A Day in Lubec, Maine

Trying to Describe Lubec

Lubec is a small coastal town on the far eastside of Maine, right on the Canadian border (i.e. New Brunswick). In fact, Lubec is the eastern most city in the contiguous U.S.A. Lubec is rich in commercial fishing history, mostly herring and sardines. In current times, much of the local population still makes a living fishing for lobster, crabs, and salmon. Beyond fishing, the tourist trade is the other economic staple. Lubec is a great launching point for all the outdoorsy things people do in northern Maine. As such, the main road is mostly bars, restaurants, outdoor outfitters and bed & breakfasts. To better understand this town, I traveled the long road to spend a day in Lubec, Maine.

First, the History

Since the early 1800s, Lubec was the center of the smoked herring industry. Fun fact…I learned that herring and sardines are actually the same fish. Herring are the big ones, and sardines are the small ones. Anyway, the last of the the herring processing/smoke houses in the USA went out of business in Lubec in 1991. The museum guy said the industry was “destroyed due to government regulations.” As you walk through Lubec, many of the processing buildings still exist. The buildings help Lubec maintain it’s old, world fishing village appeal. The buildings are now either abandoned, repurposed, or serving as a museum to Lubec’s fishing heritage. I took the opportunity to visit the McCurdy Smokehouse museum to learn about Lubec’s history…

In the highly abridged process description, the herring were brought in, brined, strung up, dried out, smoked, skinned, and finally packaged…in that exact order. There were two main themes with the museum tour. One, the work was extremely demanding. But, as the only employer in town, you gotta do what you gotta do. Secondly, everyone and everything in Lubec smelled like herring oil. There was no getting away from it. Most of the citizens smelled like herring. If you had a date, they were going to smell like herring. The tourism aspects of Lubec probably did not start until well after the herring industry (and smell) faded away.

For my part, I found the McCurdy Smokehouse Museum well worth a visit.

The Quoddy Lighthouse

One of the main tourist attraction near Lubec is the Quoddy Head State Park. This coastal park offers the usual hiking trails in a beautiful coastal setting. Furthermore, the big draw is the Quoddy Head Lighthouse, commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1808. While the lighthouse is cool, the real draw is it’s location. In Key West, everyone has to have their picture at the southern most point in the USA. Well, when you come to Quoddy Head State Park, you have to get your picture taken at the eastern most point in the USA…

So, my future plans will have to include hitting the western and northern spots to complete the set. Beyond just standing by the eastern marker and getting a stupid picture, I took it one step farther. If I am at this point at sunrise…then I would be the first person in the continental USA to see the sunrise in the morning. Naturally, there were a couple challenges to my sunrise strategy. First, at this extreme eastern position, sunrise was about 5:15am. So, it kind of sucked to get out of bed and drive out to this point before 5:15am. Secondly, it’s northern Maine…seeing the sun in the morning is no guarantee. Anyway, there were about 8 other people in the park. I made sure to stand east of all of them to see the “sun” first…

For the record, the fishermen on the boat were east of me. But, as they were not on the continent, I was the first to see a partial sunrise on that morning.

Final Notes on Lubec

Beyond visiting the museum and the Quoddy Head lighthouse, there were just a couple more highlights from Lubec. First, you have to pay attention to your time zone very carefully when in Lubec. Canada is about 1/4 mile away. Consequently, depending on where you stand in Lubec, your cell phone will jump back and forth by one hour because it’s picking up the Canadian cell tower. Thankfully, I managed to tell time correctly and made my dinner reservation on time. As for my dinner, it was certainly in the top 10 best dinners of my life. The meal could only have been better if my beloved wife, Carol, had joined me. But, if you consider all factors…i.e. quality of food, quantity of food, price, and ambiance…my meal was spectacular.

Not including the bar tab, my locally caught seafood feast was only about $40 bucks. I ate on the back patio of the restaurant which allowed me a get view of the fading sunset. It was clearly a top 10 meal.

Wrap It Up

So, that’s a day in Lubec, Maine. Obviously, like most things in northeast Maine, its not easy to get to Lubec. However, if it’s the summer months, this place is a very road trip worthy. Furthermore, be sure to use coastal Highway 1 when traveling near the Maine coast. This highway is one of the more beautiful and interesting drives that I have experienced. Have a wonderful day. PT

I hope you have enjoyed reading “A Day in Lubec, Maine” on Traveling with PugsleyTonks.

About 3,000 miles to the southwest, here was another great Small town USA https://travelingwithpt.com/a-bombing-a-border-crossing/

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