The Bold Coast Scenic Byway is a 125-mile driving route through coastal Washington County that offers an opportunity to experience the beauty, culture, history, wildlife, and recreational opportunities of an unspoiled Downeast Maine. In this far-flung corner of eastern Maine, salt air and solitude rejuvenate the soul, and people live in rhythm with the shifting of the tides, the migration of the fish, the rising of the sun, the turning of the leaf, and the warming of the soil.
The Bold Coast Scenic Byway gives travelers access to an experience unlike any other in the northeastern United States: a way of life that is intimately related to and dependent upon a wild and scenic coastal environment. Active fishing villages, working forests, family farms, and prolific blueberry barrens reflect this historical relationship as people continue to harvest the seasonal bounty of land and sea, much as their ancestors have done for over a century, and even for several millennium.
Along the Byway, visitors experience the rugged, unspoiled beauty of coastal Downeast Maine, passing through iconic wild blueberry barrens; abundant farmland; coastal forests yielding to tidal marshes and bays; clear-flowing rivers, streams, and lakes; active commercial fishing harbors; and historic villages lined with structures that exemplify the 19th Century shipbuilding, lumber processing, and sardine canning industries.
The Byway route extends from the fishing community of Milbridge northeasterly through coastal and riverine villages to Lubec, home of the easternmost point of land in the United States, and skirts the coastline of Cobscook Bay, through the Pleasant Point Indian Reservation to Eastport, an historic fishing port overlooking international waters and the Fundy Isles of New Brunswick, Canada.
The Byway is the main link connecting the world to a wide and relatively hidden network of fascinating people and beautiful places, and provides an entry point to the greater Bold Coast Region. The Bold Coast region includes numerous coastal communities as well as the inland lakes, forests, farms, blueberry barrens, and villages of Washington County.
Information
The Bold Coast Scenic Byway Facebook Page
Downeast and Acadia Regional Tourism
Downeast Maine Online
Destination Cherryfield
Schoodic East Magazine
Town of Jonesport
Machias Bay Area Chamber of Commerce
Cobscook Bay Area Chamber of Commerce
Eastport Area Chamber of Commerce
Download the map HERE
