Visit Lubec Maine

Lubec... where the sun first rises and adventure awaits!

«View All Posts

Rodgers Island

Posted 01/29/25

Rodgers Islandview larger photo Chasing the sun on a peaceful kayak journey.

Rodgers Island lies alongside the northern peninsula of Lubec ME, roughly one mile northwest of the Lubec Town Landing. The island consists of two narrow tracts of wooded ledge, about one-half mile in length, connected by a gravel bar at low tide. It was gifted to the Town of Lubec in the bequest of June Ives Dickerson primarily as a bird sanctuary and for the casual enjoyment of people who enjoy a quiet, beautiful respite from the hurried business of the shore-bound. It is open to the public year round for day visits and no pets are permitted due to its status as a haven for birds. The spruce and hardwood trees of the interior host a wide variety of songbirds and one can view the occasional great blue heron wading the shoreline. In the surrounding waters, sea ducks along with loons, common murres, and hooded mergansers swim and dive with a bevy of gulls above, soaring past the watchful gaze of an eagle perched high along the rocky shore.

The Downeast Coastal Conservancy currently operates as the property manager and the island is listed in the Maine Island Trail guide. It can be accessed most readily by small boat, power or paddle with a shallow draft, from the sandy beach on the eastern shore, the southeastern point, and on the northwestern shore. The tides in the bay can run up to twenty feet between high and low, and the currents are often very strong. Because of the complex arrangement of the many islands and channels, the current can be moving rapidly in three or four different directions in different areas during both the incoming and outgoing phase. Slack tide is a very short time in Johnson’s Bay and conflicting currents, when further agitated by winds, can prove difficult to manage. Be careful.

In addition to the birds, deer often swim out to the island and other small mammals can be found living in the wooded areas, thus this is not an optimal site for sea-birds to nest. Rodgers Island has the foundational remains of a former homestead and a dug well centered in the middle of the larger section which provides fresh water to the denizens of this island. This area has an intriguing history, along with all of the islands in this Downeast archipelago, that reaches back to the Revolutionary War, and prior to that it was, for centuries, and remains an integral part of the Passamaquoddy culture. The eastern edge of the island has iron pilings left in the rocks from long ago which can prove hazardous to any small boat coasting within fifty feet of the high water mark. Much information on the local area can be found at the Lubec Historical Society site in Lubec.

If you are among the few to get out to this local treasure, always honor and hold in your heart the message of June Ives Dickerson, “If the birds truly do not mind, are not seriously inconvenienced, the island can be used. . .” This is the beautiful bottom line.

«View All Posts