Day One
Arrival. Bass Harbor Head. The First Golden Hour.
We meet on the quiet side of Mount Desert Island in the middle of the afternoon and go straight to Bass Harbor Head. The light goes at two minutes past six, and we are on the rocks below the lighthouse well before it does — sun over your left shoulder, the tower going warm above you. Dinner is waiting at the house.
Day Two
Cadillac at Dawn. Cadillac at Dusk.
The gate on the summit road opens at half past five. Sunrise is 6:39, and the sky starts working half an hour before that — this is the first week of the year when Cadillac is the first place in the United States to see the sun. Your dog beside you on the pink granite, fog in the valleys below. Then the middle of the day is yours. In the afternoon we drive around Frenchman Bay to Schoodic, and from Frazer Point we watch the sun go down almost exactly onto the summit you were standing on that morning, seven and a half miles across the water.
The Centerpiece
Day Three
Great Head. Jordan Pond. The Chef Comes to Us.
Dawn on the headland above Sand Beach, a hundred and forty-five feet over the open Atlantic. Thunder Hole on the rising tide, when it is loudest. Popovers on the lawn at Jordan Pond, dogs included. In the afternoon we climb Beech Mountain on the quiet side of the island and take the second golden hour looking west over Long Pond. We are home by eight, which is the point: tonight the kitchen comes to the house.
Day Four
Otter Cliff. The Road East. Lubec.
Your last sunrise in Acadia, from the boulder field below Otter Cliff at dead low water. Then three hours northeast through fishing villages to Lubec, the easternmost town in the United States. West Quoddy Head at golden hour — and then the thing most people leave before: the Earth’s own shadow rising pink and gray over the Grand Manan Channel behind the lighthouse, twenty minutes after the sun has gone.
Day Five
Boot Head. The Working Wharf. The Flats.
Sunrise from the cliffs at Boot Head, the sun coming up over Grand Manan Island thirteen miles out. The coastal loop afterwards — the raised peat bog, the cobble beach, the second beach at Brook Cove. Lunch on the wharf in Lubec with the boats coming in. Then Cobscook Bay, at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, where the tide moves eighteen feet twice a day and goes out far enough to walk on the floor of it. Camp, fire, and a new moon — so the sky is as dark as it gets here.
Day Six
Low Water. Final Frames. Departure.
The tide is running out as the sun comes up. One last hour on the flats, and then the road home. Bangor is three hours from Lubec.
