"The Abenaki Indians called him "patlihoz," meaning Black Robe. The French in Quebec thought of him as a saintly man, possessed of great learning and dedication. The English in Boston called him a bloody incendiary, and were convinced that he was inciting Indian attacks on their frontier settlements in Maine. The controversy continues today: What was Sebastian Rale really like? In this volume Mary Calvert gathers together the complete story of Father Rale. Starting with his birth in 1652 and his upbringing near the border of Switzerland, she follows the trail of evidence leading through his Jesuit education and years of teaching in France; his assignment to the New World; his first meeting with Abenakis in Canada; and his perilous journey to far-off Illinois. Upon his return from the Illinois mission, Father Rale was assigned to the village of the Norridgewock Indians on the Kennebec River in Maine. Here he would live for most of the remaining thirty years of his life, preaching and teaching, corresponding with his family in France and his superiors in Quebec, and compiling a massive dictionary of the Abenaki language for which he is best known today. Death came suddenly August 23, 1724, when Rale was killed along with scores of his beloved Abenakis in an English raid. The story in largely told by Father Rale himself, in excerpts from his published and unpublished letters, and passages from his dictionary. The English point of view is shown through excerpts from colonial documents, and the author has sketched in the background of the French and English settlement of North America. The story is a dramatic one, set against the backdrop of bloody Indian wars and brave pioneer families, heartbreaking tales of captivity, religious clashes, tragic misunderstandings, adventures and narrow escapes that seem stranger than fiction. Above all, there is the intimate picture she draws of the proud Maine Abenakis of the colonial era, and the educated man who shared his life and soul with them. The story of Sebastian Rale is truly a Maine epic." -- Publisher's description

Drawn to its rich maritime history, Ellie and Ty Malone purchase a grand home in Bath, Maine, and discover the story of a prominent shipbuilding family who lived there in the 1800s. Daughters of Long Reach explores love and loss through the lens of multiple families who are separated by time but connected by the rolling tides of the Kennebec River. Anna Malone, a modern-day daughter, arrives in Bath to heal and to begin to write again after losing her heart and her work to a charming, but duplicitous, filmmaker. Stella Rose leaves Bath in the 1940s to nurse wounded sailors, but she finds love in the middle of war and may never go home again. Thomas Goss, a sea captain at the turn of the 20th century, comes back to Bath to save his soul, but he almost loses it completely. Across three centuries, Long Reach ties hearts and souls together with a sailor's knot.

In late 1775, a few months after the first shots of the Revolution were fired, Benedict Arnold led more than one thousand troops into Quebec to attack the British there. Departing from Massachusetts, by the time they reached Pittston, Maine, they were in desperate need of supplies and equipment to carry them the rest of the way. Many patriotic Mainers contributed, including Major Reuben Colburn, who constructed a flotilla of bateaux for the weary troops. Despite his service in the Continental army, many blamed Colburn when several of the vessels did not withstand the harsh journey. In this narrative, the roles played by Colburn and his fellow Mainers in Arnolds march are reexamined and revealed.

* 2009 John Burroughs Medal for Best Nature Writing * There are said to be only four places in the world where two major rivers--with entirely separate watersheds--converge at their mouths to form a common delta.

Dr. Silvester Gardiner was an extraordinary individual. In telling his story, Coolidge traces the early settlement of Maine, from the first settlers struggling to survive bitter winters in crude huts, to the gradual establishment of trade, sawmills, gristmills, and other commerce, and then attempts to increase the population with immigrants and instill civilization through the firm hands of religion, government, and Dr. Gardiner.

"Drawing from both current historical interpretations and new interdisciplinary perspectives, this collection provides diverse approaches to understanding the multilayered exchanges that went into creating cartographic knowledge in and about the Americas. In the introduction, editor Martin Brückner provides a critical assessment of the concept of cartography and of the historiography of maps. The individual essays, then, range widely over space and place, from the imperial reach of Iberian and British cartography to indigenous conceptualizations, including "dirty," ephemeral maps and star charts, to demonstrate that pre-nineteenth-century American cartography was at once a multiform and multicultural affair. The essays also bring to light original archives and innovative methodologies for investigating spatial relations among peoples in the Western Hemisphere." --from the publisher.

A comprehensive and beautifully illustrated overview to the birds of Maine The first comprehensive overview of Maine’s incredibly rich birdlife in more than seven decades, Birds of Maine is a detailed account of all 464 species recorded in the Pine Tree State. It is also a thoroughly researched, accessible portrait of a region undergoing rapid changes, with southern birds pushing north, northern birds expanding south, and once-absent natives like Atlantic Puffins brought back by innovative conservation techniques pioneered in Maine. Written by the late Peter Vickery in cooperation with a team of leading ornithologists, this guide offers a detailed look at the state’s dynamic avifauna—from the Wild Turkey to the Arctic Tern—with information on migration patterns and timing, current status and changes in bird abundance and distribution, and how Maine's geography and shifting climate mold its birdlife. It delves into the conservation status for Maine's birds, as well as the state's unusually textured ornithological history, involving such famous names as John James Audubon and Theodore Roosevelt, and home-grown experts like Cordelia Stanwood and Ralph Palmer. Sidebars explore diverse topics, including the Old Sow whirlpool that draws multitudes of seabirds and the famed Monhegan Island, a mecca for migrant birds. Gorgeously illustrated with watercolors by Lars Jonsson and scores of line drawings by Barry Van Dusen, Birds of Maine is a remarkable guide that birders will rely on for decades to come. Copublished with the Nuttall Ornithological Club

When Anna Malone, a Maine screenwriter, rents an apartment at Marshall Point, she's inspired to write about its historic lighthouse. As she prepares to publish her first novel, she meets Dan Leone, a New York editor, and they soon discover their Maine connection: Their grandmothers, Stella Rose and Penélope Solis, both daughters of Yankee sea captains, were cousins who left Bath in the 1930s to work at National Screen Service in midtown Manhattan... continues the story of Daughters of Long Reach... -- Back cover.