(14) Sears Island

A causeway was built approximately 20 years ago which now connects Sears Island to the mainland via Sears Island Road. Visitors can drive out to the end of the causeway, and even though there is a road that travels down the center of the island to the southern tip, you can not drive on the island itself, as it is blocked off by large concrete blocks and fencing. You can however walk, hike, bike, and explore the island, not only by the road (appx. 1 mile long, which offers spectacular views of Penobscot Bay, Cape Rosier/Castine, and Islesboro Island, among many others), but also by the numerous walking trails that zig-zag their way around the island. There are beautiful beaches that surround the perimiter of the island as well.

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(1) Stockton Harbor (2) Fort Point (3) The River (4) Narrows Bridge (5) Fort Knox (6) Bucksport (7) Verona
(8) The Bay (9) Fort George(10) Castine (11) Islesboro (12) Belfast(13) Searsport (14) Sears Island

Sears Island, an undeveloped 941-acre property at the head of Penobscot Bay, has been the proposed site for a great variety of industrial projects over the past 40 years - everything from a nuclear plant to an aluminum smelter, a coal-fired plant and a liquefied natural gas terminal. Against all odds, the island has remained to this day in a relatively unspoiled state.

For several thousand years before European settlers came to the New World native inhabitants camped and fished along Sears Island's shores, arriving by canoe at Wassumkeag, the "place of shining sands", the sandbar that connected the island to the mainland at low tide before the causeway was built in the late 1980s. Homesteaders moved in during the 1700s when the island was called Brigadier's Island.Eventually the island was named after David Sears of Boston after he agreed to grant a large sum of money towards founding of Searsport.

The island is a Mecca for birders with some 168 species of birds having been recorded on Sears Island, along with many mammals, amphibians, fish and plants including eel grass and a rare* sedge. Locals hunt and fish on the island and hiking, dog walking, sea glass & sea shell hunting are a favorite of all. Walking around the island will be an approx. 5.7 mile hike - including climbing the jetty. Or you might want to bike or hike out the only road on the island, leading to no where, the road is approximately 1.5 miles long.

Sears Island also acts as a great element barrier for one of the most well-protected harbors in the state of Maine, Stockton Harbor, which is quickly becoming one of the most attractive anchorages in the mid-coast region not only for the protection it offers, but also it's convenience to Penobscot Bay & surrounding towns. Bar Harbor is about an hour car ride east, and both Camden and Bangor are about a half-hour south and north, respectively.