Why do lighthouses still capture our attention, in an age of a GPS in every pocket? We seem to be forever called back to the simplicity and complexity of the ocean. It is evident in our art, travel habits, the quiet longings of our hearts. The sea is mesmerizing, a place of transformation. You can run to the sea with your grief, and return home restored. People are wed at the seaside, baptized there, buried; it is a sacred place where rites of passage belong. We watch it churn, never the same, constant yet altering. The tide comes in and goes out, beholden to only the moon. Become an observer of tides from your private seaside deck in The Craignair Inn’s Causeway Room #2.
We are drawn to the ocean because it is dangerous. We seek out lighthouses as monuments of safety. Do you have a favorite lighthouse in Maine? We’re partial to the Whitehead Island Lighthouse, visible from the Craignair Inn’s deck and only accessible by boat. A beautiful human invention, they have guided our ships and shaped our stories since about 300 years Before the Common Era. Alexandria, Egypt, established by Alexander the Great and ruled by his conquering Greek Ptolemaic line, was the site of great learning in the ancient world and the first lighthouse. It was the home of an epic library, a repository of all human knowledge, as well as a birthplace of scientific research and advancement. This was, for a long time, the center of civilization, a melting pot of cultures, a hub of trade and commerce.
There, on a Mediterranean coast, at the northernmost shore of Africa, an imaginary line where East meets West, the great Pharos lighthouse was built on an island in the harbor. It was one of the tallest structures in that epoch and is the archetype from which all future lighthouses were constructed. At its top a fire perpetually burned, the light enhanced by a burnished bronze mirror. It was destroyed by a series of earthquakes around the year 1,000 C.E. The underwater relics of this incredible architecture will soon be accessible to terrestrial tourists. Today only divers can view the remains of this wonder of the ancient world.
Lucky for us, there are numerous lighthouses still standing, and in use, here in New England and further south along the Eastern seaboard. The oldest lighthouse in Maine, 9th in the nation, is Portland Head Light, in pretty Cape Elizabeth. Built in 1791, it is 101 feet tall, and very much operational. You can spend a glorious afternoon touring the lighthouse and surrounding Fort Williams Park. Amateur geologists, take note, the rock formations on the promontory where Portland Head Light is perched may appear, at first glance to be petrified driftwood; but it is, in fact, alternating layers of quartzite and dark gray phyllite. To understand Maine, to really get to know its particular magic and mystery, one must spend some time among the rocks. If geology is the study of pressure over time, Maine is a beautiful primordial example. Our Midcoast Maine rock formations, an easy walk across the causeway from the inn and our own Causeway Restaurant make for great sunbathing and scampering, finding interesting marine life in tidepools and contemplating the ages.
Cape Elizabeth is almost exactly a two hour ride from The Craignair Inn on Clark Island, St. George Peninsula, an easy distance for a great Maine road trip. Here you will find a quiet place to rest your head, tucked into good sheets with the sea breeze to sing you to sleep. Along the way, which is an extremely scenic ride along U.S. Route 1, you’ll discover photo opportunities, pretty village greens, old churches, antique stores, charming towns, roadside attractions, long bridges, and yes, much more lobster and many lighthouses! Bristol, the halfway point between Portland and Spruce Head, is home to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. Stop for an ice cream cone on the ocean!
One reason why a Maine vacation feels so daring and outside of time is because of the lengths between places. There is no real reason to drive to Bristol. It is out of the way, off the beaten path, on its own peninsula shooting off from Route 1. There are nooks and crannies and ponds and fish ladders and old bits of history. Nature and human society live closely enmeshed. Barns fall down. New houses are built. Young families start farms. Old lightkeepers fade into the horizon. There is a distance here, a loneliness, and time is not so much a line but a circle. Every visitor to Midcoast Maine must venture out from St. George to the nearby Cushing peninsula to acquaint oneself with the Olson House, where Andrew Wyeth painted “Christina’s World”. At the end of your excursion into art history, make your way back to Clark Island for a snack and a drink at our outdoor dining scene, the Clark Bar.
The last lighthouse keeper in the United States retired last December. Sally Snowman lived and worked on Little Brewster Island, home of Boston Light, in Boston’s outer harbor. And while the job of lighthouse keeper is sometimes romanticized in popular myth and imagination, it is a job of constant vigilance, low pay, and real danger. A good candidate for the position must be physically and mentally strong, possess mathematical precision and attention to detail, and be also fearless, willing to put their own lives on the line in order to save others. There are always stories of ghosts and madness, of murder and marriage most foul. A haunted air does often seem to hang about a lighthouse. Countless births and deaths occurred there, and each has its own vibrational record of lives hard lived. Perhaps we visit lighthouses to vicariously visit other outcomes. Maybe they provide sanctuary to our modern minds. They are, at any rate, always a welcome sight in a storm. The closest lighthouse from The Craignair Inn by the Sea is Marshall Point Lighthouse in the village of Port Clyde. Stay in our pet-friendly Marshall Point Room in the Craignair’s breezy and air-conditioned Vestry to really connect to that iconic American location.
For more lighthouse lore check out Visit Maine’s website. Our tourism partner outlines lighthouses by region and succinctly explains what makes each remarkable and worthy of exploring. Visiting lighthouses along our craggy 3,478 miles of coastline is one way to organize a summertime trip in a state that is always captivating and impossible to categorize. On your next Maine adventure, follow your heart to land’s ends, where the Atlantic Ocean is the highest authority. The Craignair Inn is one such place; it sits on a grassy hill overlooking the Atlantic. Many of our rooms boast balconies and dramatic tidal views. Join us for supper and a drink on our deck, mingle with other guests by our firepit or play games on the lawn. Watching the ocean, listening to gulls, you may just feel like you’re in a lighthouse of your own invention. Book your Craignair stay now!