Free 1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die by Patricia Schultz

through their tradition of fine woodwork and their invention of several now-common tools and household items, including the wooden clothespin and the circular saw.
    Founded in 1783, Sabbathday Lake was one of the smallest and most isolated of the Shaker villages. In less than a year it had attracted 200 believers, and by 1794 had begun construction of the wooden and brick buildings still in use today. It’s the only active Shaker community in the United States, with fewer than ten members tending 1,800 acres of land.
    Seventeen wooden buildings and the large brick Dwelling House are nestled among carefully tended gardens and fields. The community members are always busy and usually out of sight (“Hands to Work, Hearts to God,” as Mother Ann used to say), but visitors can get a glimpse of their lifestyle by touring the community, taking in the displays and resources at its museum and library, or signing up for summer courses in herb gardening, woodworking, and other crafts.
    Sabbathday’s museum, organized in 1931, contains 13,000 artifacts charting the history of Maine’s Shaker culture, including examples of the wooden furniture that is the Shakers’ most well-known cultural legacy; the Shakers believed in seeking the divine through functionality and a perfection of line.
    The community’s library, established in 1882, is a nationally known repository of Shaker history, with more than 3,000 books by and about the Shakers, plus thousands of photos, journals, scrapbooks, oral histories, andrecordings of Shaker hymns. Tours depart from the museum and visit six of the community’s buildings, including the 1794 Meetinghouse, still used for worship services; the Ministry’s Shop; the 1816 Spinhouse; and the Sister’s Shop, where workers pack culinary herbs and herbal teas using methods the Shakers have employed for two centuries. They’re available at a shop on the grounds, and—proof that the community isn’t living entirely in the past—through their website.
    W HERE: 25 miles north of Portland. Tel 207-926-4597; www.shaker.lib.me.us. W HEN: late May–mid-Oct. B EST TIMES: summer, when Sun 10 A.M . services in the Meeting House are open to the public; autumn for “Apple Saturdays” walks through the orchards; 1st Sat in Dec for the Shaker Christmas Fair.
    Paddling in the Company of Moose, Loons, and Beaver
M AINE C ANOE C OUNTRY
    Northern Maine
    Way up in northern Maine, surrounded east, west, and north by Canada, the 92-mile Allagash Wilderness Waterway is the top canoeing destination in the northeastern United States, offering pristine lakes , amazing white water, towering forests, and a chance to commune with the soul of the great North Woods. Civilization is distant, effectively ending at the town of Greenville on Moosehead Lake (see p. 28), and other people are scarce—even in the relatively long May–October season, the area typically sees only about 10,000 paddlers.
    The waterway was established in 1966 by Maine’s state legislature, with the goal of conserving the Allagash’s natural beauty and undeveloped character. Venture far by land and you’ll eventually hit a logging road or clear-cut—evidence that this part of Maine is one vast tree farm, its 3.5 million acres primarily owned and managed by logging companies. Around the rivers and lakes, though, things remain as they’ve always been, the wet forest climate providing a perfect habitat for diverse plant and animal species, including moose, black bear, deer, beaver, bald eagles, and loons.
    Typically, Allagash trips begin at Chamberlain Lake, west of Baxter State Park (see p. 29) and continue north to Allagash Village and the convergence of the Allagash and St. John rivers. The trip takes about a week, with more than half the route passing through a series of lakes, spiced by stretches of Class II white-water and milder rapids. Highlights along the route include gorgeous views of Mt. Katahdin from Chesuncook Lake and, at the northern end,