This Labor Day Weekend Maine celebrates the mid-coast's maritime heritage and sea-faring culture at the Camden Windjammer Festival 2010.  More than a dozen schooners sail into Camden Harbor and invite you aboard to tour these work horses of yesteryear.  On land, the Maritime Heritage Fair showcase the tradesmen (and women) - boatbuilders, blacksmiths, coopers, sailmakers and fishermen who still make their living from the sea.

Complete your Windjammer experience with a tour of the Penobscot Marine
Museum in nearby Searsport (about a 30 minute drive north on Route 1). 
Maine's passenger-carrying windjammers represent the largest commercial
sailing fleet in the developed world and are a resonant symbol of the
Maine coast.  The Museum's wonderful exhibit Earning Their Keep: Maine's Windjammers
brings the history to life through photography, artifacts, ephermera,
videos and schooner models.  Be sure not to miss contemporary marine
photographer Fred LeBlanc's exhibit.  An experience not to be missed! 

This summer Camden has seen a host of famous people - all of them hanging around the Camden Public Library at the head of the harbor.  We've seen Mark Twain and, believe it or not, Atticus Finch was there as well! 

Next week Camden will be graced with the humor of James Thurber!

The Camden Public Library presents

“Thurber’s Theatre” at Camden Library August 24

An hour with “one of America’s most cherished humorists of the 20th Century” will come to the Camden Public Library on Tuesday, August 24, at 6:30 pm, in a performance of  “Thurber’s Theatre: An Evening with the Inscrutable Male.” David Foster returns to the Library’s Reading Room for another hour of guaranteed laughter after his standing-room-only performances of the past three summers.

James Thurber (1894-1961) grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and found his way to The New Yorker magazine in the late ’20s, where he joined Harold Ross and E. B. White to put a unique and indelible stamp on American culture. In over 300 cartoons and hundreds of stories, Thurber portrayed the bittersweet war between the sexes, the fantasies that shield man’s inability to cope with life, our fascination with crime, and his own hilarious memories of growing up in a family beset with “crotchets.” Favorites from each of these themes will be performed, including “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” “The Night the Bed Fell on Father,” “Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife,” and a host of others.

Throughout his career as a lawyer, political advocate and business executive, David Foster has pursued an amateur vocation in the theatre as an actor, director, producer ,and teacher of acting and stagecraft. He acted in school and community productions in his native Iowa and, prior to moving to Oxford, MD, in 1983, performed with numerous theatre companies in the Washington, DC area. Past president of Oxford’s Tred Avon Players, he has appeared on its stage in many roles. While summering in the Camden and Belfast areas, he has been on stage for the Belfast Maskers, has directed productions for the Maskers and the Fifteen Minute Play Festival, and frequently entertains for Elderhostel tours. At the Camden Library, Foster performed “Meet Mr. Mencken: An Evening with the Sage of Baltimore” in 2007, “The Magic of American Humor” in 2008, and “The Irreplaceable Mark Twain” in 2009.

“Thurber’s Theatre” is the latest of David Foster’s platform presentations and was introduced to library, campus, and retirement community audiences earlier this year. This will be its first performance in Maine.

Two years ago, just as the incomparable John Jorgenson was beginning to play, a sudden pelting thunderstorm came out of nowhere, sending hundreds scurrying to their cars, except for the fortunate forty or so who made it to the Hope Community Center where, as the rain settled in outdoors, John and his band put on an impromptu, upclose and personal performance that will forever live in the memory of those who were there.

John's Quintet wowed the audience that summer day in 2008 with his always exciting "Gypsy Jazz" and others.  Back by popular demand and performing at the Hope4Jazz Festival 2010 - 8:00 p.m. under the full moon -  John's audiences will be amazed by his dazzling guitar work. If you missed them two years ago, you won't want to miss them this year!

The Hope4Jazz Festival 2010 (www.hopejazzfestival.com), Saturday, July 24, held at the Camden Snowbowl (www.camdensnowbowl.com) showcases two of the finest Maine-based bands and one amazing group from Tennessee.  At 4:00 p.m., Primo Cubano will get you up and dancing with their latin-inspired salsa; at 6:00 p.m., the Maine native and jazz drummer, Steve Grover and his band, voted the "Best Jazz Act 2009" and "One of the Ten Most Influential Bands of the Last Ten Years" by the Portland Phoenix, will wow the crowd with original compositions and some old favorites.  A Jazz Workshop presented by Steve Grover will start the festivities at 2:00 (included in your ticket price).

Surrounded by the Camden Hills, a full moon, good food, great music - family fun doesn't get much better than that!

9am – 5pm, Saturday and Sunday,  July 17th and 18th, more than 100
artists and craftspeople display and sell their work at the 32nd Annual
Harbor Juried Arts & Crafts Show.

Jewelry, pottery, sculptures, glass, paintings, wood products, games
– are just the beginning of what the show has to offer. Tents and
booths are set up in Camden’s Harbor Park, overlooking the bustling
waterfront of fishing boats and windjammers. Atlantic Street is closed
to vehicle traffic and harbor park is bustling!

Daffodils and crocuses are popping up all around, the birds are singing, the kids are walking around town in t-shirts after school - sure signs that spring in Camden has arrived. Along with the sunshine and warmth comes the last thaw and heavy rains. Earlier in the week, I captured this photo of Megunticook River rushing towards the harbor. If you have seen this spot with the water wheel before (as many locals do daily as they grab a bagel at The Bagel Cafe adjacent to the inn here), you would remember that usually the river flows gently, with mild and pleasant sounds of "the falls" as it bends around the water wheel. But earlier in the week, after several inches of rain, the river was full and fast, burying the stationery water wheel up to almost half its height. From the water wheel, the river runs directly underneath the hotel. Three rooms are located directly above it and these seem to always fill up first. Then the river runs straight for the harbor, underneath House of Logan and underneath Route 1, or Elm. St as it is  known in downtown Camden. Where it falls into the harbor, two different varieties of ducks have come to call home. Every now and then they will make it as far upstream as our windows.

Founded in 1987, the Camden Conference is a nonprofit, non-partisan educational organization whose mission is to foster informed discourse on world affairs.

The 23rd Annual Camden Conference, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India – Crossroads of Conflict,
will take place February 19-21, 2010. Most of the activities take place
at the beautiful Camden Opera House, located on Elm St. in downtown.

Everything kicks off on January 30th with the 8th annual Winterfest in Harbor Park and the Amphitheatre. The centerpiece of Winterfest activity remains the Community Ice Carving, where teams transform ordinary blocks of ice into sculptures using traditional ice-carving tools.

Also on the 30th, the Rockport Opera House plays host to the "Snow Ball"- a fun dance and social. Doors open at 6:30pm and the Awesome 80s Band will take the stage at 7:30pm. Tickets are $35.

If you enjoy cross-country skiing, Aldermere Farm (home of the famous 'oreo cookie' cows) on Russell Avenue in Rockport has a full moon ski & snowshoe tour on January 30th at 6;30pm.

If cultural and artistic events are more your speed, on Sunday, January 31 the Camden Opera House presents the International Film Festival of the Spirit's Warm Winter Sunday Afternoons at the Movies at 2pm; while the Camden Public Library hosts local high school musical all-stars The Cause on Thursday, February 4th at 7pm. Also, the a cappella group Improvox performs at 7:30pm on Sunday, January 31st at the Carver Hill Gallery Cider Barn in Rockport. For more info (& weather-related cancellations) call Jana at Carver Hill Gallery: 236-0745.

Local TV channel did a short video piece on Christmas by the Sea - check it out!

I couldn't have chosen a better title - it pretty much sums it all up. The parade starts around 6pm on Union St and will proceed to Harbor Park for the tree lighting ceremony. Tomorrow, activities galore: caroling, plays, house and inn tours, sales at shops on Main St. and beyond. We've decorated the Inn - here's a peek at our front door. Once the sun goes down, we'll snap a shot of the lobby which is brimming with lights and bows and ornaments.

Christmas by the Sea weekend is an annual celebration of the holiday season by local residents and business communities. Enjoy shopping, musical entertainment, plays, Santa arriving by boat, tree lighting ceremony, horsedrawn wagon rides and holiday tours of local residences and inns. Many local shops on Main St. will be offering discounts starting at 15%. 

 
Images from the Camden Rockport Lincolnville Chamber of Commerce site www.camdenme.org