A town divided spurs creative ways to be together
Food passed over a stream is just one way locals are dealing with Penobscot’s major road construction
Workers at the new concrete culvert on Bayview Road in Penobscot, which dwarfs the existing granite passageway for water spilling out of Mill Creek. Photo by John Boit.
May 6, 2026
By John Boit
PENOBSCOT–A major culvert replacement in Penobscot has locals finding silver linings to the inconvenience of a project that has effectively cut the town in half.
The project to replace an aging stone culvert at Mill Creek on Bayview Road with a modern concrete structure is expected to last until May 20, forcing residents to drive a 20-mile detour for trips that would normally only take a few minutes.
But some locals are taking the opportunity to find creative solutions for food deliveries, work commutes and social calls.
Luke Hutchins carries a gallon of milk back across the culvert project that has split Penobscot in two. Photo by Elizabeth Hutchins.
Jamie MacNair, who runs Northern Bay Market, has found new ways to meet her customers. She said she’s willing to fill shopping orders and meet customers at the bridge with "pizzas, groceries or whatever.” She also picks up one of her employees at the bridge so they don’t have to use the lengthy detour to go the two miles from Mill Creek to her store.
MacNair even recently bartered a gallon of milk from the store for a homemade lasagna with a local resident, exchanged at the construction site.
Still, she says, the construction project has had a major impact on her business, the only store for almost 10 miles in any direction.
“It’s been difficult at best,” MacNair said. “I would say business is down 40 percent and we are anxious to have the road open at least partially.”
A temporary, makeshift foot bridge has also allowed neighbors to cross the small stream to meet with one another in recent weeks. This week, the sides of the culvert were back-filled with dirt, allowing people to walk over the top of the structure.
That’s been useful for Luke Hutchins, whose family has been in Penobscot for more than a dozen generations, and who lives on the western side of the project. He takes his four-wheeler to meet up with his sister’s fiancee, Mitch Drenga, who lives on the Pierce's Pond Road and who drives his side-by-side to get to the creek.
“I made dinner for them, and it was a Friday afternoon, and I just passed dinner over the brook,” Hutchins said. The two men took advantage of the time to catch up over a beer while inspecting the bridge progress.
Hutchins said he puts his two young children on an early bus at 6:45 each morning, something that has been a surprisingly easy adjustment, he said.
“They’ve done really well at this,” he said of his children. “There’s no time to play with the cats, no time to mess around. They just get out the door.”
An added bonus to the project is that the road in front of his house is quieter than ever.
“No traffic. No morning commuters ripping by late for school,” he said.
Hutchins’ wife, Melissa Rioux, who teaches art at George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill, has also found a workaround. Hutchins drops her off each morning at the construction site, where she walks to the other side of the stream and picks up a car she leaves at a nearby friend’s house. In the afternoon, she crosses back over the stream on foot and sometimes just walks home.
Ebru and Kerim Yalman, who bought their house in Penobscot last year, say the project has allowed neighbors the chance to connect in new ways. Courtesy photo.
Still, the project has its logistical challenges. This week, Hutchins was cutting wood at a lot in Sedgwick, a trip that normally would take him 15 minutes. Instead, he’s driving 50 minutes each way to get to the woodlot.
Kerim and Ebru Yalman, who divide their time between Penobscot and Istanbul, Turkey, live about a mile from the western side of the project. They bought their house last year and have been “discovering other roads we don’t often take to get around” as a result of the detour that routes traffic miles around through Orland to the north, he said.
“It’s made driving to the post office or general store a little longer. But on the positive side, our area being a dead end, it’s been super quiet and we’ve been able to connect with our neighbors in a different way,” Kerim Yalman said.
The couple said the project is worth it in the long term.
“It’s a very short period of time to be inconvenienced,” Ebru Yalman said. “They are doing it quickly, and it’s worth that short amount of time.”
On the evening of May 5, more than a dozen residents took things a step further, meeting at the culvert for a potluck dinner. Some arrived by truck or car. Two families drove their side-by-sides. One walked to the impromptu bridge party.
With tacos, chicken wings, cheese plates and chips laid out on the back of Drenga’s side-by-side, neighbors caught up with each other while admiring the major construction, whose eight-foot tall culvert dwarfs the original granite waterway. Harold Hatch, chair of Penobscot’s select board, stopped by to look at the progress prior to heading to his weekly meeting at the town hall.
An impromptu potluck dinner brought neighbors together this week at the construction site. Photo by John Boit.
Workers from Sargent Construction last week set in place the large concrete box culvert that will allow for better water flow under Bayview Road as it flows from Pierce's Pond down Mill Creek and into a marsh that empties into Northern Bay. The creek is a passageway for migrating alewives. Alewives have already been reported to be swimming into nearby Wight’s Pond, and the Bald eagles that feed on them are now seen daily over Northern Bay.
Hatch said construction workers have reported seeing small numbers of alewives starting to swim up the project’s watery bypass: the old granite culvert next to the new concrete structure.
“Not very many, but there’s always a few that run early,” Hatch said.
Hatch said that “everything is on schedule” for the project, with paving tentatively set to begin on May 18, two days before the project is expected to wrap up.
Later this week, Hatch expects crews to install a separate, smaller culvert that passes under Bayview Road a hundred feet away from the main project. That culvert, which is “plugged and failing,” will be replaced with a larger concrete pipe, he said. That part of the project will reduce a small portion of Bayview Road on the eastern side of the construction area to one lane of traffic–although not on dump days, he said, which are Tuesday and Saturday.
Construction is expected to be fully completed no later than May 20.
Until then, help with groceries from the general store is just a phone call away, MacNair of Northern Bay Market said.
“Happy to meet them at the bridge. Call ahead anytime,” she said.
