The Jonesport Wood Co. originated on the beaches of northern California in the late 1960's as a collection of driftwood. Skip Brack collected several thousand pieces of driftwood with interesting sculptural characteristics in Berkeley, California. In 1970, he ended a long journey at the former Cummings and Norton General Store in West Jonesport, Maine, opposite the Beal's Island bridge. The original business name was the Great Wass Island Salvage Company. When the first shop opened in West Jonesport (driftwood sculpture, crafts, a few tools and antiques), we were inundated with requests for old tools, especially old woodworking tools. Some of the first customers were students at a boat building school in Eastport, Maine. Skip changed a pre-existing classified advertisement in the Waltham, Mass. News Tribune from "master painter available" to "old tools wanted," and the rest is history.

By 1976, the inventory of used tools and "accidental durable remnants" was too large for the Jonesport building, and Skip purchased the old IGA in Liberty, Maine, (a rooming house with a dance hall on the third floor). This is now the current location of the Liberty Tool Co.

In 1983, Skip purchased a large property (6.5 acres) on the edge of Acadia National Park and moved the main office, warehouse and Jonesport inventory to this new location in Hulls Cove (3 miles north of Bar Harbor, Maine). At this time, books and antiques were sold in the house, formerly a restaurant, while the barn was renovated for tool sales. In 1984, the Hulls Cove Tool Barn opened in the renovated barn, while the house reverted to restaurant status in the form of the Yellow Giraffe Cafe (a vegetarian restaurant in the land of lobsters). The book shop in the house continued. The cafe also served as a venue for selling some tools and antique items (known as the Hulls Cove Trading Company). The Yellow Giraffe Cafe continued in operation until 1992, renamed as the Breakneck Hollow Cafe and then as the Geronimo Cafe. The Jonesport store closed in 1984.

In 1986, Skip acquired the Liberty Village General Store and Banks' Garage, across the street from the Liberty Tool Co., and it temporarily served to accommodate the overflow until it was leased to Liberty Graphics (T-shirts) in 1992. The Banks' Garage is still used as an annex to the Liberty Tool Co. for storage and sale of power tools.

In 1994, a fifth store, the Captain Parker Building in downtown Searsport, was purchased. Here we sell books formerly located at the Hulls Cove Geronimo Cafe bookshop, in addition to paper items, antiques, collectibles, prints, and a selction of hand tools.

Currently, there are three stores open to the public.

The owner of the Jonesport Wood Co., H.G. "Skip" Brack, was formerly a director of the New England Ecology Center, (Cambridge, Mass. circa Earth Day 1970). As a subsidiary of the Jonesport Wood Co., Washington County RADSCAN, later changed to Maine RADSCAN, was established in West Jonesport at the same time as the Jonesport store. The focus of RADSCAN was source points of anthropogenic radioactivity impacting eastern Maine. When the Jonesport store closed, Maine RADSCAN moved to Hulls Cove with the tool and book departments and was reincarnated as the Center for Biological Monitoring, Inc. CBM, now a part of The Davistown Museum, sponsors RADNET: Nuclear Information on the Internet. RADNET is an on-line encyclopedia of information pertaining to source points of anthropogenic radioactivity and its spread in the biosphere. For a bibliography of the many publications of CBM including three publications pertaining to the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company, visit RADNET Section 16: Sponsor Information.  For our most recent publication on the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company, click Patterns of Noncompliance:  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and The Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company:  Generic and Site-Specific Deficiencies in Radiological Surveillance Programs.  For an endless journey into cyberspace, visit CBM's RADLINKS where you can electronically access virtually any site that has information pertaining to nuclear weapons production, nuclear power, fuel reprocessing and radioactive waste disposal.  These links range from Greenpeace and the Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS) to the National Imagery Management Agency (NIMA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

When the Jonesport Wood Co. moved to Hulls Cove, Skip had the luxury of 6.5 acres of gardens, fields, apple trees and woods on two sides of Breakneck Stream adjacent to Acadia National Park. From 1983 onward, Skip made intensive efforts to improve and expand the existing gardens. Frog ponds were created by digging out a large garbage dump at the rear of the property and several boggy areas on the south side. These wetlands form the southern edge of what is now the Hulls Cove Sculpture Garden.

Beginning in 1985 with creations of David McLaughlin (Liberty, ME) and Carol Hanson (Damriscotta, ME), the collections of the Jonesport Wood Co. expanded to include work by a number of Maine artists including Melita Westerlund-Brecher, Katie Bell, Sam Shaw, and Phil Barter. In addition to sculpture by these artists, the gardens contain interesting found artifacts made by anonymous individuals during the last two centuries.

The Hulls Cove Sculpture Garden is open to the public from May to November and has over a mile of trails, a treehouse and hideaway for visiting children, several locations for picnics, a play area with swings and extensive annual, perennial, and wildflower gardens. The installation philosophy of the Hulls Cove Sculpture Garden is that no sculpture is complete without an interesting setting adjacent to or within one of the flower gardens. Children, photographers and painters are invited to visit the gardens even if they have no interest in old tools or antiquarian items.

The Pennywheel Press was established in West Jonesport in 1976 for the purpose of publishing the first and only book catalog for the Moosabec Reach Historical Company 1976 - 1981. This was another shop in West Jonesport adjacent to and owned and operated by the Jonesport Wood Co. as a gallery, bookshop and frame shop. The building was sold in 1981. The second publication of the Pennywheel Press was The Phenomenology of Tools (1982, out of print). A third publication, RADSCAN: Information Sampler on Long-Lived Radionuclides, 1984, was the first of a series of publications published by Pennywheel Press for the Center for Biological Monitoring.  Many CBM publications can be accessed through URSUS: University of Maine Library System. Check under H.G. Brack (RADNET Editor).  Pennywheel Press is located at the Hulls Cove Tool Barn offices.

The Hulls Cove Trading Company is the name we used for the bookshop, cafe gallery and tool sales before the Hulls Cove Tool Barn was established. We continue to use that name for sales of paintings, prints, books and Native American artifacts.  A number of paintings and other items contained in the gallery of the Hulls Cove Trading Company are listed by the Great Wass Island Salvage Company, particularly oil paintings with the code HC as part of the item number.  The gallery itself is closed to the general public, but individuals visiting the Hulls Cove Tool Barn may make an appointment to view some of the paintings and artwork by contacting Skip Brack at jwood@jonesport-wood.com.  Some of the paintings listed on this website are accompanied by photographs.  We hope to include on our virtual tour of the stores of the Jonesport Wood Co., a tour of the Hulls Cove Trading Company Gallery, which is also known as the Geronimo Cafe Athenaeum.