This Week's Haul, July 23: A river full of Bangor tigers
And: aliens in Houlton?
Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week I am pretty damned overwhelmed with gratitude by the number of you that upgraded to a paid subscription. You can read more about why I’m asking for your support in my other post this week. And don’t forget: through July 31, you can get 20 percent off a full year’s paid subscription by clicking here! I promise: the shameless self promotion will not be a recurring feature around these parts.
And just like that, the parachute journalists who arrived in Maine last week to cover our last-minute Democratic Party convention to pick a new U.S. Senate candidate have packed their bags full of their unused hot takes and headed back to New York. Good luck, Troy. You’re one of us, and I believe in you.
This article about Mainers seeking Canadian citizenship after Canada changed its immigration laws to include Americans of more recent Canadian descent is fascinating. I personally know at least four people who are in the process of applying for Canadian citizenship because their grandparents or great-grandparents were Canadian. For some folks it’s a chance to connect with Canadian roots. For others, it’s an opportunity to obtain safe haven for themselves or their families due to the volatile political situation in the U.S. - especially for trans and nonbinary folks.
Apparently Cooper Flagg is opening a cards and collectibles shop with his cousin in Bangor? You can watch a video on the shop’s Facebook page and hear him talk about it while he’s sitting in a metal bathtub next to Kevin Hart.
I’m late to the party: I tried a scone from The Rolling Pin Bakery in Winterport the other day and it was really good! What a cute little spot they have there. The donuts looked great. I’d like to try their regular breakfast menu. We love an adorable hometown cafe!
50 years ago this year, Maine said goodbye to one of its oldest and most storied traditions: the log drive. For more than 300 years, log drives sent tens of thousands of recently-harvested logs down both the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers, making their way to the saw mills closer to the coast. A majority of those logs were floated to world’s greatest lumber port, Bangor, where logs were cut up and then shipped around the world - the westward expansion of the U.S. into the Midwest and beyond was built, in part, by Bangor lumber. River drivers (known on the Penobscot as '“Bangor Tigers”) were outfitted in spiked boots and equipped with peaveys, and guided the logs down the river so nothing got caught up. It’s one of the most iconic practices of historic Maine, the legacy of which can still be seen in both imagery and in the little man-made islands that dot both rivers. By the mid-20th century, technology made this practice mostly obsolete. Per a new state law, all log drive activity had to cease by Oct. 1, 1976. The last log drive on the Penobscot had already been held in 1971, but the very last one in the state was held on the Kennebec River, 50 years ago this year.
Music & Dance
July 23: Belfast Summer Nights presents Faux Paws and Aidan Boardman and Friends, 5:30 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast
July 23: Patty Griffin, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor
July 23: Toto, Christopher Cross and The Romantics, 6 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor
July 24: Dashing Rock Celtic Trio, 6 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry
July 24: Hymn for Her, 6 p.m., Harbor Park, Ellsworth
July 24: Ernie Smith and the Wee Dram Band Scottish bagpipes concert, 7 p.m., Fort Knox State Historic Site, Prospect
July 24: Not Strictly Classical feat. pianist Danny Holt, 7 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington
July 24: The Princess Concert, night of Disney and pop songs, 5 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor
July 24: Billy Currington and Kip Moore, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor
July 25: Songwriters Cormac McCarthy and Bruce Pratt, 7 p.m., Winterport Union Meeting House, Winterport
July 25: Rap Battle Night with local MCs, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town
July 25: Smoked Salmon, 6 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth
July 25: Motley Crue and Tesla, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor
July 26: Opera House Arts presents Downeast New Music premiere of “Thanksong,” new chamber music piece, 7 p.m., Burnt Cove Church Community Center, Stonington
July 26: Songwriter Dan Nicholas, 4 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth
July 26: Thunderchief, Coelacanth and Hands of Stone, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town
July 28: Rhiannon Giddens, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor
July 29: Bagaduce Music presents Palaver Strings, 5 p.m., David’s Folly Farm, Brooksville
July 29: Men at Work, Toad the Wet Sprocket and Shonen Knife, 6 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor
July 29: The Maine Steiners, vocal ensemble, 6 p.m., front lawn, Bangor Public Library, Bangor
Theatre & Comedy
July 23-26: Ten Bucks Theatre Company Shakespeare Under the Stars presents “Julius Caesar,” nightly at 6 p.m., Indian Trail Park, Brewer
July 24-26: Counter/Current Collective presents “Uncle Vanya,” 7:30 p.m., Serebriakov Farm, Appleton
July 24-25: Acadia Dance Festival performances feat. Nimbus Dance, two days, Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor
July 28: “Blanc sur Blanc,” clowning performance by Iman Lizarazu, 6 p.m., Stonington Opera House, Stonington
Art, Books, Film & Culture
July 23: Talk by anthropologist Bonnie Newsom on significant anthropological discoveries in Maine, 6 p.m., Old Town Museum, Old Town
July 23: Author talk by Isaac Butler on his book “The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars,” 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill
July 23: Historic Ellsworth images presentation with historian Holly Hendricks, 7 p.m., Ellsworth Public Library, Ellsworth
July 25: Severin Films pop-up film sale and screening event, all day, The Emporium Spooky Goods, Bangor
July 25: Bangor Historical Society’s “Founders and Freedom: A Revolutionary Walk through Mount Hope Cemetery,” 6 p.m., 1048 State St., Mount Hope Cemetery, Bangor
July 25: “Joseph Plumb Martin: The War of the American Revolution for a Common Soldier,” talk by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor, 6 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill
July 26: “The Influence of Helen and Scott Nearing: A 50-Year Journey,” talk by Sherrie Lovler and Norm Lee, 4 p.m., The Good Life Center, Brooksville
July 27: Author talk by Steve Kemp on his book “An Exaltation of Parks: John D. Rockefeller Jr,” 7 p.m., Criterion Theater, Bar Harbor
July 28: Book event with Julia Cooke on her new book “Starry and Restless: Three Women Who Changed Work, Writing, and the World,” 7 p.m., Left Bank Books, Belfast
July 28: Screening of “The Blueberry Blues,” fundraiser for Wild Blueberry Collective, 6:30 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast
July 29: Book talk on “Captain Drew’s World: Dispatches from the Age of Global Sail” by author Bill Bunting, 6 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill
July 29: Sci-Fi Book Club reads “What We Are Seeking” by Cameron Reed, 7:30 p.m., Bookspace, Bangor
July 29: Red Rabbit Film Club screens “Lady Snowblood,” 7 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor
Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.
July 25: Heavy Metal Day, demonstrations of machinery and blacksmithing, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Maine Forest and Logging Museum, Bradley
July 26: 37th annual Open Farm Day, visit farms statewide; click here for a list of participating farms
July 26: Armenian Picnic, annual celebration of Armenian food, dance, arts and more; 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Searsport Shores Ocean Campground, Searsport
July 29: Monthly full moon paddle, 7:30 p.m., Hirundo Wildlife Refuge, Old Town
Sometimes I really enjoy going on a deep dive on YouTube, looking for forgotten nuggets from weird little corners of the internet - from anywhere, really, but especially, of course, from Maine. While Maine Public is certainly not a forgotten corner, their YouTube is chock full of surprising tidbits from their broadcast archive: documentaries from the 1970s and 80s, interviews with famous Mainers, musical performances, old TV shows and short video features. Sometimes it’s exactly what you’d expect (Margaret Chase Smith, Bud Leavitt, old-timey Maine recipes, etc) and sometimes it’s a feature on an outsider artist from Houlton, who decorated his home with aliens and dinosaurs. This 1997 feature on Jerry Cardone, who died in 2016, starts at about the two-minute mark in the below embedded video, from an old news magazine show on Maine Public called “True North.” Cardone shows off his yodeling skills, and he tells the story of his art, his fraught relationship with his neighbors and the town of Houlton and, most importantly, his experience being abducted by aliens. I find this utterly delightful. Enjoy!