Aerial.America.S02E01.Maine
Aerial.America.S02E01.Maine
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00:00Maine, the easternmost state, where dawn first breaks on the United States, over land rising from the sea.
00:13It's here where America really began.
00:18Long before the Pilgrims, European explorers charted these waters.
00:23A land shared by sailors, poets, painters, and presidents.
00:30Home to a grand master of the macabre and fields of fire.
00:37Where down east means heading north.
00:41And the north woods cover three and a half million acres.
00:46Aerial Maine is a journey across distant isles, down rugged shores, and into the great wilderness seafarers once called the Mainland.
00:56Maine.
01:16Music.
01:32One of Maine's southernmost towns is also one of its oldest.
01:37York lies on the York River and includes the villages of York Harbor and York Beach.
01:44In fact, there are so many villages called York here, locals refer to them simply as the Yorks.
01:52In the early 1600s, the area was known as Agameticus, the Native American Wabanaki word for the York River.
02:02York was founded by a wealthy Englishman with the unlikely name of Sir Ferdinando Gorgeous.
02:09He'd been awarded a land grant and permission to start a new colony in Maine.
02:15For 40 years, Gorgeous financed and masterminded expedition after expedition from England.
02:21Spending his fortune to realize his dream of colonizing Maine.
02:28Gorgeous never actually set foot here and died a destitute man.
02:33Many consider him to be the father of the state.
02:41York claims to be the oldest settlement in Maine.
02:45And despite many early attacks on the village by Native Americans, the village survived.
02:51Amazingly today, many buildings from colonial days still stand.
02:57One of the most cherished is Sayward Wheeler House, a proud clabbered building from 1718.
03:04Jonathan Sayward was a wealthy shipping merchant and many of his descendants lived and died here.
03:10Right up to the 20th century.
03:28But Maine really begins here, offshore.
03:35The Isles of Shoals lie on its southernmost border.
03:39Maine is the only state to have just one state as a neighbor.
03:43And here, a simple causeway is all that divides Star Island, New Hampshire from Smudgy Nose Island, Maine.
03:53Dumbledore Island, on the Maine side, used to be a haunt of artists and free spirits,
03:58thanks to a welcoming poet and hotel keeper named Celia Thaxter.
04:05Her hotel burned down in the early 1900s and the island's heyday seemed to be over.
04:12But this tower is evidence of the island's revival as a scientific research station.
04:24Despite the many islands and rocky dangers of the Maine coast,
04:29it was more than 250 years after the colonists arrived that the first lighthouse was built.
04:36Clabbered houses were built easily from the abundant trees,
04:40but the Capenetic Light was constructed of brick and clad in cast iron to weather the worst winters of the North Atlantic.
04:48Although modernized now, its original 3,000-pound fog bell and red light have guided seafarers since 1879.
05:00Locals know it as the Nubble Light, named for the lump of rock it's perched on.
05:09Many might be surprised to learn that the Capenetic Light,
05:12the Great Wall of China, and India's Taj Mahal have something in common.
05:17The Voyager spacecraft carried images of all three into space,
05:22as examples of some of the Earth's most impressive man-made structures.
05:32On a brilliant fall day, Mainers and vacationers alike are drawn to its coast, and with good reason.
05:39A short walk along the cliffs leads to an unusual sighting in this rocky state.
05:44Miles and miles of sandy beach.
05:52The beach is actually a long sandbar split off from the mainland by the Ogunkwit River.
05:59The Halloween Storm of 1991, better known as the Priffet Storm, damaged much of the beach,
06:06but efforts are underway to protect its dunes and wildlife.
06:16But it's still Maine's rugged, natural beauty that draws most visitors today.
06:24And it's taken the work of extraordinary people to protect it.
06:2911,000 years ago, Native Americans thrived in this region,
06:34using the coastal rivers for fresh water, transport, and an abundant source of food.
06:43While their original settlements have long gone, their ancient land remains.
06:50Today, part of it is called the Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge,
06:55after one of the 20th century's greatest environmentalists and writers.
06:59Carson's groundbreaking book, Silent Spring,
07:02brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented portion of the American public
07:07and led to change in the country's use of pesticides.
07:26Today, the marshes and estuaries of the reserve are not only a refuge for wildlife, but humans too.
07:40Further north along the coast, the gold chain of beaches end,
07:44and normal ruggedness begins,
07:47just before we reach the Maine town that's best known around the world, Kennebunkport.
07:56Here, strewn across the city center, are the 18th and 19th century homes of the country's early elite,
08:02who made their fortunes from the wealth of the oceans.
08:09One of the most unique homes in town is known as the Wedding Cake House.
08:14In 1825, a prominent shipbuilder named George Washington Bourne
08:20bought a federal-style brick house for his new bride.
08:24But inspired by the design of a Gothic cathedral in Milan,
08:28he later restyled the house himself using only hand tools,
08:32completing the work just before his death in 1856.
08:40Today, it's one of the most photographed buildings in Maine.
08:51Kennebunk Beach is still a modest community,
08:55but it was here on Cape Arundel in 1903 that the wealthy Walker family chose to build their beachfront mansion.
09:03That's the W in the names of the two Bush presidents.
09:08Their seaside estate is known as Walker's Point.
09:14World leaders have passed the guard post here, welcomed by two Bush presidents.
09:28Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Vladimir Putin have all signed the guestbook.
09:35While the Maine coastline is a good place for politicians to unwind, it's even better for artists.
09:44At Prouts Neck, among the modern vacation homes of the wealthy,
09:49is the former studio of one of America's greatest landscape painters, Winslow Homer.
09:56Here, just a few feet from the ocean, he painted his monumental seascapes,
10:01images of the timeless struggle of men and women against the power of the sea.
10:10The greatest artist of the 20th century,
10:13Winslow Homer, was born here in Maine,
10:16and he was born to a family of artists,
10:19and he was born to a family of artists,
10:25The turbulent seas he famously depicted are deceptively calm on this day,
10:30but the boatmen he captured wrestling with the elements were Mainers.
10:38Ten miles out, an island rises like a whale's hump out of the sea.
10:44It's thought the state took its name from the settlers on the more than 400 offshore islands along the coast
10:50who looked back to the mainland.
10:56Here, on Monhegan Island, those views inspired painters Jamie Wyeth and Edward Hopper,
11:02who were attracted by its rugged beauty and remote location.
11:07Barely one square mile in area, Monhegan is accessible only by boat,
11:13and there are no paved roads.
11:17The year-round population is tiny, just 65.
11:22Today, the island's economy is still ruled, as it has been for centuries,
11:28by those who make their living from the sea,
11:31the courageous fishermen and lobstermen who work these waters through the harsh Maine winter.
11:42While the scenery is spectacular,
11:46the waters around Monhegan are treacherous.
11:52Countless ships have gone down here, some of them still visible.
12:02Approaching Portland, a great beacon calls out to homebound sailors,
12:08just as it has for centuries.
12:14Even today, the rocky shores of Portland are not easily navigated,
12:19but after a number of tragic shipwrecks, Maine's first lighthouse, the Portland Headlight,
12:25was built at the order of George Washington.
12:28Today, the old tower still stands,
12:31but much has changed since 16 whale oil lamps lit the lighthouse in 1791.
12:37Now an airport-style electric beacon rises 100 feet above the water.
12:44The light is visible from 16 miles away,
12:47welcoming mariners to safe harbor in Maine's biggest town.
12:52Situated in Casco Bay,
12:54Portland was once considered strategically important by the U.S. military
12:58because of its proximity to Europe compared to other eastern ports.
13:03The granite-walled Fort Scamble on House Island
13:06and Fort Gorgeous on Hog Island Ledge
13:09were originally built to protect the port from enemy ships.
13:14The granite-walled Fort Scamble on House Island
13:17and Fort Gorgeous on Hog Island Ledge
13:20were originally built in the bay in the 1800s to protect against enemy attack.
13:27Mounds of sand were used to insulate the forts and their supplies of ammunition,
13:32but Fort Scamble was the only one to fire a shot in battle against a British privateer in 1813.
13:44In a state with only 1.3 million people,
13:48Portland's 64,000 citizens make it a metropolis.
13:58In the 19th century, when trade in Portland was booming,
14:02some of the state's oldest banks opened their doors here.
14:07And if you know who penned the lines,
14:10And if you know who penned the lines,
14:18take note that the childhood home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
14:22is tucked in between modern office buildings.
14:26Many of Portland's other former residents ended up with some of the prettiest plots in town.
14:3265,000 people are buried in Evergreen Cemetery,
14:36one of the largest publicly owned spaces in the city.
14:40And while many famous mainers have been buried here,
14:43the story of one, the 19th century mayor, Neal Dow, is infamous.
14:52Known as the Father of the Prohibition,
14:54he managed to ban alcohol from the state
14:57and in 1880 made a run at the White House on a prohibition ticket.
15:02He received just 10,000 votes.
15:07But prohibition was unpopular with much of Portland's working class.
15:13After all, Portland was a rum producer,
15:16and the city's workers were even allowed rum breaks during the day.
15:24There were riots in Portland when the mayor got his way,
15:27but chances are a few of the people who are buried here beside him succumb to his demon rum.
15:37At its heart, the city that thrived on fishing and shipping in the 1800s is still a harbor town.
15:46Set on a peninsula reaching into Casco Bay,
15:49Portland remains as Longfellow described it, the city by the sea.
15:54Today, the harbor that drew English settlers in 1632 still bustles with vessels big and small.
16:07But Maine is far more than just a seacoast.
16:15The state's landmass takes up half of New England, most of it remote and unspoiled.
16:22Among the pines of Maine's endless forests, one is struck by its majesty.
16:37The Story of Henry David Thoreau
16:44One explorer of the region was the great 19th century thinker Henry David Thoreau.
16:51Of his visit here, he wrote,
16:53I looked with awe at the ground I trod on.
16:56This was the earth of which we have heard, made out of chaos and old night.
17:03Words that led to his landmark book, The Maine Woods.
17:13Here at Moosehead Lake, Maine's largest,
17:16Thoreau writes of hiring a Penobscot Indian guy to help him cross the lake in a birchbark canoe,
17:22or what Thoreau described as, a little eggshell of a boat.
17:28The lake stretches as far as the eye can see, until it disappears into a great dark green forest.
17:40These are the three and a half million acres of Maine's famous north woods.
17:45Under a canopy of maples, firs and white pine,
17:49black bears and moose cross the ancient lands of the Wabanaki.
17:58The Maine Woods
18:03Today, 95% of Maine's forests are privately owned.
18:08In the 1990s, a group of high-profile conservationists lobbied to preserve 3 million acres of the north woods as a national park.
18:17But the effort has stalled.
18:20With more than 90% of the state covered with trees and 39 commercial tree species,
18:26Maine's forest products industry contributes over $4 billion to the state's economy.
18:32Many of the state's hills and mountains are too low to break clear of the tree line, but not this one.
18:46At over 5,000 feet, Mount Katahdin's peaks are the highest in Maine.
18:52Its name comes from the Penobscot Indians and means the greatest mountain.
18:59Thanks to being the centerpiece of Baxter State Park, we can see the mountain much as it was when Thoreau scaled it in 1846.
19:23Mount Katahdin is also the northern end of the Appalachian Trail,
19:27a national scenic path that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains all the way to Georgia.
19:38Alongside Maine's carpet of forests, another dramatic landscape appears, the blueberry fields.
19:46Maine is the largest producer of wild blueberries in the world.
19:52Its fields cover 60,000 acres of land.
19:57By autumn, the blueberries have already been plucked from the bushes,
20:02and the leaves turn a vivid shade of red, the color of flame.
20:08In the distance, great clouds of smoke reveal a real fire.
20:14In a technique first used by Native Americans, the bushes are cut back every two years and then burned in order to stimulate new growth.
20:27The fire and smoke increase berry yields and kill insects and diseases in a traditional, organic way.
20:35Inland Maine is a land tied to the great rivers that make their way to the sea, and the Kennebec is no exception.
20:47Follow the Kennebec River south from its source at Moosehead Lake, and you'll find a bustling waterway,
20:53bordered with towns and cities stretching all the way to Merrimeeting Bay,
20:58One town on the Kennebec holds statewide importance.
21:02Once home to the Abenaki people, it now boasts what some call the finest building in the state, the Capitol at Augusta.
21:15Designed by architect Charles Bullfinch and built from granite quarried nearby,
21:21Augusta has been the state capitol since 1827.
21:27By the mid-19th century, Augusta was a thriving port town, with river traffic running to and from Boston.
21:34But today, most travel to this capital city is by interstate,
21:40and the Kennebec River has been left to wind and tide.
21:45But where this river meets the sea, human industry returns in a big way.
22:00Bath Iron Works has supplied the U.S. Navy with some of the toughest ships in its long history.
22:07During World War II, one out of four American destroyers was Bath-built.
22:13At the height of the war effort, women went to work at the shipyard,
22:17and the Iron Works produced a new destroyer every three weeks.
22:22These days, it's a slower process.
22:26Here, the shipyard is the largest shipyard in the world,
22:31These days, it's a slower process.
22:35Here, the destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer is preparing for launch,
22:40while a sister ship is taking shape.
22:44Ships from here have seen action off the coasts of France, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
22:51From the peaceful waters of Maine to any theater of war,
22:55crews came to respect and rely on Bath-built ships.
23:00While Bath's ships have gone to war, a few miles west, a famous writer was said to have started one.
23:09Here in Brunswick, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin,
23:14the landmark book that attacked the cruelty of slavery.
23:19For three years, Stowe lived here in this Brunswick house.
23:24But it was earlier, in Cincinnati, that she met escaped slaves from the bordering state of Kentucky
23:29and learned of their appalling treatment.
23:33Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852
23:37and went on to become the best-selling novel of the 19th century
23:40and the second best-selling book following the Bible.
23:44It's claimed that when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe during the Civil War, he said,
23:49So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.
23:55Stowe's husband taught at nearby Bowdoin College
23:59and its campus lore that she often wrote in his study in Appleton Hall.
24:05The small but prestigious college dates from 1794
24:09and its literary tradition had started as early as the 1820s
24:13when writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were classmates here.
24:20Longfellow, a true son of Maine, went on to become America's most loved 19th century poet.
24:27The lines,
24:29Ships that pass in the night,
24:31and
24:32Footprints on the sands of time,
24:34were originally Longfellow's,
24:36but are now so well-known they are simply part of the American lexicon.
24:50Maine's wealth is not just its writers and poets, but also its wilderness.
24:58In the 17th century, it was England's demand for lumber that drove the settlement of Maine.
25:04Through the 18th century, lumber barons grew rich on the state's fabled forests of oak, pine, and spruce.
25:13And the city of Bangor, located on the Penobscot River, played a major role in the timber trade.
25:27At the entrance of Bangor stands evidence of just how serious this town is about its lumber,
25:33a 31-foot tall statue of the mythical lumberjack Paul Bunyan.
25:39Until the 1870s, Bangor was the lumber capital of the world,
25:44with a billion feet of timber shipped from its docks down the Penobscot River.
25:52By the 20th century, the lumber trade had moved west, and Bangor's glory days were over.
26:00Today, Bangor's economy is based on wholesale and retail trade.
26:05It's once again a thriving city, and the commercial and cultural center of eastern Maine.
26:13The city is also home to one of the most prolific authors in the world, credited with almost as many movies as books.
26:22Once upon a time, not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.
26:33So begins the thriller, Cooja, penned by the grand master of the macabre, Stephen King.
26:41Maine born and raised, King now makes his home in the city of Bangor,
26:47Maine born and raised, King now makes his home in the city of Bangor,
26:53His best-selling horror stories, from Carrie to The Mist, often feature real Maine towns,
26:59and fictional ones like Castle Rock as a backdrop.
27:04In keeping with King's dark sense of humor, his home is protected by a gate adorned with bats and spiders.
27:17Just south of Bangor, it's the dizzying heights of Penobscot Narrows Bridge that can frighten visitors.
27:25It's the tallest public bridge observatory in the world, and requires a ride in the fastest elevator in Maine to get there.
27:33From 420 feet in the air, the views of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and the surrounding countryside are breathtaking.
27:41So too is the cemetery of one of the nation's best-preserved forts, named after Henry Knox, America's first Secretary of War, and finished in 1844.
27:51It was the first fort in Maine to be built of granite.
27:59While the city of Penobscot, Maine, has a long history of war,
28:04it's the first fort in Maine to be built of granite.
28:11While this Fort Knox doesn't hold America's gold, it looks like it would be safe here.
28:22Maine's great forests part to reveal blueberry farms, lakes, and rivers that make this break in the trees seem very out of place.
28:31The Desert of Maine.
28:34Its very strange story begins more than 10,000 years ago, when the glaciers of the last ice age ground soil and rocks into a layer of desert-like sand some 80 feet deep.
28:48Over time, topsoil made a cap over the desert, hiding it until colonial farmers and sheep herders eroded the soil.
28:57And then the Desert of Maine reappeared.
29:02At the south end of Casco Bay, the Maine coastline changes.
29:12Here, the sandy shoreline of the south breaks into a series of islands carved by melting glaciers thousands of years ago.
29:21The Callender Islands.
29:24The islands we see today were once mountains until they were drowned by a sea of melting ice.
29:32While all the islands have felt nature's wrath, one tragic story of man's inhumanity began here on Harbor Island.
29:43In 1794, Benjamin Darling, a former slave from the West Indies, bought this island with the money he was given for saving his master's life in a shipwreck.
29:54He called it Horse Island.
29:57Over generations, his descendants settled on the nearby island of Malaga, where they intermarried with whites and eked out a living from the sea.
30:08After the Civil War, suspicion of the mixed-race community grew.
30:13Newspaper articles called it a blight on an otherwise picturesque isle.
30:18In 1912, in a sad chapter of the state's history, the government decided Malaga was an embarrassment.
30:26The state committed eight people to the Maine school for the feeble-minded and evicted the rest.
30:32They even destroyed the island's cemetery.
30:36Some families moved their homes to the mainland.
30:39Others moved to nearby islands.
30:41A few may even have ended up back here on Harbor Island.
30:45With treacherous tides, hidden reefs, and shoals stretching 3,500 miles, it's no surprise that Maine's coastline has 60 lighthouses.
30:58Look in your pocket, and you may find this one on a coin.
31:02It's the Pemmiquid Diamond.
31:04It's the most expensive diamond in the world.
31:07Look in your pocket, and you may find this one on a coin.
31:11It's the Pemmiquid Point Light, chosen by the state's residents to be featured on the Maine Quarter.
31:17In 1635, before the light was built, a man named John Bailey sailed for the New World, leaving his wife behind to follow him, once he had established a home.
31:29But his ship, the Angel Gabriel, was smashed to pieces in a storm here.
31:33And although Bailey survived, his wife was afraid to follow him.
31:38They never saw each other again.
31:47Pemmiquid Point Light was built on the mainland in 1827.
31:54From its ledge-top tower, the light shines 14 nautical miles out to sea,
31:58in the hope that no more ships will founder on the rocks below.
32:13One of the most idyllic railways in the country, the Maine Eastern, crosses the Sheepscot River to reach a perfectly preserved Maine village, Wiscasset.
32:22At the start of the 19th century, this was the busiest port in the state.
32:27Some say that there were so many ships anchored off Wiscasset, you could cross the harbor, stepping deck to deck.
32:35The town proudly calls itself Maine's prettiest village.
32:39And from the air, with its historic houses set off against a backdrop of colorful fall leaves, it's easy to see why.
32:47One of the great walks in Maine has to be along the granite breakwater of Rockland Harbor.
32:54Completed in 1899, the breakwater leads to a lighthouse on Penobscot Bay.
33:02Fishing vessels and ferries pass through the breakwater.
33:06The lighthouse is one of the largest in the state.
33:09The breakwater leads to a lighthouse on Penobscot Bay.
33:14Fishing vessels and ferries pass by the granite ledge all year long.
33:21And in July, the breakwater becomes the site of the annual Maine Windjammer Parade, featuring a display of turn-of-the-century cargo ships.
33:30On the west side of Penobscot Bay, the busy fishing port of Rockland is known to visitors as the place to catch ferries to the splendid islands of the bay.
33:43Southwest of Rockland, in the village of Cushing, is a site made famous by painter Andrew Wyeth.
33:52Here, a stark, weather-beaten farmhouse overlooks a river, and in the distance, the sea.
34:00In the 1940s, the Olsen family, who owned the house, offered a young Andrew Wyeth a room as a part-time studio.
34:09Wyeth depicted the Olsen house in his haunting painting, Christina's World.
34:14In the painting, a young girl, disabled with polio, crawls up the hill towards her house.
34:21It's one of the best-known works of American art, now exhibited in New York's MoMA.
34:26From the time he made his first drawings of Maine's islands at age 10 until his death in 2009, Wyeth captured a vision of rural Maine that is both beautiful and symbolic.
34:40Of the Olsen house, Wyeth said,
34:43I just couldn't stay away from there. It was Maine.
34:47Further up the coast to the north lies Rockport, an artist colony with one of the loveliest harbors in the state.
35:00Unspoiled by overdevelopment, its narrow harbor serves both the working lobster boats and classic wooden sailing ships.
35:09Rounding the peninsula north from Rockport, the town of Camden lies nestled amid gently-sloping mountains at the edge of a sheltered harbor.
35:19The town that began as a fishing village is still a place where people make their living from the sea.
35:25Not from fishing, but from fishing.
35:28Today, the harbor buzzes with pleasure craft, and the homes of 19th-century sea captains have become luxury hotels.
35:37It was in one of these hotels, the Whitehall Inn, that the young Edna St. Vincent Millen, a young sailor,
35:44was born.
35:46She was the first woman to be born in the Whitehall Inn.
35:50It was in one of these hotels, the Whitehall Inn, that the young Edna St. Vincent Millen, a young sailor,
35:58recited her award-winning poem, Renaissance.
36:03Eleven years later, Millen became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
36:11Today, 6,500 acres of the Camden Hills, which inspired Millen's poetry, are preserved as a state park.
36:20Renaissance describes both the landscape and a state of mind.
36:27All I could see from where I stood was three long mountains and a wood.
36:33I turned and looked another way and saw three islands in a bay.
36:38So with my eyes I traced the line of the horizon thin and fine,
36:44straight around till I was calm, back to where I'd started from.
36:50And all I saw from where I stood was three long mountains and a wood.
37:00The poem, which became the title of Millen's first book, is still a favorite of those who choose to wander here,
37:07among the hills and woods of Maine.
37:11For those who'd rather climb than wander, Mount Batty offers stunning views of Camden and the islands of Penobscot Bay.
37:20Northeast of Camden is a small peninsula that holds Casteen.
37:26Its tranquil image belies a colorful past.
37:31In the 17th century, it was fought over by the English, French and Dutch.
37:36It takes its name from Beryl Steele, who was the first to name the peninsula.
37:43In the 17th century, it was taken over by the English, French and Dutch.
37:49In the 18th century, it was taken over by the English, French and Dutch.
37:55In the 19th century, it was fought over by the English, French and Dutch.
37:59It takes its name from Baron de St. Casten, a young Frenchman who married a native Penobscot princess and became an Abenaki chief.
38:12The British took Casteen during the American Revolution, building Fort George as a defense against the colonial forces.
38:20Today, it's the site of a local ball field.
38:24In an ill-fated mission called the Penobscot Expedition, Americans tried, but failed to retake Casteen.
38:32After the British Navy set their ships ablaze, Revolutionary troops were forced to flee overland back to Boston.
38:40It was the greatest American naval disaster until Pearl Harbor.
38:45The Down East Coast, as Mainers call everything east of Penobscot Bay, is simply a sailor's paradise.
38:54Sailing along the coast on a fair wind from Casteen, vessels arrive at one of the greatest treasures of the United States, Acadia National Park.
39:05The park includes Mount Desert Island, the largest island in Maine.
39:11The name comes from French explorer Samuel de Champlain, who landed on the island in 1604.
39:19He wrote in his journal,
39:22Centuries later, Acadia became the summer home of the robber barons of the Gilded Age, the Rockefellers, Morgans, and Vanderbilts.
39:32They were drawn by the paintings of Thomas Cole and Freddie Mercury.
39:37They were the first of a series of paintings to be painted on the island.
39:41Acadia became the summer home of the robber barons of the Gilded Age, the Rockefellers, Morgans, and Vanderbilts.
39:49They were drawn by the paintings of Thomas Cole and Frederick Church, who captured the island's awe-inspiring wilderness.
39:55J.P. Morgan moored his yacht in the harbor, and other wealthy residents entertained guests in lavish houses by the sea.
40:03But as more and more people inhabited the area, the wilderness started to disappear.
40:09Realizing that America's wild lands wouldn't last for long, J.P. Morgan set out to explore the wilderness.
40:16But as more and more people inhabited the area, the wilderness started to disappear.
40:22Realizing that America's wild lands wouldn't last forever, a group of philanthropists stepped in.
40:29In 1901, the Rockefellers and others began buying huge tracts of forests for public use,
40:36and in 1919, they convinced Washington to declare the area the first national park east of the Mississippi.
40:45Today, Desert Island's Bar Harbor is far less exclusive, but it remains a beautiful seaside town.
40:58High above the harbor stands Cadillac Mountain, climbing over 1,500 feet.
41:05This is the highest point along the North Atlantic coast, and is said to be the first place in the United States to receive the sun's rays each day.
41:25But exploring Acadia National Park from the sea can be even more exciting.
41:30The Margaret Todd sails from Bar Harbor several times a day.
41:35She was built in 1998 in the style of a traditional cargo schooner.
41:40But these boats are now known locally as windjammers.
41:44Some say the name windjammers was the derogatory term used by early steamship sailors to describe the crews of old-fashioned wind-powered cargo ships.
41:54In 1935, artist Frank Swift began buying up these old masted vessels.
42:01He refit them for passengers and opened the first business of its kind.
42:06Thus began the first fleet of windjammers for sailing in America.
42:10Since then, thousands have enjoyed the thrill of sailing a tall ship out to sea.
42:17But Maine's visitors don't just come for its tall ships.
42:24The state is famous for its lobsters, and at one time they were so plentiful they were considered pauper's food.
42:32It's said that indentured servants in the 18th century lobbied to be fed lobster no more than twice a week.
42:43Maine's lobstermen still have to catch the creatures just as they have for a hundred years, one trap at a time.
42:54But fishermen here don't just catch lobsters.
42:59On the far north coast, strange patterns can be seen floating on the water.
43:05They are a recent phenomenon and the focus of a bitter dispute between fishermen and environmentalists.
43:15At Cobbs Cook Bay, young Atlantic salmon leap in their circular pens.
43:21Millions are raised in this bay alone to feed America's growing appetite for fish.
43:29Sadly, wild salmon are in drastic decline, and some of the blame is placed on the spread of diseases from farms like these.
43:39But these fishermen argue that they are just following in the path of generations of Mainers, harvesting the fruits of the sea.
43:50Despite its name, the West Quaddie Head Lighthouse stands at the easternmost tip of the United States.
44:02It is one of only two lights in the nation to have distinctive red and white stripes, a feature that was common to Canadian lighthouses, helping them stand out against the snow.
44:12At night, its light draws weary Mainers home from the sea, to a state of stunning natural beauty.
44:31Aerial Maine is a journey across the state of poets, painters, and presidents.
44:38It's the down east state of windswept isles and great pine forests, the place where dawn first breaks on the nation, and harbor lights guide sailors after the sun sets.
44:54Finally, at journey's end, ships find welcome harbor on the mainland, Maine.
45:37www.globalonenessproject.org