{"id":26028,"date":"2025-11-03T13:06:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T18:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=26028"},"modified":"2025-11-03T13:06:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T18:06:35","slug":"dune-messiah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/dune-messiah\/","title":{"rendered":"Dune Messiah"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"position: relative; padding-top: max(60%,326px); height: 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe style=\"position: absolute; border: none; width: 100%; height: 100%; left: 0; right: 0; top: 0; bottom: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23efefef&amp;d=november_2025&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;pageNumber=40&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" sandbox=\"allow-top-navigation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation allow-downloads allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-modals allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-forms\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p2\">Mela Jones re-imagines her Desert of Maine.<\/h3>\n<p class=\"p3\">By Judson Vail<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\">When the large swath of sand dunes in Freeport known as the Desert of Maine went up for sale in 2018, Mela Jones was immediately interested. For one, she was living next door and didn\u2019t want to see the sleepy campground turn into a development. But she also recognized the unique value and potential of the historic land that has seen many iterations over the centuries\u2014from Wabanaki territory to Civil War-era homestead to roadside tourist attraction.<\/p>\n<p><em>Read the full story in the digital magazine above.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-26030\" src=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/desert.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/desert.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/desert-980x513.jpg 980w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/desert-480x251.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1024px, 100vw\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Desert of Maine Re-imagined<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1502],"class_list":["post-26028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-november-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26031,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26028\/revisions\/26031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}