Small Towns in Maine Series: Owl’s Head
By Jonas Werner for Balsam Realty
If you find yourself in midcoast Maine and you don’t like the people around you, you are probably not in Owl’s Head. There are not a lot of T-shirt shops or knick-knack stands, and no national, name brand stores or chain restaurants to draw in earth’s masses. Owl’s Head is a quiet place, for quiet people that simply want to enjoy coastal Maine at it’s best.
The small town of 1,600 sits just south of Rockland on the Atlantic Ocean; it guards the mouth of Penobscot Bay and lights the way to Rockland Harbor for sailors and fisherman with its entrenched lighthouse built in 1826. The Owl’s Head Light Station Park is small and not well suited for a busload from New Jersey. The park’s flora feels wild and prehistoric with giant ferns, a plethora of pink Turtle Head flowers and a forest floor that looks like a mycologist’s acid trip.
There are two paths from the parking lot into the park: the large path on the right, takes you to the lighthouse. From there, you can see Rockland Harbor, island artists’ retreat- Vinalhaven, John Travolta’s summer stomping ground- the island of Isleboro, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s beloved Mount Battie in Camden Hills State Park and on a clear day, you can even see Cadillac Mountain in Bar Harbor’s Acadia National Park where the sunrise happens first in the continental United States. This is a great view but the insider tip (after you pay homage to the lighthouse) is to take the road less traveled, path on the left, and follow it down to the beach where you can find a bench on an overlook and even a picnic table with a grill. This is a perfect place for a quiet picnic or a moment of solitude on the rocky coast. If you poke around the beach at low tide, you might find sea glass, baby starfish or enough tiny crabs to make a crunchy appetizer in an 18-course meal.
In the busting down town, we think we spotted a whopping total of three commercial spaces: the post office, the library (which is the size of a gnome house and was not open when we visited but they did leave a basket of free apples for passersby to begin the celebration of fall), and the Owl’s Head General Store. This fine little general store with outdoor patio seating has homemade foods and a Seven Napkin Burger made from actual ground beef. This item seems to be designed to increase their paper towel sales and one-hour dry cleaning service (They don’t really have a dry cleaning service but I do recommend you request a ”3 Napkin Burger” if you’re like us and not so saucy.).
If you head south on South Shore Drive, along with the private estates, summer homes and year-round homesteads, you will find Crescent Beach and Birch Point State Park. The park is open to cars Memorial Day to Labor Day but you can park at or near the gate and walk to the beach where you will find another excellent spot to take in Maine’s Atlantic Coast.
What would an owl do without a place to land? Private plane travelers rejoice because Owl’s Head also boasts Knox County Regional Airport so you can park your G-6. The airport abuts the inspirational Owl’s Head Transportation Museum which is not nearly as boring as it sounds. Their exhibit, Pioneering Women of Transportation, was eye opening and true to form that “well behaved women rarely make history” and the museum’s colorful and ornate Dunton “Gypsy” Vardo (wagon) is so fantastical that it could make milquetoast wax poetic.
