In the two decades I’ve lived in Maine year round, I’ve never experienced a winter like this one. Snow, snow and more snow. The dug trenches in my front yard that connect the house to the driveway and street rise over my three year-old daughter’s head. My arms and back ache. The scoop on my snow shovel has snapped in two.
But along with these inconveniences has come the novelty of seeing things not usually seen: snow piled up high on cars, in entryways, and against doors; dense rows of icicles the length of spears; streets narrowed by towering walls of snow; thick coats of white powder covering the tree limbs. The impact the severe weather has had on the landscape has been striking.
I often carry a camera when I leave the house, but I always take my phone. The past few weeks, I’ve taken many photos with my phone and posted them to my Instagram account. In an attempt to convey what this winter has been like in eastern coastal Maine, I’ve copied several of those images here. These pictures were captured in Bar Harbor, Columbia Falls, Eastport, Ellsworth, Lamoine, Lubec, and Machias.
I admit, I have been thinking a lot about warm weather lately. More and more I am looking forward to not having to don boots, coat, hat and gloves just to walk out to (and dig out) the mail box. But one day my memory of the record-breaking winter of 2015 will fade and, when that happens, I hope I’ll still have these images to remind me of what it was like.