Gigi Georges - Downeast: Five Maine Girls and the Unseen Story of Rural America

To Margaux and Chris

My Angels, on Earth and in Heaven

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

The phrase Downeast has nautical roots that trace back to the 1800s. In summer months, ships carrying goods from Boston up the Maine coast typically sailed with a southwest wind at their backspushing them downwind to go eastward to their destinations. As such, sailors came to refer to the northeastern stretches of Maine as being Down East in relation to Boston. Conversely, they routinely spoke of going up to Boston from Down East ports, even though Boston is many miles south of Maine.

Over time, Downeast became a catchall phrase for the geography, culture, and distinct accent of the northern reaches of Maines coast. Guidebooks will tell you that theres no precise southern or midpoint in the state where Downeast Maine begins; indeed, locals often use the term colloquially to describe any point east of where they are. But by the time you get far enough north to the coastal county marked in gray on the mapWashington Countyyoure universally acknowledged to have arrived Downeast.

Running along the Downeast corridor is a ninety-six-mile stretch of largely pristine land known as the Sunrise Trail. Conceived as a recreational draw for nature-loving tourists, its bounty begins just below the Canadian border, in the town of Calais. From there, it tracks the jagged coast southward to the commercial enclave of Ellsworth, just north of Bar Harbor. But the portion that skirts the homes of the five girls profiled in this book is often lonely and unkempt. Here, the trails intrinsic beauty is obscured by rocks and underbrushand without examination, the path can be difficult to follow.

Its 5:00 a.m., and Im driving up the Maine coast toward the Harrington River. Im on the periphery of the state, and the edge of the entire nationbut in the heart of Downeast Washington County. A soft October sun has just begun to arch across the sky. The land is unforgiving: sheathed in granite, dotted by austere homes, and punctuated by low-lying brush. Around me, lobster fishermen are settling in for another day of work. Some have traveled to open waters through moonlight, eager to get a jump on their hauls. Others, in smaller boats, are just setting out. Theyll hover closer to shore, or hug an inlet tucked in the jaws of the jagged coast. Theyll fish like generations have before them. The waxing light will guide them to their buoys, and the sea will bring them what they need.

There are moments in life that start out feeling ordinary, until somewhere along the way, they turn out to be more extraordinary than you could ever have imagined. There are places that echo long after youve left them. And there are people, strangers at first, who end up bringing you the faith and perspective you never quite realized you were missing. So it was for me Downeast.

Its not just the regions sweeping geographythe way it feels so close to nature that you can hear its heartbeat through the trees and see its soul through the fog that dances on its skeletal coast. Its not just the feeling of being utterly alone as you wind across the Blacks Woods Road, complete with its whispered legacy of a haunting ghost named Catherine. Its the reverence with which generations of families have wrapped themselves around this place, thrived in terrain that leaves no room for idleness or self-pity, and woven a code of honor around the community theyve built. Theyre not just from Downeast, but of it. And, despite the multiple challenges they face, theres nowhere else theyd rather be.

An hour into my early morning coastal drive, I turn off U.S. Highway 1. I make my way through the narrowing, unpaved stretch that will lead me to Harringtons Town Landing dock. When I get there, Olivia Marshall, one of the few female lobster boat captains in Downeast Maine, is standing beside her 36-foot boat, the Gold Digger. Olivia is in her early forties, and striking, with long blond hair, silver-blue eyes, and perfect teeth. Shes been fishing since she could walk. She married a lobsterman straight out of high school, and together they raised two boys who fish. Shes captained her own boat for more than fifteen years, most days with her sister Emily by her side.

We head out on the water to the first of Olivias eight hundred traps. Both the bay and the boat are quiet, despite the presence of a dozen other working vessels. Fishermen here dont care for idle talk. Olivia will haul about a third of her traps today before she heads to shore midafternoon. Instinctively, she flicks her left-hand fingers around the Gold Diggers steering wheel. Her eyes are trained on her traps, and the light creeps higher to reveal a perfect sky. She is at home.

This is a place of seafarers and sacrifices. Where people are as tied to the whims of the water around them as human beings can be. Their sea, the Downeast sea, is a blue-hued canvas, spotted with brightly painted buoys to which the captains stake their claims. The buoy colors and patterns are unique to every owner. Admire them from afar, but dont dare to touch them if you value your limbsas these buoys represent the fishermens livelihood, honor, and, for many, their birthright and passage to a cherished way of life.

Here, seasons define that life. Each summer, the lobstermen glide across a steady sea, and their workdays stretch through endless sunlit hours. By the time October rolls around, they give the chilling air a knowing nod, and quicken their pace. As fall succumbs to winters yawn, they brace their boats against the coming freeze. Months later, when they feel the ice-blown craters in the roads beneath their pickup trucks, the lobstermen know that, finally, spring has come. They hum a psalm to it, even as it swallows their muck boots in mud and pierces their ears with angry winds.

They take the hand theyre dealt without fanfare or wonder. It simply is, just as it has always been.

To me, a girl from Brooklyn, the wonder is everywhere. And what I learn here is both unexpected and familiar. In every obvious way, Olivia and Emilys Downeast is as distant as could be from my Brooklyn. Their towns post population sizes that would barely fill a high-rise. Their modest homes sit on sprawling acres of largely untouched land. On a typical weekday afternoon, the corner store, post office, and library are the only open buildings on Main Street. I pass them in the blink of an eye.

But in ways that matter, I feel deeply connected to Olivia and Emily, and to this placea place Ive come to love these past four years. Even though, at a superficial level, we dont appear to have much in common, I realize my foundational story is not so different from theirs.

Although my childhood memories were carved in concrete five hundred miles away, the priorities my parents emphasized mirrored many of those that shape Downeast life. At fourteen, my mom, a wide-eyed, old-world girl from a tiny Peloponnesian village, had boarded a ship from Piraeus, Greece, with her sister and crossed the Atlantic to find a new home. She and her four siblings followed their widowed fathers quest for a better life. A few years later, she fell in love with my dad, a first-generation Greek American who made it through the Depression with generous daily doses of stickball and family love. My parents story was the classic working-class immigrant taleof hard work, sacrifice, veneration of education, heartfelt patriotism, and a relentless pursuit of the American Dream. Its a story so common to immigrant families of their time that, in its retelling, it feels almost ordinary. Even though, in the living of it, it was anything but that.