Join us on April 15 at 6:00 PM via Zoom for a virtual Chebacco Author Talk with James Creissen, author of the 2025 Chebacco article "The Dining Room Without Walls: A Short History of Picnics on Mount Desert Island." Creissen will explore the tradition of picnicking on Mount Desert Island as a liberation from indoor life and a delightful reversal of everyday routines.

Learn how the island’s outdoor dining legacy, from the Wabanaki tradition of the clambake at Man-es-aydi’ik to the Romantic picnic craze of the Gilded Age, celebrates nature as a home without walls. Creissen will share how these gatherings offered a unique sense of social freedom and romance in secluded "trysting places" many accessible only by boat. Discover how the pursuit of local delicacies like mountain cranberries and lobsters continues a long-standing idealized vision of summer on the island's celebrated shores.

James Creissen is a long-time summer resident of Northeast Harbor. He was first brought to MDI by his parents when he was one year old and has spent almost every summer since then hiking, sailing, swimming, and, of course, picnicking all over the island and its surrounding waters. He spends his winters in New York City, where he is a first-year master’s student in art history at Hunter College. He is passionate about visual culture and the arts in all forms and spends much of his free time painting and drawing, often of the MDI landscape and its vernacular architecture.