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We've compiled the best of the best in Milbridge Area - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
The museum is a nondescript modern building, so no period charm, but the interior more than makes up for it. Permanent exhibits document maritime industries past and present: shipbuilding, sardine canning, weir fishing, and lobstering. Each year there is a new exhibit as well as a gallery that showcases local artists. On the second Tuesday of the month at 7 pm in season, there's a free talk or program; check the website for details.
The refuge's 2,178-acre Petit Manan Point Division is a sanctuary of fields, forests, and rocky shorefront at the tip of Pigeon Hill Peninsula. In August, it's a popular spot for handpicking wild blueberries. Whatever the time of year, you can explore here—keeping an eye out for wildlife—on two trails. Mostly a loop, the 1.8-mile Hollingsworth Trail has a gorgeous shore stretch on Pigeon Hill Bay where it's easy to head off-path to clamber on the large granite ledges. Petit Manan Lighthouse—Maine’s second tallest, on one of five lighthouse islands belonging to the refuge—towers in the distance beyond a wide cove. Birch Point Trail (4.2 miles round-trip) crosses a blueberry field, then leads to salt marshes and mudflats on Dyer Bay, with side trails to a cove and rocky beach. Along the trail's logging roads, families and groups can walk together.
At 317 feet, Pigeon Hill is the highest coastal point in Washington County, and it doesn't disappoint, rewarding hikers with panoramic views that stretch to Schoodic Peninsula, where Acadia National Park's mainland district is located; Petit Manan Lighthouse off the end of the narrow peninsula where this land rises; and island-splattered waters farther Down East. Hike up to the summit on the short historic trail, with some steep sections, that locals have used for generations. There are also longer, easier routes on the 1.8-mile interconnected trail system, which was created when this became a Downeast Coastal Conservancy preserve. One trail traverses an old silver mine and another passes by a glacial erratic boulder. The 185-acre preserve's half-mile loop trail to Pigeon Hill Bay begins across the road from the parking area.
