A Wild Place, Full of Wonder

Written and photographed by Mark Warner
Down East Books, 2008
53 pp, $14.95

In his foreword to Carl Little’s The Art of Monhegan Island, Jamie Wyeth writes: “I have a problem with Monhegan Island … everyone remembers their first lover, don’t they? Perhaps passionately, occasionally longingly, sometimes angrily, but always. I am peculiar … my first lover was not a person – it was an island.”

At 21, with the proceeds from the sales of his first one-man show in New York, Wyeth bought Rockwell Kent’s house on Monhegan. Ghostly gray, the Kent house rises on a rocky promontory over Lobster Cove, south of the island’s small village – “a good destination,” Warner tells us, “for those who are not able or may be unwilling to tackle the Cliff Trail, or those who have to meet a ferry schedule.” For, despite its un-guidelike format (8 ½ by 11 inches wide – you cannot slip this into your back pocket), Warner has indeed given us a detailed reference to everything Monhegan – its 17 miles of trails and degree of easiness or difficulty of each, how to get there, facilities, atmosphere and history from early Indian settlements to the artists’ haven it has become since about the mid-19th century, all accompanied by beautiful photography.

For a small mountain out and above wild ocean, 13 miles from the mainland, and only a little more than a mile long and a half mile wide, one might wonder what compelling forces elicit such clear personal attachment to a place as that of Wyeth, or Louise Dickinson Rich (“If you have the time and inclination to visit only one island of the Maine coast, Monhegan should be that island … “), or Warner himself; Monhegan “is the jewel of the Maine coast.”

We go quickly from the departure of the last ice sheet to wars and uprisings of the 1600s, mainlanders often fleeing to offshore retreats, to the lore of shipwrecks, with 35 vessels that have come to grief on Monhegan’s rocks and ledges.

While on one of the three scheduled ferries that service the island, you can buy an excellent trail map, useful for hiking and for special sights to be seen along any of the major and connecting trails. Warner also suggests one consider the use of the head on the ferry bringing you to Monhegan as there are only two public facilities available once you arrive.

Along the shore roads, the trails and woods, you will see artists at work, some there for the day, others displaying their work while on the island for extended periods of time. Some conduct classes. Warner leaves out almost nothing for the prospective visitor, including the recommendation to wear sturdy footwear. The rocks on many of the narrow trails are generally wet and slippery, attested to by the many photos accompanying the text. The photos are haunting reminders that despite the incremental presence of year-round residents, the increased cachet as a tourist attraction, Monhegan off in a turbulent sea is a wild place, full of wonder.

Hannah Merker reviews books in Bristol, Maine.