Monhegan Backside. Photo by Constantine Markides

The following footage was filmed over New Year’s in coastal Maine, primarily Monhegan Island, but also Port Clyde and Thomaston (the filming there coming on the tail end of a night at Billy’s Tavern, which explains any slurring in the second to last video clip). The video mostly consists of seas, snowfall, granite, evergreens, lobsterboats and (+/- plow) trucks, the aggregate of which comprises something essential about Maine that demographics and other state statistics fail to account for, something that anyone who’s formerly lived in Maine always misses. It’s why even the most jaded ex-residents of Maine, except perhaps for the nouveau riche variety who’ve embraced parochial urbanism, upon crossing New Hampshire’s Memorial Bridge and reading the words ‘The Way Life Should Be’ on the big blue Welcome to Maine sign, will nod in agreement rather than glance shotgun and snigger.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rr1TU_M6Q