Maine’s Route One winds its way along a coastline graced by scenic vistas, picturesque fishing villages anchored by lobster shacks, seaside resorts and millionaires’ summer homes. This is Maine, or at least the one that is visited, valued and promoted, its multihued image showcased in tourist brochures and embedded deeply in the collective vision of how the state is pictured. But there exists another Maine, one extending just beyond the interstate yet far away from the touristed highway. A land of perennial poverty long preceding the recent recession and long outlasting the eternally promised recovery, this is inland Maine and home to the people portrayed here. All long-term residents of the back roads and backwoods, here they live in scattered dwellings at a distance from the coast measured in worlds more than miles. And here they remain just west of the American dream, a far cry from the state license plate’s proclamation: Vacationland.
