pronounced "de-ZERT," as in bonbon, or elbows in live lobsters. She is a small Marian was born and raised on the Benedict Arnold - Bar Harbor being that woman with racehorse energy. She appears, island. There were two classes in Bar Har- isle's most famous town. To New England- at first, to be shy, but her modest manner bor back then: the super-wealthy and the ers Bah-hah-bah is a three-syllable pass- belies a will not unlike that of the crus- skilled tradesmen who served them. Mari- word to a rarefied time of white dresses tacean who was attempting, for the third an's father was one of the latter, an elec- with French labels and 40-room Victorian time, to sneak out of her cook pot and trician of such finesse that the Rockefellers "cottages," worn by and built for the East make its way back to the sea. used to hire him to drill holes in their Ming Coast's elite who summered in Bar Harbor "He's a snapp-ah," she said, as she stuffed vases and convert them to lamps. The fact from the 1880s to the end of World War I. him delicately back into the broth headfirst. that half a century later his own daughter However. To West Coasters, Bah-hah-bah "If you do it tail-first you hear them scream." managed to buy up one of the original is little more than a winsome bleat issuing A chemist by training, a teacher by trade, mansions is a sign of how profoundly things forth from New Englanders' mouths far Marian is the owner, renovator, operator have changed in this town. It is also a too often for comfort. This is why one must and chief lobster chef of the Mira Monte personal triumph. bridle one's brain, hurdle new neurons Inn, a pretty Victorian bed and breakfast, "The wealthy people built the town," marked "Jane Fonda" and "Linus Pauling," circa 1864, located just down the street Marian explained, resting for a nanosecond and focus back on the ossified counte- from the village of Bar Harbor proper. Her on the hip of her stove. "No expense was nances of the Rockefellers and the Vander- son, Steve, is a genuine Maine lobsterman. spared. Our movie theater was a work of bilts in order to fully comprehend the true With the help of her doe-eyed daughter, art. Everything was. Our lives were richer nature of Bar Harbor and a populace far Linda, they were preparing Steve's catch because of the rich." too rich to mind its "P's" and "Q's," much for a genuine Maine feast in honor of Their lives were also somewhat schizo- less its "R's." Marian's fellow educators who were gather- phrenic. What the service class received, 38 ISLANDS password to a rarefied time of white dresses with French labels and 40-room Victorian "cottages." beyond its hourly wages, amounted to little more than social fallout. The rich were certainly not saying "Welcome aboard"; it was merely a case of gilt by association. When George Washington Vanderbilt II almost drowned in his pool one summer, he rewarded his rescuer a local girl- not with a piece of his $20-million inheritance but with a bouquet of sweet peas. The children of Bar Harbor's carpenters and stone masons and electricians swiftly learned where the lines were drawn. When Marian was a small child she happened to toddle across the boundary between Bar Harbor's public and private beaches. "A guard shooed me away immediately," she recalled. "He told me to stay where I belonged." Staying where one belonged was the rule that etched eternal fault lines into the Splet psyches of Bar Harbor's working-class kids. They could pass a palace and say proudly, "Daddy built it," but they would always feel like guests in their own hometown. And that is why the Mira Monte is Marian Burns' nimbus; owning it has let her lay Danielle. M claim to the part of her history that was denied her long before she was born. It is Cent also a way of providing a home for wayward lobsters. "He's out again, Steve," she said calmly. Steve smiled. A slight man with hands like vise grips, he seized the beast from behind, then flipped it over for a quick zoology lesson. "This one's a female," he said, running lobster I'd ever tasted, but recurring fears to sketch and hike, to fish and swim, to a rough finger over what looked like minia- that I might be nibbling on the valiant glory in the unembellished beauty of this fugitive from Marian's kitchen bade me quiet edge of the country. To quote S. Weir ture legs. "Its feelerettes are soft. In males turn to my dish of raw Maine oysters and Mitchell, eminent Philadelphia physician they're hah-d." That seemed reasonable fresh Maine clams, or "steamers." I was and Bar Harbor regular, whose 1863 letter enough. Holding a Maine lobster in my bare hand, however, did not, their claws carefully washing my fingertips in my little home is published in G.W. Helfrich and Dixie Cup of steaming finger water, mar- Gladys O'Neil's fine and intricate book, having been surely designed by Black and Decker; witnessing the act is particularly veling all the while at the elegance of the Lost Bar Harbor: "Mount Desert is a jolly custom, when Phil leaned over and said: place, twenty miles long, ten broad; moun- unnerving to West Coasters since Pacific "That's clam nec-tah. You drink it." tains in the middle, eight lakes between lobsters have no claws whatsoever. Fortunately, fishy fingers figure fashion- them Lots of caves full of pools; pools "Oh, they 11 take your fing-ah off," Steve ably at the Mira Monte. It might be Victo- full of anemones. Surf breaks over said assured us. rian but it ain't stuffy. Its tone and sensi- rocks considerably." Dr. Mitchell found the The trick, of course, is to remove theirs, bilities are, in fact, much like those of the island cuisine similarly unembellished, if once they are resting safely on your dinner first homesteads where the island's first less inspiring: "Potatoes and mutton, mut- plate, without sending the whole animal flying into your lap. Such was the business summer visitors boarded not including ton and potatoes," he wrote, although clam of the day once Marian had gathered us the mainland's Abnaki Indians, who used and fish chowders, peas and berry pie were all around her antique dining table. Seeing to canoe over to the island to fish and hunt also standard fare for visiting rusticators this Westerner's distress, Phil, a tall, smart- before Champlain or any other paleface who, after dining with their native hosts, looking teacher, reached over to assist. With ever set eyes on it. then spent the remainder of their evenings As early as the 1840s artists and natu- playing games in the parlor or singing stunning grace he slipped the lobster's ivory ralists, professors and students, came to around the piano, which is exactly what meat out of its paprika shell. Mount Desert Island to rusticate - that is, we did after excavating several of Marian's It was, without a doubt, the sweetest ISLANDS 39 Bass Harbor's dock house (below) is decorated with colorful buoys and a plaque honoring Maine's intrepid lobstermen. A lobster fisherman (opposite) attracts hungry gulls as he complies with strict regulations by tossing breeders and undersized lobsters back into the sea. 40 ISLANDS Three miles out of Bar Harbor we arrived at another set of lobster traps, their bright buoys sitting on the sea like candies on a blue glass dish. heavenly blueberry pies. "You might want to stand back. When cucumber and one small lobster. Steve "My mother played piano for the silent they get irritated they turn inside out and measured it with a length of notched wood. movies here," Marian said as she sat down throw their intestines at you." "Maine lobstermen were the first conser- to her old upright with obvious glee and We edged to the back of the boat, keep- vationists," Phil said. "They had their own began sorting through a stack of original ing a close eye on the dark green blob size regulations before the state did - and silent movie sheet music. There was The resting peacefully- far - in Phil's palm. stiffer ones, too." Tormentor ("A dramatic commotion"), Pangs It was a sea cucumber; it had unwittingly Steve pronounced the lobster too small of Passion ("An exciting argument"), Creep- slunk into one of the 300 lobster traps Steve and tossed it back into the sea, then gunned ing Spooks ("A mysterioso"), Green Vipers had set the day before. the engine and headed for a jetty of chunk ("A weird mysterioso"), and that old Mel There is something almost holy about granite that looked like chocolate someone Brooks favorite, Beads and Saddles ("A sunrise on the open sea. The water that had left in the refrigerator too long. Still, Western, North Western, Indian-Caucasian day looked like blueberry jam and the he was hopeful. Intermezzo"). Somewhere between rousing air smelled new, like a salty rose. We all "You can't tell if it's a good or bad day choruses of "Fiendish Eyes" and "Abusive breathed better for it. Porpoises stitched until all the gear is hauled in," he said. Tongues," Steve offered to take us out on the ocean around the boat. Tiny islands Fishing was finer at the jetty. The first his boat the next morning. Phil, a former sat quietly off the shore of Mount Desert trap produced three more lobsters, "all lobsterman himself, decided to come along. like little green moons. Except for the slight keep-ahs,' Steve announced. The second Our wood stove snapped and hissed in threat of exploding viscera, it was a beauti- contained a monster with claws like split the corner of our room that night. We slept ful morning. footballs. fitfully beneath our Victorian canopy and The fishing, however, was lousy. After "That's a breed-ah," Steve said; to our dreamt of lurking lobsters and fair clam- pulling up three traps all we had was a astonishment he threw the beast back over shells in distress. starfish, a sea urchin, the honorable sea the side. ISLANDS 41 Lobster traps line the dock at Bass Harbor (below), while a lobster boat departs Bar Harbor amid a soft, misty fog (opposite). Lobster-trapping excursions are among the many water-based activities popular with visitors to the island. Other attractions include Acadia National Park and the Mount Desert Oceanarium. "Only Maine lobstermen have maxi- said, pointing a finger gloved in black Devonian bricks leading always to the mum limits," Phil explained. "They're rubber. "Bald Porcupine was used for target forest, God's staircase. It imparts a sense trying to get other states to do the same." practice in World War II." of place and a vertical sense of order not More starfish followed, then a colony of An island sporting a single green cabin unlike the New Englanders themselves: urchin and a big sculpin with a perfect drifted by. Phil told us it was a private island upright, forthright, steady and true. Edward G. Robinson mouth, then another named Iron Bound. Three miles out of Bar Harbor we arrived stunning breeder. "That's where we go for afternoon tea," at another set of Steve's lobster traps, their "They come down from Canada," Steve Steve added with a fisherman's grin. bright buoys sitting on the sea like candies said, tossing the breeder overboard. Then Motoring around these islands gives you in a blue glass dish. We were stunned to he gunned the engine again, heading a fresh perspective on their geology. A silence. We were in the middle of nowhere; straight out to sea. Islands passed us on swath of remarkable stonework sweeps how could anyone guess to put traps out both sides. between the ocean and trees, fractured and here? "Those are the five Porcupines," Steve stacked like tumbled ruins, terraced like Steve parked, as it were, and began 42 ISLANDS e o we e snI en e open sea. The water that day looked like blueberry jam and the air smelled new, like a salty rose. SEA FEVER MOUNT DESERT ISLAND MAINE hauling in a trap, which is akin to hauling in an anchor; you could almost hear his Frenchman muscles creak. Lobstering is bullish work; Bay U lobstermen do, at least, stand to make a Bar Harbor Somesville Atlantic Ocean 01 / PM couple of hundred dollars a day. Today's Cadillac Mountain Acadia National Park MOUNT DESERT market price was $2.75 a pound. But, alas, ISLAND this trap was full of crabs, as well as a couple Bass Harbor of periwinkle about the size of golf balls. "Those are great if you cook 'em in garlic 0 Kilometers 20 and butter," Phil said. 0 Scale in Miles 20 "Do they taste like escargot?" Joe asked. "They taste a lot like garlic and butter," he replied. The trap also contained a small ISLANDS 43 Guide Bernard Hawkes (below) displays cleverly designed beaver houses in Acadia National Park, the third-largest park in the nation. Within its confines resides a variety of wildlife including porcupine, moose (opposite) and more than 300 kinds of other mammals and birds. island's finest spudettes, diced, spiced and grilled with onions, and a private pot of express filtered gourmet coffee. Such is the fare at the Town Farm, a comforting little all-day café set next door to Bar Harbor's fire station and kitty-corner from the park. Our waitress, Christine Webber, was as lively as our breakfast. A transplanted San Franciscan, she had become a self-nomi- nated Bar Harbor cheerleader. She looked joyfully at our map. "This is fishing, this is yachts and this is tourism," she said, point- ing, in succession, to Bass Harbor, North- east Harbor and Bar Harbor. Then, in one staccato sentence she told us to go see the blue lobsters at the oceanarium, watch the Thunder Hole in the Acadia National Park, eat the popovers at the Jordan Pond House and keep an eye peeled for Maine's early morning "Witch's Fog," which, she assured us, we could "eat with a spoon." We would have done just that that, SO ripe was her enthusiasm, but we had a previous engagement with Bernard Hawkes, and, as it turned out, with Rodney, Hilda, Henry and Hildegard. We were to meet Bernie at the Kebo Valley Golf f Club, which meant we had to drive. Staying at the Mira Monte had spoiled us; we could walk anywhere in town. As we pulled out of the drive, the large dark inn across the street caught my eye again. It had bothered me from the moment I saw it. It looked heavy, almost sinister; it had the address of the Devil: 66 Mount Desert Street. "Don't you think that inn looks creepy?" I asked Joe. "Naw," he said. "Besides, it's got a great bar." "You'll know which one I am," Bernie had told us on the golf course phone. "I'll be the one wearing two pairs of trousers- you never know when you'll get a hole in one." shark. "If you nail some of it to the side of your Bernie was also wearing two watches, "We eat those back home," Joe said in house it'll get damp 24 hours before it "standard and daylight," he said, and a his best Clint Eastwood voice. rains," Phil instructed. baseball cap with the letters "M.T." on the "I've never had shark," Phil replied coolly. front - "like my head." "I've had whale though; it tasted like deep- As delicious as they are, Mira Monte Bernie began his tour with a nearby sea moose." muffins do not hold you after four hours graveyard. "I've been in Bah-hah-bah since We had emptied 49 traps, taken a dozen at sea. We returned to the dock hungry 1910," he said. "That's when Mark Twain lobster. The sun was beginning to climb enough to eat it; we ate, instead, several died and guess who else was born here- the sky. Steve headed for home to drop us skyscrapers of whole wheat Maine blue- Nelson Rockefeller. He got the money, I off; his day had just begun. Eagles nested berry pancakes with several lakes of Ver- got the brains." in the arms of passing trees; Devil's Apron mont maple syrup, plus a hen's day's work "Mount Desert is 105 square miles," kelp tickled the ribs of the boat. served on a sprout bed, a couple of the Bernie said as granite outcroppings and 44 ISLANDS The park is a 41, 642-acre masterwork of lake and bog of forest and field, of filigree shoreline and pink granit slopes that still reign here like slabs of candied sunrise. fir forest made a peach and green blur beyond our windows. "It's the third largest island in the country. It was named by the French explorer Samuel de Cham- plain because the tops of its mountains are balder than I am." Like our waitress Christine, Bernie doesn't believe in breath- ing. "Caspar Weinberger summers here; SO does Brzezinski. Now we're in Acadia National Park. This is the second busiest national park in the country. Would you like to sit down and have your picture taken on a beaver house? Okay, this way." "Now there's Rodney and Hilda's house over they-ah," Bernie said, pointing to a neat tepee of straight stripped branches floating, it seemed, on one of Acadia's many lakes. The park is a 41,642-acre masterwork of lake and bog, of forest and field, of filigree shoreline and pink granite slopes that still reign here like slabs of candied sunrise. In its variety it is home for 500 botanicals - from sea lettuce to lowbush blueberry - and about 325 kinds of birds and mammals, including eagle, osprey, guillemot, cormorant, falcon, purple finch, white-tailed deer, moose, raccoon, red fox, bobcat, porcupine, woodchuck, otter, wea- sel, muskrat, skunk, rabbit, chipmunk, squirrel, bat, mouse and, of course, beaver. "See the tree Rodney brought in for shade," Bernie said, pointing to a large leafy log resting against his friend's abode. "Now Hilda said to Rodney: 'You've got to get me some shade - my skin is burning, and that's just what he did." Rodney, continued Bernie, had a unique way of saying grace. The prayer went some- thing like this: God bless us all in a minute Pick up a potato and skin it Three biscuits for four Thank God there's no more No cake? For gosh sake! Amen! Bernie proceeded to conduct our tour with similar tympany. It lasted, altogether, about two and a half days. Following, off and on, Park Loop Road, which circles the park, we saw, though not necessarily in this order - one's notes, when riding with Bernard Hawkes, being swiftly reduced to a substance not unlike that of the original sediments - the following: another beaver house ("That's Henry and Hildegard's place"); attorney Dan Burt's new waterfront The Mount Desert Oceanarium houses sea life both conventional and bizarre, among them a blue and a yellow lobster (below), genetic deviations with million-to-one odds of occurring. A lighthouse guards the rocky entrance to Blue Hill Bay in Acadia National Park (opposite). when it was still an old marine hardware the store. They live upstairs. Live lobsters, horseshoe crabs, regular crabs, deep-sea scallops, moon snails, wolffish, sea ravens, skates, sharks, basket stars and pregnant flounders live beneath them in 20 tons of aerated seawater. The information dispensed during the oceanarium's guided tours often out-gonzos most sci-fi plots. The edge of the deep-sea scallop, for instance, is dotted with bright blue eyes. These eyes possess a lens and an optic nerve, but the scallop possesses no brain, SO the multiple images play, SO to speak, to an empty house. Skates, those winged rays that Jacques Cousteau always hires to flap romantically by whenever his camera rolls, navigate the seas by sensing the electromagnetic lines of the Earth. Starfish, if attacked, will self-amputate, then walk off, leaving their lone leg to fend for itself. Sea cucumbers have water instead of blood, a clever way to avoid bleeding to death for a marine species that insists on exploding its stomach on a regular basis. Horseshoe crabs have blue blood, which is probably why Nelson Rockefeller looked like one. One-billionth of a milligram of horseshoe crab endotoxin will clot human blood, making it the pharmaceutical of choice for aristocratic hemophiliacs. Flounders are born "normal," with an mansion ("He's Westmoreland's law-ah; We finally ended up in Bass Harbor, eye on each side; when they mature, one that house cost $3.5 million."); a lighthouse where the wall of a dock house was strewn eye migrates over to the other eye. ("They call it Eggrock."); Jackson Lab, a with fishing buoys above a plaque honoring If a lobster loses an eye, it grows a feeler leading genetic research outfit ("They've "the Harding lobstermen who fished from back instead. got 600,000 mice in they-ah; they eat this wharf for over 50 years" because they "It's the only animal that replaces one 16,000 pounds of food a day."); two young "epitomize the brave and gallant spirit of organ with another," David concluded women sitting on a bench ("They-ah wait- Maine's most resourceful fishermen." That rather proudly, though, we had to admit, ing for me; sorry girls, I can't stop!"); some imbued us with fresh bravado and we keeping one's teeth in one's stomach and late pink ladyslipper in bloom ("We have decided to visit the Mount Desert Ocean- one's stomach in one's head made putting two seasons he-ah-July and winter."); the arium in Southwest Harbor on the way one's nose where one's eye was seem like a Porcupine Islands again, this time off Mount home. clear case of zoologic dyslexia. Cadillac ("Sheep, Round, Long and Bald - "Now, lobsters have their teeth in their When we left the oceanarium a boreal named by Frederick Church and his cro- stomachs, and their stomachs in their wind had begun to blow. Bernie licked his nies. They were the first artists to visit the heads. They also pee straight forward." finger and held it in the air. island. You'd think they would'v been This is what oceanarium owner David "Wind's from the north," he said. "That's more original."); the Wild Gardens of Mills told us while he held two lobsters in why our coast is downeast." Acadia (Marian Burns designed them); his hand. One was blue - the color of This sounded like more lobster-talk; Thunder Hole, a surf-sculpted fissure robins' eggs- other was yellow- Bernie noted our concern. where the sea explodes on command for color of marigolds; both were, respectively, "The winds usually blow from the north tourists and Somes Sound Fjord ("The one-in-a-million and two-in-a-million ge- he-ah. When commerce was based in Bos- Indians thought Mount Desert Island was netic boo-boos. ton and Salem, which are south and west of shaped like a big lobster claw; Somes The Mills family bought the oceanarium, us, sailors headin' for Maine had to sail down- Sound is the space between the pincers."). which is situated on a short dock, in 1972 wind and least, SO they sailed 'downeast.'" 46 ISLANDS Porpoises stitched the ocean around the boat. Tiny islands sat quietly off the shore of Mount Desert like little green moons. It was a beautiful morning. ISLANDS 47 Savoring breakfast popovers and the morning calm at Jordan Pond House (below) is a 100-year-old Bar Harbor tradition. The house is a modern version of the original mansion, which burned down in 1947. The area's unique architectural style is evidenced by the Union Congregational Church (opposite) near Northeast Harbor. 48 ISLANDS The stonework imparts a sense of place and a vertical sense of order not unlike the New Englanders themselves: upright, forthright, steady and true. We were sailing downeast ourselves, travel to Europe regularly to collect French "They are," Phyllis said gaily. "They're heading back to Sunset Point on Mount armoires and Victorian wicker, marble- ghosts." Cadillac. By the time we arrived, there were topped night tables and antique beds, While Phyllis looks like a perfect, albeit 14 cars from five states in the parking lot. which they dress in goose-down comforters, youthful, fairy godmother, in her lace collars The sun hung low before them, a blazing hand-crocheted bedspreads and embroi- and pinned-up ringlets, Phyllis has a mind yolk sliding down an opal sky and filling dered pillows. There are Oriental throws like a laser. The fluster and fuss is for fun; the lakes with silver. on the floors and turn-of-the-century toys Phyllis knows exactly what she's doing. And About 50 people were already sitting and dolls placed in every available corner. to whom she's doing it. And why. And or standing on the hillside. No one spoke; For frills and thrills, the Cleftstone is the when. And for precisely how long. And everyone's mind was fully taken by the "in" inn in Bar Harbor. When we chose to like any fairy godmother worth her fairy event in process. The sun threw brilliant spend our last nights there, however, we dust, she does it entirely for your own good. haloes around their heads. didn't know about the thrills part. Which is why her customers return every "Oh, the ladies are back," Phyllis fairly year, and follow her around like ducklings "Now, you can't have this room," Phyllis sang and stepped daintily over to the while they re there. Out of trust and a near Jackson was saying. "It belongs to Bonnie canopy bed to switch off a lamp that had moronic sense of curiosity, we decided to and Clyde. They've just arrived; they're been left on. take the room just across the hall from The downstairs." "Is Clyde a girl?" Joe asked. Ghost Room. Phyllis and her husband, Donald, are "Why, no, he's an ecologist," Phyllis "Here, now," Phyllis said. "Meet Bon- the innkeepers of Cleftstone Manor, a replied. "Why do you ask?" nie and Clyde. And this is Dianne and 30-room former summer cottage built 100 "You said it was their room." Russell-they'r - our honeymooners-and years ago by the Blair family. The Jacksons "Yes, that's right, Bonnie and Clyde Charles and where's Debbie?" have jumped through hoop skirts to restore always stay in it." "She went up already; she was tired," Cleftstone to its original opulence. They "But you said 'the ladies are back." Charles replied. ISLANDS 49 The Harbor Lights Inn in Southwest Harbor (below) and Bar Harbor's Cleftstone Manor (opposite) are just two of the many mansions that once served as summer homes for Mount Desert's wealthy patrons and which have since been converted to elegant but homey inns to accommodate modern-day visitors. They and several other couples were when Cleftstone guests meet and share Harbor. It burned 18,000 acres of Acadia sitting around a rousing fire in Phyllis' and their adventures: breakfast-which is a National Park and a third of the 222 sum- Donald's parlor, sipping sherry and eating scented feast of Phyllis' home-baked goods mer cottages. Cleftstone wasn't one of them. crackers and cheese. The way everyone served with a fresh fruit salad and fine "Martha and Sandra really were Bar was talking and laughing, we assumed coffees and teas s-afternoon tea and be- Harbor residents," said Bonnie. "The they'd all been pals for years and were on fore-bed sherry hour. medium gave their last name too, and Phyl- some kind of group holiday. Quite the The next morning Bonnie and I quickly lis looked it up in the town register. Isn't opposite was true; they'd all just met that found a corner in Phyllis' and Donald's that true, Phyllis?" evening. It was just a little more of Phyllis' sunny blue and white breakfast porch. "Oh, yes!" Phyllis replied as she fluttered magic. Bonnie told me that many guests had by with a new streusel. "Isn't what true?" "Do you know about The Ladies?" I sensed the presence of The Ladies. Finally Before we could explain, Dianne and asked Bonnie hesitantly. She was a tall, Phyllis had invited a medium named John Russell arrived and Phyllis turned to greet careful woman. She had soft brown skin to hold a séance in Bonnie's and Clyde's them and show them their breakfast choices. and a wonderful mouth and a doctorate room. He managed to contact two spinster They brought their coffee and muffins back in philosophy. sisters who, he claimed, inhabited the to our table. Dianne was a spirited woman; "You mean Martha and Sandra? Oh yes, room. One of them spoke through him in I decided to take a chance. they were sisters. the voice of an elderly woman. "Do you like ghosts?" I asked. "Anyone care for more sherry?" Phyllis "She told him they had lived in the Her whole face brightened. asked suddenly, all but floating across the neighborhood during the terrible fire of "Love "em!" she said. room. 1947," Bonnie explained later. "They were We proceeded to share The Ladies with "We'll talk about it later," Bonnie whis- sticking around to keep it from happening them. pered, touching my arm. again." "We're not the only ones with ghosts, There are three times during the day The Great Fire of '47 clobbered Bar you know," Phyllis said, hearing our con- 50 ISLANDS Asearly as the 1840s, artists and naturalists came to sketch and hike, to fish and swim, to glory in the unembellished beauty of this quiet edge of the country. versation. The Ledgelawn has them, and they're not nearly as nice as ours." Dianne gasped. "We were going to stay there!" she said. "But they say that if a house doesn't face the street it's not open. The Ledgelawn doesn't face the street. I wouldn't stay there." "Well, they have a nasty woman ghost named Elizabeth who lives in room 17," Phyllis said. "Apparently she fell down a staircase and died and she's not very happy about it. She hides things and changes the pictures on the walls. People have bad dreams there. There's also a little boy ghost. He's very, very naughty. Donald and I stayed there two years ago and, of course, the only room left was room 17. I wouldn't undress there." "Bonnie, were you moving furniture around last night?" Debbie asked. She had just arrived with Charles. Their room was directly beneath Bonnie's and Clyde's. "No," Bonnie said, "Why?" "Well, when I was in our room alone last night I heard something that sounded like something being dragged across the floor." "Clyde and I were both in the parlor when you went up to your room," Bonnie said, slightly alarmed. Dianne's eyes looked like Christmas tree lights. Bonnie seemed disturbed. Her philoso- phy studies had only left her with ques- tions. She had quit teaching to think about answers, and at this point in her life, cyni- cism was beginning to nibble at the edges of her heart. "Ghosts don't bother me," she confessed later. "Their implications do." Later I asked Phyllis about the moving furniture sounds. "Oh, I hear them all the time," she said lightly. When Bonnie was reading in her room that evening she swears she heard her door open and close. Clyde swears he was down- the room had obviously been cleaned." across the street; we all heard it. Nonethe- stairs the whole time. That night, Bonnie The room obviously had been tampered less, Joe and I decided to spend our last had a very bad dream about the very bad with, too. night in the Romeo and Juliet Room. With little boy ghost at the Ledgelawn. The next "A window was broken," they reported. its huge fireplace and wall-long antique day she and Debbie decided to investigate "The bedding was askew. A towel had been dresser, it is Cleftstone's most luxurious the Ledgelawn themselves. thrown on the floor. And there was this bedchamber; it also happens to be as far "There were some workers redoing part weird book open next to the commode away from Bonnie's and Clyde's room as of the first floor," they told me at tea, "SO called Seaside Fires." possible. we sneaked in and started looking around. Nothing went bump in the night that The next morning we took Marian Burns We found this hidden staircase and we fol- night. Bonnie did think she heard piano out for popovers at the Jordan Pond House, lowed it and it ended right at room 17. The music, but turned out to be someone a Bar Harbor tradition since the late 1800s. door was open. Nobody was staying there; playing an electric guitar at the college It was a glorious day, but the air had an icy ISLANDS 51 The Bluenose Ferry, which links Bar Harbor with Nova Scotia, eases into the harbor (below). Mount Cadillac, the Atlantic coast's highest point, provides a vantage point for a panoramic view of town and the five Porcupine Islands beyond (opposite). The mountain is one of 18 within the boundaries of Acadia National Park. 52 ISLANDS The sun was beginning to climb the sky. Bald eagles nested in the arms of passing trees; Devil's Apron kelp tickled the ribs of the boat. underbite, a typical early summer condi- was as distressed as she was. tion in Bar Harbor. "We never should have gone to the The Jordan Pond House isn't quite what Ledgelawn," she was saying. it used to be. The original mansion burned "Bonnie, that had nothing to do with up in The Great Fire; the new building is it," Clyde replied, calmly puffing on his pretty, but too modern. Jordan Pond, how- pipe. ever, is as elegant as always, a gift from "I don't know," she said. "I just don't the Ice Age. Its twin peaks, The Bubbles, know." looked like the velvet bodice of some lovely Victorian woman in recline. Charlie and Debbie happened to be We sat outdoors at dark green wooden taking the same flight out of Bar Harbor tables under a periwinkle sky. Our pop- that we were. They left early to allow overs arrived with strawberry jam and enough time to assess the damage to their butter; they looked like small golden beach rental car. We met them at the airport. balls. As our little plane lifted off and the "We never came here when I was a child," thunder of its engines filled our ears, we Marian said. "We couldn't afford it." She each watched the pink bald head of Mount smiled shyly; it was obviously still a treat. Cadillac disappear from our windows. "But, you know," she said, running a finger Charlie leaned around the back of his seat. around her teacup, "even though they had "Ya know, Joseph Pulitzer used to live SO much, we had a lot more fun than the in Bah-Hah-Bah!" he yelled. "He hated rich kids. Their parents were always flying noise! He also invented putting 'goddam' off to Europe and leaving them with some- between syllables! This plane is absogod- body. I think they were very unhappy." damlutely noisy!" "Do you think that could account for "Yeah!" Joe yelled back. "But the view all the unhappy ghosts in this place?" I is fangoddamtastic!" asked. "Just like Bah-Hah-Bah!" Charlie hol- Marian didn't blink. lered. "We're goin' back next year! So are "Yes, I do," she said. "I really do." Bonnie and Clyde and Dianne and Russ. When we returned to Cleftstone to check You two comin'?" out we found things in a state of mild "Ofgoddamcourse!" Joe screamed. uproar. Charlie and Debbie had had an We shook on it. accident; their car had been run off the road. Neither of them was seriously hurt, Jessica Maxwell, a free-lance writer and but Debbie was terribly shaken. Bonnie novelist, lives on Orcas Island, Washington. ISLANDS 53