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John,

What a great response so far to our #LoveMaine campaign, where we're highlighting our members' stories about the Maine we all love!

As the holiday season approaches, we'd love for you to share a favorite memory of Maine.

Do you and your family have a favorite outdoor place you enjoy? Maybe a special holiday tradition that's quintessentially Maine?

Click here to share your #LoveMaine story, and we may highlight it online and with our members. [[link removed]]

We'd like to share this beautiful #LoveMaine story from MCV member Kristen Lindquist about her time on Monhegan Island:

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I've been visiting Monhegan Island for the fall migration for more than twenty years, but this September, there was literal magic in the air on this offshore island. Well-known as a stopover for southbound birds, from colorful songbirds to once-endangered Peregrine Falcons, this speck of land on the outer edge of Muscongus Bay also hosts migrating insects: dragonflies and butterflies.

A few years ago, I spotted exactly one Monarch butterfly during my fall visit; it felt like the nadir for the species. I wondered sadly if I’d ever see them again. This fall, however, the island was the stage for what seemed like a major Monarch renascence. Thousands of them filled the air, lifting around me in a cloud of bright wings every time I passed a patch of goldenrod or asters. The village flower gardens were also full of them. Everywhere I went, visitors and island residents alike commented on the butterflies; it became the shared parlance on the island’s many trails and at the island brewery’s outside tables.

At sun-up, by looking carefully, I’d spot hundreds of Monarchs roosting together en masse in the spruce and pine trees. As the sun warmed the insects, they would take flight, one by one, into the morning air. The island has long been my favorite place, for its breath-taking landscape of spruce forest and rugged, oceanside cliffs—much of which has been in conservation since the 1950s thanks to Thomas Edison’s son Ted—and for the tiny but diverse community of fishermen, artists and artisans, shop-owners, gardeners, innkeepers, teachers, and others that sustain the village year-round.

But this “season of the butterflies” made me fall in love all over again, as orange wings blessed the air around us at every step. As I watched dozens of Monarchs launch themselves out over the water on light but purposeful wings, heading for wintering grounds in the southern US and Mexico, I held onto the hope that from these salt-sprayed shores I would see such a sight again in my lifetime.

Do you have a favorite story here in Maine? Please share it with us today! [[link removed]]

Looking forward to hear from you,

-Greta Warren
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