Today is officially the winter solstice, and while I wrote about ways to celebrate it last week, the poignancy of darkness brought about by this week’s storm made it seem worthy of another week’s focus. How untimely it was to have massive power outages on some of the darkest days of the year. It certainly made me appreciate the light all the more. We are certainly not a place in the world or a time period where people are used to or prepared for darkness. The Scandinavian culture, about which I wrote last week, is much better adjusted to the idea of darkness as many of its locales hardly have any daylight at all in the winter months. If you’re going to live there, you have to find a way to embrace it!
I didn’t exactly embrace the darkness that resulted from the latest storm, but I did enjoy the way that it facilitated some needed slowing of activity in my life, particularly around the holidays. Instead of being able to write emails and make phone calls, I settled in to tackle handwritten projects I’d fallen behind on and prepped our family’s dinner during the day while it was still light. Kids were home from school, my husband was home from work and all the shops were dark. It gave me a moment to stand still and appreciate the dark in the same way that the sun stands still momentarily during the solstice.
Today, inspecting the aftermath on a walk, I wasn’t halfway down Maine Street before I was deafened by the roar of the river. It wasn’t unexpected after the torrential amount of rain Monday’s storm brought, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it flowing so aggressively. One of the most impressive components of the river as it flows between Topsham and Brunswick is the falls. While these falls are not entirely natural, with the added component of the hydroelectric facility, the smaller natural falls that flow over the lower cascades of rocks were the ones I was taken by — the spray shooting off of them as it rushed under the bridge in a blur.
This situation is an anomaly. But there are some more regularly naturally dramatic falls in Maine, some of the most interesting of which are along the coast. These are the reversing falls that tie together various pieces of water and change directions with the change in the tide. One of these sets of falls is the site of one of this evening’s solstice celebrations. The Downeast Coastal Conservancy is hosting a solstice walk at the Cobscook Falls, which are between the DCC’s Reversing Falls Preserve in Pembroke and nearby Falls Island. Up that way, the tide can rise up to 24 feet in a single cycle, changing the same patch of water from calm to unrecognizably roiling. Not to worry — the solstice walk doesn’t require navigating the falls but is an opportunity to see the drama that water can create even outside of a rogue storm.
Pembroke is not exactly in the geographic reach of this newspaper, but there are reversing falls closer to home. The closest ones to Brunswick are in Harpswell at Basin and Ash Points. There’s another impressive one at Glidden Point in Damariscotta, which can be seen from the Route 1A bridge as you come in from Newcastle. There are several others throughout the state as well as a couple of reversing rivers. In fact, Maine is the only state on the East Coast that has reversing falls, primarily because of its current and past geology.
Or, for a little while longer, you can walk down to the Androscoggin River and see the power of surging water as it rushes as strongly, if not more so, than many of Maine’s reversing falls do on a regular basis. All of this activity doesn’t exactly mimic the slow pause that the solstice is supposed to provide, but perhaps just taking the time to notice the dramatic changes that nature (and water in this case) can cause is ample celebration of the turning of the season this winter’s solstice. And at least we’ll have a little more natural light starting tomorrow, if not light indoors.
Susan Olcott is the director of operations at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.
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