ANSWER: Editing was necessary for the answers to fit this column’s space. The quiz and answers can be viewed online at http://tinyurl.com/nkyfc82/.
1. Maine is the only place in the world for?
The Lobster SUP CUP, a three-day, 30-mile paddleboard race over ocean and lakes. (SUP stands for stand-up paddleboarding, fyi.)
2. How many oysters did the oyster champ eat?
152! According to a story that originally appeared in the Castine Patriot, the winner, Josh “Chicken” Carter of Blue Hill, beat his closest competitor by 27 oysters..
3. Chester Greenwood’s other patented invention?
A metal rake, patent No. 2,066,036. Greenwood had many, many inventions in his lifetime, including a wood-boring machine in 1914 and a kettle in 1929, according to Martin Wallace, patents and trademarks librarian at the University of Maine’s Fogler Library.
4. Fewest indoor toilets per residence?
Gray! According to the U.S. Census, the Gray CDP (census designated place, a small snapshot within the town) has 295 occupied housing units, 38 of which lack full indoor plumbing.
5. Admiral Peary and “Invenium viam aut Facium?”
His personal motto, according to the Friends of Perry’s Eagle Island, the famous explorer’s summer home 20 minutes off the coast of Harpswell.
6. Was Strong the toothpick capital?
So true. According to a 2003 Associated Press story, the Forster plant once made 15.6 million toothpicks a day. For more on the tiny toothpick’s big history, check out the American Enterprise Institute’s “The Glorious Toothpick.”
7. Is UMaine home to 7,796 hooked rugs?
False, but the Page Farm and Home Museum, located on campus and depicting life in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, probably has a hooked rug or three.
8. Found in Leeds?
A French-speaking kids’ summer camp. The website for camp Tekakwitha (as run through Google translator) describes it as “a French holiday camp in Maine in the United States, nestled at the edge of a vast wilderness lake.” It’s even accredited by the Association of Quebec Camps.
9. In store at the Maine Seaweed Festival?
We played a salty trick there: It’s all three! A seaweed dance by a Middlebury College professor, new kelp ice cream and the novelty of attending the only such festival in the U.S.
10. The “Center of the Known Universe”?
Bucksport. Obviously. In 2013, the town announced plans to inscribe that phrase on its Waterfront Walkway, according to a story in the Bangor Daily News. In just the last month, Bucksport has nearly finished the project, according to a clerk in the town office. The area has benches, more signs are coming and it’s a beautiful spot to view Fort Knox and the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, she said.
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