Maine’s oldest saltwater park has dunes whales and a lighthouse and most people drive right past it

Georgetown’s island world is worth the drive

Georgetown sits on an island in Midcoast Maine, and most people drive right past the turnoff without knowing it’s there.

Two rivers, the Kennebec to the west and the Sheepscot to the east, keep it quietly cut off from the mainland, connected only by a chain of bridges through Arrowsic and Woolwich.

About 1,000 people live here, spread across six villages with names like Five Islands, Robinhood and Bay Point. What’s waiting at the far end of the island will take most of the day to explore.

The Abenaki fished here long before settlers arrived

The Abenaki called this place Erascohegan, which translates roughly to “good spear-fishing.” They knew what they were talking about.

English fisherman John Parker arrived in 1649, and the island carried his name for generations.

The settlement was attacked and burned during King Philip’s War in 1676, and settlers didn’t come back in real numbers until after the 1713 Treaty of Portsmouth.

Fishing and shipbuilding drove the economy for centuries after that, and the water still shapes daily life here.

Walter Reid gave Maine its first saltwater beach

Reid State Park covers more than 770 acres at the southern tip of the island.

In 1946, Georgetown native Walter E. Reid donated the land, and the park opened to the public in 1950. That made it Maine’s first state-owned saltwater beach, a distinction it still holds.

The park now draws thousands of visitors each year and consistently ranks among the most popular in the state, though its position at the end of a long island road keeps the crowds manageable compared to beaches closer to the highway.

Two long sand beaches rare on Maine’s rocky coast

Maine’s coastline is mostly ledge and granite, so the two long beaches inside Reid feel like an exception to every rule. Mile Beach draws surfers, walkers and anyone who wants room to spread out.

It’s earned a spot on lists of New England’s best surfing spots. Half Mile Beach runs quieter, set back from the main parking area and often less crowded.

Near the entrance, a tidal lagoon sits warm and shallow, the kind of place where kids can wade in without being knocked over by a wave. Both beaches together give you more sand than you’d expect from one park.

Sand dunes shelter rare birds and fragile plants

The dunes at Reid are unusual enough that they stand out even to geologists.

Maine’s coast doesn’t build dunes easily, and the ones here shelter plant communities found in few other spots in the state.

The beaches also serve as nesting grounds for piping plovers and least terns, both listed as endangered. During migration season, shorebirds rest and feed across the sand and marsh.

The park asks visitors to stay on marked paths to keep from disturbing the nesting areas. It’s a reasonable request given what’s living in the grass just off the trail.

Three lighthouses visible from the top of Griffith Head

Griffith Head rises above Mile Beach at the park’s eastern edge. The climb is short, but what opens up at the top is wide.

On a clear day you can pick out three lighthouses from the summit: Seguin Island, The Cuckolds and Hendricks Head. The water below the headland draws seals, porpoises and sometimes whales working the offshore currents.

Most people walk the beach and never make the climb. Those who do tend to stay up there a while.

Seguin Island Light has shone since George Washington’s time

About two miles south of the Kennebec River’s mouth, a small island rises from the water with a lighthouse at its peak.

George Washington commissioned the Seguin Island Light in 1795, which puts it second on the list of Maine’s oldest lighthouses.

Its beam shines from 180 feet above the sea, the highest elevation of any lighthouse in the state. Seguin also holds the only first-order Fresnel lens still in active use on the Maine coast.

That lens is a big piece of glass that threw light across miles of open Atlantic before GPS existed.

Lobster boats unload their catch at Five Islands wharf

Five Islands sits on the east side of Georgetown, where the Sheepscot Bay opens up and five small evergreen islands break the surface just offshore.

Lobster boats tie up at the town wharf through the day and unload their catch at the dock. Picnic tables along the water look straight out at those islands.

Kayakers push out among them on calm summer mornings, threading between the rocks while the boats come and go. The village is small enough that you can take the whole thing in from one end of the dock.

Tidal falls and wildlife trails wind through Newman Sanctuary

The Josephine Newman Audubon Sanctuary protects 119 acres of woods and shoreline along Robinhood Cove. Naturalist Josephine Oliver Newman willed the family land to Maine Audubon in 1968.

More than 2.5 miles of trails cut through meadows, marsh and rocky ridges, and the Geology Trail passes reversing tidal falls where the water changes direction with the tide.

Deer, osprey, kingfishers and migrating songbirds move through the property in numbers. It’s the kind of place that rewards a slow pace, and most people have the trails to themselves.

The Zorachs put Georgetown’s art colony on the map

Georgetown has drawn painters and sculptors since the early 1900s.

Modernists William and Marguerite Zorach bought a summer home in Robinhood in 1923 and kept coming back, which helped pull other artists into the area.

Their daughter Dahlov Ipcar grew up painting bold jungle and farm animal scenes at the family farm overlooking Robinhood Cove. She lived and worked there until her death in 2017 at age 99.

Her paintings now hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum in New York.

Tide pools, oyster farms and salt marsh ring the island

The rocky ledges along Georgetown’s coast hold tide pools packed with starfish and hermit crabs. Salt marshes wrap around the coves, and herons and egrets work the shallows at low tide.

Robinhood Cove has floating oyster farms that sell straight from the dock. Paddlers can reach quiet inlets that no motorboat can get into.

Sand, rock, marsh and forest stack up against each other in a way that’s unusual for an island this size, and you can move from one to the next in the course of an afternoon.

Georgetown Pottery has been throwing pots here since 1972

Georgetown Pottery has operated on the main road heading toward Reid State Park for more than 50 years, making it one of the oldest working pottery shops in New England.

The studio turns out hand-painted porcelain pieces with Maine themes: pinecones, blueberries, lobsters.

You can watch potters at work and walk through the original studio building, which hasn’t changed much since the 1970s.

It’s a good stop on the drive in or out, and the pieces are made here, not shipped in from somewhere else.

Sand, dunes, headlands and woodland trails in one park

Reid State Park puts more coastline variety into one stop than almost anywhere else on the Maine coast. Mile Beach and Half Mile Beach give you sand.

The tidal lagoon gives families with young children a calm place to get in the water. Griffith Head gives you the wide Atlantic view.

Woodland trails cut through the park’s 770-plus acres for those who want to get off the beach.

It’s the kind of place that works whether you spend two hours or a full day, and first-time visitors to Georgetown are smart to start here.

Get out to Reid State Park in Georgetown, Maine

You can pull into Reid State Park at 375 Seguinland Road in Georgetown. The park opens daily year-round, though hours and services vary by season.

Maine state parks charge a day-use fee, typically around $8 for Maine residents and $9 for non-residents, with discounts for children and seniors.

Parking fills up on summer weekends by mid-morning, so an early arrival pays off.

The official website for Maine state parks has current fee schedules and any seasonal alerts before you make the drive down.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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