The Maine coastline stretches an already-impressive 250 miles. But recent satellite images measuring the contours of its convoluted and craggy coast have shown that the Maine coastline actually stretches around 3500 miles. And that number jumps up to 5500 miles when islands are included.
Maine has its own desert, which spans 40 acres outside the town of Freeport. Though its silt hills are now a popular tourist attraction, the desert originally developed as a result of over-farming in the area.
Burt’s Bees was founded by former photojournalist Burt Schavitz in Maine in the 1980s. Schavitz moved to Maine from New York after deciding television had made photojournalism superfluous. He became a beekeeper, began selling honey, and ultimately co-founded Burt’s Bees with Roxanne Quimby in 1984.
Since 2005, Maine’s annual lobster yield has weighed in at more than 60 million pounds, with nearly 124 million pounds caught in 2014. (That’s almost 90 percent of the United States’ lobster supply.)
The official state insect of Maine is the honeybee. The state has a rich beekeeping culture, and even has a non-profit organization, the Maine Beekeepers Association, which was founded in 1976 to promote understanding of the insect’s importance.