That’s where the flagpole would loom above the landscape, topped with an observation tower with blinking lights cutting through the dark stillness of night. In the distance stood a hill rising several hundred feet at the far end of the pond. The silence was broken by chirping birds, the gentle breeze and the gurgling of water flowing into a stream that feeds the Machias River, where endangered Atlantic salmon return. On a recent day, Charlie Robbins found himself deep in the woods alongside Peaked Mountain Pond. It goes something like this: We may send lobsters, blueberries and wreaths to the world, but our biggest export is young people looking for work. The county’s residents are among the state’s oldest, and it is dealing with rampant abuse of opioids. The region vies for the state’s highest jobless and poverty rates. Logging, blueberry picking and lobstering don’t always provide year-round employment resourceful residents supplement incomes by digging for clams or collecting balsam tips for wreath-making. But behind the beauty lies a region where many are struggling. Tourists flock here in the summer to escape cities, pollution and noise, and to enjoy clean air and dark starry skies. She asks: “Do you want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg?” She says it’s that rugged coast and pristine wilderness that makes this corner of the world special, and a large development could destroy woodlands and wild blueberry barrens that have been here 10,000 years, with Native Americans being the first stewards. “This is the last wilderness on the East Coast,” says Marie Emerson, whose husband, Dell, is a beloved native son, a longtime blueberry farmer and university research farm manager. Interspersed with the woods are wild blueberry barrens. Deer, moose, black bears, beaver and fisher cats wander the forest floor. Below are dozens of streams, ponds and lakes brimming with trout and historic runs of Atlantic salmon. It would require paving over woods for parking spaces and construction of housing for hundreds, maybe thousands of workers, potentially transforming this oasis into a sprawl of souvenir shops, fast-food restaurants and malls.įrom overhead, the landscape here remains a sprawling green canopy. In Columbia Falls, many were stunned by the scale. Slick presentations showed what amounted to a patriotic theme park, replete with gondolas to ferry visitors around. There would be a 4,000-seat auditorium, restaurants and monument walls with the name of every deceased veteran dating to the Revolution.
Morrill Worcester envisions a village with living history museums telling the country’s story through veterans’ eyes.
#Unite us Patch
In Columbia Falls, population 485, the place closest to the patch of land where the pole would rise, the debate has laid bare community and cultural flashpoints.īut that isn’t all. So far, the project - called the Flagpole of Freedom Park - has done precisely the opposite. Here’s how Morrill Worcester, founder of Worcester Wreath, tells it: “We want to bring Americans together, remind them of the centuries of sacrifice made to protect our freedom, and unite a divided America.” To promoters, the $1 billion project, funded in part by donations, would unite people of all political stripes and remind them of shared values in an era of national polarization. And atop it? A massive American flag bigger than a football field, visible from miles away on a clear day. Which makes it a striking backdrop to one family’s bold vision for the region: a flagpole jutting upward from the woodlands toward spacious skies - the tallest one ever, reaching higher than the Empire State Building. state’s soil each day, where the vast wilderness and ocean meet in one of the last places on the East Coast unspoiled by development. Maine’s Down East region is where the sunlight first kisses a U.S. Farmers tend expanses of wild blueberries.
COLUMBIA FALLS, Maine (AP) - Lobster boat engines rumble to life in quiet coves.
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