FOUND IN MAINE
A series by The Hip Explorer
Explorer’s Notes
📍 Location: Sears Island, Searsport, Maine
🚶 How I Found It: A 1.74-mile loop through the Monarch Sanctuary, along the Homestead Trail, and back by way of the shoreline.
⏱️ Time to Explore: About one hour
📷 Best For: Easy hiking, wildlife, photography, and discovering a piece of Maine’s past.
💡 Good to Know: Parking is available along the Sears Island causeway. If you’re visiting in summer, the deer flies may decide to hike with you.
When I head out with my camera, I usually have a rough idea of where I’m going. What I don’t have is a checklist. Some days I’m hoping for a sunrise. Other days it’s a lighthouse, a wildflower, or simply the way the light falls across the shoreline. Most of the time, I just start walking and let the day unfold.
That’s exactly what happened on a warm July afternoon at Sears Island.
There isn’t a traditional parking lot here. You pull off along the causeway, shoulder your pack, and before long you’re walking an old paved road that’s slowly being reclaimed by grass. It feels like a fitting introduction to the island. Nothing here seems to be in much of a hurry.
I followed the signs toward the Homestead Trail, stopping every so often whenever something caught my eye. The Monarch Sanctuary was alive with bees and butterflies drifting from flower to flower, and the warm air carried that sweet scent of milkweed that seems to define a Maine summer. I spent a few quiet minutes taking photographs before continuing into the woods, convinced that would probably be the highlight of the afternoon.
The deer flies had other ideas.
For the next stretch of trail they stayed with me like tiny, uninvited hiking companions. Every few steps I found myself waving them away, hoping they’d eventually lose interest. They didn’t.
Somewhere beyond the sanctuary, something off to the side of the trail caught my attention.
At first it looked like another old stone wall. If you’ve spent much time wandering through Maine’s woods, you’ve probably seen dozens of them. Farmers cleared their fields one rock at a time, and many of those walls are still standing long after the farms themselves disappeared. I almost gave it a passing glance and kept walking.
Then I noticed the steps.
Stone steps disappearing into the ground.
I stopped.
“That’s a cellar.”
As I walked a little closer, more pieces came into view. The stone walls. The outline of the foundation. Then, tucked just a short distance away, an old well.
A few moments earlier I had been looking at what I thought was another pile of rocks. Now I was standing where someone’s home had once been.
I found myself trying to picture it. Not the ruins, but the life that once filled this clearing. What did the farmhouse look like? What could they see from the front porch? How different did this part of the island look before the forest slowly reclaimed it?
I didn’t have answers to any of those questions.
Honestly, I still don’t.
And maybe that’s part of what made the discovery stay with me. A little mystery leaves more room for the imagination than a page full of facts ever could.
Eventually the trail carried me down to the beach.
Almost instantly, the deer flies gave up the chase. Apparently even they have boundaries.
The shoreline was quiet, with gentle waves rolling across the rocks and Penobscot Bay stretching into the distance. I wandered my way back toward the causeway the same way I’d spent the rest of the afternoon, stopping whenever the light, the water, or a patch of wildflowers convinced me to pull out the camera one more time.
By the time I reached my Jeep, I realized the photographs weren’t what I was thinking about anymore.
It was the cellar.
When I got home, curiosity took over. I started reading about Sears Island and the people who once called it home, trying to learn a little more about the place I’d stumbled across. The history is there if you’re interested enough to go looking for it.
But even after the reading was done, my favorite part of the story was still that first moment.
The moment when an ordinary walk through the woods became something else because I noticed a set of stone steps disappearing beneath the trees.
Keep Exploring
One of the things I love most about exploring Maine is that the best discoveries rarely come with signs pointing toward them.
Sometimes they’re hidden beneath the trees.
Sometimes they’re mistaken for an old stone wall.
And sometimes they’re waiting for someone curious enough to stop, take one more look, and wonder what story those stones might still have to tell.
That’s the part I carried home from Sears Island.
Not the answers.
Just the questions.
