New England Deep Cuts: Vinalhaven

Enter the island home of Maine's lobstering fleet

Is anyone else slightly exhausted by the way coastal Maine has turned into this aspirational totem for so many New Englanders? Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes there’s nothing sweeter than pushing a lobster roll into your face as the briny sea breeze caresses your nostrils and the old salt at the nearest picnic table adjusts his suspenders, brooding against a violet dusk. But when people confuse this for Maine living, that’s when the Maine Coast starts losing its luster. Route 1, Maine’s seaside roadway, is a seemingly endless parade of crustacean joints and hotels that are just upscale enough to make you feel like a Bush heir summering at the Kennebunkport compound. Spend enough time along this strip with the sunburnt crowds and you’ll eventually become numb to Maine’s timeless pleasures. You’ll need a system reset.

So this week, we’re going to visit a lesser known realm of Midcoast Maine that offers a fuller, hairier, and more real portrait of “Maine living”—a place so removed from the coastal tourism circuit that all those balsam firs and lobster buoys will feel as new as they did the first time you entered Maine. We’re traveling to the island of Vinalhaven.

Located in Penobscot Bay, Vinalhaven is 168 square miles of mossy forests, barnacle-encrusted rocks, sleepy ponds, and cottages that have seen decades of typhoons and sunsets. Oh, and it’s also the home base for one of Maine’s largest lobstering fleets! Since the end of the granite quarrying era, lobster has been the lifeblood of Vinalhaven’s economy and when you approach the island village of Carver’s Harbor on the ferry from Rockland, the first thing you’ll notice is the sheer number of lobster boats moored in the harbor. The second thing you’ll see as the ferry gets closer is the dock of the island fishery, where lobsterfolk are schlepping hefty traps, after coming in from a long morning on the water. My dad was so captivated by the lobstering that he’s spent these last few years visiting the island regularly and profiling the lobster men and women of Vinalhaven with portrait photographs and interviews. The scale of it all is really breathtaking.

While summer tourism has become more of an economic pillar in recent years, this island community is still a lobstering town. Don’t come here expecting anybody to roll out the red carpet for you (don’t go anywhere expecting that) but do arrive ready to chat with the person ringing up your bag of gummy frogs or scanning your ferry tickets, and you’ll find that Vinalhaven has a generous salt-of-the-earth deposit. Traveling here is an act of cohabiting with the island’s year round residents—eating where they eat on a Friday night, swimming where they swim on a broiling afternoon, etc. My family has been visiting Vinalhaven for over 20 years, and what’s remarkable about the place is how quickly you start to feel less like a consumptive tourist and more like a curious house guest, snooping around the island. When you eventually do indulge with a classic Maine treat like a lobster roll, it somehow tastes much better.