Love where you live - 13 random facts about our favorite state
Life at CedarWorks | 4 years ago
“Stay at home” has had a profound impact on just about everyone these last couple of months. At CedarWorks, we feel pretty lucky that Maine is our home year round (except on the occasional snow day in May) but never luckier than when we are heading into the warmer months and those long summer days. With so much coastline and so many lakes, rivers, and mountains, there’s a reason Maine is called Vacationland. We are only sorry this year that more of you won’t get to visit us and share what we love about our home state.
Here are a couple of fun facts about Maine to tide you over until you can come visit IRL:
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Maine sees the sunrise first in the United States, but do you know where in Maine? That’s a much trickier question than it sounds. If you guessed Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park you’d only be partly right. Cadillac Mountain gets the first glimpse of sunrise less than four months of the year. Much less famous Mars Hill way up in Aroostook County sees the sunrise first most of the rest of the year, except for a few days when Mt. Katahdin, Maine’s highest mountain, beats it out due to its sheer height.
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Maine has 3,478 miles of coastline. That’s more than California. If you include islands, we have over 5,000 miles. But we don’t let it get to our head. First, that wouldn’t be a very Maine thing to do, and second, Alaska beats us by a mile - more like 30,000 miles - with a total of 33,904 miles of coastline.
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Speaking of islands, Maine has either 3166 or 4,600 of them, depending whom you ask. And that either includes inland (lake) islands, or it doesn’t. Depending on whom you ask.
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Maine also has 67 lighthouses. Many of them are now parks and can be visited. The Maine Lighthouse Museum is only a couple of miles from us in Rockland.
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Ironically with all that coastline and all those islands, the Maine state fish is the Landlocked Salmon.
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Maybe not that ironic, Maine also has 6,000 lakes.
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The official state cat is the Maine Coon Cat, the largest domestic cat. There is no state dog. Not because we don’t like dogs. We love dogs. The problem was the state legislature couldn’t agree on a favorite, so we remain state dog-less.
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If there was a state crustacean, it would definitely be the Maine Lobster. There isn’t (feel better now, dogs?), but Maine supplies 90% of the country’s lobster supply.
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You probably didn’t know that Maine also supplies 90% of the country’s blueberry crop. This explains why at CedarWorks, most years, we can go to the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland at the beginning of August, and the Maine Blueberry Festival in Union just a couple weeks later.
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Okay, so maybe you knew Maine Blueberries were a thing, BUT you definitely didn’t know Maine also produces 90% of the country’s toothpicks.
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We’re not just about blueberries and lobsters. We have some serious foodies here, too. In 2020, 4 of 6 James Beard Award winners for best chef in the Northeast were in Maine, and in 2018 Bon Appetit named Portland (the one in Maine, not that other Portland) its Restaurant City of the Year.
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No coincidence, Northern White Cedar, the wood we use for all our outdoor playsets, is native to Maine.
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Maine is also famous for its craftspeople and artisans, a fact that influences everything CedarWorks does.
We love where we live, and we look forward to a time when we can share all that’s great about Maine with you.
Bon Appetit Restaurant City of the Year 2018
#fun
#outdoor
#useless-information
#who we are
