Fishermen feeding Mainers expands reach
MCFA growing new markets,
STORY AND PHOTOS BY KELLI PARK
In October 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association launched an initiative to help both fishermen and foodinsecure families.
The Fishermen Feeding Mainers program provided financial relief to fishermen at a time when seafood markets were either shuttered or shaky, while also supplying food banks and families in need with seafood that was otherwise going unsold.
The Brunswick-based nonprofit purchased over 800,000 pounds of fish which provided more than a million seafood meals across a network of 250 food banks and 30 school districts. The program also supports local processors who cut and freeze the fish, infusing more than $2.2 million into the Maine economy.
COVID relief money and other funding streams, including grants from smaller foundations, supported the effort.
“COVID was the impetus for it,” said Mary Hudson, director of fisheries programs for the organization.
DUGAN
“It was like, ‘How do we get guys fishing? There’s no market at all.’ Then, obviously, it’s a win-win with food insecurity.” Hudson said fishermen appreciated the help when the market bottomed out, but also were pleased to see local seafood reaching new markets, particularly schools.
She added that staff worked to navigate the logistics of transporting fish from Portland to places as far away as Ellsworth. Fishermen Feeding Mainers is now shifting to an ongoing program to support the working waterfront
continued on page 2
Winter storms highlight value of Sunrise Trail
Maine voters to consider $30 million trails bond
BY SARAH CRAIGHEAD DEDMON
In its prime, a train ride on the Calais Branch Railroad corridor offered unparalleled scenic views. Stretching between Brewer and Calais from 1898 until 1984, the line carried
freight and passengers alike, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his family on their way to Eastport to embark for Campobello Island.
As the train traveled through Machias and East Machias, the Roosevelts would have seen nothing
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but the Machias River out their windows, with the rail line twisting and turning only feet from the water’s edge before bending inland again.
Today, those breathtaking water views remain, but instead of trains, it’s people walking, on ATVs, cycling, and even horse riding enjoying them. This is thanks to the train line’s 2009 transformation into the Down East Sunrise Trail, an 87-mile multi-use trail that uses the former rail line between Ellsworth and Ayer’s Junction in Pembroke, opening up the natural beauty of Hancock and Washington counties to a new generation of adventurers.
coast, breaking through wide sections of the trail in Machias and closing it to all traffic. The closure underscored the trail’s vital economic role in the region, and its potential to impact local businesses and tourism.
If approved, the bond would make grants available to help Maine nonprofits, municipalities, and other entities improve trails.
“It is arguably the most beautiful section of that trail,” said Machias Town Manager Bill Kitchen. “When the river breached, it was immediately clear to me that we were looking at an economic issue, not a recreation issue, and I was concerned that fixing the trail would take months and months to rectify. Kitchen reached out to the Maine Department of Transportation, which owns the trail, and private and state stakeholders.
But the trail’s water views turned into a liability when December and January storms pummeled the Maine continued on page 4
The Great Schooner Race, hosted by the Maine Windjammer Association, took place on a foggy Friday, July 5. It was a fairly calm day so the course was shortened, basically the Rockland Breakwater to Robinson Rock and back to the Breakwater. The captains gather aboard schooner Heritage for a pre-race meeting to hear what the route and rules will be for the day.
PHOTO: JIM
FISHERMEN
continued from page 1 and the blue economy, while tapping into the potential of other culinary traditions.
“The multicultural direction was really a surprise,” said Susan Olcott, director of operations at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association. “Here are all of these people from different parts of the world who really love some of the
fish that a lot of people from here don’t love,” she said. “There’s this cool new market opportunity to provide those fish at a cost that works for those people, whether it’s donated or purchased.”
The Fish Donation Program evolved within Fishermen Feeding Mainers to connect seafood with food pantries and community groups serving culturally diverse populations, including New Mainers and the Wabanaki.
“What do you like for fish? What species do you like and what preparations?” Olcott asks. “Do you want whole fish? Do you want head on? Do you want it gutted?”
Whole fish are popular among Arab and African populations, she said, which satisfy both cultural and religious traditions, diverging from the standard New England customer who wants a white fish filet. It’s an opportunity to use
more seafood with less waste, resulting in more protein, reduced processing, sold at a lower cost, and, ultimately, more fish to provide.
“They were saying, ‘We have these clients coming into the food pantry who cannot get enough whole grey sole.’ We have a hard time moving grey sole otherwise.”
MCFA’s Hudson’s reply was: “I’m going to get you thousands of pounds of grey sole,” Olcott reported. “The grey sole is
The catch is sorted and processed at Free Range Fish and Lobster facility on Commercial Street in Portland.
The crew from the fishing boat Nicole Leigh unload the catch in Portland.
really hard to skin, so you need a very skilled cutter. In October, which is generally one of the worst months on seafood prices, particularly on flatfish, I bought 60,000 pounds of grey sole and dabs,” a type of flatfish.
The potential that has emerged within multicultural markets extends beyond Maine. The Cambodian population of Lowell, Mass. has embraced whole fish.
“We brought 4,000 pounds of whole flounder to the Lowell Southeast Asian Water Festival in August,” Hudson said. All of the fish was sold within an hour. MCFA is working to develop a partnership with the grocery store there to offer whole fish.
The organization anticipates more community collaboration, including multilingual recipe cards and cookbooks, and community-style dinners.
Gerald “Punkin” Lemoine
Bud Staples
Volunteers Yannick Lutonda (left), and Cissako Ekoungola at Maine Health’s food pantry at Maine Medical Center in Portland handle the fish.
SUNRISE TRAIL
continued from page 1
“Everybody seemed to understand that there is, essentially, a four-month window that a lot of local businesses count on,” Kitchen said. “And everyone seemed to understand we had a deadline to be finished by June 26, before the Machias ATV Jamboree.”
DOT bid the work May 8 and awarded it six days later to Hanscom Construction of Marshfield for $438,975. Using the finesse required to navigate massive dump trucks safely along a waterside rail bed, and despite tidal delays, Hanscom completed the work more than two weeks ahead of schedule, on June 7.
“I have never seen anything like this. How does something like that happen in a matter of 12 weeks, start to finish? It’s crazy,” Kitchen said. “Amazing.”
The unusual attention to speed might reflect growing statewide recognition of the trail’s importance to Hancock and Washington counties, but also of recreational trails to Maine’s overall economy. In November, Maine voters will be asked to consider a $30 million bond to repair and enhance trails across the state.
If approved, the bond would make grants available to help Maine nonprofits, municipalities, and other entities improve trails.
“This would be the first statewide designated trail funding that Maine’s trails have had,” said Alvion Kimball, president of the Sunrise Trail Coalition, a nonprofit that promotes outdoor recreation, health, and fitness.
“Maine needs this bond because we’re a tourist destination, and outdoor recreation is a burgeoning focus for our tourism business.”
Sandi and Ryan Malagara own one of the Machias tourism businesses that rely
on the trail. Crows Nest Rentals offers ATV rentals and opened the same year as Downeast Adventures on the other side of Machias, which also offers ATV rentals. Both businesses have easy trail access and both report a steady clientele. But the trail could be so much more to the region, said Sandi, because it’s unique.
“I hear from people who have gone to other trails, and they say the Sunrise Trail is amazing. It’s wellmaintained, and it has so many more off-trail opportunities,” she said. “It’s got great potential, and it could be one of our greatest assets, but we need to find a way to promote it.” She also is president of the Machias Bay Chamber of Commerce
Besides being one of Maine’s longest multi-use trails, the Down East Sunrise Trail is also the longest off-road section of the epic East Coast Greenway, a trail that runs through 15 states starting in Key West, Florida, and ending in Washington County.
Soon, the Sunrise Trail could become even longer. The state’s Rail Use Advisory Committee (RUAC) is investigating the possibility of extending the trail 12 more miles to end near Calais.
“This extension was planned as part of the original Sunrise Trail. It was supposed to come all the way to Calais,” said Mark Carr, chairman of the RUAC, which was convened by the legislature. “For multiple reasons, some financial, some political, it never got finished.”
Eight miles of the possible extension run through the federal Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge.
“Moosehorn has been great to work with, and if the decision is made to extend the trail, it’s going to be a beautiful ride through there. I didn’t realize just how beautiful until we went through it,” Carr said.
“I’m interested in extending the trail for the economic impact, really. I see what the trail has done for Machias for the last five years,” said Carr. “You can’t go there and not see a fleet of ATVs in town.”
The Sunrise Trail Coalition estimates ATV riders make up about 70% of users, many members of local trail clubs.
But around the towns that intersect the trail, like Ellsworth, Franklin, Cherryfield, and others, the trail sees more non-motorized users, like walkers, runners, cyclists, and even horseback riders.
As an Island Institute Fellow with the Sunrise Trail Coalition, Lavinia Clark is currently at work on the Down East Sunrise Trail Village Access Project which will create a bicycle and pedestrian access plan for trail users around eight Hancock and Washington County towns.
“Growing up I spent a lot of time in the White Mountains of New
Hampshire, biking, hiking, running, and skiing,” said Clark. “The most unique thing about the Sunrise Trail is that it goes through several downtowns. So now we’re thinking about the pedestrian and cyclist spheres and asking, ‘How can we improve the experience for them?’”
This summer, Clark assisted in the work of a University of Maine at Machias student, Alicia Jonah, who created a project to offer more rest areas for people traveling along the trail’s Machias and East Machias sections.
“She was looking for a way to make the trail more accessible to folks just interested in going out for a 10- or 20-minute walk. She went out and found local business sponsors to pay for the benches,” said Clark.
“They’re all interested in investing in the trail and making the trail more enjoyable for community members, and that is really, really wonderful,” she said.
A drone view of the Down East Sunrise Trail shows Hanscom Construction of Marshfield navigating a large dump truck. PHOTO: RYAN MALAGARA/ DEVI PRODUCTIONS
An ATV rally along the trail.
PHOTO: SARAH CRAIGHEAD DEDMON
BY STEPHANIE BOUCHARD
Amy Davis was 19 years old and jogging through New York City’s Central Park when she came to a dead stop. Was that a bear? It was not. The man walking the dog that stood about two feet tall with thick black fur said it was a Newfoundland. Davis had never seen one before, but from that moment on, she couldn’t get the dog out of her mind.
A few months later, she attended her first Westminster Dog Show for the purpose of seeing Newfies. More than 50 years later—last May—when she attended her second Westminster Dog Show, she did so as the breeder of a champion Newfoundland dog taking part in the Super Bowl of Dog Shows.
“It was just such a thrilling day,” Davis said from her home in Gouldsboro, a “breath-taking experience.” But back in 1970 when she saw her first Newfie, being the breeder of a champion Newfoundland dog wasn’t on her radar—she’d never even had a dog before she got her first Newfoundland 54 years ago.
The daughter of parents who were in the military, Davis’s family moved around a lot. She was attending college in New York City when she had her first look at a Newfoundland. Six months after seeing more of them at the dog show, she’d moved to Massachusetts and purchased her first Newfoundland after seeing an advertisement for puppies.
Within a few short years, she’d begun breeding the sweet tempered dogs and entered the Coast Guard as one of the first women to join as an enlisted service member. It was during her assignment to her second duty station, in South Portland, that she met her future husband, Fred Davis.
After getting married, the couple moved back to his hometown of South Addison, where he worked as a lobster fisherman.
“He came to love them as much as I did,” Davis said of her husband, who died in 2008, and sometimes she and the Newfies would help out on the boat.
As luck would have it, Newfoundlands are built for working waterfronts. In Newfoundland, they were bred as working dogs for fishermen. They pulled in fishnets and hauled carts, among other duties, and as strong swimmers, gained a reputation as rescuers.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, they were common on sailing vessels of all types, and even today, you can find them working aboard boats, such as on Diver Ed’s Starfish Enterprise out of Bar Harbor, and in life rescue operations, such as at Scarborough Beach State Park where Newfies Beacon and Buoy are part of the lifesaving crew.
“They are such great water dogs, boat dogs,” Davis said. “They’re perfect for the coast of Maine.”
While some of the Newfies Davis has bred over the years have joined families with boats—and one even ended up living at a Coast Guard station—Sam Adams, the champion dog that was accepted to the Westminster Dog Show this year, has not had experience working on boats. He has had, though, plenty of dog show experience.
Davis began showing Sam Adams when he was just seven months old, and he got his first point— credits earned toward championship status—at his first show.
“He absolutely loves showing,” Davis said. “He’s a showman. At the level he’s at now, you have to be a showman.”
The level he’s at now is what got him accepted to the show. To be invited to compete at Westminster, a dog must be an American Kennel Club champion and in the top 5 of their breed, among other qualifications. At Westminster this year, more than 2,500 dogs competed, but fewer than a dozen were competing in Sam Adams’s group. While he did not earn the Best of Breed title, he was chosen as Select Dog, which Davis describes as an honorable mention presented to dogs who are the next best in quality compared with the dogs in the competition.
“When he made the cut and then he got an honorable mention, that was just over the top for me,” Davis said. “It was such an accomplishment and such pride and joy in the whole experience that just to have him there was an honor.”
Now at seven years old, Sam Adams is soon to be retired, and while she has already retired from
breeding Newfoundlands, she’s hoping to get one of his male puppies in exchange for his stud fee. And maybe, like his father, that puppy will get his chance at the Super Bowl of Dog Shows, too.
See Sam Adams in action at the Westminster Dog Show, beginning at 6:05: https://youtu.be/8yraopqYs 6I?si=LKzE5N4gzCR2nYBK
Amy Davis with her champ, Sam Adams.
PHOTO: COURTESY AMY DAVIS
Throughlines that connect us to community
Twenty-five years of Island Institute Fellows
BY KIM HAMILTON
WHEN I FIRST stepped into the role as president of Island Institute just 15 months ago, I reflected on the weight of responsibility that had been passed and the unimaginable changes that had shaped our part of the world over the past 40 years. This was even before the back-to-back, 100-year storms that imperiled the coast in January.
I found myself at the helm of an organization that was founded when Kenny Rogers’ and Dolly Parton’s hit song, “Islands in the Stream,” had commanded the airwaves. The soundtrack of my first year, however, was quite different. Consider Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” from her country album and Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” from the blockbuster Barbie movie. The differences between then and now couldn’t be starker. The same could be said for Maine’s coastal and island communities.
Finding throughlines across the decades has helped me understand not only what has changed along Maine’s coast but also what remains strong, solid, and perennial. Throughlines help us understand where we came from.
bound from the sea up
They leave a trace across time and geography. They help us make sense of our history and set a tone for the future. This is why Island Institute has highlighted some of our own throughlines over the past year, celebrating the most enduring parts of our work.
One of the most important throughlines in our work is the Island Institute Fellows program. While I love all our programs, no other Island Institute investment so fully captures the longstanding and deep commitment between our organization and coastal communities.
Since 1999, the Island Institute Fellows program has placed talented, recent college graduates in some of Maine’s most remote and rural communities for a two-year assignment. The ask of our Fellows is threefold: to immerse themselves in their host community, to provide an extra pair of hands and expertise on significant projects important to these communities, and to embody the power of small communities doing big things in their outlook and approach.
For a quarter of a century, this approach has netted great benefits for host communities and Island Institute
Born
to be centerfield
Remembering a baseball hero from childhood rock
BY TOM GROENING
IT WAS ONE of those warm, early spring days, the kind that makes you glad to be alive. I was 12, and it was the first day of Little League practice. The song wouldn’t be written for another 14 years, but the sentiment in the chorus of John Fogerty’s “Centerfield”—“I’m ready to play, today. Look at me, I can be…centerfield”—coursed through me.
I ran down long fly balls, slid across grass to cut off bouncing line drives, and rocketed throws to home plate. I was centerfield. And in my imagination, I was also Willie Mays.
Mays died in June at 93, and memories of my love for the game as a child are intertwined with my affection for him. He was my hero. When I was in college and long past my interest in the sport, I took a creative writing class and wrote a short story whose protagonist was named Willie.
Our elementary school library included a generous selection of sports biographies, and I devoured them. Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, and of course, Willie Mays. In retrospect, Wilt Chamberlain’s autobiography probably should have been off-limits to a
young reader; the sexual exploits he recounted were bewildering (intimidating?) to my innocent mind.
They called Mays the “Say Hey Kid,” a reference to his habit of beginning conversations with the colloquial “Say, hey…” in his distinctive high-pitched voice. Those biographies, as I think back, employed an amused, paternalistic tone, as if to evoke a collective chuckle at this colorful character, a perennial boy in a world of men. Yes, racist.
Mays wasn’t Muhammad Ali or even Bill Russell when it came to race issues, but he was mindful of the problems, having played his first couple of years in the Negro leagues.
Among the remembrances that followed his death, I read about an incident in 1964 in which his team’s manager was quoted saying that Black men couldn’t succeed as team captains (although the manager allowed that Mays was the exception).
Mays and other Black players from the team gathered in a hotel room to discuss their response to the quote, with some arguing for boycotting the remaining several weeks of play. Mays urged his teammates to wait, arguing fans would turn on the men,
Fellows alike. With nearly 150 current and past Fellows and a half-million hours of community support, the impact of the program is astounding.
In my time with Island Institute, I have seen one of our Fellows help a community move from an unreliable energy system to a state-of–the art plan for smart energy resilience. Another reintroduced robotics to an island school, paving the way for those students to compete in an offisland, state championship. Fellows have preserved oral histories and digitized historical archives, helped islanders protect their drinking water, introduced telemedicine, and tackled myriad community building projects.
Island Institute Fellows require the trust of the communities to successfully implement their projects. In turn, the Fellows strengthen the bonds and resources that sustain these unique communities. It’s a perfect virtuous cycle.
The Fellows themselves have sought and found true, deep, personal connections in these extraordinary places. The connections have been fostered over knitting groups, open water swims (at all times of the year), recipe exchanges, and multi-generational friendships.
Many Fellows have stayed in Maine, bringing their deep sensitivity to rural and coastal community needs into their professional jobs.
Some have found long-term partners and have made a permanent home in the community they served. Others, too, have found their way to Island Institute’s board of trustees, ensuring that we hold the challenges of island and coastal communities at the core of our mission.
The commitment to hold island and coastal community challenges at the core of our mission is the throughline that I have most often turned to as I have found my own footing this past year. Like the music of Rogers, Parton, Knowles-Carter, and Eilish, it manifests differently across the years but like the Fellows program, it begins and ends with island and coastal community aspirations at the heart of all we do.
Kim Hamilton is president of Island Institute. She may be contacted at khamilton@islandinstitute.org.
ultimately hurting the cause, and he expressed his confidence that the manager would be fired at the end of the year, and he was.
Mays was extolled for his “natural talent,” a subtle form of racism—the Black player brings physical prowess to the game, the white player has honed his skills. The same subtle comparisons were made between basketball players Michael Jordan and Larry Bird.
Mays was traded to the New York Mets in 1972 (my hometown team!). In a game for his new team, even on the downward trajectory of his game, he did things like get on base on a walk, steal second, take a big lead to draw over the shortstop, thereby creating a hole for the batter to hit through. Brilliant.
There’s a great documentary about him—Say Hey, Wille Mays! (2022). Over the credits, he is asked about breaking a catcher’s leg while sliding into home. And he broke the same player’s leg a couple of years later. “Son of a bitch was blocking the plate,” he explains with a grin.
So what did I love about Mays? I think it was the joy with which he played. He understood showmanship, using his trademark “basket catch,”
glove held at his waist instead of over his head. “I could make a difficult play look easy and an easy play look difficult,” he once said.
The spring day in 1971 that saw me galloping centerfield like a young colt marked, sadly, the demise of my baseball days. My peers and I were in the “B” league, but the manager of a “major” league level within Little League needed to have two 12-year-olds on his team to meet the requirements.
He was scouting my group, saw me channeling Willie and signed me up. But the 14-year-old pitchers threw faster, my need for corrective lenses began emerging, and my baseball dreams died.
Some other time I’ll tell you about my now legendary turn-around jump shot. Unstoppable.
Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront. He may be contacted at tgroening@islandinstitute.org.
BUSTLING BUS STATION—
This photo shows the bus station at the corner of Congress and High streets in Portland in the 1950s. It may be difficult to discern these details in the newsprint version here, but in the digital image, the sign above the windshield on the bus reads “Union Sta,” and there is a rooftop billboard visible above and to the right of the bus advertising Heinz beans. A Central Maine Power office is also identified by its sign, as is Hay’s Drug Store at the right of the image.
Valuing education for the tourism economy
USM’s program prepares for sustainable approach
BY TRACY MICHAUD
COLLABORATION, creative problem solving, and caring leadership—all are taught within the University of Southern Maine’s Tourism & Hospitality program as part of a student’s education in sustainable tourism management. And with good reason.
The Bachelor of Arts in Tourism & Hospitality Management at USM is unique in that thinking about how to improve the industry, its place in the community, how to keep money local, and how to mitigate and prevent impacts from climate change are as valued as much as teaching the business skills of the industry.
Why is this approach important? We are leaving this next generation of college graduates a challenging world. We need leaders in training who can understand the diverse obstacles ahead, wrestle with tough issues, brainstorm creative ideas, and work with others toward sustainable solutions. Travel and tourism can be part of the solution as it brings understanding between local and visiting peoples, revenue and jobs, infrastructure investments, and amenities that can improve quality
Island Institute Board of Trustees
Kristin Howard, Chair
Doug Henderson, Vice-Chair
Shey Conover, Secretary, Chair of Governance Committee
Carol White, Chair of Programs Committee
Kate Vogt, Treasurer, Chair of Finance Committee
Bryan Lewis, Chair of Philanthropy Committee
Megan Dayton, Ad Hoc Marketing & Comms Committee
Mike Boyd, Clerk
Sebastian Belle
John Conley
David Cousens
Mike Felton
Nathan Johnson
Emily Lane
Nadia Rosenthal
Michael Sant
Mike Steinharter
Donna Wiegle
Tom Glenn (honorary)
Joe Higdon (honorary)
Bobbie Sweet (honorary)
John Bird (honorary)
Kimberly A. Hamilton, PhD (ex officio)
of life for locals. But it does this only when done sustainably.
At USM, we teach students how to create the most positive results for people, place, and profit though their tourism businesses, and connect them to already successful organizations like Luke’s Lobster on the working waterfront in Portland’s Old Port, a shining example of a world-class sustainable operation that attracts visitors.
Why is this important to Maine? Travel and tourism are one of Maine’s largest economic drivers employing a large part of the workforce and bringing in significant revenue. It is one of the best business recruitment strategies we have, because many who move here for a job or open their own business do so because they visited here and fell in love with Maine.
The tourism sector has a high percentage of small businesses, good for keeping earned revenue local and benefiting communities. It gives many a first job, building valuable skills, while providing a pathway to high paid management and ownership opportunities in a wide variety of careers that allows individuals to follow their passion-work outside in the woods as
a Maine guide or manage a luxury spa on the Maine coast or both.
The ability to earn a living at something you care about is why students join our program, as well as all the other tourism and outdoor recreation degree programs in all the colleges within the University of Maine System.
Why is it important to have robust tourism and hospitality degree offerings in Maine? Colleges within the UMaine System have a mission to serve the state. We educate most of Maine’s first-generation university students. A four-year college degree has been shown to improve someone’s chance of being in a leadership position and making more money ten years after working in an industry.
With tourism being a large part of Maine’s heritage and it playing a stronger and stronger role in the state economy, it is imperative to offer this educational opportunity to Mainers. We also apply the collaboration, creative problem solving, and caring leadership approach to the management of our own programs
Each UMaine system school has collaborated for the past two years on
THE WORKING WATERFRONT
Published by Island Institute, a non-profit organization that boldly navigates climate and economic change with island and coastal communities to expand opportunities and deliver solutions.
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the creation of the THOR (Tourism, Hospitality, Outdoor Recreation) Institute, the goal being to use our scare resources most efficiently to give future THOR leaders the highest quality and most thorough education in the state.
Students who matriculate into any college within the UMaine System can take advantage of expertise with classes at other campuses that apply to their major. Additionally, a new Vacationland series is being piloted to expose students through one-week intensive classes to every part of the travel and recreation industry in all parts of the state.
Collaborations with Maine’s First Peoples and Greenlandic tourism students and faculty continue to make our educational offerings that much richer and our graduates prepared for what the future brings.
Tracy Michaud, a lifelong Mainer, is an associate professor and chair of the Tourism & Hospitality Program at the University of Southern Maine as well as the Tourism, Hospitality, Outdoor Recreation (THOR) Institute. She can be contacted at tracy.michaud@maine.edu
Editor: Tom Groening tgroening@islandinstitute.org
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Storms have lasting impact on coastal forests
Changing wind direction is part of the explanation
BY CATHERINE SCHMITT
During the storms in January, hurricane-strength winds blew out of the southeast, directly at the Maine shoreline. In Acadia National Park, waves overtopped the shore, washing out a section of the Ocean Path, as wind funneled into the forest at Otter Point.
A few large spruce trees twisted and broke. Others, their roots loosened from the soggy, unfrozen ground, tipped over. As trees fell, they toppled other trees, creating a jumble of timber, like a giant’s game of pick-up sticks.
Spruce and fir, with shallow roots and and rigid branches that catch the wind, are among the most susceptible to wind. The buttressed trunks of northern white cedar, and the deep roots and thick branches of oaks, help keep those trees anchored. Birches bend and some branches break off, reducing wind drag and allowing the tree to survive.
Tree height is also a factor, and so is exposure. Southerly winds, gaining strength in their path across the water, are what made the January storms so impactful on a coastline that evolved with winter winds from the north.
The result appeared like a lot of mess and damage.
Trees were thrown by the wind along the islands of the Maine Island Trail. While islands located father offshore bore the brunt of the wind, even coastal islands sheltered by bays were affected, according to Maine Island Trail Association program director Brian Marcaurelle. Many trees were felled as a result of shoreline erosion: waves washed away sand and gravel beaches and bluffs, leaving trees hanging on the edge, their roots exposed and dangling from ledges.
And it wasn’t just south-facing shores that were affected, said Marcaurelle. “The impact seemed to be in pockets, caused as much by tides and waves as wind,” he said. The organization is still assessing damage, but it had help from hardy volunteers with the Southern Maine Sea Kayaking Network, who surveyed and photographed many islands in February and March. York Land Trust and Downeast Salmon Federation also reported significant loss of trees.
While shocking to behold, such “windthrows” or “blowdowns” are among the major influences shaping the region’s forests.
From an ecological perspective, wind is a disturbance not in the negative sense, but simply as an agent of change that resets forest growth. So many large trees fell at Otter Point on MDI—13 in a fraction of an acre—that the forest is now an open clearing, with a few birches and two lone, tall spruces rising above the chaos.
But in between the fallen trees are lots of small spruce and fir, now to have their time in the sun, to take their place in the overstory. Until the next storm.
A question on many minds is whether or not last winter’s storms represent an anomaly or new normal, and whether more frequent windthrow will have a cumulative effect on coastal forests.
Scientists studying the history of the region’s forests have estimated that major blowdowns occurred every 300 years or so. But how relevant is the past in today’s stormier climate? How many storms can the trees withstand, rooted in the already-thin soils of the Maine coast, clinging to edges of eroding islands?
At Acadia National Park’s Sand Beach, where the January storms had eroded a bluff, another storm in March took down more trees, causing a landslide.
across the Gulf of Maine have intensified, a trend expected to continue. Speed is important—a maximum wind gust of 95 miles per hour was recorded at Isle au Haut during the January storms—but so is direction.
An analysis of ocean circulation by researchers at Stonehill College and NOAA found “a statistically significant strengthening of the southwesterly winds” measured by NERACOOS buoys off the coast of York and Port Clyde. They concluded these winds may be responsible for a slowdown in the Gulf of Maine Coastal Current between 2001 and 2021. But stronger southeasterly winds also mean new pressures on coastal forests.
In the near term, what to do with all that downed wood?
In Acadia, the National Park Service is repairing the Ocean Path but continues to evaluate impacts in other locations. At Seawall, crews removed some 700 fallen trees that blocked roads and created safety hazards in a popular picnic and camping area, but otherwise the blowdowns at Otter
Point and other locations are being left in place.
Similarly, Maine Island Trail Association’s standard practice is to leave downed trees unless they block a trail or campsite.
Ecologists advise leaving downed wood because of its habitat value. Fallen trees form pits and mounds and other patches of habitat that foster greater diversity over time.
Shade-tolerant trees like balsam fir have a chance to grow tall, while feather mosses and creeping snowberry, goldthread, and bunchberry spread across sunlit ground. Fallen and broken trees become “coarse woody debris” that supports a whole host of mammals, birds, amphibians, insects, fungi, and lichens.
Along shore, dead wood helps anchor shorelines and protect against further erosion. And leaving dead wood on the ground also keeps carbon in the forest, a worthwhile consideration given the role of carbon emissions in the increased intensity and frequency of storms.
Winds
Study
For thousands of years, shipworms—a family of mollusks found in oceans— sank wooden vessels, ravaged wharfs, and shipwrecked sailors. They even devastated the Spanish Armada in the 16th century. Exactly how they have been able to wreak such havoc has remained a mystery, until now.
A new study published in the journal International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation revealed how shipworms are able to digest lignin—the toughest material in wood—and thereby decimate old ships and maritime infrastructure.
Researchers found never-beforeseen symbiotic microbes hidden away inside a tiny suborgan in shipworms’ guts called the typhlosole. They further concluded that those microbes secrete enzymes that are able to break open the wood at the molecular level and allow digestion.
The team behind the study was led by Barry Goodell, professor emeritus of the University of Maine’s School of Forest Resources and recently
retired professor of microbiology with the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Goodell has investigated how shipworms digest lignin for nearly a decade.
“It’s very satisfying,” said Goodell. “We’ve been trying to crack this mystery for years and we finally discovered the shipworm’s hidden bacterial symbiont secret.”
Findings from the study can support future research into greenhouse gas emissions, help enhance bioindustrial processes and inspire the development of natural products that bolster human health.
Local groups funded on Penobscot clean-up
The court-appointed trustee directing work to remediate mercury in the Penobscot River estuary has announced 13 Beneficial Environmental Projects (BEPs) that will receive funding to begin delivering tangible benefits to affected communities and ecosystems. These projects will begin to fulfill a 2022 settlement in which a federal judge approved a multi-hundred million dollar clean-up and restoration for the estuary.
BEP recipients in this first round of funding include Coastal Mountains Land Trust, Ducks Unlimited, Great Pond Mountain Conservation Trust, Penobscot Nation Department of Natural Resources, Town of Frankfort, Town of Penobscot, and Town of Orrington.
Several of the projects will improve recreational and emergency boating access on both sides of Penobscot River and on Verona Island. Others will improve fish passage throughout the watershed, building on various recent efforts to restore Penobscot River fish populations. And the Penobscot Nation will receive funding for projects to help protect its members from mercury and other toxics in fish and wild foods.
For over five decades, the river and estuary have contained elevated mercury levels, and the
2022 settlement was the result of a decades-long lawsuit brought by Maine People’s Alliance and NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) to compel the clean-up of mercury from the Penobscot River. The settlement includes a total of $20 million for BEPs, as well as requiring various efforts to remediate mercury contamination in the estuary.
“For decades, our communities have suffered from extensive mercury contamination in the Penobscot River,” noted Jesse Graham, co-director of Maine People’s Alliance. “This funding for local and Tribal governments, as well as not-for-profit organizations, is a major step toward righting this longtime wrong. The projects will go a long way toward restoring the Penobscot, so people can go back to fishing, eating lobster, and enjoying this river that is so fundamental to the lives of people who live in this part of Maine.”
Mitch Bernard, chief counsel for the Natural Resources Defense Council added: “We’re thrilled to see the selection of these projects that will provide a broad range of benefits for communities along the estuary,” said. “From improved fish passage to better recreational opportunities, these projects will pay long-term dividends for local residents, visitors, and wildlife alike.”
Barry Goodell examines a piece of wood that was attacked by shipworms in 2022.
PHOTO: JODY JELLISON
Skippers program keeps school part of marine careers
BY PATRICIA ESTABROOK
BEFORE DAWN ON a school day, lobstermen from Downeast are preparing for a long day of work. For some teenage fishermen it will be a difficult decision—go to school that morning or spend time on the water, pulling their own traps and gaining hours toward their adult lobstering licenses?
Fishing brings challenges, freedom, and the joy of being on the ocean. On the downside, the work is cold, strenuous, and dangerous, but the money that can be made by a lobsterman right out of high school can exceed that of a teacher with a master’s degree.
Big money and independence equal big status for young people.
If money and autonomy are the primary ways we measure success, then lobstering outclasses high school any day.
So, from the teen perspective, why not seize the day? After all, formal education
is all about the future and many young people want to live for now. Enter a team of idealistic educators from the Eastern Maine Skippers Program, who believe that schooling has value far above raising a young person’s earning capacity. Those educators strive to keep young people in school and in their communities, making a living today and a positive difference tomorrow.
The Eastern Maine Skippers Program is the school-based arm of Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries (MCCF). It was established in 2010 to help young people contribute to the working waterfront in their communities.
Alexa Dayton, executive director of MCCF says that Skippers (as it is known) creates hope for the future for the fisheries in Maine. The next generation has a wonderful future that can be achieved by learning to work collaboratively with peers,
fishermen, scientists, and citizens, which the program stresses, she said.
Many of the students participating the program, who will likely end up in some marine economy employment, may not pursue post-secondary education, so the Skippers program offers practical yet critical thinking experience.
Skippers operates in night schools in these Maine coastal and island communities: Deer-Isle-Stonington High School, Ellsworth High School, George Stevens Academy, JonesportBeals High School, Mount Desert Island High School, Narraguagas High School, North Haven Community School, Vinalhaven Community
Skippers students participate in aquaculture research counting scallops in spat bags. The enthusiasm of the students for this hands-on research is obvious.
School, and Washington Academy. Typically, students participate for one year, learning hands-on skills that will help them with present and future maritime careers. Although each program creates its own curriculum, the emphasis is on creating exciting opportunities that meet the needs of the community and students.
Maddie Hallowell grew up on North Haven and attended the Skippers program in high school. She graduated from Bates College with a concentration in environmental science. Now she is the co-instructor for Skippers in North Haven.
At her school, the program teaches students how to use real-world experiences from fishermen and scientists to pique curiosity about fishing, the environment, and how to solve problems in a community setting. A recent project her class created was a glove drier for fishermen. Her students hope it will encourage reuse of fishing gloves and reduce pollution from discarded gloves. The invention was presented at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum earlier this year and was well-received by professionals in the field.
Skippers, like its parent program at MCCF, is working to redefine the character of waterfront industries by creating a web of interconnectedness from elements that historically have worked in isolation. It helps young people understand the bigger picture of the maritime economy.
The success of this program will benefit not only coastal communities but Maine as a whole, its advocates say. It teaches seamanship, fisheries management, biology and ecology, and how to run a small business. Its hands-on approach gives kids insight into the lives of their families and neighbors.
The mentoring they receive both in school and from those working in the field creates a web of support.
The goals of education are improvements in knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and skills. The Skippers program helps young people learn not only the skills they will need to make their livelihood from the sea but also the insights to help them lead their peers in an evolving maritime economy.
“We want kids to look beyond the status quo and to have hope to overcome the challenges of an uncertain future,” says Tom Duym of MCCF, who is credited with starting the program. The ultimate goal, he believes, is to get kids to believe that success is possible and to have hope
and connections with peers and adults in the community that will underpin them throughout their lives.
At the Maine Fisherman’s Forum, the fisheries community meets to discuss ideas related to changes in the regulations, equipment, and impact of fisheries in Maine. There young people can interact with men and women in the field and make presentations showing
accomplishments in the Skippers program. Public speaking and effective presentation are two skills taught by Skippers that will help young people in any career they pursue.
For more information on the work of the Skippers Program, contact Alexa Dayton or Tom Duym at the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries: 207-367-2708.
provisions
Garden & Market
• Freshly made sandwiches & salads
• Hot entrees: soups, chili, and chowders
• Large selection of wine, craft mixers, and Naut-E botanical spirits
• We also now make pizza. Call to order: (207) 326-0781
• Free wine/beer tastings every 1st/3rd Friday at 4:30
We also have wonderful unique gifts, from finely crafted Japanese teacups, award-winning Folkmanis puppets, and our iconic coffee mugs and sweatshirts—this year’s line being in Pantone’s 2022 color of the year, Peri.
Open Daily 10-5
5 Castine Road • Castine, ME
windmillhillprovisions@gmail.com • https://windmillhillprovisions.store INSTAGRAM: windmillhill.provisions FACEBOOK: Windmillhillprovisions
Available online or at your favorite independent bookstore To read excerpts go to: www.doctorchuckradis.com
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CASTINE MAINE
Over 100 Maine Craft Beers, Kombuchas, and Ciders
Doc Martin meets All Creatures Great and Small in Dr. Chuck Radis’s Go by Boat and Island Medicine, stories of his unique medical practice on the Casco Bay Islands.
“With his true-life stories, (Radis) joins the ranks of writing physicians such as Abraham Verghese and the late Richard Selzer.” —Lloyd Sachs, book critic Chicago Tribune and Kirkus Reviews.
On a misty morning students receive flare training that could save lives in an emergency.
From here to there—Maine lobster’s journey
Photos follow crustacean from waters off Corea to truck
PHOTO ESSAY BY CHERYL CLEGG
Dwight Rodgers works behind the scenes in the office. Daily logistics include arranging pickup times from buying stations, product labeling, and arranging sales and shipping.
Once the lobsters are off the boat, weighed and crated, they are then stored in the ocean until pick-up at the end of the day.
The journey of lobster from boat to market is a well-coordinated process which family-owned DC Air and Seafood Inc. of Winter Harbor has been doing for over 25 years, working directly with lobster co-ops, buying stations, and local fishermen.
As the lobsters are taken off of the boat they are then sorted into crates and crates are weighed before pickup.
Crates are hoisted up to the loading dock at Corea Co-op once the last boat has returned and has unloaded its catch. The DC Air and Seafood truck is on its way for the pickup.
Upon arrival at DC Air and Seafood, the lobster is moved to the tank room where it is sorted by weight, size, shell type (hard or soft), whether it will be shipped overseas or domestically or to a processing plant in Canada. A typical day for the crew starts around 11 a.m. and finishes when the trucks are loaded, which could be as late 8:30 p.m.
The crated lobsters are loaded into the truck and then transported to DC Air in Winter Harbor.
Live lobsters are loaded for transport in early evening and go to Boston to a transfer station where they are then taken to New York to a plane for overseas distribution, or trucked to processing plants in Canada. They arrive in the early morning hours at their destination. During the busiest time of year, August through fall, trucks will go out up to six times a week.
Lobsters are boxed for transport with a gel ice pack for domestic shipping. Lobsters going overseas are shipped in crates.
Our Island Communities
North Haven’s affordable housing in high gear
Housing named top need for island community
BY SUSAN MUSTAPICH
In 2007, North Haven Sustainable Housing sold its first affordable year-round home to two island residents, who still live there today with their daughter.
Now, in its 19th year, the non-profit organization has scaled up to meet increasing needs for affordable housing among year-round residents.
By the beginning of July, three new rentals were ready for occupants, and the application and lottery process used to fill the rentals was completed. A multi-year home ownership project is also in development on the recently renamed Fish Hawk Road.
Over the past year, NHSH launched its “Our Island Home” campaign, with a short film of the same name. The campaign is raising private and public funds as well as community awareness of the new affordable rental and homeownership opportunities, according to Executive Director Hannah Itzler.
What “really kicked things off was that Maine Housing provided a grant opportunity that’s focused on Maine islands,” said Sam Hallowell, NHSH director of development and construction, and former executive director.
Maine Housing awarded NHSH $840,000 for up to four rental units through its Affordable Housing Initiatives for Maine Islands.
“The funding will significantly fuel our work to create new housing opportunities,” Itzler said, “and will match local dollars and in-kind support that we are raising through our campaign.”
The funds are for “creation or substantial rehabilitation of affordable multi-family rental housing units located on Maine’s island communities.” Applicants have to meet eligibility requirements, and units must be leased as a primary residence and remain as rental housing for 45 years.
Itzler and Hallowell make up the lean two-person staff of NHSH, supported by a bookkeeper. Along with their board of directors, the duo wasted no time in coming up with a variety of strategies to create rental apartments with the Maine Housing funds.
The new rentals illustrate what Hallowell and Itzler mean when they talk about the need for flexibility and nimbleness.
One of the new apartments was constructed in a previously unfinished space above an attached garage on a property owned by NHSH.
Three other rental units were created when NHSH purchased two properties from supportive year-round residents, who have been discussing possible sales with the organization for some time.
In May, the organization closed on a Main Street property with an occupied rental, when an accessory building was allowed. NHSH worked quickly with Brunswick-based developer Backyard ADUs on designing a rental unit and preparing the lot for its arrival. Future plans include renovating the existing rental home.
There were 18 applicants for the three available rentals.
Last September, NHSH bought a 700-square-foot house near the school and island store. The organization renovated the building over the winter, turning it into a fourth rental.
The four rentals are two-to-three bedrooms and are for two to four occupants.
A fifth, unplanned unit came about when a donor gifted a tiny house. NHSH converted the 200-squarefoot home into an accessory dwelling, placing it on a permanent foundation and connecting it to town water and sewer. This is the only unit, in this round of rental offerings, that can be offered to a single individual.
NHSH widely advertised the application process, reinforced with regular updates on Facebook. Itzler explained that eligible applicants chosen in the lottery, who were not offered an apartment, will remain on a waiting list maintained by NHSH. There were 18 applicants for the three available rentals, she said. Historically, turnover of the organization’s housing is rare because there have been no other year-round options for people who want to remain on the island. If an apartment turns over in the future, it would be offered to the first eligible applicants on the waiting list who meet the unit’s occupancy criteria, Itzler explained.
Some of the work done recently from images posted on Facebook.
Key components of sustainability are energy efficiency and deed covenants that retain affordability into the future, according to Hallowell. Whether new construction or renovation, buildings feature quality insulation, air sealing and windows, electric appliances, and
heat pumps. Energy efficiency keeps the homes comfortable to live in and the costs of heating, cooling, and maintenance as low as possible, while lessening impacts on the environment, he said. NHSH uses deed covenants to maintain housing affordability,
whether it owns the property or assists with a sale from a private owner directly to a qualified buyer who meets eligibility requirements.
Hallowell spoke with appreciation about all the help and support NHSH receives, and how they could not do without it. The commitment of the two owners who recently sold the rental properties to keeping their homes in year-round ownership and willingness to sell at a reduced cost “is huge, considering the current market for housing where people can sell houses for a lot of money, much more than they could a few years ago,” he said.
Then there’s the historic and significant funding support from the yearround and seasonal community. A recent boost came from the town of North Haven when it named housing the top priority for the island after studying various issues.
“It takes so many people to make all of this happen,” Hallowell said. “From our own staff, our board, the Genesis Community Fund, which has been instrumental in most every project we’ve done in terms of gap funding or mortgages, Maine Housing, all the contractors who recognize the need and are willing to work with us …”
Since its founding in 2005, NHSH has constructed or renovated single-family homes for year-round residents, largely funded through private donations.
Currently, the organization is mid-way through its most ambitious effort to develop single family housing.
The major, multi-year effort began in 2017, with the donation of nearly 12 acres on the South Shore Road. The acreage is adjacent to the first piece of land donated to the organization and where its first house was built.
Most of the work to create the new subdivision on Fish Hawk Road is complete. The plan is for five affordable single-family homes and possibly a multi-family unit.
Preparations are underway to receive delivery this fall of the first two modular homes from KBS Builders of South Paris. The sale of the homes to eligible year-round residents is anticipated in early 2025.
Preceding the organization’s founding, there already was recognition that a lot of houses were being sold into seasonal ownership, and “we needed to do something to keep them year-round, to keep the lights on,” Hallowell said.
Nearly two decades later, NHSH has found many ways to meet its mission. Today, this means “being ready to capitalize on a lot of different opportunities,” Hallowell said.
Itzler has already learned that engaging in conversations on the island—anywhere, at any time, with anyone—can turn into the next housing opportunity.
“If someone has an idea, and you want to run it by the organization, we’re always open to listening,” she said.
To view past projects, current board members and contact information, visit nhshousing.org.
SEA LIFE
Laboratory’s Café Sci is a fun, free way for you to engage with ocean researchers on critical issues and groundbreaking science. Join us at The Opera House at Boothbay Harbor for these in-person-only events. Register at bigelow.org/cafesci.
Devenney,
Photo: NASA
Looking backward, moving ahead
The joy of rowing, even against the tides
BY DAVID D. PLATT
I’M JUST back from an hour’s row on a day that I think may be the first of summer. Clearly I’m hedging here, having experienced the spring, which started and stopped too many times to count.
But it’s June 1, the sky’s clear and the sun’s out, the wind’s not too strong, and the rowing conditions are right. I left at high tide, which on the coastal river where we live is about the only time for serious rowing.
I’ve been a rower since I was a kid lots of years ago. Over the years I’ve tried rowboats old and new, long and short, wood and fiberglass, even something aluminum designed for an outboard and definitely not for oars.
I’ve rowed with seven other people and a coxswain in a shell with outriggers and sliding seats; I’ve rowed in a single, set up the same way. These days, after trying just about every kind of oar-powered boat I can think of, I’m really back to basics: a fiberglass 13-footer built 40 or 50 years ago by Jarvis Newman of Southwest Harbor. It has two rowing stations, two sets of oarlocks, fixed seats, built-in floatation.
I got this boat from Camp Ketcha near our home, where I found it languishing beside a barn in the snow, needing new gunwales and repairs to one of the seats.
“I’ve had to keep moving it out of the way of the snowplow,” the camp director told me, indicating I’d be doing him a favor if I took the boat away. I did so; no money changed hands, but I did make a donation to the camp, which presumably had received the boat as a donation it really didn’t need.
A free boat in my case, more or less, and all I had to do was fix the gunwales and seat, plus a paint job. And oh, yes, I had to make a pair of oars, which turned out to be a welcome and fun shop project during that first winter of COVID.
strong, then ride the current home after I’m tired.
Rowing appeals to me because I like history and knowing where I’ve been.
When spring came that year I moored the boat on a running line out front, named it Right Now after my wife’s legendary impatience for the doneness of projects, and went rowing when things were right.
As I’ve explained, conditions here are right when we’re close to high tide. Once things are right, I have a choice, which is easy: before high tide when the water’s still flowing into the river, I head out into the salt water (Saco Bay); after high tide when the water’s going the other way I head upstream. Either way, if I time it right, I row against the current when I’m feeling
letter to the editor
Protect the intertidal
To the editor:
In an opinion piece in The Working Waterfront July issue, Richard Qualey argues that the Maine intertidal zone between high and low tide should be universally accessible to the public. The current state of the law (and since 1647) is that the intertidal is privately owned but subject to public trust rights to only three activities: fishing, fowling, and navigating.
Qualey is one of the Archipelago lawyers representing 24 plaintiffs in the 2021 so-called “Moody Beach” case. The plaintiffs claim the intertidal rocky shore and beaches should be accessible to anyone.
In a 2019 decision, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court declared that rockweed (seaweed) harvesting is not “fishing” and therefore not a public trust activity and reiterated that the intertidal zone is privately owned (Ross v. Acadian Seaplants).
I cannot help but notice that nine of the 24 plaintiffs in this “beach” case are in the business of rockweed harvesting/ processing.
Somehow the media is overlooking the fact that besides allowing unrestricted
access to private beaches, this case is about allowing unfettered commercial extraction of Maine’s underwater rockweed forest, an essential habitat for hundreds of small animals and numerous marine species that are the basis of our fisheries.
Rather than supporting Maine’s fishing industry, commercial harvesting of rockweed forest severely alters the nursery and shelter that is habitat for many of Maine’s commercial fisheries (cod, pollock, lobster, alewives, striped bass, and many others). We can only hope that the Maine Judicial Supreme Court declines to overturn a unanimous decision the Court made only five years ago for the good of Maine’s commercial fisheries and all the statewide economic activity that our fisheries generate.
David Porter Brooklin
Co-founder of Blue Hill Peninsula Rockweed Forum
The Working Waterfront welcomes letters to the editor, which should be sent to Tom Groening at tgroening@ islandinstitute.org with “LTE” in the subject line. Longer opinion pieces are also considered but should first be cleared with the editor.
Rowing, I’ve told friends who prefer canoes and kayaks and are accustomed to looking ahead instead of astern, appeals to me because I like history and knowing where I’ve been. My boat’s wake (plus the little mirror I have on my cap) keep my course true, and where my back and leg muscles are concerned, pulling feels a lot better than pushing. The oarsman’s stroke—even mine at an advanced age—is powerful and smooth; I like to think of it as like the rowers in an eight-person shell. In the right boat I can really get going, even against the tidal current.
“Are you going to row all winter?” a neighbor asked me a couple of years ago when she noticed me out there in November. I’d thought of it, I replied, but I probably wouldn’t be out there dodging ice cakes or freezing my hands when things got really cold. But for three years now I’ve kept the boat in the water until nearly Thanksgiving, hauled it for the snowier months (remember them?) and then headed back out around the first of May.
This year I didn’t set the mooring out until June 1 for various reasons, including repeated storms and time away. Even so I did quite a bit of coldweather rowing, but now it finally feels like summer. Climate change has to have been a factor; it has certainly affected natural systems like storms, water levels, and the tides that so strongly influence where and when I row my boat.
I get only a few hours of prime rowing conditions here on the river— not much more than two hours either side of high. But when it’s right and off I go, I’m continuing to learn about the currents, shallows, depths, and other riverine things that make my rowing so interesting.
Out in the bay these factors take a back seat to others—waves, fog, wind, seabirds, jumping fish, lobster buoys, other boats—that keep me focused as I pull my way through the miles. Along the way, upstream or down, I use a GPS tracker to “map my row” and keep track of my time.
To sum up, rowing has always been one of my favorite activities; great exercise when the tide’s right and I make myself get going; a Zen-like way to remind me what’s really going on in the world.
David D. Platt is a former editor of The Working Waterfront
Advertise in The Working Waterfront, which circulates 45,000 copies from Kittery to Eastport ten times a year. Contact Dave Jackson: djackson@islandinstitute.org
Passamaquoddy Tribe secures $4.3 million
USDA grant to build eel aquaculture facility in Princeton
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development
has announced a $4.3 million grant to the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township in Princeton. The tribe plans to build an aquaculture facility to farm eels as an alternative to wild harvesting.
The award was one of eight across the nation made possible through Rural Development’s Indigenous Animals Harvesting and Meat Processing Grants (IAG).
Maine State Director Rhiannon Hampson hailed the grant as an important investment in the tribal business and a critical step for a heritage industry.
“Investments such as this highlight the commitment of the Biden-Harris Administration to include Indigenous voices and values in a modernized food system,” she said. “Resilience is rooted in diversity and innovation. By supporting this partnership, we are celebrating traditional resource harvesting while recognizing that innovation helps to achieve our goals for sustainable market access.”
USDA’s IAG program supports the priorities of Tribal Nations utilizing traditional harvesting methods and
indigenous animals. It also expands processing opportunities for animals that are native to North America like bison, reindeer, salmon, and American eels. Eels are valued as a traditional Native food while also being highly sought after in the global marketplace. However, hydroelectric dams in the New England region and other ecosystem challenges have severely impacted the species and resulted in sharp population declines in recent decades.
In Princeton, the Passamaquoddy Tribe will use the latest technology to grow eels in a controlled environment and create value-added products such as filet and kabayaki (marinated eel), a Japanese delicacy. A partnership with American Unagi, the only landbased eel aquaculture company in the U.S., will create jobs for members of the tribe and economic opportunities for hundreds of harvesters.
This partnership will help the tribe increase profits that support its programs and services and achieve full sovereignty using natural and cultural resources.
USDA Rural Development designed the Indigenous Animals Harvesting and Meat Processing Grants program
Owning a home or business on the coast of Maine has many rewards.
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The Passamaquoddy Tribe will use the latest technology to grow eels in a controlled environment and create value-added products such as filet and kabayaki (marinated eel), a Japanese delicacy.
to support priorities voiced by Tribal Nations during consultations held over two years. The program reflects the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to work in partnership
with Tribal Nations to advance prosperity and dignity for all Native peoples. Grants also will benefit Tribes in Alaska, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington.
To strengthen Tribal sovereignty and make our overall food system more resilient, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack outlined a related series of agency actions. He announced grants through the Tribal Forest Protection Act and grants to support access to Indigenous foods in school meal programs. He also welcomed a class of summer interns recruited to focus on Tribal agriculture.
Speaking in Cherokee, North Carolina at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) 2024 Mid-Year Convention and Marketplace, the Secretary reaffirmed USDA’s commitment to Tribal selfgovernance and self-determination.
“USDA has worked hand-in-hand with Tribal Nations to ensure our programs incorporate Indigenous knowledge and perspectives,” Secretary Vilsack said. “As part of our commitment to Tribes, we are making good on our promises and investing in projects that advance food sovereignty and selfdetermination for Tribal Nations.”
saltwater cure
Sweat, tears, the sea (and rain)
The true calming power of water, when I needed it
BY COURTNEY NALIBOFF
THE NAME OF my column, Salt Water Cure, comes from an Isak Dinesen (real name, Karen Blixen) quote: “The cure for anything is saltwater—sweat, tears, or the sea.”
I am stuck in a bit of an eddy of medical tests and waiting. Hopefully it will all be fine, but so far it is stacking uncertainty on uncertainty. I am worried, fearful, and anxious.
I do not want to spend these glorious and fleeting summer days fretting and pacing. So I am putting Dinesen’s concept into practice: saltwater (and some fresh) has become my solace.
When I feel stymied by inaction, wishing for some sort of constructive step I can take to bring certainty a little closer, I turn to sweat. I run, go to cardio dance class at the gym, work outside in the sun, lie on the beach.
Sweat is my offering back to the water cycle. Sweating brings with it a feeling of accomplishment, giving of myself in some way, tiring myself so I
can sleep, rewiring my brain away from its treadmill of catastrophizing.
Tears are more elusive, but necessary. Finding time and space to cry isn’t always easy as a parent and a teacher. During stressful or upsetting times it’s often necessary to mask my emotions and compartmentalize all of the things I need to juggle.
But sometimes the cup overflows. I found myself sobbing on the stern of the ferry after round two of tests and more uncertainty, assisted by connecting with empathetic friends and two-thirds of a Heineken I consumed before getting on the boat. I felt silly, I felt ashamed, I felt vulnerable, but after, I felt a little better.
The sea is where I find the most serenity. This is the season of riding the
top of the ferry, scanning for porpoises, seals, or whales. It’s the season of staring at the horizon, clear to eternity or veiled by a Fata Morgana mirage. It’s the season of long swims, a mile at a time. At the time of writing I’ve logged three miles, quite a bit before July. It’s been hot, and the sea is there to regulate my body temperature. It’s noisy, inside and outside my head, but underwater it’s muffled and calm. I am not sure what to do with my hands, but the sea gently presses on all sides.
I don’t want any of this, I yelled. You don’t have a choice, they said. Thunder started to grumble, subtly at first and then assertively. (And yes, readers, I know, when thunder roars go indoors. This is not a story about being cautious and safe. It is about catharsis.)
We started to turn back but didn’t quicken our pace. The storm was inevitable. A few drops splattered the dirt, then the deluge. Within seconds there was no space between the rain drops, no difference between the water and my clothes and skin.
And the origin of all water, salt or fresh: rain. I went for a walk with a friend who is uniquely helpful when I’m trying to navigate cycles of anxiety or fear.
It had been oppressively hot for days but as we entered the park, a massive thunderhead blocked half the sky. My friend was unconcerned, so we walked and talked.
journal of an island kitchen
Loving beets… or not Getting creative can win over diners
BY SANDY OLIVER
BEETS HAVE AN undeserved bad reputation.
Some polling outfit recently discovered that among the ten most hated vegetables in America, beets were No. 1. Eggplants, okra, turnips, and Brussels sprouts also make it onto the list, though if most other food is nominated, anchovies top the list.
Poor beets. Sweet, brilliantly colored, and amenable to lots of ways of preparing them, plus being fairly easy to grow, beets are nonetheless controversial. Perfectly reasonable friends of mine, fairly sophisticated in most ways, pinch their faces into a pucker and avert their gaze when asked if they’d like some beets. As nature would have it, their partners often love beets. Usually, beets germinate without much fuss; slugs seem less interested in them than in the beans or carrots. (Maybe beets are slugs most-disliked vegetable, too?) One year, voles attacked my beets, chewed the plump sides of every single beet, turning each into a perfect crescent moon at every possible stage. In one way, voles are pretty ethical foragers: they don’t eat everything they see all at one time.
Beet thinnings are as good an addition to the dinner plate as a salad ingredient or cooked as one cooks chard,
spinach, or kale. You won’t find thinnings at the supermarket but sometimes they are still attached to smaller beets at farmers markets and of course home gardeners get to eat them, too.
I grew up eating beets. Mom made Harvard beets, named for their crimson color, Harvard’s official color. She sliced beets into a sauce of sugar and vinegar thickened with a little cornstarch. Sometimes she cut beets up cold and tossed them with mayonnaise and onion for a salad. Sometimes we ate them with just butter, salt, and pepper. I like them diced up and sprinkled among salad greens.
In adulthood, I discovered pickled beets. For a while Islesboro had a 4-H club and on two different occasions, I walked about a dozen youngsters through beet pickling. I boiled beets raised at the school garden and the kids finished the process.
It’s noisy, inside and outside my head, but underwater it’s muffled and calm. Raw beets and sweet potatoes grated, mixed, and fried like latkes were spectacularly delicious.
Slipping small beets out of their skin by squeezing them turned out to be a hilarious proposition, partly because the beets slithered out of their skins and partly because little fingers turned an eye-popping purple, perfect for chasing their friends threateningly around the room.
Pushing beets into canning jars and topping them with sugar and vinegar pickling syrup, then processing them in a hot water bath proved so satisfying: a row of jars with gorgeous, pickled beets inside.
Beets’ purple color is one reason some cite as their reason for disliking them, the cook especially whose fingers are dyed. Eating them when the vegetable is at the end of the fork is a whole other matter, more acceptable. One friend declared that he tried them when he was a youngster and decided then that they were bleah. A suggestion from me, that now he is an adult, perhaps his tastes have changed was greeted with great skepticism. We so often roast vegetables nowadays and so beets, peeled and cubed up, oiled and roasted until crisp outside, get the treatment. My young friend Autumn, another childhood beet eater, does them that way along with broccoli, potatoes, and carrots and doesn’t care if neighboring vegetables end up with purple spots.
There was no choice but to keep walking, so we did, back to our soaked cars.
Metaphorically I had approached and moved through a fearful moment with peace. Literally I was cleansed, too drenched to fret, too happy to worry.
Courtney Naliboff teaches writing, theater, and music and plays in the band Bait Bag on North Haven. She may be contacted at Courtney.Naliboff@gmail.com.
Historically, the Yankee descendants of English settlers ate them boiled or pickled. Oddly, historic beet soups are virtually non-existent among English speakers. Eastern Europeans serve perfectly delicious borscht; Yankees don’t and I don’t know why.
There are recipes now for beets grated and folded into chocolate cake batter. I ate raw beets and sweet potatoes grated, mixed, and fried like latkes which were spectacularly delicious.
One of the best modern ways I’ve discovered for serving beets is to boil them, cut them into thick slices, and then drench them in butter into which you crumble lots of blue cheese. Arrange them in a baking dish and run them under a broiler until the cheese begins to melt, then serve.
Divine. How could you possibly say anything bad about a beet with butter and blue cheese on it?
Eh, never mind. I know the answer to that question.
Sandy Oliver is a food historian who gardens, cooks, and writes on Islesboro. She may be contacted at SandyOliver47@gmail.com.
Package delivery across the water
Neighborliness and planning rules the process cranberry report
BY BARBARA FERNALD
COMMENTS OVERHEARD at the town dock on either of the Cranberry Isles on almost any given summer day:
“The shed is too full!” “These boxes are a mess!” “Did you see a package in there for me?” “Darn. I got an email that said it was delivered, but I don’t see it!” “Oh, here’s one for the other island.”
One of the questions that comes up with first time visitors to the islands is: “Are you able to get UPS and FedEX deliveries out here? How does it work?”
The answer is yes, and it works pretty well.
Beal and Bunker, the company that runs the mail boat and passenger ferry, has contracts with UPS and FedEX. They sign for the packages when they are delivered on the mainland and then load them on the boat. The mailboat crew counts and sorts the items by island. Islesford packages ride on the port side and Great Cranberry packages ride on the starboard.
On each island is a shed on the town dock where the packages reach their “almost” final destination. As the island populations swell, so do the number of boxes. By mid-June these package rooms can become jam packed with more shipments arriving daily.
I learned at a recent dinner party that this is a common problem for people who live in large apartment buildings in cities as well. In my little island life I never considered that! Quite a conversation followed about the unspoken etiquette of package retrieval when it all ends up in one room.
The best thing shoppers can do is to pick up their packages within 24 hours of arrival. Food items are definitely retrieved right away but sometimes a delivery notice gets lost or you forget that you ordered something two weeks ago and your own package sits for longer.
When people order items to be delivered before their arrival at their island homes it is nice to arrange for a busy caretaker to find time to pick them up. For the most part, people are quite neighborly about these crowded sheds. A friendly Facebook post on the town page with a photo of packages bulging from the shed and a gentle reminder
observer
to remember to pick up your delivery produces a lot of space in the shed by the next morning.
Neighbors pick up for neighbors or text each other to announce a waiting package. Some people will group samename packages together as they sort through looking for their own, making it easier for the next person.
many packages, I have seen that space almost “summer full” many times in December, when there are only about 75 of us out here.
Some people will even create more space by taking a bunch of their friends’ packages and making an afternoon of delivering them. Most people appreciate this service, though some prefer not to add another link to their delivery chain. It can be part of a walk at the end of the day and a spontaneous pleasant social event to run into people at the package shed when you make your own pick up.
“Is it us?” asked my New York friend. “Do you hate it when people come and the package shed gets too full?”
No. Absolutely not. If anything, I feel pretty bad for him. He gets no escape from a crowded box room, ever. Even when coming to a tiny island in Maine! As far as too many people creating too
Remembering Gramp—role model and patriot
Fourth of July triggers a sad memory
BY PHIL CROSSMAN
THE FOURTH OF JULY reminds me each year of a memorable Independence Day Celebration in 1984, when my grandfather, Edwin (Ted) Maddox, a highly regarded islander, selectman, and staunch Republican state legislator representing Vinalhaven and North Haven and the rest of Knox County, was leading the Vinalhaven parade, as he often did. He was a fierce patriot and was in his element standing at attention anywhere near the flag of the United States of America, which, on this occasion, flew on the Jeep’s front bumper. In 1958 he brought Democratic Gov. Edmond Muskie to Vinalhaven to take part in the Fourth of July parade. As a fervent Republican, he opposed nearly everything Muskie stood for, but they were clearly friends, entirely respectful of one another and of their opposing views. Gramp was very good friends with Everett Libby, another popular islander and businessman, and in 1960, during his term of office, he and Everett conceived and successfully shepherded through the legislature creation of
the Maine State Ferry Service. Until then we’d been served by a perfectly comfortable wooden ferry which only carried one or two cars.
My parents and my own little family were enjoying the parade on that lovely summer day from a second-floor balcony overlooking Main Street. The World War II Jeep carrying my grandfather, he standing at attention and holding the windshield to keep himself that way, passed by below, followed by a parade of veterans and a marching band. After they’d gone by, the toe-to-toe lineup of people who’d been standing erect with their hands over their hearts, settled into a much more jubilant comportment, as every fire truck, our ambulance, and the sheriff’s patrol car passed by, sounding their sirens simultaneously, trying to outdo one another.
Some people create more space by taking a bunch of their friends’ packages and making an afternoon of delivering them. The floats were still passing by when the distant sirens took on a sudden, distinctly alarming urgency.
float after another, all funny, some hilarious, brought up the rear. The floats were still passing by when the distant sirens, by now out of sight as they’d rounded a corner to the east, took on a sudden, distinctly alarming urgency. The parade slowed and then stopped, and an unmistakenly cognitive wave swept back through the crowd toward us. After what seemed forever, a young woman came running down the street, and climbed the stairs to our balcony, to tell us that Grandpa Ted had suffered a heart attack and could not be revived.
I might not like digging through 100-square-feet of packages to find my own little one, but it’s a momentary luxury problem. How lucky I am to have things delivered here without lugging them on or off a boat! Anyone staying on the islands deserves the same advantage. When I feel snowed under at the package shed, I’ll try to remember the solidarity that we islanders share with city dwellers in this realm. I might even feel a cosmopolitan lift to my spirits as I finally locate my soup dumplings. Retrieving a box or two doesn’t have to be a negative experience.
St. Francis of Assisi suggested we “wear the world like a loose garment.” I try to keep this advice in mind, especially when dealing with summer’s surplus. If I don’t have a caftan or muumuu to wear, I can always order one on Amazon.
Barbara Fernald lives on Islesford (Little Cranberry Island). She may be contacted at Fernald244@gmail.com.
of all things American, stood right under the flag, devoted, rendering a proper salute and probably with a tear rolling down his cheek, fell over, having died instantly.
He spoke frequently to me, his teenage grandson, of the legislative process, of our great American democracy, of deliberation, of consensus, and of bowing to the will when the will was not your own.
He cherished the decorum and dignity with which those processes were achieved within his House of Representatives and was so proud to be part of it all. At this point, I’m glad he’s no longer with us to witness what has become of the great democracy he felt was ours.
Then, sirens diminishing somewhat as the parade continued eastward, one
We learned later that the veterans and the band had stopped beneath an enormous American flag to salute and render their allegiance. Grandpa Ted, very proud of America, of this day, of the veterans he led and
Phil Crossman lives on Vinalhaven where he owns the Tidewater Motel. He may be contacted at PhilCrossman.vh@ gmail.com.
fathoming
Small fish, big role
Menhaden, or ‘pogies,’ are boon to lobster fishery
BY JENNIFER SEAVEY
RACHEL CARSON wrote: “To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides… to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.”
We should all follow Rachel’s sage advice to watch the ebb and flow of nature, and in doing so, you just might observe teeming schools of small fish churning the surface of the water.
Small forage fish are a suite of fish species serving as critical food in the ocean’s food web. Their role in attracting predators make them a great bait.
One such species, Atlantic menhaden, has played a pivotal role in maritime culture, ecology, and economy, from Florida to Nova Scotia, particularly in the Chesapeake Bay. Revered for its oil, this silvery fish, called “pogies” in Maine from the Native pauhagen, is a great symbol of the importance and complex role of forage fish.
Menhaden are sometimes called “the most important fish in the sea” (H.
Bruce Franklin has titled a book with this phrase). Native tribes, including the Wabanaki, utilized menhaden as fertilizer for their crops. European colonists quickly adopted this practice, integrating menhaden into their fishing and farming routines.
The uses grew during the 19th and early 20th centuries and menhaden value soared as it was used in production of oil for lighting lamps, and as a lubricant before the advent of petroleum-based products. Menhaden oil, high in omega-3 fatty acids, also found its way into commercial fertilizer, paints, varnishes, vitamins, and even lipstick.
In 2021, Maine’s commercial harvesters landed 22.1 million pounds valued at $9.5 million.
The ecological importance of forage fish (menhaden, herring, etc.) to the health of the ocean ecosystem cannot be overstated. Related to herring and shad, menhaden are plankton filter feeders and are essential to the diet of almost all Atlantic predatory fish, including bluefish, cod, haddock, halibut, striped bass, swordfish, and tuna, as well as many marine birds and mammals.
reflections
Despite some limited historical use in the Gulf of Maine, over the last 20 years or so pogies have become utilized more and more as lobster bait. The rise is largely due to the increase in availability as larger and older fish become more abundant in the northern part of their range. It is suspected that pogies are moving north as the oceans warms and becoming more available than herring, the historically preferred and abundant bait for lobster.
In 2021, Maine’s commercial harvesters landed 22.1 million pounds valued at $9.5 million (Maine Department of Marine Resources data). The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission began managing menhaden in 2020 in an ecosystem context, bringing commercial, recreational, and natural predator needs into their management assessment. Once again, the importance of menhaden shines, as the management uses an ecosystem approach for setting catch limits.
It appears to be working as menhaden stock is considered well
It’s the people part of island life
Dead and alive, they enrich and inform community
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 OLIVIA JOLLEY
“ISLAND LIFE IS NOT for everyone” is a phrase I’ve gotten tired of hearing but a phrase I wholeheartedly agree with. Not everyone wants to live in a place with no restaurants, no street signs, and no next day delivery.
However, some people find the rhythms and trials of island life to be just right. These people make an island what it is. They make it interesting, they make do with what they have, and they make it work.
Working with island history has made the importance of people even more apparent. My fellowship brought me to Swan’s Island two years ago to work with the local historical society on a myriad of tasks. I arrived naively thinking I could live out here and work with historic documents and
photographs, hiding away from people on the beaches or with a good book in my off hours.
I was entirely wrong in thinking I could embrace my inner hermit. Wherever I go, whatever I do, I encounter people, both living and dead.
History is made and told by people. It’s happening as you read this newspaper. It seeps into the wood and stone of buildings, the landscape, the way of life. I don’t know if everything I’ve heard about Swan’s Island’s history is true, but whether fact or fiction, island games of “telephone” are a very real thing—these stories continue to be told, painting a picture of how the island came to be.
The house I live in used to be the island telephone company, the fireplace is where the switchboard was.
A photo of a woman who used to work there is pinned to the inside of a wooden cabinet. She used to eavesdrop on people’s conversations, even being called out for it in one of those private calls to which she replied, “No, I’m not!”
On my way to work, I pass by Cottle’s Cove, named for the one-legged Mr.
managed for humans and marine predators alike. These same models also indicate that reproduction has increased in the northern extent of its range in recent years, likely the influence of warming waters.
Changing ocean conditions are shifting forage fish around, moving species like Atlantic herring and Atlantic menhaden north and therefore influencing what fish are available for both the ecological systems and fishermen. For the near future, menhaden are going strong in Maine and will likely continue to do so. The recent shift in the lobster industry from relying on herring to menhaden is a sign of the times. As the ocean changes, we will continue to see the rise and fall of various forage fish regionally and locally.
This summer in Maine, pogies are playing a star role as a critical fish in the sea. Moving forward, it is on all of us to make sure that our use and management of the ocean keeps pace with changing conditions.
Jennifer Seavey is chief programs officer for Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. She may be contacted at jseavey@islandinstitute.org.
Cottle who drove his shoe repair barge from island to island in the late 1800s. Even the island has its own namesake— Col. James Swan of Fife, Scotland, the original purchaser of the island and its outer islands.
Sometimes it feels like time doesn’t exist. Or at least it doesn’t make sense, as decades and centuries blur together. People talk about a person like they grew up with them even if that person died before they were born.
I thought for the first couple months living on the island that there was a guy named Fritz who checked the ice at the Quarry Pond each winter to make sure it was safe for the kids to skate on. I was told no one skated until Fritz gave the okay. It turns out that Fritz was born in Sweden in 1899 and was reportedly the fastest paving stone cutter at the local granite quarry.
I came to Swan’s Island to work with the historical society to preserve these stories, the tales of people who made this island what it is today. I didn’t expect that the most impactful part of my fellowship would be the people living, and those people are
the highlight of the last two years of my life.
People who showed up at my doorstep to invite me to a stranger’s wedding reception and let me hitch a ride on the back of their bike, answered my phone call at the ferry and now invite me to family movie nights and out on their lobster boat, pulled into my driveway to serenade me with “For She’s a Joll(e)y Good Fellow” on my birthday, let me name their kitten after a vegetable you can’t even find in Maine, and sang karaoke with me until the wee hours of the morning.
Olivia Jolley works with the Swan’s Island Historical Society organizing, digitizing, and curating its artifacts and archives. Born in North Carolina, she grew up on the coast of southern California and moved to Maine to attend College of the Atlantic where she earned a degree in human ecology focusing on marine biology, coastal history, fishery policy, and illustration.
in plain sight
What created Maine’s brief whaling industry
Menhaden missing in Gulf of Maine in 1879
BY KELLY PAGE
MENHADEN, ALSO referred to as pogies or mossbunkers, are currently one of several species of bait fish used in the lobster industry. Historically, these fish were harvested for entirely different purposes: leather production and agriculture.
By the mid-19th century, numerous oil processing plants were established in Maine to refine menhaden into fish oil for leather tanning, with the remnant fishmeal serving as a practical substitute for imported fertilizers such as Peruvian guano (seabird waste).
The success of these plants created a demand that could not be met when menhaden ceased to migrate north of Cape Cod in 1879. Consequently, fishermen turned to marine mammal species to compensate for the shortfall, leading to unprecedented whaling activity in Maine waters.
Due to the significant amount of oil that could be extracted from them, whales were considered a viable alternative. Humpback and fin whales were particularly targeted due to their local availability.
However, capturing a whale was a challenging endeavor. Advancements in whaling technology, such as bomb lances fired from steam-powered vessels, revolutionized the process compared to earlier methods involving hand-thrown harpoons from rowboats.
As menhaden fishermen already employed steamers, they began harvesting whales and towing them to
processing facilities. At the peak of the fishery, annual catches often exceeded 100 whales, typically divided between the two species. With the eventual return of menhaden in 1886, whaling activities dwindled. Maine’s coastal whale fishery served as a temporary substitute during the absence of menhaden but proved economically unsustainable. This was largely due to inadequate investment in efficient whaling equipment, with fishermen making do with makeshift adaptations while awaiting the menhaden’s return.
Some industrious menhaden whalemen had an extra line of income by charging spectators a fee to view the floating carcasses. The novelty was
certainly absent for those adjacent to the oil plants. Local communities often opposed the processing aspect of the industry due to the overwhelming stench it produced.
Among the menhaden whalemen was Capt. William G. Butman, who landed whales from the steamer Hurricane in the 1880s and resumed the practice 30 years later aboard the 51-foot Palm.
The photograph accompanying the column, dated Aug. 22, 1918, depicts a whaling station at Carver’s Harbor in Vinalhaven that was established by Butman and others. Though details about its operation and longevity are scarce, it stands as a notable
guest column
An honest look at idyllic island life
Island Institute Fellow’s column made important point
BY TOM HEYER
I’M ALWAYS grateful for my email deliveries of The Working Waterfront. The edition with Island Institute Fellow Katie Liberman’s column was especially poignant (Reflections, “A stark reminder of the need to support our children”).
My husband and I live on Roosevelt Island in New York City and have summered on Islesford (Little Cranberry Island) since 1997. Both of the island communities we live in appear idyllic at first glance, and truly are on many levels. I wouldn’t trade either of them for any other place on Earth!
But neither are they perfect and they have cracks in their surface. Though they are welcoming communities, individual lives can reveal other truths because people can be very private. They hold secrets: substance abuse,
depression, and food insecurity as they try to navigate their lives with dignity.
Liberman’s column was a stark reminder of this as she related finding a used needle as she walked along a windy beach on Deer Isle in March. It was a sobering reminder that the opioid epidemic in this country isn’t just in “other people’s” homes. It’s in our own beloved communities and affects our own friends and families.
such violence and it kept her awake that night. This story brought tears to my eyes to think that any teacher would have to even contemplate such a horror!
Our civic duties as loving citizens never really have an expiration date.
Liberman also wrote about a message from her school’s superintendent about a threat of violence at the local high school that was being investigated as a hate crime. She contemplated whether her own body would be able to shield her precious students in the event of
Before you think this note is going to devolve into a vortex of sorrow, I assure you it is not. The fact that this world is still filled with many smart and compassionate people like Katie Liberman, gives me pause for hope. It helps me to balance out the harsh realities of life.
Her information on The Mariners Soar! After School Program and how it feeds and provides after school activities for kids lightened my heart as well.
Our civic duties as loving citizens never really have an expiration
exception in the history of whaling in the region. Capt. Butman was better known as the owner and operator of passenger steamers serving Matinicus and Criehaven. The Palm is also cited as serving this purpose. This image serves as a rare example documenting the fishery and was received by Maine Maritime Museum directly from the Butman family.
Kelly Page is Curator of Collections at Maine Maritime Museum. The museum’s newest exhibits include Upta Camp, and Lost & Found: Sounds of the Maine Coast by Dianne Ballon. Explore resources and plan your visit at www.mainemaritimemuseum.org
date. I learned that from my mentor and friend, Ashley Bryan, on Little Cranberry Island. He taught me that we can create the life and community we want to live in—it’s a daily practice. Ashley did it every day through art and song and storytelling. He did it by spreading love and compassion to anyone who had the pleasure of meeting him, and I miss him dearly. Katie showed that same kind of compassion by sharing the poem she wrote about finding a used needle on a bucolic Maine beach—who still does that, anyway?!
Thank you, Katie Liberman, for taking the time and for being the person who “does that.”
Thom Heyer lives in New York City and Islesford.
This image shows a dead whale in Vinalhaven’s Carver’s Harbor in 1918. PHOTO: MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM
Philip Frey on Hancock Point Deep focus on sailing drives vision art of the waterfront
BY CARL LITTLE
IN SUMMER, in harbors along the Maine coast and on its islands, community sailing schools introduce youngsters and others to the art of tacking and jibing, to bow, aft, starboard, and stern. Sea legs develop and salt air enters the lungs and heart.
The Hancock Point Sailing Program has been offering lessons for 55 years. The current fleet consists of 16-foot Mercury sailboats, 420 racing dinghies, and an instructor’s launch. The program follows a curriculum designed by U.S. Sailing, which also certifies its instructors.
During spring, summer, and fall, painter Philip Frey likes to walk around Hancock Point, not far from his studio in Sullivan, sometimes visiting the pier to sketch or paint. One afternoon he arrived after sailing lessons were done for the day.
“The fading warm summer light, the boats, and the boathouse were inspiring,” he recalls.
Frey painted “Ready for Lessons” from photographs and graphite sketches. He chose to work mostly in an earth-tone and mid-tone palette with some select higher key colors—“so, mostly grays and some blues and greens with accents of orange and red and yellow,” he explains. He sought to capture “the cast of yellow/orange light” happening in the late afternoon, to reflect its effect “over the entire piece.”
The result is a paean to summer, to the quiet that follows a day of waterfront activities. The boats are
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Philip Frey’s “Ready for Lessons” (2023), oil on linen, 30 by 40 inches. PHOTO: COURTESY PHILIP FREY
lined up for the next day, the boathouse with its flag and bulletin board sits in the shadows of nearby trees, and the dock, which has been badly battered in winter storms, reaches out to the horizon.
Frey has painted seaside scenes in many parts of Maine, including Great Cranberry Island, Portland, and along the Downeast coast.
“People have made their livelihood and built their civilizations around water,” he notes, “so it is the boats, structures, piers, and all the things that allow us to go on the water that I find fascinating.” He gravitates to the smaller marinas and coves where pleasure craft share the space with working fishing boats. “All the shapes, the jumble of forms and colors, are inspiring,” he writes.
Born in Portland in 1967, Frey believes his first experience of the Maine coast was on one of many summer trips from New Bedford, Mass., before his family moved back to the state in 1980.
“I remember the water being quite cold compared to Massachusetts,” he writes, “and our focus was mostly on playing in and around the water.”
After graduating from Ellsworth High School, Frey pursued art studies at the Columbus (Ohio) College of Art and Design and then Syracuse University where he earned a BFA in 1990. He recalls working on some landscape pieces, including paintings and photomontages and collages, but it wasn’t until he settled in Maine that he would focus his attention on rendering the world around him.
Part of that focus derives from Frey’s experience as a Buddhist practitioner. He has found that active concentrating on particular forms in nature is enhanced by his mindfulness practice. Slowing down and noticing things enables him “to stay with an objective focus for some time and not be scattered,” which has had a positive effect of calmness and clarity.
Which brings us back to Frey’s painting of Hancock Point. The warm colors, the cast of end-of-day light, the sense of expectation—all is calm and clear.
On a personal note: When my sixyear-old grandson James finished a week at the MDI Community Sailing Center in Southwest Harbor last summer, he was hooked. One night, getting ready to go to bed, he pretended he was in a sailboat. The sheets were the ropes, “because that’s what they call them,” he said, and he used his ear to steer.
No doubt, his dreams that night involved holding a swift course for a distant island, the sails filled with wind.
You can see more of Frey’s work at www. philipfrey.com. He is represented by Courthouse Gallery Fine Art in Ellsworth, Greenhut Galleries in Portland, Carver Hill Gallery in Camden, and Edgewater Gallery in Middlebury, Vt. He will be teaching a plein-air painting workshop at Schoodic Institute in Winter Harbor Sept. 11-15.
Carl Little wrote the introduction to The Prints of Siri Beckman: Engraving a Sense of Place (Down East Books).
master facing the harbor with a full bath. There are two more full baths with one on the main level and one in the finished lower level. A large living room with woodburning fireplace faces the bay, and a dining room, kitchen, breakfast room with fireplace from which there is a step-down office/ living space with long, west facing views across the bay for incredible sunsets. The lower level is finished with a wood burning fireplace, and plenty of space for entertaining with a small kitchen area. Beyond that area is an exercise room and hot tub. From the house across a deck is a covered, in-ground 40x20 swimming pool. To the North across the lawn is the tennis court. This is a unique and interesting down east setting, unpretentious and beautiful, a great mix, with a bird’s eye view of a small working harbor where lobster boats come and go from their moorings bringing their catch to the pier. $850,000.
Philip Frey painting plein air. PHOTO: COURTESY PHILIP FREY
Immerse
