Through the years, Portland has bestowed many gifts upon the world. Longfellow. Stephen King. Otto’s pizza.

Now we can add to that list the world’s first “Urban RAID.” On June 30th, up to a thousand people will work their way across a 5K obstacle course in Portland’s downtown. This first-ever event has been put together by Tri-Maine Enterprises (which manages races across the state) and Aura360 Ventures, an event/marketing firm. Recently I sat down with Parker Swenson and Lauren St. Clair, from Aura360, to learn more about the upcoming Urban RAID.

Q: Is this like a 5K run? I see you call it “the next generation of obstacle racing.”

Lauren: It’s the antithesis of a 5K run. It’s more of a fitness challenge taking place over a 5K distance. And this is the first time it’s happening anywhere. That’s part of what’s exciting, it’s originating here in Maine, it isn’t being brought in from somewhere else.

Q: Where will the course be?

Parker: It starts and finishes at the Ocean Gateway cueing lanes. The actual run will go along the Eastern Prom Trail to just about where the boat ramp is. Then it’s up the hill of the Eastern Prom and back down Fore Street. Just before the end, there’s a seven-story stair climb up to the top of Ocean Gateway Garage, at Fore and India streets.

Q: And along the way…?

Parker: There are eight major obstacles, including monkey bar sets, 15 rows of high hurdles, 20-foot-tall cargo nets, and a tire field.

Q: But not with hundreds of people scrambling across these all at once?

Parker: The competitors will start in waves, about five to six minutes apart, based on age and gender divisions, all the way from teenagers to 60-plus. There’s also a non-competitive division, if you just want to go through the course, and you don’t want to worry about people passing you, you can do it on your own terms.

Lauren: That way, you get to compete, you get the energy, you get the endorphin rush, but you’re going at your own pace.

Q: And what happens at the finish line?

Lauren: We’ll have medals for the top three competitors in each division, and there’ll be a whole festival at the finish line with music, and product demo’s – and beer, obviously.

Parker: The way the course is laid out, you’ll be going along the Eastern Trail with the harbor right there, so you’ll get the vistas while you’re moving through the obstacles. It’s the best that Portland has to offer.

* * *

The Urban RAID is actually one of a set of three such events occurring in Maine this year. Following our dash through the city streets, there is a Beach RAID in September in Kennebunk, and a Mountain RAID in October at Sunday River. You can learn more about all three raids, and register for them, at www.raidevents.com and you can keep up with news about the events at their Facebook page.

Lil Punisher. Princess Layher Out. Punchy O’Guts. No, these aren’t gang monikers. These colorful names identify some of the lead players on The Port Authorities, the All-Star competition team who along with the “junior varsity or B-team called The Calamity Janes“ comprise the Maine Roller Derby league that competes in the national WFTDA league. MRD competes in the East league with teams from Montreal to Virginia. The East league even includes teams from London, Birmingham and Edinburgh in the UK and a team from Berlin! Not sure how the logistics work on that. Colorful names of teams we’ve rolled against recently include The Montreal Sexpos, the Connecticut Stepford Sabotage and the Hellions of Troy (NY).

If your last memory of roller derby involves watching it on UHF television back in the 1960s, well, the sport has evolved since then. There are still hits, women still go flying across the track, and the contestants are still a curious blend of femininity and fisticuffs.  But the marketing is more sophisticated now, the crowd is less bloodthirsty, and the women appear to be (even more) athletically gifted.

The Port Authorities and calamity Janes start the season skating at Happy Wheels, out on Warren Avenue, before moving to the big time (and banked curves) of the Portland Expo.  On St. Patrick’s Day, the joint was jammed as the women took on the Stepford Sabotage. There were some tough players on the away team (Parker Poison, C. Mya Rage, Luciana Pulverotti), but they were no match for the local lasses, who won handily 200 to 75 in the WFTDA-Sanctioned Bout.

For a ticket price of $5 a head (which goes up to an astronomical $10 at the Expo), how can you go wrong? Heck, even the referees have great names: Ian Fleunza. Roo Lyn Forcer. Ruth of All Evil. Of course, trying to understand the actual rules and scoring of roller derby is like studying cricket and the Kabbalah at the same time. But the crowd was there every (fast) step of the way, couples and families, those in the know, those there for the first time.

There’s one more bout at Happy Wheels next week (Saturday, April 7, at 5 pm) followed by four more Saturdays at the Expo (April 21, May 5, 26 and June 9, at 6 pm). See the full schedule here. And if you like to hang with the skaters there are afterparties each night at Flask Lounge.

Focusing more on the exercise side of the sport, and catering to more mature rollers, Portland now even boasts Derby Lite, where you get the workout minus the black-and-blue marks. So come on, jammers (young and old)! Get out of that pack!

For more on Maine Roller Derby, see our post from last year as well.

Photo of The Port Authority by John Spritz

Admittedly, it hasn’t been much of a winter here, or anywhere else in North America. But Portland, Maine does occupy the northern latitudes, which means that we get snowstorms, even in a globally-heated world. This week, March came in like a lion and dropped a foot of snow over the city.

Some people gripe about the winter weather. But a lot of us (the author included) love it. On snow days, schools are closed, and so are many offices. It’s the perfect opportunity to hunker down for a day of compulsory relaxation.

Or you can head outside. In 2010, Outside magazine named Portland the best “adventure town” in the east, thanks to the abundance of outdoor recreation within day-tripping distance of the city. For skiers, there are big mountains like Saddleback and smaller, more affordable areas like Mount Abram, and then there are the miles of groomed nordic skiing trails at Pineland Farms, just 20 minutes up the road in New Gloucester, Maine.

But even when driving is terrible, there are numerous ski trips you can make within city limits.

On the Eastern Prom, a short hill that’s popular for sledding can also be skied, from the end of Congress Street to a stone’s throw from the Atlantic Ocean. There’s also a shorter, steeper pitch through the trees next to the playground. The slope between the street and the ocean is short and not terribly steep, but how many ski runs end on a beach? Even though it’s only in the 20s, on a sunny day you can still manage to get a suntan.

The Eastern Prom area is also good for cross-country skiing. It’s about a mile from the abandoned railroad trestle to the north and around to the Portland Company complex to the south, and finding a few lines of untracked powder on the hills in between.

Skiers less concerned with scenery can find a slightly bigger hill on the other side of town, at the Western Prom. New Hampshire’s Mount Washington is also visible from the top on clear days, which lends this ski run more of an alpine flavor. It’s also longer and steeper, although you’ll have to watch out for the plowed walkway that traverses the hill in switchbacks. This is a good place to ski off into the sunset at the end of your workday (as my wife Jess is doing in the photo at the top of this post).

On the other side of Back Cove, the city parks and recreation department has been building a terrain park on the hill in Payson Park for the past several winters, thanks to donated equipment from some of the state’s big ski areas and local enthusiasts. The hill even has snowmaking equipment to keep it going through snow droughts.

On the outskirts of the city, several large parks and open spaces host extensive trail networks for cross-country skiing. My favorite places include the Fore River Sanctuary (where you can ski along the edges of Portland’s biggest salt marsh), and the Riverside Golf Course, where volunteers from the Portland Nordic Ski Club groom trails for skate-skiing (they ask for a small donation, but it’s a bargain).

So if global warming’s got you down, there’s no need to burn gallons of petrochemicals to get away to the mountains – ski Portland instead!

Photo: Jessica skis the Western Prom. Photo by Christian MilNeil.

The Boston/New York face-off in the Super Bowl got me thinking about Portland in relation to those two urban centers of gravity. Many creative professionals here maintain ongoing ties with one or both, and culturally they are quite distinct. Although I’ve lived here for seven years—and although I’m not a sports fan—I find myself rooting for the Giants. Ex-New Yorkers can even think that their urbanity has had a pervasive effect on Portland, but in truth, Portland has probably changed them more than they have changed Portland. To get to the bottom of this struggle for identity—this battle for the soul of Portland—I consulted Colin Woodard, author of American Nations. And like many New Yorkers before me, I tried to change his New England mind and he ended up changing mine.

Q:What is the theory behind American Nations and which Nation is the City of Portland part of?

A: American Nations argues that there has never been one America, but rather several Americas. The original colonial clusters were founded by people with distinct ethnographic and religious characteristics, ideals, values, and political and societal goals. Throughout the colonial period they saw each other as competitors and sometimes as enemies, fighting on opposite sides of the English Civil War and the American Revolution. They colonized mutually exclusive portions of the middle region of our continent, laying down the cultural DNA that subsequent immigrants have confronted as the “dominant culture” around them.

Maine, including Portland, is part of Yankeedom, the Greater New England cultural space established by the early Puritans.

Q: The Super Bowl on Sunday pits the New England Patriots (representatives of Yankeedom) against the New York Giants. What “Nation” do the Giants represent?

A: New Netherland, the Dutch-founded area around New York City, to include northern New Jersey, western Long Island, Westchester and Fairfield counties. Established by the Dutch at a time when the Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the Western world, New Netherland has displayed its salient characteristics throughout its history: a global commercial trading culture— multiethnic, multireligious, and materialistic—with a profound tolerance for diversity and an unflinching commitment to the freedom of inquiry and conscience.

Q: Portland has become multiethnic, multireligious and tolerant of diversity (not sure about materialistic) due to the influx of Africans, Asians—and New Yorkers. Plus we have great bagels, a tattoo parlor from Brooklyn, and lots of first-rate writers and other creatives that have moved here from New York. As an ex-New Yorker myself, I have to ask, what does it take to overthrow the “dominant culture” of a city?

A: All that could be said of Boston, Arlington, Charleston or, indeed, London. Don’t confuse the trappings of contemporary urbanity with “New Netherlandishness.” Portland’s food, art, and culture scenes  owe their existence to transplants from many places, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire and other parts of Maine. That’s not to say New Yorkers haven’t enriched our city, but one can overestimate their contribution.

The dominant culture in Portland has been Yankee ever since the Casco Bay area was first colonized in the 1650s, the decade after the English Civil War. While New Netherlanders have much to be proud of, there are important virtues of this Yankee culture. There’s an emphasis on community — rather than individual — good, and a strong social taboo regarding flashy displays of wealth, privilege, and power that is almost entirely alien to Gotham. There is, indeed, an emphasis on cultural conformity — at some level, Yankee culture expects outsiders to melt into the pot, as it were — but its also a culture programmed by the Puritans to improve itself through civic institutions and engagement.

Many affluent, big city professionals have who’ve come and helped invigorate our city have builtupon foundations laid decades and, in some respects, centuries ago. It would be a mistake to assume that Yankees – and indeed, Mainers — haven’t played a central role in the creation of contemporary Portland. (I point your readers to one of my previous works, The Lobster Coast, for more on this.) In short, you wouldn’t want to overthrow the dominant culture of Greater Portland. It’s what makes the city work in the first place.

Q: So you think that urbanites from New York and all the other metros are attracted to Portland in good measure because of the qualities of Yankeedom—emphasis on community, lack of materialism, value on civic engagement—that are expressed in here? And all that New Netherlandish stuff are just superficial trappings that have—in fact—embedded themselves in many metros without changing the essential character of those places?

A: Urbanites are drawn to Portland for many of the reasons pointed out in your website. Every “nation” has cities with different characteristics and attributes (compare and contrast Paris and Marseilles, for instance), but the dominant culture does have a powerful background effect. So, yes, there are Yankee cultural features at the foundation of what people celebrate about Portland.  New Netherlanders — and Left Coasters, Midlanders, Irish, French, Greeks, Serbs and Somalis — have enriched our city, but the dominant culture remains. That, indeed, is why we call it “dominant.”

Q: Point taken. So who do you think will win the Super Bowl?

The Patriots. (Where’s that other team from? Unlike the Mets and Knickerbockers, their team colors aren’t the orange blue and white of the old Dutch Republic.)

Got Yoga? Portland does. To get a taste of 15 instructors from 15 local yoga studios, check out the Maine Yogathon 2010 on the Maine State Pier in Portland this Sunday from 7:45 am to 2 pm. Not only will you get to work on your asanas and learn about new styles of yoga with hundreds of other practitioners overlooking scenic Casco Bay, you’ll also be raising money for Preble Street “to provide accessible barrier-free services to empower people experiencing problems with homelessness, housing, hunger, and poverty, and to advocate for solutions to these problems.” Doing good by doing good. Namaste.

Five or ten years in the making, depending on how you count it, the Bayside Trail is now a reality. There will be a public Ribbon Cutting on Thursday, August  19th,  4-6  pm at the Elm Street Plaza to celebrate the event. Mayor Nicholas M. Mavodones and US Congresswoman Chellie Pingree will be in attendance along with other community leaders that have been working to make Bayside one of Portland’s up and coming neighborhoods. According to the Munjoy Hill News, “The one mile trail has transformed a 13.2 acre corridor that runs parallel to Marginal Way through the Bayside Neighborhood into a ribbon of green that will connect the Eastern Prom with Deering Oaks Park.” This may be overstating it a bit, because although the trail has been completed (hence the ribbon cutting) there is still $1.6 million more fund raising to be done so the landscaping phase of the project can be completed next year. The Portland Public Arts Committee (PPAC) has just posted an RFP for an artist to design benches for the trail, due on August 26th31st. In the meantime, enjoy a walk, run or bike ride through the new public space.

Outside magazine’s August 2010 issue asks the question, “Where do you end up when you want a community with incredible access to the outdoors, affordable homes, and solid jobs?” Their overall answers for Best Towns 2010 are Boise, Idaho, in the west and (hurray!) Portland, Maine, on the east. Peter Dennen, Director of Photography at Aurora Photos, brought this to our attention right away because the article uses pictures from Aurora’s photographers, including Woods Wheatcroft (a Portland lover from Idaho) and José Azel (Aurora’s President and proud Portlander). Peter writes about the Outside article from a personal perspective on his photo blog. Outside‘s reasons for choosing Portland ring true, “Portland is one of those rare places that really does combine small-town charm with big(ger)-city opportunities. But what we really love is the uniquely Maine mix of generational fishermen and young professionals, the latter lured here by the relatively low cost of living and (for Maine, at least) a diverse economy that includes everything from major financial and insurance corporations
to media companies like our partner Outside TV.” And Wood’s photo, above, perfectly encapsulates what’s great about living in Portland: you can mix your outdoors lifestyle with your urban work every day, vacation days not required (though there’s a lot to do with your vacation days here, too.) For more on this point, check out Peter’s post on kayak commuting—adventurous, even for Portland!

photo by Woods Wheatcroft/Aurora Photos

The Pacific doesn’t have a lock on surfing, and Maine has more breaks than any other state in the northeast (check the current surfcast). Maine surfers are a determined lot, donning wetsuits in the face of oncoming storms, with a taste for hand-made wooden surfboards. Entrepreneur Tyler Briggs saw the scene, decided it needed a retail/gallery/social presence in Portland and started Corduroy Boutique. Named after particularly auspicious surf conditions when the waves are lined up like wales of corduroy all the way to the horizon, the boutique has gallery exhibitions of art and photography (often only tangentially surf-related) and sells t-shirts, hats and, of course, hand-made surfboards by “featured shapers.” Their next show, Rainbowlogical, Seven Artists + Seven Colors, opens Friday at 6pm (59 Market St.) The photo above shows scrap cedar from Grain Surfboards painted with 9 colors of spray paint by artist Katrine Hildebrandt, from the show. Corduroy has the reputation for hosting the semi-official after party for First Friday Art Walk, so stop by for drinks and see the show.

Thanks to Corey Templeton of the Portland Daily Photo for pointing out that Bayside Bowl is now open. Along with 12 lanes and a kitchen, they will have a busy event schedule. They will host the Libby Mitchell election night party tonight, have a DJ on Friday and live music on Saturday. See the full listing for Saturday’s show on HillyTown. For more info on bowling in Portland, go to (where else) bowlportland.com.

Australian artist and skateboard entrepreneur Evan Kanarakis has set up shop in Portland. He will be selling his own original paintings and those of other U.S. and European artists. He doesn’t yet have a storefront or a local distributor, but his new company, Devil Street Decks will sell one-of-a-kind hand painted skateboard decks as well as rideable production boards (based on some of the designs) through their website. Devil Street Decks will host the launch party at Empire Dine and Dance (575 Congress St, Portland, ME) on Friday, June 4th, 5-8pm. (Thanks for the listing to Maine Art Scene.) The original painted decks will be exhibited on the walls of The Empire for the month of June. Give it a go in Portland, mate!