Things to Do in Brunswick & Harpswell: A College Town and an Island Coast

Bowdoin College: Two Museums, a Music Festival, and the Stowe House

Bowdoin College, chartered in 1794, is Brunswick's real cultural anchor, and its campus holds two genuinely distinct museums worth knowing apart from each other. The Bowdoin Museum of Art is the college's general art collection and exhibition space. The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum is a separate institution tied directly to Arctic explorer Robert Peary (Bowdoin class of 1877, whose own former summer home on Eagle Island sits in Harpswell -- see below) and fellow explorer Donald B. MacMillan. Each summer, the Bowdoin International Music Festival brings a further, currently active cultural draw to campus. None of these are Brunswick's only historic sites tied to the college and its town: a short walk from campus stands the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, where Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin while her husband Calvin taught at Bowdoin. The house carries National Historic Landmark status and still stands as one of Brunswick's most concrete literary landmarks.

Bowdoin's own notable-alumni roster gives the campus a real, unusually deep roll call beyond Peary -- a U.S. president (Franklin Pierce), a Supreme Court chief justice (Melville Fuller), Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, and, genuinely current as of this writing, Zohran Mamdani (class of 2014), who took office as New York City's mayor in January 2026. That is a real, verifiable fact worth knowing before visiting campus, not marketing color: a Bowdoin education connects directly to a currently serving big-city mayor.

Brunswick Landing: The Naval Museum, Memorial Gardens, and the 2026 Air Show

The former Naval Air Station Brunswick closed under the 2005 BRAC round and was officially decommissioned in 2011. Its second life as "Brunswick Landing" is a genuinely successful redevelopment story, and part of what makes it worth visiting is that its Cold War history is preserved on-site rather than erased: the Brunswick Naval Museum and Memorial Gardens, at 179 Admiral Fitch Avenue, operates as a heritage attraction covering the base's decades as a maritime patrol hub that tracked Soviet submarines through the Cold War and played an active surveillance role during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

A genuinely current, dated event tied directly to that same legacy: the Great State of Maine Air Show was held at Brunswick Executive Airport on July 11-12, 2026, featuring the U.S. Navy Blue Angels -- their first Maine appearance in five years -- alongside the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force Red Arrows, with tickets reported nearly sold out. Three Blue Angels team members are Maine natives, from Freeport, Durham, and Bowdoinham, who returned home for the show. Verify directly whether the Air Show becomes a recurring event before assuming a repeat date.

Simpson's Point: Brunswick's Own Water Access, Not a Harpswell Landmark

A real, worth-flagging correction: Simpson's Point is Brunswick's own informal swimming and water-access spot, not Harpswell's, despite how easy it would be to assume otherwise given Harpswell's much larger coastline. It sits roughly four miles from the Bowdoin campus and has a concrete boat launch and a pebble beach, described in a 2021 Portland Press Herald column as "a rare place to access water in Brunswick." Bowdoin students and longtime area residents treat it as a generation-to-generation swimming tradition, including a small community of regulars who swim through the winter. This is a real, low-key, undeveloped spot -- not a staffed beach park with lifeguards or facilities -- and should be visited with that expectation.

Harpswell's Islands: Giant's Stairs, the Cribstone Bridge, and Mackerel Cove

Harpswell's own things-to-do identity is built around its islands, bridges, and working harbors rather than museums. On Bailey Island, the Giant's Stairs Trail (in the McIntosh Lot Preserve) is a real, walkable coastal trail worth the trip on its own. The Bailey Island Bridge -- popularly known as the "Cribstone Bridge" -- is a genuine sightseeing stop in its own right: a unique granite open-cell design, reportedly the only bridge of its kind in the world, built 1926-1928 using roughly 10,000 tons of granite, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Nearby, Mackerel Cove is a real, still-working lobster harbor, and its views of working boats and traps are themselves a genuine, no-admission-fee attraction.

Eagle Island, Robert Peary's real former summer home, is administratively part of Harpswell and worth visiting -- but honestly, not romantically. The site's trails and its north-beach dinghy-or-kayak access remain open. Its historic house and museum exhibits do not: as of a May 2026 report, Eagle Island is in its seventh consecutive year of restricted public access, following January 2024 storm damage that destroyed its pier and a legacy mold problem in the historic house. Visitors can land by dinghy or kayak on the north beach, hike the trails, and view exhibits only through windows from outside -- do not plan a visit expecting a normal museum tour or house tour of Peary's home.

The Harpswell Lobster Boat Races

The Harpswell Lobster Boat Races are a real, currently running, 30-plus-year community tradition, held annually at Mitchell Field -- the 2026 race date is July 26. Local lobstermen race the same working boats they use daily for hauling traps, across 33 different racing classes, alongside food vendors and raffles. Proceeds benefit the Harpswell Santa Fund, which supports local families in need; the fund raised a record $30,000 in 2025. This is a genuine, dated, working-waterfront community event, not a tourist-oriented recreation of one.