A Reverence for the Sand

FEATURE-July/August 2009
by Josh Gleason
Photography by Mark Marchesi

A Desert Draws Visitors to Freeport

Gary Kearns, with the rustic bearing of a rancher surveying his land, reaches down, grabs a handful of sand, and, almost reverentially, lets it loose into the air. We’re standing on the edge of the Desert of Maine—some 40 acres of gentle sand dunes incongruously ringed by pine-tree forest.

Gary and his wife Ginger are its owners. “The desert sticks out like a sore thumb,” he says. “Everything that you would think Maine looks like still looks like it. Then you walk out our back door, and it’s nothing but dunes and sand. A lot of people when they leave just shake their heads and say, ‘If I didn’t see it for myself I wouldn’t believe it.’ But it’s there.”

If you have never been to the Desert of Maine, you might be imagining a spit of land that someone dumped a trailer load of sand upon. In other words, a tourist trap. And you wouldn’t be totally off base. The Desert of Maine lures tourists. And no, it’s not officially a desert; it receives far too much rainfall to be considered one. But the sand did arrive here by natural means. The unnatural part is the way it was uncovered.

The story of how this “desert” came to exist in the middle of the woods just a few miles from downtown Freeport goes back more than 10,000 years to the last Ice Age, when grinding, glacial activity pulverized rocks and stones into a sand-like substance known as glacial silt. (It’s not technically sand, but a finer and dustier type of sediment.) When the Earth warmed and became more fertile, a layer of topsoil formed, vegetation grew, and the desert that lay beneath was completely obscured.

When in 1797 William Tuttle bought what is now the Desert of Maine and began raising livestock and crops on it, neither he nor anyone else knew a thing about the veritable dust bowl that lay below. And unfortunately for Mr. Tuttle, he and his progeny proved to be faulty farmers. Clearcutting, poor crop rotation, and overgrazing eroded that thin layer of topsoil, and eventually the desert made its presence known.

“All of a sudden these sand patches started appearing,” says Gary. “So they tried to cover it up, but it just kept showing more and more. It became a battle. Because the sand is so fine, it moves very easy.”

It was a battle the Tuttles were destined to lose. Over time the silt gradually overtook the entire property, covering barns and fences. Eventually the family, perhaps suspecting some elaborate curse, abandoned the land around the turn of the century.

The desert might have remained abandoned and known only to locals, an eerie warning against farming folly, were it not for good, old American capitalist Henry Goldrup. He looked out upon the dunes and saw not a tale of misfortune, but potential riches. In 1919 he bought the land for $300.

Goldrup’s early efforts to convert the silt to cold, hard cash were as ill-fated as the Tuttles’ misadventures in farming. His first grand idea was to use the silt to manufacture brick. The bricks crumbled. Next he tried to manufacture glass. The silt’s high mineral content made the resultant glass black. Legend has it one of Henry’s buddies put his arm around him and said, “Congratulations Henry, you bought yourself a worthless desert.”

You can imagine what happened next. Proverbial light bulb goes on, Goldrup makes some signs advertising ten-cent walking tours of the “Desert of Maine,” and a roadside institution is born.

Modern-day tours of the Desert of Maine are more sophisticated and more expensive. Guides drive small jeeps that pull open-air tram cars full of curious visitors around the property, recount its bizarre history, and stop to elaborate on points of interest. There are no real roads here, just a winding flat track in the sand. Perhaps most compelling is the site where Goldrup constructed a springhouse in 1935, which promptly became another desert casualty. Not long after its completion the shifting silt began to cover it, and by 1962 it was completely buried. A marker placed on top of the roof now shows it to be eight feet beneath the ground. “The desert has its own mind,” Gary says with a wistful awe, as though he were discussing the Lord Almighty. “Man’s not going to be able to stop whatever it decides to do.”

My fellow visitors mostly find the desert “interesting,” “informative,” and “worth a visit.” Their children are generally more enthusiastic—not about the tour per se, but about the gemstone field, an area of the desert the Kearns seed with colored stones. Kids are allowed to take three stones home with them. Many families had come back time and again just for this particular attraction, which goes to show that you can never underestimate the allure of searching for buried treasure.

Aside from the tours and the gemstone field, you can also explore the Tuttle barn, which still stands along the edge of the property. It’s been converted into a museum of sorts for old farm tools, none of which actually belonged to the Tuttles. It also houses a display of about 100 odd jars containing sand of all shades and types that past visitors have sent in from places around the globe—the Sahara Desert, Saudi Arabia, and Bermuda. And of course there’s the obligatory gift shop where you can stock up on all manner of Desert of Maine merchandise, much of it emblazoned with the image of Sadie, the fiberglass camel that stands near the spot where trams enter the desert. At one time a real camel named Sadie welcomed visitors to the desert, but she got herself donated to a zoo after she developed a habit of spitting on people.

Powerful though the desert may be, as some of the best-laid plans left in its wake can attest, it is ultimately the forest that will have the last laugh. Slowly but surely the surrounding vegetation is encroaching upon the silt, and eventually the topsoil that the Tuttles undid will reestablish itself. According to Gary, in roughly 400 years the desert will disappear once more.

The Desert of Maine, 95 Desert Road in Freeport (on the opposite side of I-295 from the retail outlets), is open May 8 to October 16, seven days a week. Tours start at 9 a.m. and leave every half hour. The last tour is at 4:30. Admission is $8.75 adults, $6.75 teens 13-16, $5.75 kids 5-12. 207.865.6962 | desertofmaine.com.