HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Stormy Day On The Bay Still no snow but lots of wind. It looks like the old year won’t go without getting us some stormy weather. The wind direction was Southwest and that meant that a visit to Liberty Point could be interesting. The sun broke through storm clouds when I fought my way out of the car. Standing still was not easy. I tried to stay out of the worst wind casts by hiding behind some spruce trees while snapping off some pictures. While the waves seemed powerful here, it would be peanuts compared to what was going on out in the middle of the bay between the Island of Grand Manan and Campobello and the coast of Maine. Luckily, no ship was out there to brave the wild sea.     Above: Liberty Point with Sugar Loaf Rock      Below: Ragged Point Then I drove over to South Beach along the Duck Ponds. It was nearly High Tide and the water ran high onto the beach. A few tall spruce trees have been toppled, their upended roots now exposed to the foamy water.

FROZEN

The Beauty of FROZEN It’s another week to Christmas and Campobello experiences two cold days in a row. A strong wind, almost a full storm, is blowing in from the North-West. At the same time the day temperature hovers around 5F, which wouldn’t make me freeze so bad if it wasn’t for the wind chill of minus 29F which I feel straight through several layers of winter clothing. Frost smoke also called ice fog is drifting in from the water. The wind beats it into the trees leaving a heavy layer of frosting on every little branch. I am in my van and I am watching the beach. Across from me is the late afternoon sun setting behind Friar’s Head. Reluctant to fully roll down the side window, I snap off a picture through a small gap. It’s wild out there. Wild and cold. When I am done, I drive over to Mulholland Light. But now the sun is already behind the town. Lubec appears in a cold bluish light. We are in the middle of low tide and the water rushes through the channel. The seals are still there, right below me in the cold water, waiting for fish coming by. Fishing vessels appear almost like embedded in cotton wool. Not much traffic across the International bridge. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Martha Stewart Visiting Campobello Island

Our summer is definitely over but that doesn’t deter visitors from coming to the island. And most recently it was Martha Stewart’s turn to visit Campobello. You can read about her visit in her blog posting:
http://www.themarthablog.com/2016/12/a-visit-to-roosevelt-campobello-international-park.html/comment-page-1#comment-237714
Do like Martha Stewart and visit Campobello Island. Book your tour early. We will be busy next summer!

October On Campobello

It’s a beautiful month of October and Campobello is still open for tours and sightseeing. The summer visitors are gone and there are beautiful long trails to explore. Whales are still here and seals are playing just below Mulholland Lighthouse. Come see the Roosevelt Cottage now and book a sightseeing tour through across the island. Fall colors are finally here making this an unforgettable trip.

From Fairbanks,AK To Campobello,NB

They are holding the record for the longest travel to Campobello this summer. The Ellis’s arrived yesterday from Fairbanks,AK to do a tour of Campobello Island. They told us they to do a trip twice a year and have lived in Alaska for 20 years. Even though Mr. Ellis is from Tennessee originally, he loves mountains and snow and it seems that his wife is sharing his preference for a cool climate. The Ellis’s have been to Maine before but had never done the trip to Campobello Island. The tour was blessed with wonderful weather and they enjoyed every minute of their stay on Roosevelt’s “beloved island”. We are wishing them a great time when they continue their trip through Maine.

YEAH…FOGFEST GO! The UMM UKULELE CLUB

As it should be, the 3. day of the Campobello Fogfest started with thick fog. Fortunately, it disappeared during the morning hours, though the sun did not break through the clouds for long periods, keeping the temps at around 70F. We have been looking forward to tonight’s performance of the University of Maine in Machias Ukulele Club at Jocie’s Porch. Expecting a high turn-out we went down to Jocie’s half an hour before start, but were flustered to see that most of the chairs were already occupied. When the Ukulele group (there was a lot of other instruments) were all lined up and started playing, the audience started vibrating. Soon, Jocie’s Porch was swinging and rocking and everybody was like being electrified. Every song they played went right into people’s feet. If there would have been enough floor space, people would have started dancing. 2 hours and everybody wanted MORE, MORE, but after several more pieces the audience got off their seats for a standing applause.            And in the evening the fog was waiting out there Campobello went crazy for these folks from Maine. Thank you, thank you and come again next year, please.

The 4th Annual Campobello Fogfest

People do a double-take when we mention FOGFEST. What is that? Well, we can’t do away with the fog, once it starts rolling in, so we might as well celebrate it. And today was the official opening of FOGFEST 2016.                         And the RVs have been rolling in all day long. The many free concerts are attracting a lot of people over to the island. I went down to Jocie’s porch where a crowd had gathered to listen to the first musicians. Our mayor had some appropriate words for the opening before the musicians moved in.  Again, it was a hot day and after the opening I went home and chilled inside the house.

Fog And Sun

Most coastal areas experience foggy days. When fog moves in, our surroundings change. Instead of seeing islands and lands above a sparkling horizon, we are now looking at strange formations in hundreds of shades of grey. Rocks can show faces, and forests become dark secrets. Waters which were clear a few moments ago seem murky now. Our fantasy is playing tricks with us. But when the sun is sharing the light with the fog it’s getting interesting. Foggy patches are now bathed in a golden light. Sparkling reflections in a hazy light show contours but hide the details. The dance of nature surrounds us and we gaze at it in wonder.

Where Are The Hotels? The Continuing Story of History

Campobello island’s grand adventure was the creation of a fashionable tourist resort in the 1880s. Three big hotels were built and land was sold to people to construct rambling summer residences. Soon Campobello became a playground for the rich. Visiting the island today you will be looking for these hotels in vain. They are for ever gone, swallowed by changing trends and public events. So what happened to the 3 hotels on Campobello Island? Sadly, they all met the same fate. After tourism declined, one burned and the others were dismantled, with the materials, most of them elaborately chosen and formed, recycled into private residences throughout the island.  But why did tourism decline after Campobello had risen to the status of a fashionable tourist resort? There is a host of reasons for that. 1. Structures in society changed with the growing  industrialization. 2. World War I started in 1914 3. The automobile had come into more common use making people more mobile. 4. A fish oil factory in Eastport,ME spewed out bad odours drifting with westerly winds across Campobello The hotels were built in the early 1880s. By 1910, tourism had declined to the point that the hotels were empty shells.  Surrounding grounds grew over quickly and the stately grand buildings fell into disrepair. Paint was flaking off rapidly and harsh winter storms knew no mercy. The drifty businessmen with the grand plans had left the island and let Campobello deal with this problem. Yet, to this day we are looking back to this remarkable period of early tourism with a certain pride and summer residents have again purchased buildings reveling in the former flair of elegance and history. But that is not all. There is something solid left from those days of grandeur. Materials were recycled into private residences….. Our house is from 1903. Around 1915 substantial upgrades were done to the building. Costly materials from the hotels were used.      We discovered quite nice door-and window trim, our staircase rails were not common standard for a simple farmhouse from 1903, and the same is the case for a stained-glass window and the interior doors, several showing small holes after the room numbers, and one even showing the shape of a 5….or is it a 6? But even the Roosevelt Cottage profited from hotel materials. The 1915 addition of the original 1895-building is sporting the same door and window trim as we enjoy in our simple farmhouse. Of course, we love the history of our house and this island, which has been taken care of through hard-fact materials but also through the spider- web of stories. You hardly find a square-foot of this island where history isn’t present. While Franklin D. Roosevelt met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at high seas off the coast of Newfoundland, to discuss how to deal with Nazi-Germany and Adolf Hitler, his wife Eleanor was staying on Campobello with the children. She didn’t even know what was going on. Franklin’s mission was top secret. In 1960 a Hollywood movie about the Roosevelts and Campobello appeared. “Sunrise at Campobello” was partly produced on the island. Starring actors were Ralph Bellamy (Franklin D Roosevelt) and Greer Garson, (Eleanor Roosevelt) Hume Cronyn (Louis Howe) Jean hagen (Marguerite “Missy” Lehand) It was a big event for the islanders. Actors and technicians needed accommodations and food. Famous people were on site. Another part of history. But history didn’t stop there either. On September 11 2001 Campobello was in danger to become the most isolated part of Canada: Park staffer Ron Beckwith was in his office here at the Roosevelt Campobello International Park when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center. A bus tour full of tourists from the New York City area had just pulled into the visitor’s center. By the time the second plane hit, everyone was in shock and the New Yorkers were desperate for information about their city, friends and loved ones. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt at a picnic on Campobello Island on July 30, 1936. Their guests were Allison Dysart, left, premier of New Brunswick, and J.B. McNair, right, attorney general of New Brunswick. Below: The same spot today “We have poor cell reception now, and it was even worse then, so we were starved for information,” recalls Beckwith,  “We set a portable television up in the visitor’s center and did our best to get everyone a chance to use our (landline) telephones.” “We’d hear rumors about how the border was going to close, so we all scrambled around to get all the tourists back over the border before that could potentially happen,” he says. Rangers fanned out over the park’s 2,800 acres of forest, beach and rocky headlands, looking for visitors, telling them what had happened to the Twin Towers and Pentagon and advising them they might consider getting back to their cars and heading back to Maine. The visitors back on their own side of the border, the park turned eerily quiet. After all, if the borders are sealed it’s extremely difficult to get to the island from the rest of Canada — and impossible to drive here outside of high summer, because the tiny passenger ferry to the rest of New Brunswick stops running and the only bridge leads to Maine. “At the time we didn’t think too much about what the long-term impact would be,” Beckwith adds. “And it turned out to be a very big impact.” Because of its peculiar geographical location — on an island isolated behind border posts from both the U.S. and Canada — the Roosevelt Campobello Park was hit particularly hard. Like the president whom it honors, the park was partially paralyzed, and has had to shift and refocus its energies in the wake of an unexpected catastrophe.