The Magical Mystery of Monhegan Island

This blog will mostly be pictures because I think my words would be inadequate to describe Monhegan Island. We ate no lobster and there were no bicycles, largely because there were no paved roads anywhere. What was there? Plenty of artists standing around painting gorgeous pictures of the scenery. When our boat unloaded it’s 120 passengers, the population of this idyllic place tripled. 

We started our adventure with lunch at the Monhegan Inn...

Monhegan Island is only 12 miles away from the mainland, but feels like it’s 100 years back in time. 90% of the Island is untouched, except for the ribbons of trails, all on private property, which are maintained by a local association. We spent most of our time there meandering down those trails, led my Ranger Jon, who kept us, literally, on the straight and very narrow. In total, we meandered for nearly four miles on a delightful 70 degree day. Each trail ended up rewarding us with these types of views...

But, you didn’t need to go hiking to see beautiful things. The village itself was a beguiling mix of charm and fascination. Charm, for obvious reasons. Fascination for what it must be like to live in so wild, untamed and secluded a place...

Then, something truly magical happened. We were walking on a trail called  Cathedral Forest, when we began to notice these little home made miniature...houses(?) built every fifty feet or so along the path. First Kaitlin suggested that it was probably an assignment that the teacher of the one room school house had assigned her 8 students as some sort of object lesson. But as we made our way along the path, these structures became ever more elaborate and imaginative, to the point where it actually started to freak me out. Maybe there was some weirdo psychopath afoot and soon we would discover a severed doll’s head or something. But then we came upon a married couple and a couple of kids who were building there own little houses. It was then that we discovered this quaint island tradition where people... on this trail only...are encouraged to build houses for the fairies. The only rule is that nothing foreign can be brought into the woods. They must be constructed with natural materials found in the woods...

There must have been a hundred of these little creations, and their existence just added to the magical feel of the place. Although we were exhausted by the time our boat ride back to the mainland pulled away from the dock, we all felt like we had visited a truly enchanting place from a bygone era. 

Worth every penny.