June 7-8, 2025 Are you looking for an excuse to spend time outdoors? Consider the Harpswell Hiking Challenge as a way to get outside and get to know both HHLT and town-owned trails and preserves. This year’s challenge covers eight trails (four if choosing the modified route), including four of HHLT’s preserves. Don’t forget to… Read more
People sometimes ask where I find ideas for my monthly columns, as if I might soon be running out of story lines after more than 12 years. It occurred to me that they might be gently suggesting it is time for me to cease and desist, fading away like an old soldier. The simple fact… Read more
What more could you ask for? A lot, it turns out! At a recent presentation at the Schiller Center, Bowdoin College’s Coastal Studies Center on Orr’s Island, and in conjunction with the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust, the public was invited to learn about a study being conducted by the Basin Oyster Project. Professors Cait Cleaver… Read more
First, one replied, seeming to tolerate my feeble imitation of its song. Then a second one chimed in, triggering responses from the first and from me. Soon after, a third came alive with sound now coming from three points of the compass and the deck of my cabin. As dusk turned to full darkness, I… Read more
We are so excited to be doing our “This Week in Harpswell” photo project again in 2025! Below are the submissions from our March iteration of the project. Thank you so much to the 13 photographers who submitted 51 photos! For more about the project, and to see when the next week will be, click… Read more
Join the town of Harpswell for their Community Clean-up Week! Harpswell’s annual roadside cleanup in commemoration of Earth Day, and in honor of the clean-up’s founder John Gilliam, will take place over the week of April 14-19. This annual event relies on volunteers to clean up litter along Harpswell’s roadways. This event is sponsored by… Read more
“Stop!” hissed our guide Fernando, putting his hand in the air as he halted mid-stride along the jungle trail. Since we had spotted a Central American coral snake earlier that morning my first thought was that we had encountered another venomous denizen of the thick rain forest. There are many dangerous snakes in that region,… Read more
Excited shouts resonate through the thin line of trees that separate my yard from the one next door. Two boys are racing across the lawn, chasing a small dog who ducks under the bushes and pops up beside my apple tree. He tries to escape, but the boys are onto the dog’s tricks. One circles… Read more
After careful consideration by both staff and the Board of Trustees, Harpswell Heritage Land Trust has made the difficult decision to pause its Nature Day Camp program in 2025. We apologize to campers and their families, and we share in your disappointment. Nature Day Camp has been an important part of our identity at HHLT… Read more
On a crisp, steel-gray night I sat with good friends and cold feet in a small plywood shack on a thick slab of ice. No, it was not a winter camping trip, rather I was smelting. The dictionary defines smelting as “a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to… Read more