When Wally worked at Camden Hills State Park, his summer job in the early 1970s, campers frequently asked “how do we get down to the shore?” Of course, even though the Park maintains a shorefront picnic area just across from the main gate on Route One, he’d often suggest Lincolnville Beach as another option. But sometimes, if he’d gotten to know and like a particular camper, he’d direct them to Ducktrap.  Like many in town, he felt protective of the tiny cove most people speed by without a glance.

         Yesterday our family spent yet another long afternoon and evening picnicking at Ducktrap, as the tide went out and the breeze blew off the water. The food consisted of hot dogs and marshmallows cooked over a little driftwood fire built in someone else’s stone circle. Six children under the age of 9 waded, threw rocks, then shivered in their wet bathing suits, wrapped in big towels, alternately burning and eating the marshmallows. Our adult sons laughed and told stories with the two first cousins they’d only just met this week. Meanwhile, the mother of some of those little kids stuck hot dogs on sticks and cooked them till they charred and sizzled over the fire. My sister and I sat in the only real chairs, reveling in our old lady status, doling out marshmallows and graham crackers and chocolate bars and watching our offspring, two generations of them, getting to know each other.

         Our family has a somewhat complicated history, but then, whose doesn’t? And looking back over our photo albums this morning it’s all laid out for me to read. A good many of those pictures were taken at Ducktrap, recording summer visits by family that stretch back 45 years. Just down the way from our spot another group, local friends all, had set up a more elaborate feast than ours with tables and pots and lobsters and fancier cold beverages. Their party too lasted well into the night, no doubt also one of many, many such picnics they’d had over the years.

         Ducktrap has always been a magical spot for those of us who live here. And that goes back thousands of years. Archaeologist Harbour Mitchell has discovered Native American artifacts at several sites along the shore there; see them at the Schoolhouse Museum. Native peoples typically spent the summer at the shore, fishing and digging clams, then retreating inland for the winter. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

         The Trap, which is the outlet of Ducktrap Stream (we now call it “River”), is a shallow basin defined by the spit of land called Howe Point. David Howe, then his son, William, owned the point; in the 19 th Century they maintained a large barn there, along with a wharf on the inland side. Lincolnville-grown grain and hay were shipped out, and supplies brought in for the Howe’s store. That store stood at the corner of Atlantic Highway and Howe Point Road; its foundation is still hidden within the tangle of raspberries and cedars that grow rampantly over it.

In early winter, 1947, Ulrich Troubetzkoy, an award-winning author, poet and journalist in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, wrote this piece about the old brick store:

         We had no intention of staying in our brick house at Ducktrap ….. because it had been neglected during the war years. The electricity was cut off. We should have to arrange for a water-supply and replace a missing pipe before there would be plumbing. The stovepipe was rusty and the brick chimney needed cleaning. Of course, there was no telephone. We had come merely to investigate, to paint and putty here and there, to find someone else to take charge of major repairs, and then go back to Newport for the rest of our vacation. But something held us there. In spite of the primitive arrangements, the old house had a strong personality.

         We drove back to … Camden to buy groceries, paint, a pair of sheets for the big spool bed, and to get a supply of red and green candles from our friend, Mr. Crockett. Daria, who is not quite three, picked out the Christmas colors, for candles meant festivity to her. Now, for the first time in our lives, they were a necessity, albeit a most welcome one.

         We’d have to carry our water, but the neighbors were generous. The Griffins across the lane told us to help ourselves at their kitchen pump. The first evening, we went to the Lobster Pound for supper, but resolved to set up our kitchen on the beach the next day. The brick house had been built as a ship chandlery in about 1800; records are vague as whether by the Ulmers, who came to Ducktrap Plantation after service in the Revolution, or by a man named Whitney who married into the family. At any rate, its function probably gave us the long living room from front to back instead of traditional parlors, and the French doors at the rear, which once may have had ramps for barrels.

         As Ducktrap hill shut off the sun, we lighted the candles and set them about the room; two for the large piano between the French windows, another on the Sheraton table by the stairs, and a fourth on a Chippendale table by the front table. I wondered if late tourists were surprised by candleshine through the fan light and windows. How often in the past they must have been thus taper-lit for evening, and how soft and suitable was the light, which stroked the old furniture, kindled the mirrors and was reflected in all the wavy panes of antique glass.

There were as yet no curtains and only one faded rug on the wide boards of the floor, but candlelight cheered the half-finished room, blurring the empty corners. Daria had pushed a stool to the piano and was running her tiny fingers happily over the octaves. I thought how long it must have been since there was music in this house; for her light caressing of the keys was, after all, a kind of music and, oddly, not inharmonious. She hummed to herself for a while, but made us sing with her Clair de la Lune and the Lambdi song (Jesus Tender Shepherd) before she would consent to bed. We stayed on, talking plans for the renovated house until our candles had burned deep in their sockets.

         When I got up the next morning, there was already a bowl of raspberries from behind the house, and we all went down to the cove at the foot of the lane. There we built a fireplace of sea-smoothed stones, collected kindling scraps and driftwood, lighted it with an old Camden Herald – which we took time out to skim – and cooked our breakfast. Lacking brown paper, I spread out the bacon on three flat rocks to drain, but the sea air had so improved Daria’s appetite that, when I turned around with eggs and toast, the bacon was already gone.

         Quiet dramas still play out within the walls of the few houses that line the “lane” of Ulrich Troubetzkoy’s memoir. One family suffering the loss, in childbirth, of their only daughter, then raised her infant to adulthood. An old, old woman lives out her days in the house she was born in. And another, fiercely independent, helpless at the end, manages to keep the sight of her beloved garden and the Trap beyond, within view from her bed. Rest peacefully, dear friend.

Road Closure

The fourth annual Picnic and Auction to benefit the Lincolnville Community Library will be held Sunday, July 26 at the Boat Club and Library in the Center. The Library and Open Air Museum will be open to for the public to check out starting at 4 p.m. The picnic – pulled pork on homemade rolls and vegetarian beans (compliments of Dolce Vita Bakery), hearty salads, watermelon and homemade cookies – starts at 5 in the Boat Club. Auctioneer Rosey Gerry will start the “entertainment/auction” at about 6. Auction items this year include a painting by Lincolnville artist Mary Bourke, ceramics by Meghan Flynn and by ANK ceramics, gift certificates for The Whales Tooth Pub and Long Grain Restaurant, organic chicken goodness from Donkey Universe, a hand-turned oyster platter from Beyond Hope Farm, a scenic plane ride, a rug from Sleepy Hollow Rag Rugs, a Psyanky workshop, and pounds and pounds of Elderflower Farm's organic blueberries. Something for everyone and then some!

Vacation Bible School

A friend as a regular morning visitor to her yard – a red fox. She wrote this week: “The fox was up eating sun flower seeds. He chews with his mouth open. Now he's in the underbrush waiting for the squirrels to come for their breakfast.”