Q = Quoddy Head State Park

Quoddy Head State Park encompasses 541 acres located four miles off State Route 189 in Lubec. The land was purchased by the state in 1962 and is found on the easternmost point of land in the continental United States. In the park is the candy-striped West Quoddy Head Light, five miles of hiking trails, extensive forests, two bogs, and diverse habitat for rare plants.

The bogs relate to something that happens to Rhe in Death in a

Dacron Sail, and she and her husband might have winter-camped in the park.

Thomas Jefferson commissioned the West Quoddy Head Light which was built in 1808. The present tower and house date to 1858 and was manned by resident light house keepers until 1988, when the light became automated and the U.S. Coast Guard took over the running and maintenance. This is the easternmost lighthouse in the United States.

The area around West Quoddy Head Light is surrounded by dangerous cliffs, ledges and rocks and shipwrecks were frequent in this frequently foggy area, which is busy with ships. Initially the light and a fog cannon warned mariners away, and later the light house was among the first to use a fog bell and a steam-powered foghorn. This greatly reduced the shipwrecks. From the lighthouse, visitors can look out over Quoddy Channel (which divides the U.S. and Canada) to the towering red cliffs of Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick. The tower itself is closed, but the lighthouse grounds, a visitor center, and museum run by the West Quoddy Head Light Keepers Association are open to the public.

For a few weeks around the equinoxes, West Quoddy Head is the first location in the United States to see the sunrise.

The Park also provides some of Maine’s best wildlife-watching in the summer: humpback,

minke and finback whales offshore, along with rafts of eider, scoter and old squaw ducks. Kittiwakes, gannets, black-bellied plovers, ruddy turnstones and purple sandpipers all roost at various times on Sail Rock. During spring and fall migration periods, hundreds of shorebirds congregate near the Park’s western boundary and birding opportunities continue into winter.

There are two bogs. One is an easy, one-mile round-trip walk, an unusual coastal plateau bog with sub-arctic and arctic plants rarely seen south of Canada. Shrubs predominate, particularly black crowberry, baked appleberry and Labrador tea, along with carnivorous plants such as pitcher plants and sundew. A second bog at the property’s western boundary, Carrying Place Cove Bog, is a National Natural Landmark.