Maine’s beach and trailside stones should be left alone

When someone comes to Maine for a visit, they usually leave with a rock or two — or 50. Though taking them is discouraged and may even be against the law, whether the visitor stops at a coastal beach on a hiking trail, a special memento often finds its way into their pocket.

Walk any path in Down East Maine and the stones and rocks along the way are either friend or foe. Often, if you let them, they can be magnanimous guests. They greet you as you stop to admire a striated piece of granite ledge. They poke your foot inside your shoe, making you stop to remove it and then see its story in the palm of your hand. Sometimes they are that polished piece of perfection, all wet, shiny, undoubtedly destined for the nightstand where its presence will lull you to sleep.

We are all on a pilgrimage. For some, it involves traveling from one end of the country to the other, from one continent to another, or, from one street corner to the next. We hold within us our own unique journey and in turn that journey cradles us throughout life. Stones and rocks are our companions — no matter on a trail or along the coast — because they, too, are on their own journey. Oh, the stories they could tell.

Close to where I live is Jasper Beach. The parking area can attest to the increasing visitor traffic Down East is experiencing. For a first-time visitor, Jasper Beach offers a truly unique experience and usually elicits the question: Where in the world did all these stones come from?

At the crescent-shaped beach, colored stones are continuously bathed by the sea, rolling and polished to perfection, speaking in tongues from Babel, clattering to be recognized. To sit, close one’s eyes and listen, they truly do speak. Their giggles and clapping travel from the cove to the one-room school house at the end of the road where over a century ago, students would stand outside clapping erasers in tandem, while the stones chatter amidst crashing waves.

My father asked that question upon seeing Jasper Beach for the first time. I answered. “These stones? Why, these are trucked in from Jersey at night when no one is watching.” He paused for about two seconds, then smiled and continued on his hunt for that special relic.

Here Down East there are myriad hiking trails. I would sometimes tell people about these trails, boasting how I hike them without seeing another person. As hundreds of people pass one another on trails through Acadia National Park, here, our Down East trails generally get few visitors — but that is starting to change.

Green Point, a favorite spot, is one of several trails in Lubec where a red-striped lighthouse at West Quoddy Head marks the easternmost point of the United States. In front of the Canadian island of Grand Manan across the channel, there is Sail Rock sitting there to interrupt one’s sight for just a moment. The large sail-shaped rock is known to have “interrupted” many ships back in the day causing lighthouse keepers and ship captains’ sleepless nights.

To walk along the coast here is to step back in time. The trail traverses miles where people can walk with the sea on one side and trees on the other. It winds along a coastline path that wanders up and down granite edifices, allowing photo opportunities at every turn.

At Green Point there is a stunning view of the ocean and spires of hand-laid stone cairns built by visitors. Arriving at this place for the first time is like landing on another planet. The place is both surreal and beautiful. The presence of others is palpable with the realization that every stone placed atop a cairn was done so by another person, leaving in a sense, a personal note to be found.

The cairn left by a visitor is a bane for park rangers, as their mission is to protect people on Maine’s trails. Cairns can confuse hikers by being mistaken for trail markers but at Green Point there really is no such risk of confusion because, once there, you’ve reached the trail’s end. But a stone’s story never ends.

Every rock and stone is time compacted. To hold a wave-washed stone in your hand is to hold a timepiece. One that glistens with water; one that strikes a tide’s song four times a day; a talisman that keeps watch day and night whether we ask it to or not. It is a keepsake that should be left behind for another visitor to find, hold and add to its story, then place it back to be found again and again.

RJ Heller is a journalist, essayist, photographer, author, an avid reader and an award-winning book critic who enjoys sailing, hiking and many other outdoor pursuits. He lives in Starboard Cove. More by RJ Heller, Down East contributor