Whitehead Island

"The supportive and nurturing environment you cultivate allowed our
occasionally tightly wound boy to wind down, and rediscover
the thrill of just being."
—Pine Island Parent

Every boy that attends Pine Island has the opportunity to spend time on Whitehead Island. Whitehead Island is truly one of the gems of the Maine Coast. Located about a mile from the mainland at the mouth of Penobscot Bay just southwest of Rockland, it is a 90-acre island with only three property owners: the Swan family, David Gamage, and Pine Island Camp. Pine Island owns 11 acres at the northeast end of the island on which there are seven structures, including the granite lighthouse that has been operating since it was commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1803, making it the seventh-oldest in the United States. David Gamage owns approximately five acres on which there is a small cottage built by his grandfather, Arthur Beals, who was lighthouse keeper at Whitehead for 25 years.

The rest of the island, approximately 75 acres, is owned by the Swan family and is protected by a conservation easement held by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. It is to this property that Pine Islanders have been coming since 1957. Whitehead has fields, mature spruce forests, clam flats and more than two miles of granite shoreline, half of which faces directly out to sea. The Lightstation itself is located on the highest point of the island and looks out over granite bluffs.