are available for dam removals and fish ladders that preserve or restore fish passages.
Camden’s Montgomery Dam is illustrative of the complex and competing issues that swirl in the waters. Originally built as a grist mill in 1771, its primary attribute today is as a focal point in the picturesque village’s motif. Diners at the Camden Deli look out over the impoundment pond. Tourists boarding windjammers in the harbor gaze up at the frothy cascade of river water dropping 40 feet from the spillway.
Some locals view the dam as fundamental to the very character of the town.
And yet, after more than two years of fact finding, consultation with technical experts, and public engagement, a nine-member citizens advisory panel appointed by the select board recently recommended the removal of Montgomery Dam.
The advisory group’s charge was to assess and make recommendations for all seven dams located along the river’s three-and-a-half-mile run from Megunticook Lake to the harbor. The group focused first on Montgomery Dam since whatever happens there will determine the options available for upstream dams.
A starting point for deliberations was that given its condition, doing nothing to Montgomery Dam is not a viable option. Members exhaustively analyzed three potential options:
• restoration of the existing structure
• partial restoration and the addition of a fish ladder
• removal.
From one end of Maine to the other, towns with dams within their borders are wrestling, or soon will, with local versions of the issues the Camden group considered: flood risks, historic preservation, river water quality, fish passages, and financial burdens.
A driving rationale for removal of Montgomery Dam is that restoring a free-flowing river at that spot will improve the odds of securing grant funding for removal of three privately owned dams immediately upstream. Federal, state, and private grants
Across Maine, there is increased focus on restoration of passages for sea-run fish, such as alewives and blueback herring (collectively referred to as river herring), as well as Atlantic salmon, sea-run trout, elvers, and rainbow smelt. Such anadromous species spend most of their life at sea but return to freshwater to spawn. These species are pivotal elements of the food web and, by transporting nutrients upstream, contribute to the health of river and Gulf of Maine ecosystems. They also help control insects and algae, while attracting predators like eagles, osprey, otters, and seals.
The decline of sea-run fish is directly tied to the collapse of a once-thriving inshore cod population along the Maine coast. Alewives, meanwhile, continue to represent an important commercial fishery, primarily for use as lobster bait.
Efforts to regulate dams to protect sea-run fish date back to a 1741 law—“An Act to Prevent the Destruction of the Fish Called Alewives and Other Fish”—that requires anyone erecting a dam across a river used by spawning fish to make allowances for fish passage. However, the statute went unenforced, and its utility diminished quickly.
“Once a dam was built, everything up above it didn’t matter,” says Jeff Pierce, founder of Alewife Harvesters of Maine.
Over time, pollution from industrial and municipal sources made many rivers too dirty to support migrating fish even if they could find their way upstream. But thanks to the Clean Water Act and other environmental regulations, our rivers are now healthier.
“There is momentum and enthusiasm for fish passages that wasn’t there 20 years ago,” says Landis Hudson, executive director of the Yarmouth-based nonprofit Maine Rivers, which advocates for freeflowing rivers. Maine, she adds, “has a unique opportunity—and responsibility—to restore fish run passages, given that so many of our rivers connect to the Gulf of Maine.”
The benefits of dam removals and free-flowing rivers can extend beyond fish.
Water in dam impoundments tends to be warmer and contain less oxygen than that found in a natural
pond or free-flowing river. Impoundments often attract more invasive species and cause silt buildup, creating inhospitable conditions for all riverine life.
With increased and more intense precipitation, dam removal proponents also point to the value of improving resilience against flood risks. Restoring floodplains, wetlands, and natural buffers, they say, help rivers better absorb heavy rain events and, in turn, protect property.
Of the dams monitored by MEMA, 75—including three along the Megunticook River in Camden—are classified as “high hazard,” a designation that means failure could lead to significant economic, environmental, or infrastructure damage, or even loss of life.
Camden voters will make their decision based on an estimated one-time expense of $1.7 million to $2.8 million to remove the dam. That compares to $3.5 million to $6.5 million to restore Montgomery Dam (throw in a fish ladder and the price tag rises to $10.8 million), plus ongoing maintenance costs.
Town officials believe that much of the cost of removal, and potentially all of it, could be covered by grants. Those who favor preserving Montgomery Dam warn that federal grant money for dam removal and fishway restoration is liable to dry up, and if that happens, Camden taxpayers will be on the hook for the full cost.
Pro-removal advocates counter that while there are no guarantees of grant support, Camden taxpayers would likely bear the entire cost of restoration and future maintenance.
“Given the significantly lower costs, minimized maintenance, and long-term savings after the initial investment, full dam removal presents the most financially responsible choice,” according to the Camden citizens advisory group’s report. “This option would also unlock grant funding that could pay, possibly in full, for dam removal not only for the Montgomery Dam but also for the three private dams as well as fish passage at the three upper dams.”
The full-river approach makes sense to Landis from Maine Rivers, who says that policymakers are beginning to think more holistically.
“In the past, we looked at dams one at a time. As we’ve become more thoughtful about the impact of dams, we look at how a series of dams affect a waterway as a system.”
An aerial view of Camden’s waterfront shows Montgomery Dam. PHOTO: TODD ANDERSON
COLD STORAGE
continued from page 1
in the making. The building has offices, a loading area with 13 truck bays, and two massive freezers that take up about 84,000 square feet. A rooftop solar array will help offset some of the electricity costs.
The facility is expected to provide an economic boost to Portland and Maine by providing a new supply chain option for companies shipping frozen products into or out of Portland.
The freezer will save time and cut transportation costs for businesses that now rely on Boston, New York, and other out-of-state locations for freezer storage for their products. A 2017 study by University of Southern Maine business students estimated that its annual economic impact could be $500-$900 million.
The facility is the first “major piece of cold chain infrastructure constructed in Maine,” said Wade Merritt, president of the Maine International Trade Center.
“Until now, Maine-based businesses that needed reliable cold storage were required to ship products out of state—in some cases as far as the Midwest— due to a lack of local facilities,” he said. “A state-ofthe-art facility in Maine will provide significant cost savings for Maine business and position Portland as a global hub for cold chain distribution in this part of New England for exporters and importers.”
While the facility is run by Taylor Logistics, it was developed and is owned by Amber Infrastructure Group and sits on land owned by the Maine Port Authority. In the end, it cost $56 million to build.
The facility, however, provides more than storage for frozen products. It is a transportation hub that is adjacent to the International Marine Terminal where Eimskip USA operates it trans-Atlantic container cargo operations. It’s also just a couple of miles from Maine’s two major highways: interstates 95 and 295.
The facility is also adjacent to a rail spur that connects to CSX’s rail network, and is a short drive from the Portland International Jetport. While there aren’t any products coming into or out of the cold-storage facility by rail or air, those options could provide new opportunities in the future, said Eivind Dueland, senior vice president of Amber Infrastructure.
For now, Dueland said, product is arriving by truck or by sea from the Eimskip container cargo operation next door. He’s pleased with the customer base so far, which includes a mix of national, international, and Maine-based businesses.
He anticipates companies using the freezer facility for products that include seafood, produce, meat, bait products, and animal pharmaceuticals. Based on talks with companies at the Seafood Expo North America in Boston in March, he said it’s clear there’s interest from both importers and exporters.
He doesn’t expect it will take too long for the facility to be operating at or near capacity. “It’ll probably be closer to one year rather than two years,” Dueland said.
For the first couple of months of operation, between one and four trucks were stopping by the facility each day to drop off or pick up product. But when it’s going full bore, it’ll be a beehive of activity.
When operating at capacity, there will be about 40 trucks delivering and picking up product each day. The trucks will range from 18-wheelers down to smaller box trucks, and also include trucks
carrying cargo containers from the Eimskip terminal next door.
Inside, employees will run ten modern fork lifts to carry products onto or off the trucks and to and from the huge freezer rooms out back. There, they’ll be stored on floor-to-ceiling shelving that runs seven levels high and has the feel of a huge jungle gym. Four of those fork lifts are known as “turret trucks,” which can operate in very narrow aisles with a mast that can go up dozens of feet to retrieve or place pallets of product.
On this day, the shelves are largely empty, but that will change as more customers come on board
in the months ahead and the shelves fill up with a wide assortment of products. Taylor Logistics isn’t saying exactly who its customers are, but there could be a wide variety of food products beyond seafood— whether it be blueberries from eastern Maine or potato products from northern Maine.
“There are a lot of other food products in the state that need to be frozen,” Cassidy said.
For now, the facility is open Monday through Friday. When it gets busier, the company expects to have up to 12 employees working per shift, a number that will grow if it adds a second shift.
Gerald “Punkin” Lemoine
Levi Moulden
Bud Staples
Grant Taylor (left), vice president of warehouses at Taylor Logistics, and Evan Cassidy (right), operations manager at the facility.
Uh, oh, Canada: International travel concerns
Worry about the season marks tourism conference
BY TOM GROENING
The Canadian maple leaf flag cast a long shadow over the annual Maine Governor’s Tourism Conference in Bangor on April 16-17. Following President Donald Trump saying he wanted to make the country to the north the 51st U.S. state and imposing trade tariffs, fears among the Maine tourism industry were rampant.
Speaking to some 400 attending on April 17, Gov. Janet Mills addressed the looming worry: “Hopefully, we’ll be successful in drawing visitors from all countries, including Canada,” she said, prompting applause.
“Welcome home,” she continued, alluding to those perennial visitors. “You’re safe here, you’re welcome here.”
The industry has weathered the storm of the COVID pandemic, Mills said, and should be poised to see growth.
“You worked hard to maintain Maine’s reputation as a safe place,” she told those who work in the tourism sector. Mills also highlighted an ancillary benefit of a strong visitation: Maine had the highest rate of in-migration in New England, she said.
The numbers from 2024 were down from 2023, with 14.8 million visiting
the state, a 3.1% dip. But the Maine Office of Tourism noted that the state “attracted a higher-value visitor with average visitor spending increasing by 5% to $624, resulting in director visitor spending of $9.2 billion.”
Typical visitors stayed 4.5 nights, with lodging revenue up by 1% over 2023.
An estimated 797,900 Canadians visited Maine in 2024, the Tourism Office reported.
“We’re once again facing a great uncertainty,” Mills said. “Our Canadian neighbors say they feel unwelcome in our state. We can’t let that happen.”
The governor has been speaking to the premiers of the Atlantic provinces, she continued, asserting that “Maine and Canada have a cherished relationship.”
Maine saw a 14% drop in visitors arriving by air in 2024, she said.
described her organization’s efforts. Discover New England does not work on marketing in Canada, she said, because each New England state has its own plan.
In 2024, 3.8 million international visitors came to New England, Tripp said, spending $6.4 billion. The organization targets European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, and Italy as well as Mexico and Japan.
“Our
Canadian neighbors say they feel unwelcome in our state. We can’t let that happen.”
—GOV. JANET MILLS
In a break-out session on attracting international travelers, Kerrie Tripp of Discover New England
“Mexico is really a focus for us,” she said, “especially Mexico City. Mexico City has a lot of wealth.” Aeromexico has daily flights to Boston, she added.
Visitors from outside North America spend on average $2,716 per trip to New England, five times what Canadians spend.
“Sixty percent of the spend is coming from overseas international visitors,” Tripp said. “Yes, we’re seeing Canadians cancel reservations,” but not overseas
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visitors. “Overseas visitors stay longer, spend more, and don’t cancel.”
Overseas visitors increased by 10.3% over 2023, she said, totaling 1.3 million.
Among the tips she offered lodging operators in room were:
• Guarantee rates up to two years out
• Avoid block-out dates
• Rates should include all fees
• Train the “front of house” staff on different language greetings and on handling vouchers provided by tour operators.
She also urged them to “promote your area, not your business,” and offer packages and special experiences, like a guided tour or a cooking lesson.
“It is about making them feel like they are the most important person in front of you right now,” Tripp said, and such an approach doesn’t come with hard costs.
Trends to watch for this year include: wellness-focused travel, culinary, offseason travel, and solo travel.
Tripp also described how she meets with international tour operators, including 65 who attended a recent Discover New England summit.
“Most European travelers use and continue to use tour operators,” she said, and many of the EU countries insure their trips.
A home for all
Island Institute building out housing work
BY KIM HAMILTON
I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY recently to join a 20th anniversary celebration of North Haven Sustainable Housing (NHSH), one of the leading models of housing solutions along the coast.
Since 2005, NHSH has demonstrated that the people who make island communities thrive can, in fact, have beautiful homes that are affordable and attainable. They’ve done this through a visionary group of leaders who understood early on that a permanent home for one is a good investment for all.
The timing of this gathering was perfect, as Island Institute itself is launching a new housing strategy. I can hear murmurs of “Great, but what took you so long?” The truth is that Island Institute has had a toe—and sometimes more—in housing for some time.
In 2004, we placed our first Island Institute Fellow focused on housing on Islesboro. Many have since followed, working directly on housing or incorporating housing issues into comprehensive planning, aging in place, and economic development projects.
rock bound from the sea up
Today, one of our Island Institute Fellows is working with the Peaks Island Home Start initiative on year-round affordable housing (see Mark Gorski’s “Reflections” column in this issue).
We have been an important voice in highlighting the unique challenges of housing on islands. In 2009, we joined with the visionary Genesis Community Loan Fund and the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition to advocate for the successful passage of a $30 million bond for affordable housing, which included dedicated funding for rental units on year-round islands.
Two years ago, responding to interest from islands to learn from one another, we created an interisland learning group that continues to grow today.
impact of seasonal homes and short-term rentals, and community acceptance.
This list doesn’t include the opportunities along that string, from smarter planning around growth and climatefriendly construction to smart homes supported by the expansion of broadband across the state.
A report earlier this year from the state provides statistics that should galvanize us all into action. Across Maine, we will need to build at least 84,000 new homes by 2030 to meet the need.
A permanent home for one is a good investment for all.
Along the way, we’ve learned that when you start pulling on the housing string, you’ll quickly run into a panoply of complex issues. They include zoning regulations, the quality of housing stock, affordability and financing (especially for first-time home buyers), energy efficiency, accessory dwelling units, the
To afford the median home price ($390,000 in 2024), potential homebuyers would need a household income of at least $100,000.
State-wide data, however, obscures the reality in coastal and island communities. The median home prices along the coast are much higher. Consider Cumberland County at $570,000 or Lincoln County at $520,000.
Putting more homes within reach for more people can’t happen fast enough for the young fisherman I met last
A better way to do highway commerce
Strip development
doesn’t have to be ugly
BY TOM GROENING
IT WAS A SAD, maybe even pathetic sight, but it caught my eye.
I was driving through the busy commercial strip on Route 3, just west of Route 1 in Belfast, and I saw an excavator, its arm resting in a partially demolished building. It took me a moment, but I recognized the building as the former Pizza Hut.
It was the favorite meeting spot for the former pastor of a church we used to attend. I had many a lunch with him there. Before coming to Maine, he had lived in suburban Colorado. I thought it odd, given the several nice downtown eateries in Belfast, that he would choose this sort of soulless chain place, but that was what he was used to.
That the building was being demolished, maybe 20 years after it was built, speaks to a problem in our planning and development philosophies.
A few years ago, I attended a conference hosted by the Community Heart & Soul organization, which describes itself as “resident-driven” in engaging a town’s population in identifying what is most loved about the community, “what future they want for it, and how to achieve it.” The organization has worked with 120
towns across the country, including in Biddeford and Bucksport.
The keynote speaker at the conference, a nationally known advocate of sensible development, showed an old photo of his hometown in Minnesota.
The main street looked much like a street in Portland’s Old Port—brick buildings all the same distance from the street, arched windows, wide sidewalks.
The next photo was contemporary and from around the corner of that town—fast-food chains and big-box stores strewn along unwalkable streets, large signs, and a plethora of curb cuts.
The speaker argued that these buildings would likely devolve into dollar stores and, eventually, become meth labs. Then the community would have to apply for grants to demolish and clean up the area.
The commercial strip in Belfast, and the Pizza Hut’s demolition, reminded me of some related history.
There had been a family-owned lumber yard in the area, which is now run by the Hammond Lumber chain. But after sewer and water lines were extended there, several other businesses opened along Route 3. They include a large gas station, Goodwill store, chain medical facility, bank, and a few restaurants—all scattered at
summer on Little Cranberry Island. She shared with me that she had moved more than ten times in two years to stay on the island where she fished. The situation had become increasingly untenable, but she thought she had a good lead on a possible full-time home. Fingers crossed.
Crossing fingers isn’t a promising strategy to solve this pernicious challenge to community capacity and longterm sustainability. Together, we can do better for her and all the others who want to work in and contribute to the communities where they live.
I’m looking forward to sharing more as our housing strategy evolves over the next six months to meet the enormity of this challenge and to support the communities and people that define our extraordinary coast.
Kim Hamilton is president of Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. She may be contacted at khamilton@islandinstitute.org.
differing distances from the road, with maze-like access to parking.
It’s ugly and confusing for drivers, and, as seen with the Pizza Hut, represents disposable development.
In 1990, Belfast elected a young, progressive city council, and one of its initiatives was developing zoning for the Route 3 strip, soon to get that water and sewer. A consultant presented images from other towns which did better planning for commercial strips. Instead of multiple curb cuts and signs, one drive intersected perpendicularly with the highway and one marquee sign listed the businesses within.
The benefits should be obvious. With one entrance serving maybe eight stores, driving along the highway is faster and safer. Vegetation along the road can screen the buildings. The sewer and water lines can be shared along the access road. Parking between stores can be shared.
But in 1992, in part in reaction to those progressive planning ideas, Belfast elected a conservative city council which eliminated the zoning for Route 3. So instead, today we have a chaotic, inefficient, cluster of commerce and traffic.
I’ll confess to taking a perverse pleasure in watching the demise of
malls, like the one in Bangor. A nowdeparted wise guy I knew had a joke about how these developments can eclipse community: “Welcome to the mall… home of Bangor.”
One takeaway from the conference referenced earlier was that, as much as we may regret these poorly conceived commercial districts, it’s not likely that we can wipe them away. Instead, the keynote speaker asserted, communities should invest in downtown, streetfacing commercial strips.
So maybe improving sidewalks, installing benches and attractive, down-faced lighting, and perhaps planters could help those businesses thrive. And one more point—those older brick buildings lining our coastal downtowns generate far more economic activity than do the cheaply built chain stores.
Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront. He may be contacted at tgroening@islandinstitute.org.
MARKET DAY —
Three boys seem enthralled by the produce being displayed at a farmers market in Portland in 1940. Thanks to the Allagash Outpost Facebook page for use of the photo.
our view
Maine’s marine future must include aquaculture
This
sector offers benefits to existing and new entrepreneurs
BY KIM HAMILTON
YOU HAVE RECENTLY read several articles and op-eds in The Working Waterfront debating the role of aquaculture in Maine. As the publisher of this newspaper, Island Institute takes pride in providing a virtual, open “town square” where people can come together for hard conversations on controversial topics. As a trusted voice on the issues that affect Maine’s coast, we are also keenly aware of our responsibility to share accurate and timely information based on our own programmatic experience and expertise.
Our strategy is built on the premise that an enduring and prosperous marine economy must include aquaculture. From the fishermen who want to diversify their businesses through aquaculture to Maine’s unique location, its natural cold, clean waters, and the global demand for ocean-based, sustainable protein, aquaculture is not only desired, but also a foundational element of our fishing future.
In 2023, SEAMaine, the broad team of stakeholders responsible for
Island Institute Board of Trustees
Kristin Howard, Chair
Doug Henderson, Vice-Chair
Kate Vogt, Treasurer, Chair of Finance Committee
Bryan Lewis, Secretary, Chair of Philanthropy Committee
Michael Sant, Chair of Governance Committee
Carol White, Chair of Programs Committee
Mike Boyd, Clerk
Sebastian Belle
John Conley
Shey Conover
David Cousens
Mike Felton
Des Fitzgerald
Christie Hallowell
Nadia Rosenthal
Mike Steinharter
John Bird (honorary)
Tom Glenn (honorary)
Joe Higdon (honorary)
Bobbie Sweet (honorary)
Kimberly A. Hamilton, PhD (ex officio)
developing a roadmap for the marine economy, estimated that the aquaculture industry contributes $220 million to the state’s economy each year. Maine also has a strong aquaculture roadmap, released in 2022, that is helping to guide the future of aquaculture in Maine. It was collaboratively developed with input from a diverse range of stakeholders with a common interest in the aquaculture sector.
Managing this new and growing element of the marine economy, which includes some 25 different species of finfish, shellfish, and sea vegetables, is crucial. In fact, while not widely understood, Maine’s practices and policies to manage the aquaculture sector stand out nationally and globally as a widely recognized model for a responsible and robust aquaculture permitting process.
As the opportunities to make a living along the coast of Maine change due to a variety of economic and climate forces, diversification is a survival strategy. This is why Island Institute has chosen to invest our resources in supporting an ever-growing number of municipalities
and businesses that choose to be part of this important sector.
We are helping small aquaculture businesses strengthen their business models so they can employ more people in this sector. Nearly all aquaculture farms are family-owned. Many are smaller than five acres—far short of any threshold that would allow farmers to hire more people, provide benefits, and offer a meaningful wage.
We are introducing young people who aspire to jobs on the water to opportunities in aquaculture. Roughly 700 people are currently employed directly in the sector and the demand is growing.
Through a series of studies, we are helping this sector, which is already climate–friendly, to further reduce its carbon emissions.
We are also a proud partner with CEI, FocusMaine, Maine Aquaculture Association, World Wildlife Fund, and others to raise awareness about the value of farmed seafood and aquaculture in Maine.
The stakes are high, and careful management of our ocean resources
THE WORKING WATERFRONT
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is essential to the future success of our coastal economy. Unfortunately, the misrepresentation of aquaculture continues to cast more heat than light as evidenced by the recent back-andforth in the pages of this newspaper. This helps no one—not the farmer, not the consumer, and not interested community members who know that the places they choose to live in depend on new economic opportunities. Island Institute is a committed partner in supporting the growth of a diversified and sustainable aquaculture sector. With a vision for island and coastal communities that thrive in the face of challenges, our own work is imperiled by short-sighted controversy that does not center community sustainability. A diversified community economy is a stronger economy, and that has always been Maine’s proud heritage.
Kim Hamilton is president of Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. She may be contacted at khamilton@islandinstitute.org.
Editor: Tom Groening tgroening@islandinstitute.org
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Ferry rates proposed to increase… again
Crew shortages are driving higher operational costs
BY TOM GROENING
Just a year after raising its fares, the Maine State Ferry Service is proposing another rate hike to meet what it says are unanticipated rising costs. Increases for walk-on passengers and vehicles would rise by about 13.5%, the service reports, in its proposal aired at a public hearing on the proposal on April 10 at the Samoset Resort in Rockport.
The state Department of Transportation’s multimodal director Bill Geary, a recent director of the ferry service, explained that by state law, half the service’s operating budget must come from fares and fees. The other half comes from the state’s highway fund.
But fares and fees have only reached the 50% threshold in just three of the last ten years, he said. By not meeting 50%, the state highway fund has had to be tapped for an additional $4.6 million. DOT pays all the ferry service’s capital costs, such as new boats and terminal improvements.
State ferries serve the island communities of Frenchboro, Swan’s Island, Islesboro, North Haven, Vinalhaven, and Matinicus. That service comes at a high cost, Geary said, with $100 million being spent since 2019, and another $100 million expected over the next three years.
Some 200-plus trips were canceled over the last year, he said, due to crew shortages. Ferry service crew must train to meet strict U.S. Coast Guard regulations. And to keep ferries berthed on islands overnight, which allows for medical emergency trips to the mainland, crew work seven days on, seven days off, and must sleep on the island while on duty.
“We need to adjust the tolls to cover half the increased cost,” Geary said.
A concept floated by DOT Commissioner Bruce Van Note to begin berthing ferries on the mainland to help address crew shortages has been set aside for two or three years, service managers have said.
Geary said the state hoped to keep the current rate schedule in place for four years, but staff shortages
have meant the service had to offer $4,000 hiring bonuses, double overtime pay, and higher wage scales. There is a global mariner shortage, he said, which is broadly impacting the industry.
The ferry service has enlisted Seaward Services, a private maritime employment agency, but Geary said the changes the service has made have meant it hasn’t had to use the firm since December.
Last year, the ferry service offered four options for increasing fares, with one an 18% across-the-board hike. Peak and off-peak months also were considered, as well as adjusting passenger and vehicle fares at differing rates. Geary said he received little feedback from the Maine State Ferry Advisory Board, which includes members from the islands served, and the service settled on a 13.5% hike.
For Islesboro, rates for an adult round-trip passenger ticket will rise from $9 to $10.25 from Oct. 1 to May 31, and from $15 to $17 from June 1 to Sept. 30. Round-trip passenger vehicle fares will rise from $26 to $30 in the off season, and from $37.50 to $42.50 in the warm months. Truck rates, calculated on a per-foot-length basis, will rise from $5 to $5.75 in the off season, and from $6 to $6.75 in the warm months.
Peter Willcox, the Islesboro representative to the ferry advisory board, called the ferry service “a lifeline,” and that the rate hike “will make our community unaffordable, particularly for year-round residents and senior citizens on fixed imcomes.”
He suggested the service consider discounting fares for permanent island residents.
Karen Mundo, a former Islesboro resident, said she had to move because she “could no longer afford to live on the island.” She opposes the rate hike, she said, noting that “many elderly people on the island life in poverty. I’m asking for some relief” for others in this age group.
By not meeting 50%, the state highway fund has had to be tapped for an additional $4.6 million.
Islesboro’s select board submitted a written statement arguing for “a reduced resident rate,” and pledged to work with the state “by providing proof of residency.”
For Swan’s Island, Frenchboro, North Haven, and Vinalhaven, rates for an adult round-trip passenger will rise from $14 to $15.75 from Oct. 1 to May 31, and from $20.25 to $23 from June 1 to Sept. 30. Round trip passenger vehicle fares will rise from $36.50 to $41.50 in the off season, and from $48.50 to $55 in the warmer months. Truck rates, per foot, will rise from $5.25 to $6 in the off season, and from $6.25 to $7 in the warmer months.
For Matinicus, year-round rates for adult roundtrip passenger tickets will rise from $25 to $28.25, passenger vehicles with a reservation will cost $122.50, up from $108, and truck rates will increase from $8.75 to $10 per foot.
Nick Battista, chief policy and external affairs officer with Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, urged DOT officials to review the first “demand-driven study of the ferry service,” commissioned by the Institute in 2021-2022. Some of its recommendations were adopted, he said, but more might be considered.
Eva Murray of Matinicus suggested the ferry service consider adjusting its fares to charge more for vehicles to encourage visitors to arrive as walk-ons.
Perry Gates, formerly of North Haven but who now travels frequently to the island, urged ferry managers to work toward rates that are more stable.
“What can we do, looking down the road, to decrease expenses? How do we increase income that is fair, that makes sense in the long term”
If adopted, the new rates would go into effect June 1. Geary said there currently are 11 bill proposals in the state legislature that would impact ferry policies.
Contact Dave Jackson: djackson@islandinstitute.org
Alcohol and fishing don’t have to be partners
The stress, worry, and physical toll can all lead to abuse
This essay first appeared in National Fisherman and is reprinted with permission and gratitude.
BY MONIQUE COOMBS
Fishing is one of the toughest jobs there is, and for many, alcohol has been the go-to way to deal with the stress, uncertainty, and the sheer physical toll of the work.
I’m not writing to blame or shame, but about understanding why drinking plays such a big role in our communities and what other options exist.
Commercial fishing is a demanding job. It’s physically grueling, unpredictable, and often dangerous. The industry operates on tight margins, and fishermen carry a level of stress most people can’t comprehend, worrying about weather, quotas, gear breakdowns, and the uncertainty of regulations and closures.
In many fishing communities, alcohol has long been a part of the culture. It’s there to celebrate a big haul, to mourn a lost friend, or to simply mark the end of a brutal season.
Drinking is social, and it’s often seen as a way to bond, to let off steam, or to temporarily escape the pressures of the job.
But sometimes, that drinking shifts from occasional to excessive, and the line between unwinding and relying on alcohol to cope with stress starts to blur.
Alcohol use in rural areas tends to be higher than in urban settings, and fishing communities are no exception. The job itself is filled with uncertainty— fishermen rely on factors beyond their control, such as weather, regulations, market prices, and luck. The financial pressure of an unpredictable season can be overwhelming, and for many, alcohol becomes a way to take the edge off that stress.
On top of that, fishing can be isolating. Long hours at sea and time away from family and friends make it difficult to maintain strong social connections. During the winter months, when fishing slows down for
some, that isolation can become more pronounced, making alcohol an easy form of escape.
The physical toll of commercial fishing is another major factor. The work can lead to chronic pain, fatigue, and injuries that often go untreated. Alcohol can seem like an easy and accessible way to numb that discomfort, even though it ultimately makes recovery and longterm health more difficult.
In some areas, drinking is deeply ingrained in the fishing culture. For generations, it has been part of celebrations, traditions, and even daily life. There’s an expectation that fishermen drink, and heavy drinking is often seen as a normal part of the lifestyle, which makes it even harder for those who want to cut back or quit.
This expectation often frustrates me, honestly. There have been a couple of times when the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has hosted events, and I’ve been asked, “Where are all the fishermen? Maybe if you had beer, they would be here!” Personally, I find this rather insulting and not at all funny.
Fishermen have long been stereotyped as heavy drinkers, a perception reinforced in media, pop culture, and even within their own communities. This assumption creates a damaging cycle. When people expect fishermen to drink, it normalizes excessive alcohol use and makes it harder for those who want to cut back or quit. It also overshadows the reality that many fishermen are hardworking professionals who take their health, safety, and livelihoods seriously.
strength, discipline, and adaptability required to survive in the industry.
Not everyone who drinks struggles with alcohol use. But even people who feel like they have their drinking under control can go through periods where they’re drinking more than they’d like, especially during stressful times. And let’s be honest—this is not just the case for fishermen. Alcohol use is so normalized that it makes it challenging for anyone interested in getting sober or cutting back to do so without question or temptation.
Thankfully, the conversation around alcohol is changing—both generally and within the fishing community. More people abstain, and many bars and breweries now offer mocktails and non-alcoholic beers. Some are choosing cannabis instead of alcohol. While this might seem like substituting one habit for another, studies suggest that cannabis carries fewer risks, such as lower toxicity, no known overdose risk, and a weaker association with violence or reckless behavior.
There’s an expectation that fishermen drink, and heavy drinking is often seen as a normal part of the lifestyle.
This approach might be considered harm reduction, which focuses on minimizing negative consequences rather than insisting on complete abstinence. However, fishermen should remember that cannabis is still federally illegal, and vessels are federally registered, so it’s important to be mindful of the legal implications.
You could also establish drinkingfree days or specific times when you allow yourself to drink. These strategies can work for someone trying to cut back, but if you’re aiming for complete sobriety, this kind of self-negotiation can be difficult to maintain once you’ve had a couple of drinks.
More people are recognizing the toll excessive drinking can take, and more communities are offering support without judgment. There’s no onesize-fits-all solution, but the most important thing is this: No one needs to navigate these challenges alone. It’s important to find someone you can confide in, someone who will support you while also holding you accountable. But at the end of the day, whatever your reason for wanting to cut back or quit drinking, it’s truly no one’s business but your own.
Maybe none of this is for you. Maybe you’ve been thinking about cutting back. Maybe someone has told you that you need to cut back. Maybe you’re thinking about removing alcohol from your life entirely.
Not one of these considerations makes you less of a fisherman, nor are you the only fisherman struggling with your relationship with alcohol. If anything, sharing with others that you want to cut back or quit only makes you stronger, because being vulnerable is one of the hardest things for anyone, but especially for fishermen.
It can discourage fishermen from seeking support or making healthier choices for fear of being seen as less tough or less part of the crew. Reducing them to a single narrative of hard drinking does a disservice to the
The good news? There are other means of harm reduction and coping strategies that are completely legal no matter where you are. One of the simplest, but also one of the most challenging if you already feel like you’re drinking too much, is setting boundaries. You can decide ahead of time how many drinks to have. Limit yourself by only bringing a certain amount of money to the bar or a set number of drinks to a friend’s house.
Monique Coombs is director of community programs for the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association where she leads the Fishermen Wellness and Working Waterfront programs. With nearly 20 years of experience in the fishing industry, Coombs is dedicated to supporting the mental and physical well-being of fishermen and advocating for working waterfronts. She is married to a commercial fisherman, has two kids who fish, and lives on Orr’s Island.
Of books and boats—
Brooklin library to host maritime research center
WoodenBoat archives will stay local, thanks to Jon Wilson
BY DORATHY MARTEL
Serendipitous timing and a simple request have combined to keep a large collection of nautical publications in Brooklin, preserving the library’s local roots.
Last June, Jon Wilson gave visitors a tour of the WoodenBoat Library—a 6,700-volume “labor of love” he put together over decades of book and periodical collecting. Wilson is the founder of WoodenBoat magazine and the WoodenBoat School, located in Brooklin. He sold the business to two staff members in 2022.
“Once I transferred the company to the employees, I closed the library to public access,” Wilson said. “I couldn’t keep it going. I didn’t want it to be in private hands anymore.”
“The concentration of this library is unique, it is one of a kind,” Wilson said, describing its focus as “the most intricate aspects of boat and yacht building.”
It was important to Wilson that the collection be preserved while also being available to scholars, boatbuilders, researchers, students, and anyone else interested in reading about boats.
“It will be a research library, open to the public under supervision, not a lending library,” he noted.
When the town of Brooklin’s Friend Memorial Library (FML) expansion is completed in the next few years, Wilson’s collection will have a dedicated space in the annex there, to be named the Anne and Maynard Bray Maritime Research Center. Anne Bray was WoodenBoat librarian, and, Wilson said, “she gave the library the structure it has.” Her husband, Maynard Bray, is a writer, boatbuilder, editor, nautical historian, and local celebrity.
The Research Center will also include an archive of over 155,000 slide images donated by marine photographer Benjamin Mendlowitz.
[Friend Memorial] library was already planned to expand, and then word got to the board that the collection might be available. The thing that’s really fun is that connection to Brooklin. It’s a fabulous place to live and the library is just the heart of the community.”
The Research Center will also include an archive of over 155,000 slide images donated by marine photographer Benjamin Mendlowitz.
“The photo donation brings another whole cohort of aficionados,” Wilson said. “The breadth of interest in this stuff is so wide.”
Wilson could have donated his books to a larger institution, such as Maine Maritime Academy or Penobscot Marine Museum. But, he said, “They didn’t ask,” and Friend Memorial Library did.
Robert Baird, FML’s capital campaign chair, explained, “The
Jill Knowles, a volunteer on FML’s fundraising and capital campaign committees, said, “Jon could have sent it anywhere.” But in its future home at FML, “it will be accessible to the public. A lot of university or museum libraries are not usually accessible.”
The request to Wilson “made so much sense to him,” Knowles said, given the community’s boatbuilding heritage. That heritage remains current, with wooden boatbuilding taught in the local elementary school.
Knowles, who was the Brooklin school librarian for more than 30 years, remembered that 20-plus years ago, when her own child was in school, “they used Brooklin lumber to make
small boats that kids actually built” and then took out on the water.
The FML expansion is still in its planning stage, Knowles said, but things are moving ahead.
“We don’t have final plans yet. We haven’t really started the final phase of fundraising. We’re getting ready to do something this year. We are at a place where we feel comfortable finalizing the design process,” she said.
Stewardship of FML’s own collection and that of the Maritime Research Center is a high priority, which is reflected in the fundraising goals.
“What was planned from the get-go was to have an endowment, to build the endowment of the library and to keep the library going,” Knowles said. They have raised approximately $2 million, which is $500,000 short of the original goal of $2.5 million for the whole campaign, but they plan to keep fundraising to $3 million due to rising building costs.
The board is also mindful of staffing needs related to the expansion.
“The most recent hire at the library has experience in the archival stuff,” Knowles said.
Of the local passion for building and studying wooden boats, Knowles said, “It’s a niche world, or course. But it’s real.”
Tariffs would pinch lobster markets Cross-border trade is fluid for lobster
BY TOM GROENING
The status of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies changes almost as fast as the spring weather. But a basic understanding of the impacts of those tariffs on Maine’s lobster fishery was offered at an Island Institute webinar on April 3.
Amanda Rector, Maine’s state economist, broke down international trade into an essential dynamic: “We have some stuff that you want, you have some stuff that we want.”
A nation imports products from another country, she said, because “maybe you make some things better than we do.”
Most economists support robust international trade because it opens new markets for producers and brings in new products for consumers, Rector said.
When the dollar is strong—valued higher than other national currencies— the U.S. imports more goods, she explained.
many years, though in 2010, it was smaller than it is today.
In 2024, Maine exported goods to 168 countries, with Canada the top export destination, by far, she said, with 40% of Maine exported goods arriving there. Canada also is the place where most of Maine’s imports—70%—originate.
Some 80% of Maine’s oil, natural gas, and gasoline come from Canada, and the state’s top export to the north is fish and marine products.
It’s a fluid process, Rector explained.
“Free trade with our Canadian partners is critical.”
—LUKE HOLDEN
But trade is not static. Maine imports more than it exports, Rector continued.
Maine has had a trade deficit for
“We are exporting things, but we importing, sometimes, the same things,” she said, with fish being a prominent example.
Another panelist, Eric Miller of the Washington D.C.-based Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, noted that the U.S. funded most of its government activities through tariffs for the nation’s first 120 years, ending with the adoption of the national income tax.
Trump, he said, has been a believer in tariffs since the 1980s.
“The central animating force of his life has been tariffs,” Miller said.
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Luke Holden is the founder of the Luke’s Lobster chain of about 30 restaurants which operate around the U.S., and of an online retailer, and the business both imports and exports lobster. Luke’s operates a 60,000-square-foot processing facility in Saco.
“We buy a lot of live lobster coming out of Canada,” he said, but from July to December, much of what the business buys comes from Maine. “I would guess that more than half gets processed up in Canada.”
“Free trade is critically important,” he asserted. “Free trade with our Canadian partners is critical.”
Holden acknowledged that Canadian lobster harvesters have competitive advantages, with the government there building and maintaining piers, and installing hoists and cold storage facilities.
But with lobster being “an indulgence, a luxury item,” he said the fishery shouldn’t add expenses. If tariffs raise the cost of importing fuel and paperboard, which are used in producing and shipping lobster, then that would increase the cost of the crustacean to consumers, or reduce the profit margin for companies like Luke’s, Holden said.
An insider’s view of the seafood world from deck to dining table.
New England Waterfront borders the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank—one of the worlds most important, productive and critical ocean habitats and fishing grounds. Available at Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shops, The Blue Hill Bookstore, Longfellow, Arctic Tern, Owl and Turtle, and Gulf of Maine Books.
www.working-waterfront.com
The people who bring you seafood
Maine-based photographer documents ‘human face’ of harvesters
This body of work emerged from a collaboration with the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, driven by a shared goal—to put a human face on the men and women who work tirelessly to bring us the seafood we eat. While many know their local farmer, far fewer know their local fisherman. We hope these images help bridge that gap and spark a deeper connection to the people behind our food.
As Amanda Lyons, a clammer from Lubec, told me, “There’s no machine pulling these up. It takes a person to get ’em.” In today’s world, it’s all too easy to forget that.
I’m deeply interested in the rapid change unfolding along the Maine coast, and it was a privilege to spend time with a range of individuals who are carrying on a tradition that has sustained generations: making an honest living from the sea. Their work not only supports our communities—it shapes the culture and character of the coast itself, making Maine the truly singular place it is.
—David McLain
Adjacent to the Fifth Maine’s building is a similar structure that served the Eighth Maine, constructed in 1891. Nearby Long Island had cottages that were used by Civil War veterans, no longer standing.
“It was a very healing place,” Hurd-Forsyth says, “a safe place to talk about the war experience.” The men and their families would enjoy lobster, ice cream, and activities like sack races.
“These buildings were always dedicated to families,” Stevenson says.
Today, we understand that veterans of war cope with trauma and may pursue counseling. But in the 19th century, gathering with comrades served as a balm.
“They really enjoyed seeing each other because they didn’t have to explain,” Hurd-Forsyth says.
Perhaps surprisingly, the men established prohibitions on drinking and gambling when they gathered. The clean, ocean air and beautiful island landscape were seen part of the healing.
But a diary entry, noting that “George Bicknell was raving around the camp again,” apparently the result of a head injury, is evidence of the trauma.
“We try not to sugar-coat” the war experience, Hurd-Forsyth says of the museum’s presentation.
The museum’s seeds were planted by the veterans themselves.
“They filled these buildings with artifacts,” she says. “They kind of treated it as a museum from the beginning.”
The artifacts are varied and evocative. There is a piece of hardtack, a food staple for soldiers; relics from the battle at Gettysburg; hand-colored “lantern slides,” which were projected onto screens; and shackles that had been used on a slave. This last is especially significant, given the historical context. Hurd-Forsyth explains that the reunion center was built at the beginning of the “Lost Cause” mythology, a rewriting of the war’s central issue.
When the men of the Fifth Maine built their reunion center, the war had been over for 23 years, and so they were established in their careers. Some had become very successful, and they contributed more to the project.
The Fifth Maine Museum’s mission, Hurd-Forsyth says, is to remember and honor the regiment’s lives, during and after the war; tell the history of Peaks Island; and to provide a community gathering place.
The Peaks portion of the museum hosts an exhibit divided into themes: Keeping Warm, Keeping Busy, and Winter on Peaks Island.
The last veteran died in 1939, and the final reunion, with family members, was held in 1941. The building began to deteriorate and selling it was considered, but finally, it was decided to preserve it, in part as a community center.
“It’s a survivor,” Hurd-Forsyth says of the building, while Banquer notes that some three-quarters of the nonprofit’s budget is maintenance.
“We’ve really professionalized the museum,”
The great room at the Fifth Maine Museum. PHOTO: TOM GROENING
From left, Ian Stevenson, Holly Hurd-Forsyth, and Jane Banquer. PHOTO: TOM GROENING
‘Monhegan
Wildlands’ traces natural, artistic history
Exhibition begins at Bowdoin, moves to island
This summer, Monhegan Museum of Art & History will present an exhibition that reexamines the island’s history: “The Monhegan Wildlands: Art, Ecology, and the Resilience of a Maine Island” illuminates its extraordinary journey of environmental transformation and resilience from the close of the most recent ice age to the contemporary period, as
seen through the eyes of the artists who depict the terrain and the scientists who study its dynamic ecology.
The exhibition, created in collaboration with Bowdoin College Museum of Art, is on view in Brunswick through June 1. The island version will be on view at the Monhegan Museum July 1-Sept. 30.
The show will feature a wide range of artwork—from paintings by
American modernist artists such as Rockwell Kent and Edward Hopper, to contemporary pieces by Lynne Drexler and Barbara Putnam—alongside historical artifacts such as bone harpoon points and other objects created by Indigenous inhabitants, documents from the island’s history, and scientific research on elements such as the human introduction, and
subsequent removal, of first sheep and then deer.
“New York artist Rockwell Kent first visited Monhegan Island in 1905,” said Barry Logan, a professor of natural sciences at Bowdoin College and a co-curator of the exhibition, “just as more than a half century of intensive sheep farming was coming to an end, so the landscape he saw and depicted
“Crows Nest, Monhegan,” by Sears Gallagher (1892), watercolor on paper.
“Sun, Manana, Monhegan,” by Rockwell Kent (1907/ca. 1950), oil on canvas.
was in the earliest stages of recovery from its greatest ecological disturbance in recorded history.”
Jennifer Pye, director of the Monhegan Museum and a co-curator of the exhibit, added that “although visible from the mainland on clear days, Monhegan Island’s geographical isolation fosters a unique ecology, as well as self-reliance among its residents.”
Monhegan Island is just less than a square mile in size, with a year-round population of around 60 residents. Yet its small scale has enabled the kind of close study—by artists and scientists alike—that reveals in intimate detail the changes in the ecology of the forested landscape. Monhegan forests have been permitted to follow their own trajectory free from development, thanks to the exceptional conservationmindedness of the community. Fully three quarters of Monhegan Island— the Wildlands—is conserved in a land trust where the prevailing stewardship ethos is to let nature take its course.
The exhibition delves into the island’s evolving ecology, history, and artistic representation through various thematic lenses. The exhibition spans 12,000 years, highlighting the significance of Monhegan to the
Wabanaki’s fishing culture and showcasing the ancient Cathedral Woods that have inspired artists. The narrative continues to explore forest decline in the mid-20th century due to deer and mistletoe, leading to conservation efforts.. Finally, it examines the resurgence of secondary forests in the 21st century, emphasizing stewardship and the role of contemporary artists in portraying the island’s dynamic landscape and community life.
“While Monhegan has long been a canvas for artists, it has been an equally enriching landscape for scientists, a unique opportunity to observe the mechanisms of forest succession and resilience on a small scale,” said Frank Goodyear, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and a co-curator of the exhibition. “As an art historian, it has been an engaging experience to work on developing an exhibition that integrates the narratives of artists, ecologists, and the community, and that so effectively relates these unique and instructive histories to the arc of environmental stewardship on Monhegan Island.”
The museum is open daily from June 15Sept. 30. See www.monheganmuseum.org
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“Ocean Headland, Black Head, Monhegan,” by George Bellows (1911), oil on panel.
“Monhegan, Maine,” by Bert Poole (1896), lithograph.
“Pine Trees, Monhegan Island, Maine,” by William Trost Richards (ca. 1902), oil on panel.
“Sunset Tree,” by Sylvia Alberts (1997), oil on canvas.
book reviews
Historical novel unveils Native life
Canadian blueberry harvesters depict stereotypes
REVIEW BY TINA COHEN
AMANDA PETERS has Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry and lives in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. She was winner in 2021 of an Indigenous Voices Award. The Berry Pickers was her first published book (2023), with a book of short stories just out.
Peters has set this book in both Nova Scotia and in Maine’s blueberry fields. The story focuses on a Canadian Mi’kmaq family, told by a brother and sister. All five children, with their parents, go to Maine every year in late July for the harvest of blueberries and then potatoes.
This migrant labor is not uncommon and is shared with other Indigenous Canadian families like them, and the American farmers who hire them provide some rooms and outdoor space for camping as living quarters. Peters’ own grandparents were berry pickers and she grew up hearing their stories. Canadian Indigenous children were still being taken from their families
and sent to boarding schools in the early 1960s, the setting of the novel. The government’s goal, as in the U.S., was to erase Native language, history, traditions, and identity.
In this family, the two oldest children were sent to boarding school but allowed to rejoin the family during summers while they worked. Eventually they were withdrawn from the school by the parents to live at home, after their father grew irate about the implication that without proper institutional guidance, Indigenous children otherwise grew up lazy and unproductive. (A note here about language: Peters uses “Indian” and not “Indigenous” or “First Nation,” perhaps more in keeping with the time period portrayed, when “Indian” was commonly used.)
We’re given lots of clues that Ruthie and Norma are the same little girl, although their circumstances couldn’t be more different. Norma’s “mother” is a depressed white woman, married but childless. The book’s male narrator, Joe, Ruthie’s older brother, believes he was the last to see her near the fields. He feels guilty, blaming himself for failing to keep her safe.
We’re given lots of clues that Ruthie and Norma are the same little girl, although their circumstances couldn’t be more different.
The story kicks off when the family is in Maine harvesting berries, and the youngest, Ruthie, 4 years old, goes missing. The reader is as baffled as the family. But then a new narrator, Norma, is added.
As the story progresses, Norma grows up impacted by her mother’s secretive behaviors and sometimes weak explanations of Norma’s past. Norma has dreams and vague memories that seem to indicate a past that differs with her mother’s version. We can see how her American mother’s depression and anxiety, the sense of secrets, as well as the power of Norma’s dreams and memories create nagging questions and insecurity, persisting into adulthood.
I was interested to see in The Berry Pickers an example of what I had recently been drawn to while reading
Sydney Lea deals with demons
Woodsman tells story of man haunted by past
By Sidney Lea Down East Books
BY CARL LITTLE
IN AN INTERVIEW last year with Vermont Public Radio, novelist, poet, and essayist Sydney Lea shared with Mikaela Lefrak that he had been “at the business of recovery for a long, long time,” adding, “I’m blessed in that respect. Many people don’t get the chance.”
Drawing on personal experience, Lea has written a novel about a man, George Mayes, dealing with major demons of the alcohol kind.
George is a Yale graduate who spent his college years and after drinking everything in sight. Later, as the owner of Mayes Transportation, while tending a “sprawling garden of jonquil-colored school buses,” he routinely drives a route in an inebriated state, risking
the lives of his young passengers. Looking back on these days, George beats up on himself in his attempt at self-realization.
Lea describes George as a “man for prayer, though it’s largely wordless and entirely creedless.” He has always longed to make his life “a coherent package.”
To him, “Story just matters, period.” George “can’t come to grips with experience if he can’t tell it”—an assertion that might echo the author’s position.
As a devoted outdoorsman and a longtime visitor to Grand Lake Stream, Lea is especially skilled at limning life in the woods; he’s a descendant of Hemingway and his Nick Adams stories in that regard.
Describing a canoe trip on Semnic Lake with his friend Evan Butcher, he remembers the older man, his mentor, seated in the stern of the canoe, “a loon swimming close enough to take a mud chub from his hand,” an image that matches the photograph on the book’s cover.
Like Michael Connelly’s Bosch, George has a deep appreciation for jazz. Thinking of The Gerry Mulligan
Songbook, he waxes lyric: “Goddamn good album, not a piano on the whole thing, completely different kettle of fish.”
George does most of the narrating, but Lea lets other characters take a chapter here and there to add perspective on the story.
Among the most striking: the soliloquy of the man who murdered his parents and a short letter written from Vietnam by his friends Evan and Mattie’s son Tommy.
Percival Everett’s James, a retelling of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, but with Jim/James as the narrator. James and other enslaved blacks are shown as fully developed characters with emotions and intellect, who have figured out the benefits of acting the part assigned to them by ignorant whites.
In The Berry Pickers, Peters includes a chapter where Ruthie and Joe’s “Injun” father takes white men out on hunting excursions and is very aware of the stereotypes whites hold. He plays to these knowingly, correctly anticipating that providing an authentic “Indian guide” will give the hunters what they hoped for, with a large tip in it for him.
The Berry Pickers touches on threads readers can learn from, including the impact of trauma; the value of dreams, journaling, and therapy; and the poor treatment laborers and people of color can receive.
I think Peters’ writing makes this book accessible to adolescent readers as well as adults, as a history lesson from the not-too-distant past.
Tina Cohen is a therapist who spends part of the year on Vinalhaven.
account of a river driver who has been fished out of the river. “Evan spoke of how they poured a carton of salt into his bedroll and wrapped him in it. ‘Like corning venison,’ as he once put it, sadeyed, ‘and salt were dear.’”
Mayes is a Yale graduate who spent his college years and after drinking everything in sight.
George is raised by great uncle Emory Unger and his housemaid, Mary Conley, who turns out to be among the most endearing characters in the story, making the boy is favorite sandwich, peanut butter and tomato, every Sunday.
“If heaven isn’t like that,” he tells his wife Julie, “I’ll boycott the place.”
Lea is brilliant storyteller in both prose and verse (he was Vermont’s poet laureate). His descriptive prowess is evident on every page. Here’s an
At one point, George muses, “reminiscence can be a sickness, just like the bottle,” yet he holds on to memories as tightly as he once held onto a fifth of vodka. He finds it strange how so often “the episodes in a person’s life that lodge themselves in the mind are not necessarily important ones: fizz of a soft drink; lower hiss of a river fifty yards away; Evan’s old hound bawling in his pen.” Like George, Lea is “someone remembering someone remembering”—and we listen in with wonder and sympathy.
Carl Little lives on Mount Desert Island. His latest poetry collection is The Blanket of Night.
The Berry Pickers By Amanda Peters (Catapault, 2023)
Now Look
REVIEW
book reviews
Island quarry swimming as art
Photographer Michael Seif returns to subject
REVIEW BY TINA COHEN
Seif
HOW BETTER TO anticipate the season of swimming, of warm-enough water to immerse oneself in, and even frolic in, than with the photographs of Michael Seif featured in his new book, Water Spirits.
The book follows Seif’s gallery shows, including at Island Institute in Rockland and New Era Gallery on Vinalhaven.
Seif photographs a group of female islanders swimming at a quarry. They describe the “shoot” as beginning with the group brainstorming that day’s “choreography.” Then, in the water, they are photographed, Seif standing with his camera on the rocky edge above the water. They call it a collaborative creative process.
This book includes a quick nod to quarry history, with pictures of some quarrying era artifacts illustrating the
once-industrial setting, when rock was removed to be used primarily as building material.
From granite islands such as Vinalhaven, it was easier to ship the rock by sea, in the days before truck and train transportation. As a building material before concrete, sizable granite blocks were the stuff of bridges, dams, and many governmental buildings.
Smaller pieces were used as paving stones, gravestones, and for statuary. The granite was shipped down the East Coast, likely as far as Cuba.
A few island quarries survived the end of that 19th century use, left to fill with water. Several continue to exist as swimming holes in the public domain. One, owned privately, became popular as a lesser-known and lesser-used place to swim nude.
Seif saw a chance, with willing female swimmers, to capture their animating its still water with their movement. The book offers minimal text with phrases that, not quite haiku, seem to be both title and description.
For example, “Sometimes they are like schools of fish” followed by,
“or they become dolphins.” And, “They create mystical organisms of multiple bodies.”
The minimized text is exactly right—why label or categorize too exactly or over-think it?
As you peruse this book, not only does the fact these bodies have no clothing become somewhat unimportant; it is as if you have entered a place filled with expressive images rather than realistic representations. This is a sensual celebration of being in water, of what that can look like.
Seif conveys immersion as if the camera itself were submersed, as if we might be floating there too. If all that sounds incredibly relaxing, if this seems like a way to escape other, harsher realities, this book can be that—a vicarious aquatic escape.
There is another group of women who swim with a purpose. The Salty Sisters are a group of residents who bare almost nothing. Their bodies are covered from head to toe: caps, wet suits, booties, gloves. They prefer going to the rocky ocean shore for their swims.
Island as banishment, not retreat
Novel is timely, but uncomfortable read
REVIEW
BY
DANA WILDE
WHALEBACK ISLAND, the main setting of Lewis Robinson’s novel The Islanders, is one of those coastal places that just a small percentage of all the potential readers of this review might have set foot on. Everyone else sees it only from a distance.
On the 2,000-acre fictional island are tennis courts, a golf course, a private airport, boat houses for private boats, well-groomed hiking and biking trails. Getaway mansions. A clubhouse where social functions are held for expensively dressed people. There is also an armory.
The story is told by Walt McNamara, a teenager whose lower-middle class life in New Hampshire went sideways during his senior year in high school, and who, through the twists and turns of his story, eventually got invited to this island to do … he’s not quite sure what. But he’s been assured it is a great life opportunity not to be missed by a young man of his talents.
As the story opens, Walt has arrived at the mainland dock with instructions to row across open water to Whaleback with two new companions, Tess and Aubrey. It’s a pretty healthy distance across the water, and the three teenagers wonder if there isn’t something amiss about sending three kids with no seagoing experience in a rowboat to get to a place they’ve never been before.
The reader joins in the uneasiness.
Tess is revealed immediately to be a master of skeptical irony, Aubrey does not speak, and Walt is flustered, confused, and youthfully stoic.
After arriving safely on the island, they discover about 50 other teenagers like themselves who have also been invited. The kids are divided into six groups called “huddles,” each under the supervision of an adult charged with whipping the kids into physical and emotional shape. Again, to what end, the kids don’t know.
Some of the huddle supervisors seem nicer than others, but Walt, Tess, and Aubrey’s leader, an ex-military man named Grunewald, is drill-sergeant harsh. Day in and day out, he contrives difficult, sometimes dangerous exercises for the kids, and makes gruff speeches about how they are finally facing reality after living innocent, sheltered lives.
A sense that something insidious is going on develops slowly but surely among the kids and the reader.
At first the whole enterprise appears to be an Outward Bound-style boot camp for disaffected youth. The kids form friendships, bonds, and skepticism quickly.
Even though the situations, though dangerous, are themselves artificial.
A sense that something insidious is going on develops slowly but surely among the kids and the reader. The island’s overseers, a clique of wealthy men, hold meetings in which they perform unctuous exhortations to the kids to take advantage of the special, but unspecified opportunity afforded by the island program.
The insinuation that the kids may be in line to become elitely wealthy is less well disguised than the hints of a used car salesman.
So the questions driving the plot are: What are the kids doing there? Is Grunewald an enemy or a friend? Are the island overseers benefactors or manipulators? Either way, to what purpose?
The swims are actually plunges, when the water is even colder than its typical cold— say from October to May. And beaches aren’t necessarily beaches but often just enough of a clearing through forest and rocks to gain entry to some open water. No cavorting here. This is serious stuff, a bracing dip with a release of endorphins and dopamine that recharges the body and spirit.
While Seif appreciates the tolerance of his “Water Spirits” for their early morning quarry swims, which could be chilly, that rock-enclosed area has a benign quality. The quarry’s quiet water functions as a canvas of sorts, able to host experiments with movement, light, and imagery. The gentle distortion of shapes in water provides a blurring of details that engages our imaginations. Think what Monet did when painting garden ponds. But instead of featuring those light-gilded lily pads, here Seif captures luminescent female forms. This book is currently available from Amazon.
Tina Cohen is a therapist who spends part of the year on Vinalhaven.
In the meantime, chapters telling the story of Walt’s troubles at home intersperse with chapters about the island. Walt, a star hockey player, has been roiled by his father (the school janitor) and mother’s split. He is nastily manipulated by an unlikely girlfriend from a well-to-do family. Under the stress, Walt cracks, leading to his invitation to the compound on Whaleback.
Walt’s experience brings into high relief the fundamental themes of the book. They involve the relative innocence of teenagers and the multifarious corruptions of adults; tensions between people of wealth and people of limited social and economic means; misguided and shallow interpretations of seminal American social philosophies; and the ugly corruption inherent in the love of money.
The Islanders really is what we call a “timely” novel. It’s an all too realistic, carefully crafted parable whose ironies strike uncomfortably close. It’s about how literal class wars are taking shape in America right now. A thoughtful, uncomfortable, socially penetrating read.
Dana Wilde is former college professor and newspaper editor who lives in Troy. This books include A Backyard Book of Spiders in Maine, Winter, Summer to Fall, Nebulae, and The Other End of the Driveway.
Water Spirits— Photographs by Michael
The Islanders: A Novel By Lewis Robinson Islandport Press (2024)
saltwater cure
I don’t know what to write about
The columnist’s perennial lament, explained
BY COURTNEY NALIBOFF
I DON’T KNOW what to write about. I’ve sat down to write my column several times this week and have wandered outside instead. But the deadline looms, so write I must.
Some of the things I’ve considered spending time and column inches on feel too big:
• How it feels, as a Jewish person who has experienced lifelong anti-Semitism but moved back to Maine anyway, to now see human rights violated in the name of protecting Jewish people.
• The fear I hold as the parent of a girl that she may grow up in a country that seems to only value her as a future baby incubator.
• The rhetoric, recently employed by the Maine DOT as well as the federal government, that those who don’t display sufficient gratitude and fealty aren’t deserving of public funds and services.
• How proud I am to be in Maine at this time, and how nervous I am for the future.
And some of the ideas I’ve had feel too small:
• How, as long as seeds continue to germinate, I can stay hopeful.
• The social lives of blue jays.
• The partnership needs of pear and apple trees
• Snails (I just think they’re cool). So, unsettled as I am on the direction my column should take, I leave my desk and wander.
I take a looping route around the house, stopping to visit each part of my yard in turn. Immediately out my office door is a new mulched patch. The chocolate mint I transplanted there is well on its way to taking over, and the surviving beach plum has buds on its thin branches.
Lemon balm is poking its way up, and I think the first calendula seedling has emerged. From there, I say hello to the blueberry bushes, planning which branches I’ll prune.
The greenhouse is next. Pen and I cleaned it over spring break, and the first of my brassicas are poking up from their seed trays.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I just wandered off to play the bass for a while.)
From the greenhouse I say hello to the hellebore, blooming in satisfying white and deep maroon clusters on the side of the patio. Then it’s on to the first of my fenced-in vegetable gardens.
I planted radishes, arugula, and peas and I’m eagerly awaiting their appearance. I also spent a blissfully stinky, muddy hour and a half back there recently (when I was supposed to be writing) weeding the dandelions that weren’t smothered by the seaweed mulch I laid on in November. The garlic and rhubarb are well on their way.
Around to the herb garden, which probably needs a little quicklime applied since it was covered with moss, which I recently learned means that the soil is overly acidic.
The sage plant and chives are looking healthy, though. The tulips and raspberries I planted on the side of the house are alive, and the perennials in the front garden are in need of a clean-up but seem to have survived the winter.
The second fenced-in vegetable patch has my spring-dug parsnips, which is an aspirational term since I haven’t actually dug them up. It needs to be weeded, and my anti-vole system probably needs to be shored up. Last year I felt pretty good about it, but then my lettuces started vanishing, so it’s possible that the cute little buggers are just climbing over the fence.
journal of an island kitchen
Estela and the pears
When you know the name of your food provider
BY SANDY OLIVER
SOMETIME CLOSE to Christmas 2024, Estela Rodriguez packed a dozen truly wonderful pears in a carefully padded box which were ordered as a Christmas gift sent to me from Harry and David’s in Medford, Oregon by my dear friend Nan. The pears flew (I assume) across the continent to an island in Maine where we ate them with a generous serving of gratitude.
I know it was Estela because she tucked a little card into the box with her handwritten name on it. Mind you, the card was printed, and though Estela has a name, she also has a number: 032675. I thumb-tacked Estela’s card to a spot on a bookshelf just above my desk.
I can’t tell you how many times I have thought about her since the pears arrived. It’s a little odd to have a person’s name associated with the food we buy to eat, not the kind of names like Jack Daniels or Ben and Jerry slapped on every package, but an apparently unique individual.
I looked her up with a search engine: Estela Rodriguez in Medford, Oregon, a very long shot. There’s an Estela that works at Anthem Blue Shield there. Not my Estela, I guessed. I decided against looking up all the Estelas listed
in LinkedIn for that area. I turned to Henry and David’s website.
Somewhere along the line, the fruit gift-box purveyors Harry and David sold their company to a florist company which bloomed into some kind of sprawling empire of vendors who took phone and later, online gift basket orders for flowers, cheese and crackers, cookies, and chocolates in addition to fruit.
Still, I could peruse the Harry and David website and read about the community life they seem to build for their employees. I learned they harvested 14,000 tons of pears every year. I read about their efforts towards diversity, inclusion, environmental concerns, a perilous effort these days. There was even a mention that they encouraged employees to vote. I looked at pictures of H & D’s workers, wondering if one was Estela.
I wondered what Estela thought about while packing those pears. Was she thinking about her own Christmas gift list? Does she have children expecting Santa Claus to visit? Or was she worrying about the security of her own homelife, her job, and the lives of her friends and family?
I kept thinking, “Estela, I hope you are an American citizen, by birth or
The owl in the yard, whose booming hoots seem to come from everywhere at once, is doing a fine job with population control, so maybe my lettuce will be safe this year.
And then, having completed my circuit, I head back to my office. The tomato and pepper seedlings under my grow lights seem fine and strong. I need to pot them up, and that’s a good incentive to finish my column so I can get some dirt back under my fingernails.
Something in my aimless meandering seems to have had a positive effect, because it seems I’ve written the unwriteable column. All that big stuff, the things I was avoiding writing about, is still there. The little things are too. And somewhere in the middle is the earth, carrying on, with me just another animal roaming its surface.
When she’s not procrastinating, Courtney Naliboff is teaching at North Haven Community School, raising her daughter, and playing in Bait Bag. She may be contacted at: Courtney.Naliboff@gmail.com.
naturalization, and all your loved ones, too.”
Unless we buy or grow our produce locally—that is, on our islands or nearby mainland—unless we raise our own farm animals and process the meat ourselves or take it to a local independent butcher, chances are that a helpful immigrant has harvested, processed, and packaged what we eat.
There are, according to fairly generalized statistics, 2.1 million immigrants in food production and restaurant work, including underage workers. A lot of it is brutal work. You all know this. Were it not for them, we’d pay a lot more for what we eat.
Even a hundred and more years ago, newly arrived immigrants from Europe took farm labor jobs. One old timer I spoke with recalled a family market garden operation that hired Italian laborers because they were willing to work on their hands and knees. Speaking of his family and fellow Yankee workers, “We wanted to work on the tractors.”
Well, of course, down on the ground is where the vegetables are growing and getting down there and back up again is the issue for me, not potential damage to my self-image. And when I have to buy produce in winter when my own
garden is a frozen snow-covered place, I am oh-so-very grateful to whomever harvests it.
There are no easy answers here. Even in Maine, we are blessed with migrant or immigrant help for food production. As part of a long tradition, Wabanaki people gather to rake blueberries, coming from Canada and parts of Maine. Jamaicans labor at Beth’s Farm market in Warren, introducing some of their own foodways to the offering. Other migrant workers pick our apples in the fall, having moved south to north over the growing season.
So who or what might take their place if immigrants stop being an option? You? Me? Robots? Would a robot handle pears as gently as Estela did so that they arrived in my kitchen with nary a bump or bruise?
I hope that Estela’s work is valued and that she works safely in Medford. I’d love to meet her someday.
Sandy Oliver is a food historian who gardens, cooks, and writes on Islesboro. Her latest book is Downeast Delicious (Down East Books). She may be contacted at SandyOliver47@gmail.com.
fathoming
More testing for on-demand lobster gear
Data, different technologies are advancing
BY KRISTIN GARABEDIAN
AS TEMPERATURES WARM, the Maine lobster season is beginning in earnest. The fishery, one of the strongest remaining owner-operator in the world, known for its adaptability and heritage, has seen its share of change.
Today the industry finds itself on the cusp of another possible change with the introduction of experimental fishing gear. On-demand gear has the potential to allow fishermen access to areas that may become closed to vertical lines.
This year’s fishing season will mark the second year of testing in Maine for a new type of technology known as on-demand gear. It’s also referred to as ropeless, on-call, pop up, alternative, innovative, or buoyless.
This technology replaces traditional rope endlines with a release mechanism that causes the trap to rise to the surface when being hauled. The goal is to keep the water column free from ropes that pose an entanglement risk to large whales, primarily the endangered North Atlantic right whale. On-demand gear uses a piece of equipment added to the end of a
trawl (multiple lobster traps strung together) with two main components—a retrieval mechanism like stowed rope (a stored coil of rope long enough to reach the surface) or an inflatable lift bag, and an acoustic technology component which allows the equipment to communicate with software on a tablet or cell phone and an acoustic receiver on board the boat.
In January, the NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center published the latest on-demand gear guide, detailing current understanding and the work needed for on-demand gear, based on testing since 2018. Additionally, in the summer of 2024, the state Department of Marine Resources began a coastwide effort to engage the lobster industry in testing on-demand gear. Gear reliability is a primary concern—understanding how often it successfully deploys and how often it takes multiple attempts to get the gear to the surface. NEFSC’s gear library has shown increase in reliability, from 63% in 2020 to 91% in 2024, across all fisheries. The early testing done in Maine shows some need for fishermen to repeatedly send out a release ping.
reflections
Additional testing is ongoing to get a clear understanding of the frequency. Fishermen’s testing is critical. It will help determine how long it takes to retrieve gear, how that would impact time spent on the water, and impact on their profitability.
Data collected from gear failures is important, too. It brings insight into mechanical failures such as rope tangles, or technical failures such as drained batteries.
Real-world solutions for retrieving broken or damaged gear are another concern, particularly in understanding how effective gear recovery options would be in deeper, offshore fishing operations. Gear loss expectations would need to be in line with current expected rates, ideally reducing the amount of gear lost.
Gear marking and gear location are other important issues that being addressed. Gear marking, or marking on a chart where the gear is, is mostly done manually by pressing a button when the gear is deployed. But manufacturers are working on technologies that could better identify where the gear rests on the bottom.
Smart housing: focus on density and character
Island challenges highlight creative approach
Reflections is written by Island Institute Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront.
BY MARK GORSKI
AS SOMEONE WHO has lived in cities most of my life, I took highdensity housing as a given. Before moving to Peaks Island last fall, I lived in a 600-square-foot apartment in Brooklyn with two roommates, and a couple downstairs whose arguments served as my nightly alarm clock.
But as birdsong replaced blasting sirens, I have grown increasingly protective of the peace and quiet that one comes to expect on an island off the coast of Maine.
The housing market in Maine is ripe with tension. Maine is the most rural state in the nation, with 50% of its land area almost completely uninhabited. Concurrently, MaineHousing, the state housing agency, projects that the state needs as many as 84,300 new homes by the end of the decade to meet demand. The state faces a decision—how can we maintain the character of non-urban life while encouraging the building
necessary to house the working- and middle-class people struggling to find consistent housing?
These questions are particularly pertinent on islands, where undeveloped land is limited and increasingly scarce. The land that remains available now fetches prices incompatible with the hope of building affordable housing.
Rather than building on vacant land, I argue we must find creative ways to use the land we’ve already built upon.
Last summer, Home Start, the affordable housing organization I work with on Peaks, acquired an abandoned, taxforeclosed building on the island. With financing help from MaineHousing and the generosity of our community, we’ve developed three new energy “net-zero” units that will be rented out at below-market rates in perpetuity.
Building three units where there had been only one ruffled some feathers in the community; there were concerns about increased noise and light in the neighborhood. But for the most part, people were excited at the prospect of redeveloping an unused building.
The Home Start project is one of the first examples in Maine of redeveloping tax-foreclosed property. Density, as this project demonstrates, doesn’t always mean more or bigger buildings.
Gear location, or how fishermen detect on-demand gear, is currently limited. A variety of approaches are being researched, and ensuring there is a universal, accessible, widely utilized system for all fishermen to know exact locations for gear is critical to avoiding conflict and gear loss.
Ensuring that concerns from regulators, law enforcement, and fishing industries are heard and addressed has been an ongoing effort, with more developments expected in the coming months in anticipation of the upcoming round of whale entanglement risk reduction measures.
Kristin Garabedian is a community development officer with Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. She works in the Center for the Marine Economy with a focus on innovative fishing gear. She may be contacted at: kgarabedian@islandinstitute.org.
Rather, it can simply mean more efficient use of space.
This use was enabled by Portland’s recent overhaul of its zoning ordinance. Zoning can be thought of as the blueprint for what you can and cannot do with land. It answers questions like how many units a lot can accommodate, how tall a building can be, and whether you can use a building to run a business or must keep it residential.
The rezoning of Peaks has opened new doors for development: lot coverage allowances (the percentage of your lot that can be built upon) were dramatically increased; singlefamily lots were rezoned to allow twofamily homes and up to two accessory dwelling units (ADUs); and setbacks (the distance buildings must be from the street) were lowered.
While this rezoning allows for increased density, that doesn’t need to mean building bigger houses for the same or fewer people. Over the last 40 years, the average home size in the U.S. has increased by more than 1,000 square feet. Simultaneously, the average household size has declined from 3.01 persons per household to 2.54.
I recently hosted a housing forum on Peaks in which only one person raised their hand when asked: who
lives in a household with more than five people?
We are building more for fewer people. To balance the need for housing with the rural character of the state, we must first look to efficiently reuse what’s already there. In 2023, 15.7% of homes in Maine were seasonally vacant—a total of 116,844 empty houses. The crisis is not exclusively a lack of housing, but rather a lack of occupancy.
MaineHousing is currently piloting a program called Nesterly, through which older residents rent a room in their home at a subsidized rate in exchange for some help around the house. An increasing turn to programs like Nesterly and the adaptation of existing buildings makes one thing clear: we have enough buildings—we just have to figure out how to use them.
Mark Gorski works with Peaks Island Home Start, the island’s affordable housing non-profit. He had previously worked in the New York City’s office of management and budget in the community development unit.
in plain sight
‘Put
your scissors where your mouth is!’
Remembering the women who drove an industry
BY KEVIN JOHNSON
IT WAS THE SUMMER of 1970 when Rita Willey won the first sardine packing contest at the Maine Lobster & Seafood Festival in Rockland. She was 31 years old and had been packing sardines for 14 years.
The contest was a brilliant marketing idea by the Maine Sardine Council to re-energize an industry that was slowly dying since its peak in the early 1950s. Pitched as a pseudo athletic event, the contest drew thousands of rabid spectators and offered cash rewards for the top three contestants with the winner earning $300, which translates to nearly $2,500 today.
Cutting off the heads and tails of small herring and stuffing them into cans had been a century-old Maine occupation by the time the first contest was held. Sardine packing, a job mainly performed by women, was not done for glory but for the paycheck it provided. It required long hours in cold, damp canning factories while standing on concrete floors and wielding sharp scissors (which occasionally missed their targets).
It would be decades before terms like repetitive strain injury or carpal tunnel syndrome would enter the lexicon. If you didn’t work because you were injured, you didn’t get paid.
Most canneries used a piecework pay structure—the more cans you packed, the more you made. The work was
FIELD NOTES—
seasonal and when the catch was down, so was the opportunity to make money.
In the first contest, Rita packed 67 cans, each holding eight fish, in 8 minutes—an average of one fish per second! She broke her own record two years later and went on to win five of the eight contests held from 1970 through 1983.
To say she became a celebrity would be an understatement. In addition to the prize money, trophies and local bragging rights, she was invited onto the Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and other nationally syndicated television shows.
She met Maine Sens. George Mitchell and Edmund Muskie and other politicians and stars. Scores of articles were written about her. She even received fan mail.
Her biggest fan was her husband Lanny, also a packer. He lovingly archived all of the articles and mementos into an album that stands a foot high. For a number of years, her trophies and memorabilia were on display at the Sardine Museum in Jonesport, and Rita would make appearances there to sign autographs.
Rita remained humble despite her pride in her accomplishments. When her sister, also a packer, once told her that she thought she could beat her, Rita calmly replied, “Put your scissors where your mouth is.”
Rita arguably became the most wellknown sardine packer, but she was not
the only champion. Patricia Havenor of Friendship won the contest several times. Ruth Benner of Owls Head was another winner. It’s fair to say that all of the women who packed should be considered winners. It was a tough job, but the women who did it had grit.
The Penobscot Marine Museum will be celebrating the Maine sardine industry this and next season. Rita’s trophies and memorabilia will be coming out of her closet and on display, and perhaps she will even make an appearance or two!
The museum opens for the season on May 23. Be sure to see our website, penobscotmarinemuseum.org, for hours and events. The museum is located on the north side of Route 1 in downtown Searsport.
Kevin Johnson is photo archivist at Penobscot Marine Museum.
Thanking a senator for her help
Institute’s policy team in the nation’s capital
NAME: Erin Quetell
TITLE: Policy director
FOCUS: I lead on critical policy issues, such as clean energy and municipal resiliency. I work closely with staff across the organization to support their on-the-ground work through relationship building, coalition development, and policy awareness and advocacy.
IN THIS PHOTO: On March 12, I spent the morning with Sen. Susan Collins updating and thanking her for the Congressionally Directed Spending we received for Island Institute’s Future of Fishing work aimed at supporting fisherfolk with basic business assistance, skill building, and business diversification.
That’s me, second from left, standing next to Sen. Collins. My colleagues Nick Battista, next to Sen. Collins, and Sam Vail, far right, and our friend and policy colleague, Norah Carlos, at far left.
During our Washington D.C. trip, we also had the opportunity to meet with other federal staffers in the Maine delegation and others around the Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Project (ETIPP), a collaboration between regional organizations with strong relationships to rural communities and the Department of Energy’s National Laboratories. ETIPP helps communities advance their energy needs for sustainable and reliable power.
TOP: The taped fingers of sardine packers reveals the cost of the work.
BOTTOM: Rita Willey at work during a sardine-packing contest, a TV camera poised just over her head.
Stephen Pace visits the Stonington Co-op
Abstract take on waterfront captures action art of the waterfront
BY CARL LITTLE
IN THE SUMMER of 1953, Indiana-born, New York City-based painter Stephen Pace (1918-2010) made his first trip to Maine. On that fateful tour, Pace and two artist friends spent a month on Monhegan and then headed north and east to further explore.
As art historian Martica Sawin relates in her monograph Stephen Pace (2004), “on a whim [they] turned onto a road that led down a long peninsula to terminate in a bridge to Deer Isle.”
Camping on the shore near Stonington, Pace, like John Marin, William Kienbusch, the Zorachs, Siri Beckman, Jill Hoy, and so many other artists before and after him, fell in love with the place. After many summer visits, in 1973 he and his wife Palmina purchased a yellow farmhouse, their home in Maine.
Faced with a vibrant island world, this celebrated abstract expressionist shifted his sights from inner visions to coastal subjects without losing the drive of his previous work. Wielding a wide and swift brush, Pace captured Stonington scenes with gestural bravado, the paint seemingly swept across the surface.
Pace frequented the town’s working waterfront in search of subjects. He focused on the lobstermen engaged in their daily tasks: moving lobster gear, unloading at Duryea’s pier, setting out for the day. He also painted lobstermen at sea, hauling traps and banding lobsters, and clammers bent to their work on nearby mud flats.
Loading Bait No. 6 captures the action at the Stonington co-op. Two men, one in the door of the
bait shed, the other standing on the deck of his boat, maneuver a wide basket that hangs in mid-air. The boat’s white stay sail, or spanker, slices up through the
painting. This triangular piece of canvas, which keeps the boat headed into the wind and helps reduce rolling in waves, adds a dynamic element to the composition.
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Stephen Pace’s “Loading Bait No. 6,” (1996), oil on canvas, 46 x 68 inches. PHOTO: COURTESY DOWLING WALSH GALLERY
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