Bond Projects

Presque Isle Hanger Dedication

Franco-American Heritage Center

Situated in Lewiston’s Little Canada neighborhood, Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church was closed and threatened with demolition in 2000 due to the diminished size of the congregation. Designed in the Norman Gothic Style by Timothy G. O’Connell, one of the most prolific architects of civic and religious structures in New England, designing approximately 600 in his career including St. David’s in Madawaska and St. Joseph’s Convent in Portland, St. Mary’s is significant both architecturally and culturally. Local tradition holds that it was built in this style because many of the parishioners were of Norman descent.

In 2001, the Franco American Heritage Center at St. Mary’s was established as a Performing Art, Museum, and Learning Center. A major restoration and adaptive reuse project converted St. Mary’s Church into the Franco- American Heritage Center. The new Center houses a museum dedicated to the region’s Franco-American heritage in the lower level with a performance area on the main floor.

Mt. Kineo

Mount Kineo, with 700-foot cliffs rising straight up from Moosehead Lake, is an unforgettable setting that has lured people for centuries. Native Americans once traveled great distances to Mt. Kineo, relying on its flint-like rhyolite to make stone tools. In recent centuries, Kineo’s spectacular scenery and the amenities of Moosehead Lake drew “rusticators” and summer guests to vacation at the base of this imposing precipice. Other species as well appreciate this unusual geological formation: peregrine falcons and an assemblage of rare plants rely on Mt. Kineo’s cliffs and steep talus slopes.

Cutler Coast

When this 2,100-acre stretch of Maine’s Bold Coast went on the market in 1989, conservation groups moved quickly to ensure its protection. Maine Coast Heritage Trust and The Conservation Fund coordinated purchase of the Cutler Coast property and an additional 8,900 acres of woodland and grasslands in the towns of Cutler and Whiting. From them, the State was able to acquire the coastal tract at a cost well below the original asking price. The Bureau of Parks and Lands now manages this unique reserve, which offers a wilderness experience hard to match elsewhere along Maine’s coast. Much of the surrounding landscape looks today as it must have when the first European settlers arrived in Cutler 250 years ago.

South Lubec Sand Bar

Sand beaches are a rare geological feature in downeast Maine, making this mile-long spit off Lubec even more unusual. It parallels the shore between West Quoddy State Park and the town of Lubec and can be seen from both settings. An extensive salt marsh lies along its landward side with a unique raised peatland known as Carrying Place Cove Bog. The extensive mudflats surrounding the site provide feeding and roosting habitat for a wide variety of shorebirds and an important stopover for migratory birds. Species such as Northern harriers, merlins and short-eared owls rely on the sand bar year-round, and semipalmated sandpipers, semipalmated plovers and black-bellied plovers are among the thousands of shorebirds that use the mud flats as a staging area in late summer.

As part of a Land for Maine’s Future project, the State took ownership of this 12-acre sand bar, turning over long-term management responsibilities to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.

Bear River Rips - a canoe access site along the Androscoggin River near Bethel
Five Fields Farm - an apple orchard near Bald Mountain in Bridgeton
Skolfield Shores Preserve - Americorps volunteers building a trail bridge on the preserve in Harpswell
Jordan Farm - a third generation farm supplying Portland area restaurants markets and visitors in Cape Elizabeth
Marshall Island - a fabled destination in Jericho Bay and popular with picnickers near Swan's Island
Frenchman's Hole - a popular swimming spot near Bethel
Tumbledown Mountain - a nationally recognized alpine hike northwest of Weld