It's a Bar Harbor Fourth of July
We’ll be updating this article throughout the day. Those updates won’t come to your email (we don’t want to overwhelm you), so come back and check in for more photos and narrative. All the photos are by Shaun Farrar and Carrie Jones.
BAR HARBOR—The Fourth of July celebrations filled the streets, fields, parks and an occasional front yard today in Bar Harbor as clouds came and went and came again.
Here’s a quick lowdown of the festivities as they occur.
BREAKFAST
The pancake breakfast on the town’s ball fields begins well before its 6 a.m. start time even if you don’t include the planning and set up that began months before.
Men in matching kilts stand in the middle of the parking lot between the Park Street ball fields. “Put a kilt on, man,” one calls to the other who is making a beeline past cars and tourists for the squat concrete building that holds the public restrooms. They’ll start playing shortly after eight, the sounds of bagpipes wafting up to Ledgelawn and down School Street, mingling with the smells of pancakes and sausage coming from the adjacent pancake breakfast.
To the men’s right, three softball players in maroon and white work on their pitching and catching. It’s not yet eight, but the girl on the mound is winding up, full throttle, letting the yellow ball fly over the plate after its release.
“Nice. Nice. More power,” someone calls.
Over at the other field, Lisa Horsch Clark, of Friends of Acadia and past president of the Bar Harbor (MDI) Rotary Club stands in a soggy field that’s soaked from a week of intermittently gloomy and rainy days, red pants and hats two beacons for confused patrons as she ushers diners into the food line. “Here you go. Here you go. Did you need me to explain?”
Handing out plates and cutlery is Mackenzie Graten the daughter of two Bar Harbor Chamber workers. Her aunt, Annette Higgins, is also a Bar Harbor Rotary president and works for Bay Ferries. She’s been volunteering at the Rotary club’s July Fourth pancake breakfast since she was in grade school. She just graduated from Sumner Memorial High School.
The Fourth, organized by the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce, is a community effort and each event that comprise the day requires community members to participate, fund, volunteer, and enjoy. For Rotary’s events, the community continues to benefit long after the holiday.
The proceeds from this and for the seafood festival later in the day all go to the Rotary club’s projects and also to donations to local organizations. Each year the club gives thousands to local nonprofits, helping support their missions while also supporting their own. This year, calls for volunteers to help the small club pull off the massive event extended through the weekend. Ellsworth Rotarians and others came volunteering, manning sausage grills, flipping pancakes, setting up, cleaning tables, making coffee, even guarding the equipment overnight.
THE PARADE
The parade began on Main Street and headed out and into downtown proper to packed sidewalks and streets.
“Candy!” one kid screamed as he captured a lollipop.
“This is amazing,” the boy next to him yelled. “Payday!”
In lawn chairs, sitting on curbs, in the backs of trucks and up on balconies, locals and visitors alike gathered along Main, Cottage, Eden, Mount Desert and Ledgelawn to witness a parade that featured emergency vehicles, local businesses, nonprofits, and camps.
The parade was organized by the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce.
CRAFT FAIR
CHALKING
Annlinn Kruger continued her chalking campaign about Leonard Leo, a conservative activist who summers in Northeast Harbor. Leo is credited by man with helping create a more conservative judicial system throughout the country and on the Supreme Court.
SEAFOOD FESTIVAL
The Bar Harbor (MDI) Rotary Club, just 32 members strong, also hosted and organized the Seafood Festival.
MUSIC AND CLAIMING SPACES
As the day progressed, Rotary broke down its event, bringing supplies back into the old Bangor-Hydro building. Others staked claims on Agamont Park for fireworks or to listen to the music down at the parking lot, checked out the Shore Path and the town beach.
FIREWORKS!
Walking through Bar Harbor just before 9 p.m., the town feels like a bit of a ghost town. And then you get to the town pier and suddenly people are everywhere. The town blocks off the bottom of Main Street and you see where the approximately 25,000 people Bar Harbor hosts each year have gathered. To put that in context, Bar Harbor has about 5,000 year-round residents. Slink your way sideways through the crowds and people fill the beach, area around the Bar Harbor Inn, and the beginning of the Shore Path before thinning out.
The fireworks event has been consistently organized by the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce with support and help from other businesses and groups. This year the entire day was brought to Bar Harbor by the Chamber, the Bar Harbor Hospitality Group, Harborside Hotel, Spa, and Marina, Bar Harbor Regency, First National Bank, MDI YMCA, Bar Harbor (MDI) Rotary Club, Bar Harbor Whale Watch, and Stewmans.
Many staff of the Bar Harbor police, fire, ambulance and dispatchers as well as the public works crews also work throughout the day, giving up their holiday to ensure that the community gets to celebrate together.
“What would you do if there was a zombie apocalypse?” a woman asked as she walked down the dark Shore Path with her family after the show.
“Die happy,” a child with her said, bouncing. “I love this.”
“Not die hungry,” another adult said. “I ate way too much today.”
It didn’t during Covid-19, but almost every year, Bar Harbor hosts a day-long celebration, one day where neighbors go on their lawns to talk to each, to watch parades, to participate in them, to look to the skies over Frenchman Bay and instead of watching verbal fireworks and social media posts explode, watch something more beautiful. Locals and visitors. All the demographics. Together.
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