Rockland

Rockland is a harbour town on Penobscot Bay, on the Maine coast, and the home of the Maine Lobster Festival. The festival takes place every year during the first weekend of August, from Wednesday through Sunday, at Harbor Park on Main Street. The 2027 festival runs from 4 to 8 August 2027 and will be the 80th.

Practical notes

• US Route 1 runs through the town. Knox County Regional Airport is close by, and Portland is the nearest large airport.
• Book a room early for festival week, in Rockland, Camden or Thomaston.

How the festival began

The organisers trace the Maine Lobster Festival to a meeting of residents and summer visitors in March 1947, who wanted to revive the summer activities Camden had known before the war and knew that a lobster festival in Nova Scotia had been a success. The first event was the Camden-Rockport Lobster Festival, run by a non-profit corporation. Today the festival is a 501(c)(4) non-profit run by a volunteer board, which says it has given more than 800,000 dollars to local groups such as Meals on Wheels in recent years.

The World's Largest Lobster Cooker

The festival calls Rockland the Lobster Capital of the World and serves more than 20,000 pounds (about 9 tonnes) of lobster in five days. Since 2008 the cooking has been done by a custom-built propane cooker with eight steel-mesh units that handles 1,600 pounds in 15 minutes. Lobsters are cooked in 100-pound batches and carried straight to the Main Eating Tent. At its peak the cooker has helped volunteers serve more than 26,000 pounds in the five days.

Rockland between the islands and the lighthouse

• The Maine State Ferry Service terminal at 517A Main Street serves the islands of Vinalhaven, North Haven and Matinicus, with a pay-by-card car park next to the terminal.
• The City of Rockland opens the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse to visitors on set days.
• The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative dates the first documented catch of Maine lobster to English settlers in the 1600s and calls the fishery one of the oldest continually operated industries in North America.