Chauncey Erskine stands near his home in Edgecomb on Wednesday, June 4. Erskine, the owner of the Wiscasset restaurant Panacea, has taught English as a second language all over the world, been a ski instructor in Japan, and enjoys surfing when the time and weather allow. (Johnathan Riley photo)
Beyond travel is adventure, at least according to Chauncey Erskine, who has been an English teacher around the globe, traveled Southeast Asia on a motorbike, started a couple of successful businesses in Lincoln County, and been a ski instructor in Japan.
Wherever adventure happens, near or far, Erskine, of Edgecomb, believes it’s a mindset that opens the doors to possibility.
“There’s a quote from Anthony Bourdain that goes, ‘Be a traveler, not a tourist,’” Erskine said. “And I took that to heart, but I always wanted to take it one step further, and that’s to be an adventurer, not a tourist. I think that involves seeking out newness that might be outside of travel and more cultural connections.”
Erskine grew up in South Bristol, an experience he said was formative for the person he became.
“At the time, growing up in South Bristol felt isolating, but I think I can attribute a lot of the person that I am to that experience,” he said.
Some of the unique qualities of South Bristol that influenced Erskine were geographic, cultural, and the tight-knit community of South Bristol School.
“There’s a lot of freedom granted by the sheer amount of land and nature and the lack of people, learning to frolic, make fun out of vast tracts of land in various seasons,” he said. “(That) was kind of fundamental to who I am, as well as my experience at South Bristol School, which was trying because there weren’t a lot of us.
There were, on average, five other kids in my class from kindergarten through eighth grade, but we were taught that the world is a lot bigger and that there are so many options and opportunities in life … it was a very small school with a lot of heart, and it opened a lot of doors for young minds, which was really cool.”
While Erskine was going through his education at SBS, his parents, Pete and Kim Erskine, took him and eventually his younger siblings, Carly and Caleb, on buying trips abroad for their retail business, Mexicali Blues, which is headquartered in Newcastle and has several other locations around the state.
The family’s travels took them to places like Southeast Asia and Central America and allowed Chauncey Erskine to learn important differences and similarities between how people lived around the world and South Bristol.
“That opened up the idea of the world even more for us,” he said. “It was really eye opening, because it made you realize that normalcy is subjective. Life experience is subjective, and culture takes so many forms and faces … There was no one answer to what human existence is about; it also was really formative in recognizing that happiness takes many forms, despite economic barriers or cultural adversity.”
A common thread between the people of South Bristol and the people of the places Erskine visited was resourcefulness and ingenuity he saw in utilizing materials. Erskine grew up watching his neighbor Bill Kelsey, a longtime South Bristol fisherman, utilize driftwood and other materials he found in the ocean.
“Something he always said to me when I was young was ‘The ocean is my lumberyard,’ and he would always find broken docks, salvageable wood, and build projects in his fish house out of them. I always thought that was really beautiful and also uncommon,” he said. “Then going around the world, and seeing … people in Indonesia or coastal towns in Thailand make the most of what they have, whether it’s salvaged boats turned into restaurants or whatever, I think I was always inspired by that.”
Erskine attended Lincoln Academy in Newcastle, where he found a lifelong love for lacrosse and was able to cultivate his love for travel by studying abroad his junior year in Barcelona, Spain, through the American Field Study Intercultural Program.
“I got a lot of life experience,” he said. “I ended up in Barcelona with a family that I still maintain close contact with to this day, and I lived there for those 10 months and then three subsequent years over my 20s, and I can thank Lincoln for that bridge to Spain.”
Erskine graduated from LA in 2010 and continued to broaden his worldly perspectives by attending Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he earned a double major in international development studies and environmental sustainability.
“I think that was even a further experience in broadening my cultural perspective, because I was able to study the international development from a non-United States-based perspective,” he said. “So we were very critical of the United States and realistic about the United States’ role in lots of international geopolitical conflicts and situations.”
Within 24 hours of graduating, Erskine drove back to Maine and flew to Guatemala to begin nearly a decade of traveling, volunteering, and working intermittently abroad.
“I wanted to get out and experience, and I knew that volunteering was a way to subsidize my lifestyle while traveling and make an impact on the world,” he said.
Erskine worked with English instruction in schools, worked with permaculture programs, and had a hand in bringing over American midwives for prenatal and postnatal care to indigenous populations in Guatemala.
After about six months in Guatemala, Erskine hitched a ride with a group of vagabonds in a white van with Arkansas plates headed to northern California, where he worked in cannabis cultivation and lived under – and over – a variety of unique roofs.
“I lived in a tree house I built for a little while, and then a tent, and then I was in an ambulance that I purchased. And I didn’t sleep in the ambulance. I slept on the roof because there were two other guys sleeping in the ambulance,” he said, laughing.
In 2016, Erskine traveled to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he completed his Teaching English as a Second Language certificate and then went to Vietnam, where he circumnavigated the country on a 125cc motorbike and taught English.
“I learned how to drive it during rush hour with no map in the most congested city of Southeast Asia,” he said. “I had never ridden a standard motorcycle before. So I just rode the sidewalks and I didn’t heed red lights because I didn’t know how to go into neutral … all gas, no brakes!”
Erskine spent a lot of time in the mountains of northern Vietnam and lived in the town of Sơn La for six months teaching English.
After six months, Erskine moved to Thanh Hoa, Vietnam, which he said was the most bombed city during the Vietnam War. During his time there, he was conversational in Vietnamese, which allowed him to connect deeply with those living there and have difficult conversations about how the war affected them.
“I could really connect with people. And during my time there, I connected with a lot of elderly men and women who’d been really affected by the war,” he said. “I just kind of used my ability to communicate with them and my energy to kind of be a positive influence for my country and New England and Maine, and kind of break down some of those barriers that had long, long been erected.”
While being able to speak the language helped, Erskine said he felt he was able to connect deeply with people because of the caring and open values he first learned growing up in Maine.
“Maine made me, and Maine is a part of the United States,” he said. “My understanding of my America is this culture and this community, and a lot of people don’t see that, so I was able to bring that to the world.”
To facilitate connection and opportunity, Erskine said he makes sure to learn a little bit of the local language.
“In my travels, I always prioritized learning enough of the local language to complement people who made my food (and) make people laugh. And say sexy,” he said, laughing.
In addition to English, Erskine can speak Spanish, Vietnamese, and Catalonian.
After traveling around Southeast Asia and getting more than his fill of the hot climate, Erskine moved to Nagano, Japan, in 2017, where he taught English and ski lessons at an immersive skiing camp.
“They hired me, even though I told them I hadn’t skied since I was 11 years old,” he said. “But I taught kids how to ski, and my group advanced the fastest. And also taught kids how to find their voice and their sense of self on a ski mountain and within nature.”
Erskine moved back to Spain, where he met his ex-wife, Gabrielle Roxon, and the two traveled together to find a place to live, including Ecuador and Mexico.
During each of Erskine’s stints in Spain, he was involved with the Spanish National Lacrosse team and other European teams as a player, facilitator, and coach.
In 2019, Erskine returned to Maine and worked with his family’s business as the eventual manager of the Mexicali Blues in Freeport. Erskine became more involved in marketing and travel for the business, which was often a full circle experience for himself and his sister Carly, who also worked with Mexicali Blues.
“It was really beautiful, because it was like a time machine,” he said. “My sister and I, who grew up traveling to these places and interacting with these vendors in our preteens, were then adults, doing the same thing with our parents and the same vendors.”
Erskine working for his parents’ company as an adult also showed him to impact the business has had on the lives of the people they’ve worked with over the years.
“It was really cool to recognize the power that Mexicali Blues has had in the lives of so many people, and to interact with vendors whose kids were then taking over, and to see their companies grow and prosper with, with the … help and collaboration of Mexicali,” he said.
In 2021, Erskine opened his first business in downtown Damariscotta, Maine Booch, a hard kombucha bar that made its kombucha.
“I started experimenting with double fermentation of kombucha to attenuate higher (alcohol by volume), and amongst my friends in bubbles, I introduced the product to lots of people, and they really liked it, so I decided to try it out,” he said.
During the two years Erskine ran the business, he identified the need for a common space where people from the area and away could come together.
“I recognized the potential for introducing connection amongst the new culture that’s emerging in Maine, New people, new faces, new ideas, all walks of life, all ages, all sexualities and all ideologies” he said. “(Maine Booch) was really a place where people could be open and free and creative.”
The business closed when the building was sold in 2023.
Erskine opened another business along Main Street in Wiscasset in 2025, Panacea, a restaurant serving a variety of chowders, soups, and sandwiches, which may have been the blossoming of ideas he had while abroad.
“During my international travels, when people would ask me for something … indicative or representative of my culture, I would either give them maple syrup or make them chowder,” he said. “Because you can find potatoes, dairy, pork, and fish in almost any country.”
Erskien said he found entrepreneurship pretty easily, in that it’s a combination of who he is and who he grew up around.
“It’s nature and nurture. I think that my energy lends itself to forging my own path, but also I had a great precedent set by my family, specifically my dad,” he said.
When he isn’t manning the register or cooking up his latest batch of seaworthy stew, Erskine enjoys surfing and riding his motorcycle when weather permits.
Whatever Erskine finds himself doing, he said he’s eager to be a part of the community again that helped him become the person he is today.
“I have to thank my family and the community that I grew up in for allowing me to become the person that I continue to become as I grow and evolve,” he said. “I’m also excited to see what the future of Midcoast Maine holds, and hopefully play a part in it. I think Maine, unlike many parts of the world, still has some unwritten chapters. That has a lot of opportunities for growth. A lot of places are stuck in their ways. So I’m excited to see what happens, without (the area) losing its culture. There’s been a really good job done of preserving its culture while growing and advancing and evolving.”
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