Here you see Naskeag Harbor’s working waterfront at rest on Sunday as the sun set on that fine day. This is where most Brooklin fishing vessels find safe moorings, but it also is a favorite place for many to visit.
You can picnic in a small park here or on the beach; swim in clear, cold water; search for sea shells and sea glass, and even let your dog cavort in the water. For many of us, however, it’s mostly a place to find that primal feeling that can come when you just stay still and allow the salty-breezed calmness to ease its way into you and give you a soft mental massage.
In the summer, the resident fishing boats leave here to tend their lobster traps in the surrounding coastal waters. Some of them remain in the winter, add masts and booms and “drags” (net dredges) and drag for Atlantic scallops in that season. (One or two of the winter fishermen also dive from their boats to hand-harvest the more expensive “divers’ scallops.”)
When Brooklin was the home to several fishing canneries in the 19th and 20th centuries, one of them was located here. The Mayo Company reportedly canned clams and later sardines on the shore of Naskeag Harbor from 1902 to 1929. (I bet that the air in the Harbor was not as calming when that was going on.)
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 12, 2026.)