The Working Waterfront - November 2024

News from Maine’s Island and Coastal Communities

‘Blue economy’ expert makes bold predictions

Lobster industry will decline, but opportunity abounds

BY TOM GROENING

Speaking at the state’s top lobster-landing port, Charlie Colgan had a harsh prognosis for the fishery. But he also offered hope for a future for the community in which it might still rely on a thriving blue economy.

Colgan, a former state economist and director of research for the Center for the Blue Economy at Middlebury Institute of International Studies, spoke at Stonington’s ongoing “Talk of the Towns” series on Oct. 9.

“Stonington is the lobster capital of Maine,” he said, but given the shift of the species over the last 20 years to the north and east, the industry is looking at just another ten to 20 more years. “Probably 20,” he predicted.

“It isn’t going to happened tomorrow, but it is going to happen,” Colgan said. “You’ve got time to shift.”

Robin Alden, a former Marine Resources commissioner and co-founder of the Stonington-based Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, responded to Colgan by noting that lobstering was a small-business economy, a desirable status.

Peacock, captain of the schooner

at the

Greenland aboard the 71-foot boat this past

Colgan was blunt, noting that while lobstering was advantageous, being large in scope and small with individual owners, “You will not succeed wholly as small sizes.”

a community

offered

An understanding of the blue economy could bring new opportunities, he said.

Asked by moderator Linda Nelson to define the

continued on page 8

Developer wants ‘mixed use’ at Cushing’s Point

South Portland site was home to Liberty shipyard

BY STEPHEN RAPPAPORT

The plan by a California land developer to convert the former shipyard at Cushing’s Point

where Liberty ships were built during World War II into a 30-acre “mixeduse neighborhood” including as many as 1,000 residential units is creeping forward in the face of substantial

opposition from many in the South Portland community.

New York City investor John Cacoulidis acquired the former shipyard in 1991. Three years later, the city of South Portland acquired just under 14 acres of the site to create Bug Light Park. A decade after that, Cacoulidis proposed developing the site with a couple of highrise hotels and housing but that proposal, facing strong opposition from the South Portland community, died.

“ We support keeping the shipyard zoning for maritime uses. They’re much more appropriate to the area…”

—CATHY CHAPMAN OF NO YARD SOUTH

and lead the development” of the property.

About four years later, in 2022, PK, acting as the agent of L&R Northpoint, filed a pre-application with the city for a zoning change which, according to the company’s website, “brings the site into alignment with the city’s 2012 comprehensive plan” that “envisions this underutilized industrial land as a place for people to live, work, and enjoy the waterfront.”

On its website, PK asserts that while current zoning doesn’t allow housing, the comprehensive plan “envisions a mixed-use zone that includes residential” use.

In 2018, L& R Northpoint Holdings, LLC, bought the land from the Cacoulidis family for $7.7 million and hired PK Realty Management to “operate, manage continued on page 8

Alex

Bowdoin,

helm during

sail

by Maine Maritime Academy, owner of the vessel, on Oct. 10. MMA students served as crew on the two-hour trip, which included navigating some gusty winds along the east side of Islesboro. Peacock has captained the boat, which is the official sailing vessel state of Maine, for two years. Peacock, along with ten students and six professional mariners, visited

summer. The Bowdoin was built in 1921 for Capt. Donald MacMillan to explore the Arctic region. PHOTO: TOM GROENING

FALL SAIL—

MDI’s Seawall illustrates dynamic ocean interface

Similar wave and rock action seen on Schoodic Point

BY CATHERINE SCHMITT

Seawall Beach and Picnic Area, which was severely damaged by winter storms in 2024, is named for a natural formation resulting from interaction between land and sea. Not to be confused with constructed “sea walls” of concrete, Seawall Beach and other features known locally as sea walls are steep beaches and ridges of cobble and boulders.

In 1861, Ezekiel Holmes and Charles H. Hitchcock described Seawall Beach as “a form of coarse drift” in their preliminary report on the natural history and geology of Maine:

“[Seawall] consists of a long embankment of smooth boulders, without gravel, arranged on the seashore at high water mark. When the great storms in the spring prevail off the coast, very powerful waves transport from the bays multitudes of boulders, some of them a couple of feet in diameter, as far as their agency extends.

“Hence, the work of years has accumulated in various places quite large embankments, which are popularly called sea walls. They are often shaped like the glacis of a fortification, the side next the sea having a small slope, and the side next the shore being quite steep. The sea wall in Tremont is at the Southwest Harbor. It is often 15 feet high and over a quarter of a mile in length…”

Like sand dunes and salt marshes, sea walls protect coastal property by bearing the brunt of storms. And like a sand dune, sea walls are always shifting as waves and tides push the

rocks around. This usually gradual process of shaping becomes dramatic during storms, when large waves pick up rocks from the base of the wall and carry them to the top.

The size of the rocks shows the energy of the waves that created the wall, as stronger waves can transport larger stones to the top of the pile, where their weight keeps them in place as smaller pebbles tumble back to the bottom with each receding wave.

Historically, sea walls created a logical pathway for navigating the shoreline. Foot trails tracing the top of the “wall” became cart paths and roads traveled by tourists. The Mount Desert Herald reported in November 1882 that George Kelley had finished building a “good road” running from Seawall to Bass Harbor, via Ship Harbor, “making the border road of the island complete.”

The Mount-Desert Guidebook described Seawall in 1888 as:

“a rampart of stones and rocks, ranging in size from pebbles to boulders, and stretching for a long distance between the low green meadows on one side and the resounding sea on the other. It looks as if it had been built by benignant giants, to keep the whitening waves from the green fields inside, which would else be overflowed by many a furlong. But all this titanic work has been done by Neptune himself, in times of storm smashing the submarine ledges outside, and throwing their fragments high up on this adamantine barrier…

“Here, also, the sea breaks with greater power and eloquence than

An undated photograph by LaRue Spiker shows snow and ice-encrusted rocks strewn over the Seawall Road.

Seawall on Mount Desert Island after the January storms. PHOTO: CATHERINE SCHMITT

anywhere else in this region; and parties often come picnicking to the ledges, to the see the majestic sheets of white spray that dash over the rocks when a heavy sea is on. The road follows the rugged crest of the Sea Wall, for a mile, in places as high above the land as are the dikes of Holland, with spruce trees occasionally coming down to the edge of the rocks, and peering into the turbulent waves…”

Scientist Roy Waldo Miner noted the role of storms in both forming Seawall Beach and destroying the road atop it in 1922, writing in Natural History:

“[It] is a natural wall or embankment consisting entirely of small, searounded bowlders, which have been cast up during the winter storms to form a rampart several hundred feet in length and a dozen or more in height. A road crosses this rampart obliquely, but is obliterated by the storms each winter and the following year has to be reconstructed.”

Acadia’s sea walls have always been pushed around during storms. An undated photograph by LaRue Spiker shows snow and ice-encrusted rocks strewn over the Seawall Road. Today, sea level is nearly one foot higher than it was in 1950. Waves and storm surge are higher and reach even farther inland. During storms, sea walls roll over into back barrier lagoons and wetlands. At Seawall Beach, and along the Schoodic Loop Road, this means repeated damage to roads. Roads also

restrict drainage between the ocean and ecosystems behind the barriers.

A sea wall’s mobility is easier to visualize in areas where there is no road to impede it, such as West Pond on the west side of Schoodic Point, or between Ship Harbor and Wonderland on MDI, where waves during the January 2024 storms carried rocks over the back of the sea wall into the alder swamp on the landward side.

Seawall Pond is a similar backbarrier wetland that has always been exposed to salt spray and occasional inundation. The pond drains to the sea via a culvert beneath Seawall Road, and water levels fluctuate. The National Park Service has been monitoring water quality in Seawall Pond since 2007. Conductivity, a measure of the concentration of ions or salts, is orders of magnitude higher in Seawall Pond than in other lakes in Acadia, and it’s highly variable, suggesting varying degrees of marine inputs. Seawall Pond (labeled as Seawall Swamp on some early maps) is relatively productive, with consistently high nutrients and chlorophyll, likely due to the pond’s small size, shallow depth, and abundance of gulls and waterfowl.

Sea wall ecosystems are dynamic landscapes that challenge ideas of permanence, despite protections afforded by being in a national park. A 2017 assessment rated Seawall Picnic Area as highly vulnerable to hazards and climate change. The report also

noted that while the hydraulic energy of the waves at high tide presents management issues, the tremendous force of the waves is also what created Seawall, Thunder Hole, and other unique features that define Acadia.

As told by the National Park Service, “Acadia’s cobblestone beaches are some of our most treasured gems for their striking beauty and charming rattling in the waves. The stones also tell the stories of countless rock formations that have traveled to the beach by means of glaciers and ocean currents. These rocks can be traced to areas all over the region, frequently starting as much larger glacial erratics. The stones are pounded by waves over years and

years, through nor-easters and storms. They are smoothed out over the relentless shaping of the waters and collisions with other rocks. The rugged journey and significance behind each cobble makes their protection a priority.”

As we enter a season of exceptional high tides or “king tides,” we will be monitoring Seawall and other locations to learn how changes to the shoreline from last winter’s storms may have affected tidal flooding. You can join us by posting water level observations to the Gulf of Maine King Tides project.

Catherine Schmitt is a science communication specialist with the Schoodic Institute.

John Martin, Bud Staples, and Elsie Gillespie chat around the woodstove at the annual town meeting.

Gerald “Punkin” Lemoine

Levi Moulden

Bud Staples

A 1919 photo from the Mount Desert Island Historical Society shows an automobile on the dirt road at Seawall, with rocks on either side.

PHOTO: COURTESY MOUNT DESERT ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The stones at Sea Wall back up against a marshy area. PHOTO: CATHERINE SCHMITT

Confronting post-birth changes led to book Your Post-Partum Body born on North Haven

BY COURTNEY NALIBOFF

It was April 2017. I had been a parent for almost three years, and I was treating myself to a solo birthday trip to New York City.

I slept, luxuriously, with podcasts in my headphones, on the bus from Portland to New York. My sister met me, and we began a packed itinerary of record store browsing, clothes shopping, Broadway viewing, and eating.

So much wonderful eating—arepas and vegan Japanese feasts and Egyptian spreads. And with eating, comes drinking. I enjoyed chrysanthemum tea, boba, bitters-heavy cocktails, and other delights.

And then came the peeing.

As regular city-goers might know, finding a restroom open to the public in Manhattan can be tricky. But every few blocks, I needed one. I debated bushes and side streets. My sister was determined to not let our weekend be derailed by my arresting bladder, so we doggedly entered Kroger’s, Starbucks, McDonalds, and anywhere that seemed likely. We bought unnecessary pastries at Pret a Manger. I practiced my most urgent expression.

I’ve always had a small bladder, and most of our home video footage from family trips in the 1980s is of my sisters and I going in and out of various public restrooms. But, as my sister said to me with some concern, this seemed pathological.

a list of my ailments. Well shoot, I thought when I was done, I still don’t know what to do about any of it.

I knew someone who did. Ruth Macy, PT, DPT. I’d met Ruth when we moved to the island—her soon-to-be husband worked with Bill plumbing for Rex Crockett. They had moved off island where she could fulfill her career as a physical therapist and had started specializing in pelvic health.

She was the person I went to with my questions, someone who had repeatedly helped me with a simple touch, a suggestion as to how to change a movement pattern, or where to find additional health care support.

Without her, I wouldn’t have known what a pelvic health physical therapist was, when I needed to seek one out, or what to expect. So, in 2021, I popped the question and asked her to be my co-author.

And luckily, she said yes.

Around the same time, I joined LinkedIn for a variety of not very clear reasons, but it seemed like something adults did. I happened to notice Anna Worrall’s profile—she was someone I knew from the summer community, and with whom I had spent a little more time during the pandemic year when everyone just stayed on the island.

I began a journey to figure out just what had gone wrong in my body during pregnancy.

I began a journey to figure out just what had gone wrong in my body during pregnancy. It wasn’t just my bladder – earlier I’d strained a muscle from always holding Pen on my right hip. A lot of hair had fallen out when I was about six months postpartum, and I’d had no idea to expect that. Weaning had been a quagmire of physical and mental pain. I come from a family full of doctors, so I’d assumed I’d been fully informed about the proverbial “what to expect.” So why hadn’t I had any of this information ahead of time?

I started seeing a pelvic health physical therapist. But I also looked for a book. Any book that might explain what was going on in my body. After all, I had books about pregnancy, books about labor and delivery, books about feeding a baby, books about baby sleep, books about baby brain development.

There was nothing. A void in the bookshelves where a book specifically about my postpartum body might be. So I figured, I’m a writer, I might as well be the one to write it.

In 2019 I started a doc called “Postpartum Body Book” and made

What I hadn’t previously known was that she was a literary agent. I had been trying to get representation for years! I sent her a note and asked if she would read a book proposal.

Not that proposal, though. Ruth and I were nowhere near that point. I sent her a proposal for a memoir about moving to North Haven (it’s still up for grabs if anyone thinks that sounds fantastic!). She read it, gave excellent feedback, passed on it, and asked a fateful question:

“So what else are you working on?”

I listed a few other projects—a perpetually revised middle-grade novel, a children’s book. Then there was this thing Ruth and I were working on—a book about postpartum recovery.

Anna snapped to attention. “That’s the one. Put all your energy there. Let me know how I can help.”

Thus mandated, Ruth and I began conducting hundreds of hours of interviews with postpartum people, experts in the field, and instructors and coaches of various athletics. We completed a proposal with Anna’s support and representation, and she deftly had it in front of prospective publishers and sold in what seemed like a startlingly short amount of time.

THE REAL WORK BEGAN. We interviewed, researched, wrote, and revised for a year. We hired an illustrator to create the first-of-theirkind illustrations of pelvic floor anatomy that we included in the book. Bill spent a hilarious afternoon with us photographing various exercise demonstrations on the Waterman’s stage. We went through several passes with the editors, then a copy editor. We approved the design and hired a voice actor for the audiobook.

And then, we waited. And finally, on June 4, 2024—seven years since my trip to New York— every postpartum person could finally hold in their hands what I had wished for back then: a book just for me, about me and my postpartum body, a field guide to what the heck had happened and how to make it all work a little better.

the book cover, the voice actor—were done, and now we were at the whims of the public. Would there be any backlash around the fact that I, a public school teacher, had my name on a book that included a chapter on returning to intimacy? I had a lot of personal anecdotes about bodily woes in there; would those come back to bite me in some way?

We’d had some good advice from writer friends and our agent about how weird it might feel to have the book out in the world.

We’d had some good advice from writer friends and our agent about how weird it might feel to have the book out in the world. All the parts we could control— how it was written, what we included,

Happily, so far, we’ve heard positive responses to the book, usually something along the lines of how much people wish it had been out when they were newly postpartum, or expressing gratitude that it now exists.

With each podcast episode, Instagram post, and review we are reaching more and more people for whom the book will hopefully offer some empowerment and healing.

Courtney Naliboff lives on North Haven with her husband Bill Trevaskis and their daughter Penrose, where she teaches music, writing, and drama. She also plays in the band Bait Bag. She may be reached at Courtney. Naliboff@gmail.com.

Courtney Naliboff with her book.

Housing innovation gets in gear

Experts encourage regional collaboration, new resources

BY SARAH CRAIGHEAD DEDMON

Living on one of Maine’s 15 unbridged islands brings challenges which inspired Isle au Haut to create its own try-before-you-buy affordable housing program in the 1990s, and it’s still paying dividends today. Kipp Quinby first came to Isle au Haut as a child through the affordable rental program.

“The Isle au Haut Community Development Corporation (ICDC) started as a solution to the lack of housing,” said Quinby, now the teacher in the island’s one-room school. “A number of us who live here came here through the program or as children with the program. Some of our families no longer live here, but folks come back.”

It works like this—anyone interested in exploring life on Isle au Haut completes an application and when an opening occurs, they could be offered an affordable rental in one of four properties owned by ICDC. They can live there until they find permanent housing on the island or decide it isn’t for them.

“Since we, like most small communities, are constantly worried about population and school enrollment, this is one of the ways we can give folks to come and give it a shot,” said Quinby.

The program predates today’s housing crisis by decades. Today, communities across the state are working on solutions to address a historic housing shortage, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In September, the state released its Statewide Regional Housing and Production Goals study, quantifying the crisis. To correct “historic underproduction” Maine needs to build 38,500 homes. To keep up with ongoing needs, Maine will need an additional 37,900 to 45,800 units by 2030, a total of 76,900 to 84,300 homes built over the next six years.

Last year, Maine issued 6,183 building permits according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and is on track to do the same this year. That’s roughly half the amount needed to reach statewide housing goals.

Reaching that target will require all hands on deck and to reach it gracefully, says Nancy Smith, communities should take time to think about development in a strategic way. As CEO of the nonprofit GrowSmart Maine, Smith has been working to help Mainers think about smart growth and land use planning for almost 15 years.

“And what’s happened in Maine with the additional people moving here, and with more people returning here, is that suddenly land use and smart growth are at the center of conversations,” says Smith.

Unlike previous housing crises centered in cities, today many of those conversations are happening in rural towns with limited capacity for planning, and limited housing supplies. Seeing that, last year GrowSmart, together with key partners, kicked off the three-year, three-meeting Building Community Strength training program for ten rural communities. Last month, trainees convened for the second workshop, this time in Machias.

“It’s about building the capacity of the trainees so they can go back and work what they learn into their town’s processes, whether into a comprehensive plan or a special municipal housing strategy,” says Harald Bauer Bredesen, GrowSmart program director.

“But we’re also trying to connect them, to share their experience and perspectives and build long-term relationships,” Bredesen says. “Maybe eventually, they’ll build regional approaches to things together.”

In Machias, Noel Musson shared a successful regional approach to solving one of the state’s most well-known housing issues. The MDI Housing Solutions Initiative, formed by The Musson Group and Island Housing Trust, has drawn together all four towns on Mount Desert Island, including Bar Harbor.

Together, those communities host Acadia National Park’s 3.5 million annual visitors.

“Our company does a lot of work around MDI and in other places in the state of Maine,” said Musson. “We happened to be in a position where we could take a step back and say, ‘Look these towns share a lot of common issues. This isn’t an issue Bar Harbor can solve by itself and it shouldn’t have to.”

Musson laughs as he presents a hand-drawn slide to the trainees in Machias. It may be simple, but it effectively illustrates nine dynamics compounding Maine’s housing shortage: land costs, interest rates, zoning, pandemic supply chain issues, building supply that hasn’t kept up with demand since 2008, building labor issues, fewer builders, second homes, and vacation rentals.

With so much complexity surrounding housing, for any community wishing to address the issue Musson recommends starting close to home. In the MDI Housing Solutions Initiative, Musson began

by holding two summits bringing a diverse range of stakeholders together in conversation.

“You have to start to ask yourself the questions, obviously we can’t do this ourselves, who are our partners in this project? Have that first step and have a meeting,” Musson says. “The process is almost as important, if not more important, than the product you’re going to get at the end of the day. Everybody has to feel like we made the right choice.”

Resources like the newly created Maine Office of Community Affairs (MOCA) can help towns plan, says Smith.

“It’s still in formation but it will offer one first stop for communities to go to when they’re looking for resources, whether it’s information, capacity, or funding, and I think that’s going to make a world of difference,” she says.

As communities set out to implement housing solutions, they should also familiarize themselves with LD 2003, says Ben Averill, who helped pen the statewide housing goals study in his role with the Department of Economic and Community Development.

The bill, passed in 2022, includes a provision on accessory dwelling units—secondary residences on a single-family property—that could help towns, says Averill. It sets a minimum size requirement—190 square feet—but sets no maximum, though the municipality may set one.

“That has the most ability to be the low-hanging fruit, the easiest way to help communities move forward with their housing challenges,” says Averill. “I think there’s a high potential. It’s an easy way to work towards edging out the housing crisis that we’re having across the state.”

Most Maine communities were asked to include LD 2003’s provisions in local ordinances.

Smith urges towns to incorporate smart-growth principles such as directing development toward existing communities, preserving open space and farmland, and encouraging community collaboration in development decisions.

“It’s such an exciting time because the state and federal government are recognizing the value of integrating plans for housing, transportation, and climate resilience, and there are resources for that,” says Smith. “I know small towns are feeling that sense of panic and being overwhelmed. But I want to stress that we should just take a deep breath. There are resources.”

Matinicus visit highlights coastal challenges

Unique versions of broader challenges identified

BY KIM HAMILTON

IF YOU’VE HAD the opportunity to fly in a four-seater Cessna from Owls Head to the island of Matinicus on Penobscot Airlines, like I did last month, you’ll know why it’s a trip worth taking.

On a clear day, Penobscot Bay stretches out in front of you with its magnificent array of islands and coastal communities on full display. Fifteen minutes after take-off, you’ll spot Matinicus and find yourself landing on an unpaved airstrip that seems impossibly short. It’s thrilling.

For the 50 or so people who call Matinicus home, however, and the even smaller number who spend all four seasons there, the airline is a lifeline. Matinicus, from the Abenaki word for “far out island,” is aptly named as it sits more than 20 miles off the coast and is the farthest year-round island on the East Coast.

Along with the Maine State Ferry Service, the airline is part of a complex puzzle that ensures communities like this—remote communities with a long marine history, deep family connections, and ardent seasonal residents—continue

to thrive against odds that are increasingly weighted against them.

Every island is different, but together they are living examples of small communities doing big things in the face of extraordinary challenges. Those mounting challenges include:

Housing: “Housing” is shorthand for a panoply of issues related not only to affordability but also to quality, workforce housing, water quality, and more broadly, community planning. On Matinicus, like other communities, it is inexorably linked to the sustainability of its small school.

Sea level rise and coastal erosion: Few places along the coast were untouched by the January storms. The profound loss of cultural touchstones and homes combined with the daunting cost to rebuild higher and stronger is an especially heavy burden for Maine’s smallest communities.

On Matinicus, homes and waterfront businesses took a hit, which further exacerbated economic pressures there. Securing federal and state assistance is difficult from this distance, but with perseverance, help is on its way.

My

passion for paddling

Kayaking offers

an

intimate

connection rock bound from the sea up

ocean

BY TOM GROENING

WE ARE INEXORABLY drawn to water. We embrace a quiet swim in a remote pond on a hot summer afternoon, revel in a dive into a pool. A soak in a hot tub or even a hot shower on a chilly morning can be sublime, and a winter’s walk on a sandy ocean beach or sitting beside a roaring steam in spring bestow the same rewards.

I suppose it’s not surprising we are drawn to water. We spend the first nine months of our lives floating in it.

My wife Gail swims laps in the ocean during the warm months and switches to the YMCA pool in the cold months. My favorite connection to the water world comes through kayaking.

Almost 30 years ago, family chipped in and bought me a tandem kayak. Gail and I hauled it to some favorite coastal spots, and I would take our kids out, one at a time. It was a good introduction, but when I took a course at Maine Sport Outfitters in Rockport with instructor Ben Fuller using a single kayak, I was converted.

The tandem felt like an ocean liner in comparison, and we sold it. About 20 years ago, my father bought me a single kayak, an Old Town Egret. It’s plastic,

and so if I ever paddled with folks with sleek fiberglass models, I might not be able to keep up.

But I paddle alone. I need a fair amount of solitary time, and kayaking is just the ticket.

It’s an intimate connection to the ocean. With a kayak, your butt is at or below the waterline. Your knees should be pressed against the underside of the hull, so you’re “wearing” the boat, as guides say.

Lakes are fine, but there’s something infinite about the ocean. It feels like a living, breathing thing, with the omnipresent forces of tide, wind, and wave. And they are often three distinct forces to contend with.

The first time I paddled from Castine Harbor up the Bagaduce River (a favorite trip), I arrived late and faced fighting the falling waters. But it wasn’t too bad. A couple of hours later I glided up to the reversing falls area by Bagaduce Lunch, and stared, incredulously at the water moving away from me. Had I misread the tide chart? I spoke to my Bangor Daily News editor and kayak guide Jeff Strout, who told me it takes that long for the tide to work its way up the river.

Circumnavigating islands is my thing. I’ve paddled around Long

Working waterfront protection: There is no marine economy without access to the sea. This is why investments in infrastructure, proactive policies, and supportive community attitudes are fundamental for families that have relied heavily on fishing as a mainstay. This also includes space to reimagine the full breadth of opportunities that can reinvigorate a working waterfront. Matinicus has ideas for that, too.

Predictable and affordable ferry service: This is a particular painpoint for island communities. Ferry disruptions, much like an impassable road on the mainland, sever lifelines. Seniors who need medical service can’t count on it.

Essential island services, like fuel delivery, are delayed, imperiling everyone. On Matinicus, the twohour ferry runs four times a month in the summer and once a month in the winter, making backup plans quite challenging.

Cleaner, affordable, resilient energy: These communities are at the forefront of more resilient energy solutions that lower costs and increase reliability.

New energy technologies, such as microgrids, solar, hydropower, and wind are components of longer-term solutions. Matinicus’ own energy system exemplifies the fragility and expense of old systems that can no longer be maintained. With commitment and ingenuity, they’re now poised for a solution.

At a time when despair would be an appropriate response to the challenges ahead, there wasn’t any to be found on Matinicus. Instead, as we left circling the island, I thought that Margaret Mead had it right: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” She must have visited Matinicus.

Kim Hamilton is president of Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. She may be contacted at khamilton@islandinstitute.org.

Island in Blue Hill Bay (10-plus miles) a couple of times, as well as around Bartlett Island off the west side of MDI. I’ve done Verona Island (too many low tide mudflats), Sears Island several times, and even Little Deer Isle.

For that one, I put in at the base of the bridge and timed the high tide so I could get my boat close to the causeway. I carried the boat— laughing at the scene I was making— as pickups whizzed by on Route 15. Still, a lovely day.

I’ve covered most of both shores of Eggemoggin Reach (slaloming around some of the islands near Naskeag). I had hoped this summer to do Bois Bubert Island off Milbridge. Tick-tock.

Southern Maine’s sandy shores haven’t worked out. Once, I paddled down the Scarborough River, out to Prout’s Neck, turned around and, on a stop upriver, glanced at my phone and saw that I was in fact on the (aptly named) Nonesuch River.

While we still had the tandem, we rented a couple of single boats and Gail and our daughter paddled the double while our son and I enjoyed the singles. We did two trips; one from Lincolnville to Islesboro, where we circumnavigated Seven-Hundred

Acre Island, and another from Seal Cove on MDI over to Southwest Harbor and back.

The Islesboro trip was fun, but on the way back, we had 4-foot following seas. A little dicey for our then-12-year-old son. These days I stay close to shore. I’ve never flipped, but I should brush up on my self-rescue skills.

When the water is cool, I stow sweatpants and a sweater to change into if I have to swim to shore. And I never take off my PFD while in the boat. The greatest danger, it seems to me, is getting hit by a boat whose captain is busy baiting traps. A lobsterman I know calls kayaks speed bumps. I’ve met couples in their 70s who paddle regularly, so I hope to be able to continue exploring for another decade. If only I had more time off…

Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront. He may be contacted at tgroening@islandinstitute.org.

HUNTING SEASON—

This photograph, titled “Tripp Ridge, Trescott, Maine” and dated 1978 was made by Christian Sunde (1939-2022). A large collection of Sunde’s photographs, negatives, and slides were recently given to the Tides Institute & Museum of Art in Eastport. Sunde lived and worked in eastern Washington County as well as elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad. The Tides Institute hosted a retrospective exhibit of his photographs in 2017. Thanks to the Tides Institute for use of the photo.

guest column

It’s time to nurture the teachers

A

plan to keep teachers from leaving

BY EMILY MCGINNIS

THERE’S NEVER BEEN a more stressful time to be a teacher. I say that as someone who worked in K-12 schools for more than 20 years, first as a teacher and then as a principal.

Educators enter the profession out of a passion for teaching and helping kids. But today, they’re leaving in droves. Between 2020 and 2022, about 300,000 public school teachers and staff quit. K-12 teachers have the highest burnout rate of any profession. Nearly a third are considering leaving the profession.

For the sake of the next generation, school districts and local governments need to figure out how to keep teachers in classrooms. Improved salaries would help—teachers are underpaid. But even that wouldn’t entirely solve the problem. We need to turn schools back into places where teachers want to be. Many of these institutions are no longer havens for learning.

Pressure on teachers has mounted over the years as society has made them scapegoats in cultural and political battles. They face unprecedented

Island Institute Board of Trustees

Kristin Howard, Chair

Doug Henderson, Vice-Chair

Kate Vogt, Treasurer, Chair of Finance Committee

Bryan Lewis, Secretary, Chair of Philanthropy Committee

Michael Sant, Chair of Governance Committee

Carol White, Chair of Programs Committee

Mike Boyd, Clerk

Sebastian Belle

John Conley

Shey Conover

David Cousens

Mike Felton

Des Fitzgerald

Christie Hallowell

Nadia Rosenthal

Mike Steinharter

John Bird (honorary)

Tom Glenn (honorary)

Joe Higdon (honorary)

Bobbie Sweet (honorary)

Kimberly A. Hamilton, PhD (ex officio)

their jobs

criticism from parents and governmental officials.

Stressors are also increasing inside. Schools are growing more violent. Since the pandemic, 38% of K-12 schools have seen an increase in physical violence between students, 45% have seen an increase in threats, and 37% report an increase in bullying.

The teacher shortage, along with staff cuts, force those who remain to take on more responsibilities—supervising morning drop-off, recess, or afterschool programs. Most teachers can’t afford to spend more time on the job. Already, more than 80% of teachers have worked a second job to help make ends meet.

Instead, states like Connecticut and Utah are slashing education budgets. Tennessee, South Carolina, and Oklahoma are considering rejecting billions in federal education funding.

Already, more than 80% of teachers have worked a second job to help make ends meet.

Burnout is a downward spiral. It drives teachers away, which increases the workload—and burnout—of those who stay.

Of course, the elephant in the classroom is money. Local and state governments must allocate more funding to their public schools.

Nearly $200 billion in COVID-era federal aid is set to expire soon. In Texas, lawmakers failed to approve teacher pay increases despite a $38.7 billion surplus.

We need to increase school funding to retain and attract more teachers. But how we go about using funds is just as important. Schools should prioritize hiring assistant teachers and tutoring services.

Even schools dealing with budget cuts can make changes to support their teachers. For instance, administrators can show teachers they value their expertise by standing behind their decisions when dealing with quarrelsome parents.

THE WORKING WATERFRONT

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It also makes a difference to respect their time. When I was a teacher, I’d often be up by 5 a.m., at school by 6:30 a.m., and home at 6 p.m., all while juggling family responsibilities—and preparing the next day’s lesson on my own time.

It doesn’t cost any money to have administrative staff take turns covering morning drop-off or lunch supervision. As a principal, I provided teachers with meals donated by local restaurants, freeing up time after work so they could enjoy dinner at home with their families.

If we care about children, we have to nurture their teachers. Too many have lost the joy of educating. By respecting their time and improving their workplaces, we can bring that joy back.

Emily McGinnis is the K-12 education market manager at KI, a furniture manufacturer in Green Bay, Wis. She previously spent 21 years as a teacher and principal in the Charlotte, N.C. area and holds masters degrees in teaching and school administration. This column first ran in the Dallas Morning News.

Editor: Tom Groening tgroening@islandinstitute.org

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BLUE ECONOMY

continued from page 1

term, Colgan said the blue economy could be understood in three components:

• The ocean economy: what comes from the ocean, including fishing, tourism, and recreation.

• Sustainability in extracting resources in the face of climate change.

• Technology arising from the ocean, including pharmaceuticals, aquaculture, and energy.

“Maine is pretty well-positioned in many ways,” Colgan said, but must ask itself, “How do we reinvent or invent new things to do with the ocean?” The three components he listed could be configured in different percentages for success, like a recipe, he said.

“It’s also about the land,” said Jim Damicis, senior vice president of Camoin Associates, also a speaker at

CUSHING’S POINT

continued from page 1

On July 31, PK filed contract zone and zoning map amendment applications for the waterfront site located at the end of Broadway and sandwiched between Bug Light Park and a tank farm storing petroleum products. Nearby are the Spring Point Marina and the Breakwater Condominiums.

The contract zoning provisions, and the map, describe precisely what uses would be permitted on the site and how PK intends to develop the project known as “Yard South.”

On its website, PK says the goal of the project is to establish “a mixeduse neighborhood” that would include “retail, commercial, industrial, community services,” provide access to the Fore River waterfront, and incorporate about 1,000 residential units.

Some of those units would be in buildings substantially taller than permitted under the current zoning which allows for buildings of approximately eight stories. According to PK, 100 units would be dedicated to

the event. “What you do on the land highly matters,” he said, and cited his work with the city of Bath on its municipal interface with its waterfront.

Labor, utilities, and geology are among the elements that must be considered and understood during change. Damicis likened that change to what has come in the state’s forest economy, saying it’s “less about pulp and paper” now. “The tree is still there and has value,” and the same will be true for the ocean.

was one possibility, Colgan said. An investment in recycling lobster shells as a new product, and other, unanticipated innovations, might bring new wealth.

“How do we reinvent or invent new things to do with the ocean?”

Carla Guenther, chief scientist at the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, asked about opportunities to retain traditional fisheries while welcoming new endeavors, which prompted Colgan’s grim prediction about the lobster fishery. Processing lobster on a large scale, which was considered decades ago by the former State Planning Office,

The lobster industry must shift away fossil fuel on its boats, given that among Maine fisheries, it produces the most greenhouse gases, Colgan said.

Yet with climate change, fisheries now thriving in the mid-Atlantic region will emerge in the Gulf of Maine, an opportunity for harvesters here.

Colgan noted that the current regulatory system wasn’t well-matched to the rapid changes that are coming with climate change.

He also said the state should consider creating a public infrastructure insurance fund “for a rainy day” to cover working waterfronts damaged by storms. “We in Maine need to insure our own assets,” he asserted.

Another prediction was that “40% to 60% of captured fisheries will be replaced by cultured,” or aquaculture production in the U.S., though he confessed that it was more guess than data driven. “China is by far the largest aquaculture producer in the world,” he added.

Aquaculture should be done on an industrial scale, Colgan said.

“Oysters and mussels on a rope aren’t going to do it,” he said, because the market for those products are luxury and niche. Producing a seafood consumed daily in large numbers, like chicken, would be a better economic outcome, which is why Colgan favors the kind of onshore recirculating aquaculture plants that have been proposed in Jonesport, Bucksport, and Belfast in recent years.

“affordable housing,” in partnership with the City’s Housing Authority.

No surprise, Yard South has generated substantial opposition in the South Portland community. Cathy Chapman, organizer of the group known as No Yard South, said that though she favors residential development in South Portland, the former shipyard site was a bad choice for housing.

“We support keeping the shipyard zoning for maritime uses,” Chapman said. “They’re much more appropriate to the area and more resilient to sea rise.”

Chapman said the proposed Yard South development was also inappropriate for residential use because of the presence of contaminated soil on the site dating back to its shipbuilding days.

Another group, Protect South Portland, claims the Department of Environmental Protection found evidence of benzene—a known carcinogen—in the vicinity of the site. The level of fumes, possibly emanating from the tank farm bordering the Yard South site, were higher than maximum safe levels set by Maine’s Ambient Air Guidelines.

The proximity of the tank farm also means, according to Protect South Portland, that an emergency evacuation plan would also be necessary for Yard South residents in the event of a spill, fire, or other problem at the storage facility.

Chapman also mentioned the need for an evacuation plan in the event of extreme flooding events which will likely become more frequent with climate-driven sea level rise.

A related problem, Chapman said, is the traffic that the addition of 1,000 housing units will put on South Portland’s already trafficchoked roads. She said the developers call for road improvements in their plans but have left the burden of paying for those improvements on city taxpayers. The costs of adding schools to service the population of the new residential units, she said, was also left to the taxpayers.

In September, the city delivered a 20-page “completeness review” of Yard South’s contract zoning application filed earlier in the summer to the developer. The review determined that the application was incomplete and

set out a list of questions and clarifications to which the developer will have to provide detailed answers before the city can proceed with its review. The letter addresses issues of sustainability, school, traffic, and public safety impacts as well as calling for more precise specifications for site design and proposed uses. No date for a response was mentioned.

With so many issues still to be resolved, Chapman said, No Yard South has asked the South Portland City Council to schedule a formal, public workshop on the requested zoning changes at which the organization will be allowed to present a detailed explanation of the grounds for its opposition to the massive development. In September, an informal community meeting organized by the group drew an audience of more than 100, Chapman said.

The council is scheduled to vote on No Yard South’s request at its meeting Oct. 15, after The Working Waterfront’s deadlines. Whatever the outcome of that vote, it is certain to be years before the first shovel touches ground at Yard South, if that ever actually happens.

Sifting DNA from ocean holds promise

New technology helps predict populations, threats

BY DAVID EMERSON

Mariners may claim the ocean is in their DNA, but it’s also literally true that the ocean is full of DNA. All ocean life—indeed, all aquatic life—sheds DNA into the water. The goal of the Maine eDNA project is to read the DNA that’s in the water to understand what it can tell us about what’s going on beneath the waves.

To refresh high school biology, DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, the molecule made up of four bases, A, G, C, and T for short. Different combinations of these four bases form the living blueprint that defines us all, from the tiniest microbe to the largest whale.

While the DNA molecule is shared by all species, it is differences in the arrangement of the four letters that help define one species from another, and small mutations in DNA can even distinguish one individual from another.

Thanks to years of work in DNA science, we have a variety of ways to quickly read millions of DNA sequences with great accuracy, or probe for species specific sequences in a complex DNA soup.

Collecting eDNA is its own kind of fishing expedition. We take samples of water from different depths, usually around a quart (a liter for metric buffs) and pass it through a very fine filter that catches all the particles including cells or parts of cells that may contain DNA. A chemical DNA extraction kit is used to capture only the DNA molecules from the filter.

With DNA in hand, there are a couple of choices. You can use a “general primer” to make millions of

copies of everything thing that’s there and then DNA sequence the lot to see who’s who, or you can use a “species specific primer” and make copies of only a single species.

In this latter case, the actual number of DNA copies you get back provides an estimate as to species abundance. Of course, I am glossing over a ton of details, and no shortage of devils that lie therein. As scientists we delight in outwitting the devils, even though some of them keep us up at night.

There are lots of applications for eDNA. A primary objective of the Maine eDNA project is to test the science behind these applications to find out what works and what doesn’t.

This project, funded the National Science Foundation, is a collaboration between the University of Maine and Bigelow Laboratory, and a host of other institutions around the state. Much of the money goes to support a new generation of scientists, graduate students, and undergrads who are testing these eDNA applications. Our ambition is to make Maine a research hotbed for eDNA, and for Maine to become the “eDNA coast.”

Detecting larval DNA is an interesting area we are exploring, especially if you can tell a larva from an adult based only on its genetic signature. This is important for scallops or mussels, since tracking larva can tell you the current status of the fishery, and what future years might look like.

Another project is focusing on kelp beds and how they are responding to the rapidly warming waters of the Gulf of Maine. Researchers are finding many more species of fish associated with kelp

forests using eDNA than are observed visually. This raises questions about whether these species are transient or using kelp as an important habitat.

As the seawater temperature warms, kelp forests in Southern Maine are giving way to other types of algae, so this raises the question about how these fish communities may respond.

A couple of graduate students are testing eDNA fish detection alongside the traditional trawl or accoustic surveys that the Department of Marine Resources uses to assess fish stocks. The goals aren’t so much to replace these traditional methods as to show that eDNA can deliver similar results and at cheaper cost. This could ultimately allow much more data to be collected for the same effort and improve the accuracy of fisheries surveys in predicting the impacts of fishing pressure on different species.

Someday it may be possible for commercial or recreational fishers themselves to conduct eDNA-based fish surveys using handheld devices, or even simple colormetric tests similar to the ubiquitous COVID tests.

Using eDNA for conservation and environmental monitoring is being

widely adopted across the U.S. and around the world. Federal agencies like NOAA, EPA, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are instituting eDNA tools in their various monitoring programs. In Maine, eDNA researchers are working with the DMR, the Department of Environmental Protection, and other state agencies. These agencies may adopt eDNA methods as standard practice.

In addition to government agencies, Maine eDNA researchers are working with lake associations, non-profits, and towns to help them track harmful algal blooms. We also are working with aquaculturists to help them monitor for possible pathogens, as well as predict locations that might be best for siting growing sites to reduce environmental impacts and maximize recruitment of natural setting species.

We are now in the last year of the NSF-funded project, but we are confident we are building capacity to keep Maine at the forefront of eDNA research and applications for years to come.

David Emerson is a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay.

From left, Friends of Acadia CEO and president Eric Stiles, Sen. Angus King, Friends of Acadia board member Anne Green, and Acadia National Park Superintendent Kevin Schneider pose for a photo before the Dane Farm ribbon cutting, heralding the Friends of Acadia’s completion of eight bedrooms on a 4-acre parcel at Dane Farm in Seal Harbor. PHOTO: EVIE LINANTUD/FRIENDS OF ACADIA

ACADIA HOUSING—

Herring Gut center honors Rademaker, Langston Noll

Six others nominated for Phyllis Wyeth Visionary Award

In August, Herring Gut Coastal Science Center honored two women active on the coast with an award named in honor of Phyllis Wyeth, founder of the educational center based in Port Clyde.

The Phyllis Wyeth Visionary Award was given to Anne Langston Noll and Sara Rademaker.

Langston Noll, as associate director of the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, leads and supports research, workforce development initiatives, education, and outreach projects across the state and beyond, said Herring Gut CEO Sarah Oktay.

“She also uses her own farm, Pemetic Sea Farms, as a platform for experimental work and teaching, often hosting visitors, students, and others curious about aquaculture and wanting to gain experience as they start a business or a career in the industry,” Oktay added.

Also honored was Sara Rademaker, owner/CEO at American Unagi.

“Sara has exemplified self-starting entrepreneurism and has carved out an entire new industry—America eel cultivation and grow-out from glass eels to smoked adults,” Oktay said. Rademaker was an educator at Herring Gut, 2009-2011.

Sara Rademaker, left, and Anne Langston Noll, winners of the Phyllis Wyeth Visionary Award.

The late Phyllis Wyeth, Oktay said, “had both the vision and the tenacity to pursue this dream of a place for kids to learn about the marine world and the communities of fishermen and lobstermen they came from. She saw into the future when aquaponics would be needed to feed the population and aquaculture could help support feeding our families sustainably while reducing overfishing.”

Wyeth, Oktay continued, “believed in education for all, in protecting our coasts and our maritime trades, in the power and ability of young people, and in strengthening our connection to the sea. She valued each person on their own merits.”

These people were nominated by their peers and those who benefited from their impactful contributions to the fields of marine science, marine education, aquaculture innovation and organization, fisheries, policy, and conservation

Six other key players in the marine and coastal economies were nominated for the award by peers for making contributions to marine science, marine education, aquaculture innovation and organization, fisheries, policy, and conservation.

They include:

Jaclyn Robidoux, marine extension associate at Maine Sea Grant, whose work drives public engagement with aquaculture and helps position Maine as a national leader in sea farming, including Maine Seaweed Week and

the Maine Oyster Trail. She is a role model, leader, and mentor to many in the aquaculture community.

Dana Morse, a senior extension program manager and aquaculture lead at Maine Sea Grant and University of Maine Coop Extension. Morse has worked at the intersection of commercial fishing and aquaculture, developing approaches that maximize the integration of these industries.

Susie Arnold, a senior ocean scientist at Island Institute, has worked for the organization for 12 years where she leverages her deep knowledge of Maine’s coast and the impacts of climate change on Maine’s fisheries and fishing communities.

Antonia (Toni) Small, an oyster farmer and owner of Ice House Oysters. She is an ambassador for the working waterfront in her interactions with the local community, but also throughout Maine, offering a realistic perspective of aquaculture development while respecting other types of fishing and harvesting of seafood.

Monique Coombs, director of community programs at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, has led efforts in the Midcoast to bring the public, fishermen, aquaculturists, and others together to talk about protecting working waterfronts. She is a smart and effective consensus builder who recognizes the importance of engaging with regional networks and educating communities about the working waterfront.

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Kate Stookey, president and CEO of Maine Coast Heritage Trust, has worked to preserve ecologically important salt marshes along the coast using real-time research to inform restoration practices that have the potential to enhance carbon storage and restore vitality.

For 25 years, Herring Gut has served a variety of students of all ages in the Midcoast and beyond. Kids come in for an hour, a day, a week, a semester, or year after year to learn about the width and breadth of the natural world and the people who depend on it. They learn about marine plants and animals,

our fisheries, how to grow food using fish waste, what changes are occuring in the sea with warming temperatures and ocean acidification, and what they can do to be informed and to help promote marine health.

The Herring Gut Coastal Science Center worked with 2,139 students in over 90 programs for a total of approximately 15,000 contact hours. The center works with kids in their classrooms year-round, then hosts afterschool programs at their campuses, and at Herring Gut. Each summer it offers weeklong camp programs and daily programs.

Tuesday–Saturday, 10 AM–5 PM

596-0701 386 Main St, Rockland, Maine

Students at the Herring Gut Coastal Science Center examine a crab from a safe distance.

PHOTO: HERRING GUT COASTAL SCIENCE CENTER

Lobster: From fresh to Ready Ready Seafood

in Saco processes Maine catch

If it isn’t boiled by the shore and consumed on a picnic table overlooking a Maine harbor, where does a lobster go when it leaves the dock? After leaving the waterfront by truck, it may be destined for Saco, home of Maine’s largest lobster processing facility, Ready Seafood. Ready Seafood was founded in 2004 by John and Brendan Ready, and they opened the 52,000 square-foot facility on Route 1 in Saco in 2019, where over 100,000 pounds of lobster—about 80,000 lobsters—are processed daily. Ready Seafood’s team of over 200 comes from all around the world, illustrative of the seafood economy’s dependence on its workforce of New Mainers.

PHOTO ESSAY BY JACK SULLIVAN

Live lobsters are dumped from their crates onto a conveyor belt.

Workers inspect lobsters and feed them into a machine which electrically stuns them before they are processed. Lobster at the Ready Seafood plant is processed both raw and cooked.

Workers sort, crack shells, and pick cooked lobster claw meat.

Curt Brown, Ready Seafood’s on-staff Marine Biologist is working on many collaborations to utilize lobster shells for value added applications.

Each worker plays a critical role in the lobster processing procedure. From cracking claws, to packing, to controlling quality, each skillset is highly specialized for maximum efficiency.

Lobster tails are packaged and flash frozen. Flash freezing is both efficient and allows the meat to maintain the right texture when thawed. Many of the frozen uncooked lobster tails are sold to the hospitality industry and to cruise ships.

Our Island Communities

New Matinicus boat commissioned

Penobscot tribal member honored with ferry name

THE MAINE Department of Transportation and Maine State Ferry Service commissioned the Charles Norman Shay ferry in Rockland on Sept. 12.

The 104-foot passenger and vehicle ferry, which will primarily serve Matinicus Isle, was designed by Gilbert Associates and built by Steiner Shipyard in Bayou la Batre, Ala. It has capacity to carry 149 passengers and seven cars. DOT paid approximately $11.7 million for the vessel.

The new ferry is named after a heroic Maine veteran and member of the Penobscot Nation who served as a combat medic during the D-Day invasion of France in 1944. Private Shay saved many lives on Omaha Beach and was awarded the Silver Star and French Legion of Honor for his service that day. He continued to serve on the front lines in many major battles of World War II.

After the war, Shay reenlisted in the military and would go on to serve in the Korean War, where he earned three Bronze Stars for his bravery. After retiring from the military as a master sergeant, Shay worked for 20 years at the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency.

In retirement, he has written and spoken extensively about his remarkable life experiences and military service. Shay, now 100, lives in France.

“Like the people of Matinicus Isle, Charles Norman Shay is a hearty and resilient Mainer,” said Bruce Van Note, DOT commissioner. “His life story is incredible, and his sacrifices helped make our country what it is today. It is our sincere hope that everyone who rides this vessel will pause to reflect on the debt our nation owes to people like Charles Norman Shay.”

Last year, residents of Matinicus Isle recommended to the Maine State Ferry Service Advisory Board that the island’s new vessel be named after Shay. Members of the Matinicus community wanted to recognize the Penobscots because of their presence on the island for centuries prior to the arrival of European settlers.

“We hope this is the beginning of an ongoing relationship with the Penobscot Nation—not just for Matinicus Island but for all the residents of this bay,” said Eva Murray, the Ferry Service Advisory Board member who represents Matinicus. “We endeavor to see the history of our part of Maine and all its people remembered with accuracy, depth, and respect.”

The Charles Norman Shay is the first Maine ferry vessel named for a Native American.

“A true hero for the Penobscot Nation and beyond, the life of Charles Norman Shay exemplifies selflessness, service, and humility,” said Maria Girouard, a member of the Penobscot Nation Tribal Council. “Our ancestors are smiling down on us.”

Tim Shay, his nephew, spoke at the ceremony:

“Charles Norman Shay is a great example of humility in my life, and I’m extremely proud to be his nephew,” he said “Let this vessel be the example of Charles Norman Shay’s life’s journey of 100 years, so far, to weather the ocean of Maine and to remind us that humility and pride can work together to live a good life no matter what comes.”

In a statement issued for the commissioning ceremony, Shay said:

“I feel very proud to have a boat bearing my name right where my ancestors had their summer encampment. I only wish now that my parents could be here and see what is going on. It makes me very proud being a part of your team and represent my tribe, the Penobscot Indians from Maine, at these functions.”

Tim Shay, nephew of Charles Norman Shay, for whom the new Matinicus ferry is named, speaks at the commissioning ceremony. PHOTO: COURTESY MAINE DOT

Charles Norman Shay. PHOTO: COURTESY SHAY FAMILY

The Charles Norman Shay underway. PHOTO: COURTESY MAINE DOT

DOT Commissioner Bruce Van Note speaks at the ceremony. PHOTO: ALEX ZIPPARO

Vinalhaven nonprofit starts housing project Initiative wins

Maine Housing grant of $840,000

WITH THE HELP of a $840,000 Maine Housing grant, the Vinalhaven Housing Initiative begins construction this fall on its first project to create affordable homes for islanders, yearround workers, and elders priced out of the housing market.

“It’s a crisis,” said Dylan Jackson, the group’s project director. “Soaring housing costs are driving year-round residents from their homes, forcing young people to move off-island, and altering the character of Maine’s largest unbridged working island.”

The nonprofit VHI was formed in 2023 with a mission to create yearround, affordable and sustainable housing for island residents. VHI’s initial project begins this month when the island’s ferry crew quarters, which was slated for demolition, will be moved to East Boston Road to join an existing VHI property with two rental apartments.

The crew quarters will be reconfigured to a three-bedroom family home, says VHI president Elin Elisofon. In addition, the property will feature a pre-built modular home, which will be brought to the island by barge and placed on its foundation.

“Depending on the size of the family and number of people in each

apartment,” Elison said, “there could be as many as ten or more individuals, including children and pets, living year-round in energy efficient housing, close to school, the library and the village center.”

Some village streets, traditionally lit up by year-round residents during winter months, are now dark as more houses have become second homes or shortterm rentals. The high demand for seasonal and investment properties—not only on Vinalhaven, but throughout Maine— has led to increased property prices and taxes that are untenable for those trying to make a living on the island.

“

Twelve miles off the coast of Rockland, Vinalhaven is known for its robust lobster fleet, but lifelong resident and VHI Board member Darline Beckman says the housing shortage is affecting the industry.

There are more and more fishermen going out without a stern man because there’s no housing for them…”

“This is an issue that affects us all,” says Jackson. “VHI is working to ensure that there is a place here for our elders and the next generation of islanders, as well as the teachers, tradesmen, fishermen, medical support staff, and the many working people who make our island home a viable offshore community.”

“I’ve worked a lot on the waterfront, and there are more and more fishermen going out without a stern man because there’s no housing for them. We all know it’s dangerous going out alone, and eventually some guys give up fishing if they can’t find the help. These are the people we’re counting on to be the workforce, but they’re hard hit.”

When Beckman graduated from Vinalhaven High School, she says she and her classmates could easily find an apartment.

“That has all changed in one generation.”

The Maine Housing grant and loan from the Genesis Fund do not cover the project’s operational costs, so VHI is launching a campaign to raise $200,000.

The nonprofit, with a volunteer board, also encourages donations of housing

and/or land to ensure affordable housing for coming generations.

Vinalhaven joins several unbridged Maine islands—including Islesboro, Isle au Haut, Monhegan, and North Haven—with nonprofits supporting affordable, year-round living.

Island Institute’s Alex Zipparo, who founded the Maine Island and Coastal Affordable Housing Coalition, says organizations like VHI are rare on the mainland, while islands have been leaders in this work out of necessity

“These community-led initiatives are a model for rural, inland towns that are now experiencing the housing challenges that islands have always faced. Islands were the innovators and now stand in unity with other rural communities grappling with housing affordability,” Zipparo said.

A 2022 report by Maine State Housing Authority found that “the average house price in Maine is unaffordable to the average income household in all Maine counties, except Aroostook.”

Vinalhaven’s heritage is at stake with the housing crisis.

“For hundreds of years, Vinalhaven has been a working, multi-generational community,” said Jackson. “Without available housing, this culture may be a thing of the past.”

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book reviews

Why deadly storms aren’t so super

The new normal was here before Helene, Milton

Category Five: Superstorms and the Warming Oceans That Feed Them

By

Porter Fox (Little, Brown 2024)

REVIEW BY TINA COHEN

I FOUND Porter Fox’s Category Five: Superstorms and the Warming Oceans That Feed Them a riveting read. So much so, I think I lost focus, experiencing the book more as a series of edge-of-theseat stories packing thrills in its survival stories from deadly storms at sea. It’s akin to an experience in which you momentarily throw reality out the window, only aware of the visceral experience of fear. You’re not focused on all the horror and damage and trauma for the humans involved, and certainly not how things got that way. The thrum of adrenaline pumping can be a thrill in itself. And so my first reaction to Fox’s book was “Whew! I survived!” Secondarily, I learned super storms really are becoming the new normal.

The New York Times published an op-ed column by Fox on Oct. 11,

the day Milton hit the Gulf Coast of Florida. If Fox’s book had been written now, after the two back-to-back storms of Helene and Milton, there would have been two more examples to add to his warning that supercharged hurricanes are no longer outliers, freak disasters, or so-called “storms of the century.”

Fox is quite explicit, explaining: “Fossil fuel pollution has made them more than a fixture of life around the world, and they are going to get worse, with millions of people in their crosshairs.”

Fox is a lifelong sailor, and spent his earliest years in Southwest Harbor where his father designed and built sailboats at Able Marine. He describes himself as someone who is lucky to be alive, given the storms at sea he’s survived, and that it isn’t his expertise that saved him.

He pays homage to sailors better trained and more skilled than he, and he has tried to learn from them—in classes, cruising, or from their books. Fox offers vivid descriptions of the damage storms will do. He imagines that the “most powerful storm ever seen on Earth will form from a cluster of convective supercells sometime around 2100.” It will follow years filled with

droughts, wildfires, floods, famines, and sea level rise. Average U.S temperatures will have by then climbed an additional eight degrees Fahrenheit.

“Freak tornadoes, blizzards, and massive midlatitude cyclones will have become the norm, bringing nearconstant natural disaster to North America,” he writes.

Personally, while I’d rather be whiteknuckled reading a book of sailing stories, I think this is his point—We need to boldly face our likely future and think about how to improve things before it gets that bad.

Fox thinks a better understanding of the role of our planet’s oceans and what carbon emissions are doing is a good start. As waters warm, they will feed stronger storms and therefore do greater damage. Fox thinks Americans are particularly in denial about “the concept of changing weather” and that “it appears baked into our common psyche.”

My initial reaction to Category Five focused on the thrilling sailing sequences. But Hurricane Milton intervened, leading to some self-reflection. Since Fox includes climate science and ocean data in the book, why was I paying less attention to that?

Writer’s voice strong in Strout’s latest

The

power of storytelling is a theme

BY TINA COHEN

Tell Me Everything

By Elizabeth Strout. (Random House, 2024)

TELL ME EVERYTHING is Elizabeth Strout’s tenth novel, again set in Maine. As seems the case with her earlier editions, the cover art hints at themes. Here, two chickadees on a tree limb not only connote Maine but suggest a couple of lovebirds, sharing the branch in proximity.

And yes, we get a lot of couples in this book, mostly ones we’ve met before: some married spouses, some close friends. Olive Kitteridge is back, and Lucy Barton, and the Burgess brothers and spouses, and a few new characters whose family stories and recent events add some mystery.

I’ve read all Strout’s books and reviewed most of them. I appreciate what Strout might be doing here, injecting what seems to be a writer’s voice. We are more aware that someone—as if an omniscient narrator—is telling us this story. That stories are important is echoed by other characters in the book.

Lucy and Olive meet up periodically to share stories, in a kind of ritualistic event. And the book has multiple characters seeing therapists; all seem to be helped by sharing their stories.

The book’s title—Tell Me Everything suggests what a therapist might invite.

In one early passage, Bob Burgess, still taking occasional walks with Lucy, has mentioned that Olive has a story to tell her she’d like. Meeting each other, Olive tells Lucy she doesn’t look anything like her author’s portrait in her books and Lucy says, with a shrug, she knows—it was taken by a professional photographer years ago. Her hair might have been blond then but no longer is.

It’s an interesting exchange. Olive, so blunt, could have intended her observation as an insult, or, it could have been received as one. Yet Lucy deflects it, agreeing with Olive and unbothered by the insinuation the photograph might make Lucy look prettier than she is.

I love those lines! Lucy seems to be Strout’s stand-in, referencing comments from some critics that her stories focus on the ordinary, and nothing of consequence. But Olive and Lucy both see value in not just paying attention to “uneventful” events, but the value of sharing them. Stories connect people.

More than in previous novels, Strout interjects comments that seem unattributed to any particular character. They aren’t in quotation marks and haven’t been uttered or even thought by someone specific, as far as we can tell.

It’s an interesting exchange. Olive, so blunt, could have intended her observation as an insult, or, it could have been received as one.

Olive begins to hedge on telling her story, saying it may not be worth telling, and Lucy says, “Well, tell me anyway.”

One example: “There are many back roads in Maine. Meaning narrow tarred roads with trees reaching overhead from both sides, and the roads themselves are often filled with bumps from the long winters of freezing and then thawing. These roads wind around from one town to another, and if you are not familiar with them it is easy enough to get lost. But most of the people who are on these curving back roads know exactly where they are going, and in November there can be a stark beauty as you drive along these places...

I was uncomfortable; in denial, happy to be distracted from worrying about warming oceans.

As far as feeling safe, I expect I can and would choose to avoid being on a sailboat during a hurricane. But is there any way I can avoid the trajectory of climate change, with carbon emissions soaring?

There will be future generations—my grandchildren for example—who most likely will be unable to enjoy life on Vinalhaven the way I have because of increased erosion and flooding. Two storm surges last winter flooded downtown and damaged lobstering infrastructure of docks and floats.

A plan to avoid destruction of our downtown—where many islanders live, work, and shop—has mixed support from islanders.

While it may not be me or you in a storm-tossed sailboat, we will likely and unavoidably be impacted by climate change. We’ll have stronger storms because more energy is drawn into weather systems as they pass over warmer ocean waters. Fox sounds an important warning in a text managing to be both entertaining and educational.

Tina Cohen lives part of the year on Vinalhaven.

“It might be fair to say that people who have lived there for years take this beauty internally; it enters them without their fully knowing it. But it is there; it is part of the landscape of their lives.”

Is that a description about more than back roads? I imagine it describing Strout’s books: “If you are not familiar with them it is easy enough to get lost.” Lost among characters, rather than places… maybe.

And the “stark beauty” of seeing bare trees, when their leaves no longer cover up what’s strong, and gives shape to, a tree from underneath. It makes me think of Strout herself, wanting to see the essence of people.

It makes sense Strout could be part of this book given the time she has spent with her characters and fictional settings, now stretching beyond two decades. I like that she essentially pays tribute to therapy.

Tell Me Everything has me seeing Strout re-creating or recommending some of what can occur in therapy— telling stories is a means of healing. It seems implied; all of us would benefit from sharing our stories and hearing others.

Tina Cohen is a therapist who spends part of the year on Vinalhaven.

guest column

The best things…

A life list of free boats

BY DAVID D. PLATT

“THE BEST THINGS in life are free,” the saying goes. It’s true, in my experience— good friends, nice weather, positive experiences, great memories, the beauties of nature. I could go on, but you should draw up your own list of freebies.

Boats are an exception, you might think. They can cost you big bucks; “holes in the water into which you pour money” is one way to put it. “B.O.A.T.— Bring Out Another Thousand,” is another saying I’ve quoted myself.

But experience, that greatest of teachers if you let it, and if you’re lucky, can bring you to an entirely different conclusion: that the best boats are free.

I should know because over the years I’ve had several. Way back in the last century when I was about 10 years old, I discovered the pleasures of a wonderfulsmelling old rowboat under our summer cottage. It had been there off and on for a very long time, painted (or not), launched into and hauled out of Penobscot Bay since my grandparents’ day.

With help from parents, older siblings, and others, it got launched and moored again. In it, with the help of others, I learned to row. The experience and the boat were free to me, at least, and together they changed my life. I know that today because I’ve been rowing ever since.

The next free boat came along a couple of years later in Columbus, Ohio, where my father and I built a Penguin-class sailboat from a kit. The job took us two years and messed up our family house there (our shipyard was on the porch and the boat’s bow stuck into the living room, where Mom would drape something over it when she entertained). Pop and I persevered, and eventually we launched our creation and went sailing.

The whole experience, again free to me at least, was transformative. I’ve been an amateur boat builder and sailor ever since. I still have clamps and other tools Pop procured for that project.

Then my brother and I, perhaps inspired by the Penguin, put together a second kit—an 8-foot pram, painted bright red, for use as a tender for a sailboat we chartered in Maine one

summer. Success brought more boat time, again (in my case) free.

More life lived, more free- or nearlyfree boats. Still in Ohio, a wood Comet sailboat that had belonged to a friend of my father’s, in need of new decks and a paint job that I did, gained me access to it once the work was done. I sailed that boat for several seasons at no cost to me but my time.

In Maine, I won a Puffin fiberglass dinghy as a door prize at the then-new YMCA in Freeport. I swam at the Y for years afterward, and row or tow that little boat to this day.

Then, tragedy with a silver lining: one day in Yarmouth, I got a phone call from the Falmouth harbormaster reporting that a sailboat (not free) I’d moored there had been damaged when another boat dragged into it. Down I drove to find my boat with a hole in the bow—above the waterline, but big enough to convince a surveyor and my insurance company to declare my boat a total loss.

I had to give up the boat to get the payoff, of course, but to this day I think I’m the only skipper in history to have made money on his boat. I took the money and went shopping for the boat I’d always coveted: something big and seaworthy enough to sail to Florida, perhaps beyond. The extra dough sloshing around in my pockets, plus a loan, got me Karma, the Sparkman & Stephens 40-footer aboard which I eventually made my Big One. Karma may not have been free, but she freed me.

Back from a months-long cruise during which I met the woman who’s now my wife, I eventually put the proceeds from Karma’s sale into a house project and became—but for my free dinghy and the old rowboat in Penobscot Bay—boatless.

You’ll perhaps recall the Viking proverb “bound is the boatless man.” Given that I’m me, that sad state didn’t last long. A friend who’d heard I was beached offered me a new boat project, free of course. Gift is what I named the hulk I hauled out of my friend’s driveway.

This boat, a small wooden sloop, had sat just long enough in a derelict state to need everything: deck beams, decks, centerboard trunk, some ribs,

a mast, and a paint job… you name it, I did it. For free. Lots of fun, a great exercise in boatbuilding. I enjoyed every minute and even went sailing a few times. I did get tired of pumping and bailing due to Gift’s leaky seams, and eventually I sold her.

I built a Gloucester Gull dory from plans (free) and rowed it before giving it to my granddaughter. I then bought a sailboat kit (not free) and assembled it for my grandson.

Two free or reduced-price boats to go: a Jarvis Newman rowboat in need of repairs that I’ve fixed up and still

row regularly with a new pair of oars I made from plans in WoodenBoat magazine. And a Cape Dory Typhoon I bought as a refinished hull and a pile of parts at a bargain price.

For the past two summers, Right Now and Hot Sauce have constituted my fleet. Both perform well, extremely well if you consider what I paid for each. Free or nearly free—to me at least—seems a reasonable way to think about boats.

David D. Platt is a former editor of The Working Waterfront

saltwater cure

New trails, new views

Familiar territory of park is reintroduced

BY COURTNEY NALIBOFF

I’VE WALKED through Mullins Head park hundreds, maybe thousands of times in the almost 20 years I’ve lived on North Haven.

The entrance is next to my house, the dirt road leads tantalizingly to five beautiful and often empty beaches. The 2.4-mile loop is an easy run, and the unplowed road in the winter is a perfect cross-country ski track. It’s familiar territory.

Which is why, on a walk this summer with a New York friend and her two boys, we halted at the site of new red blazes on each side of the road, before we’d reached the field, beckoning us down a trail I’d never seen before.

The boys were intrigued. We’d planned to walk the loop, but this was irresistible, a little path between some young birch trees. Should we go right, or left?

Left seemed like it might wind up back at my house, so we opted for the right-hand path. It was narrow and rock-strewn, but cleanly cut and well-marked with more red blazes and ribbons. The sensation of walking down an unknown route was disorienting and adventuresome. It’s tempting to

believe that one can truly know a place after some years of habitation, but North Haven continues to surprise me.

We traversed a wooden plank over a small bog, then banked up a rocky outcropping. We went back down between some juniper bushes, and finally up again, standing on the lichen-crusted basalt and admiring the view of the ocean afforded from this height. Where were we? Where would we emerge?

We pressed on, looping down through milkweed patches and stopping to notice monarch caterpillars and pick a few early blackberries. We crossed a dry stream bed and walked alongside a stone wall, finally arriving back at the road by a large tree. We had gone almost all the way through the park to the exit, but via a completely new-to-me route.

In a Robert Frost mood a few weeks later, I took the trail to the left. It was as well-maintained as its counterpart, sending the perambulator through dense ferns, along stone walls, and amongst hardwood trees.

I am no genius at mapping, and although I felt that the twists and turns of the path would eventually lead back to my house, I was surprised to find the

glint of the ocean through the woods in front of me after about a half hour of walking.

I popped out between the trees onto a beach, covered in familiar smooth blue stones. I looked to my right: picnic tables. I had, by some mysterious art of trail making, arrived at Big Beach. I followed the familiar dirt road back to the entrance and home.

I suppose that there was some public notice of the new trails, presumably in the North Haven News, but I missed it, so the new trails seemed like an unexpected gift.

And what a gift! Through their hours of clearing and blazing, the park commissioners have given the community both a new way to support our mental and physical health through walking in the woods, and a new way of seeing the island.

For the real woods-walking enthusiast, the new trail to Big Beach offers a wonderful opportunity: a coastal walk of nearly 3 miles of trail, the longest I’m aware of on the island, plus about a mile on the park road. To complete it, the walker can begin at the left-hand trailhead, walk down it to Big Beach, then walk the length of the beach. There, a

journal of an island kitchen

Cooking on wood

Choice works for dishes prepared slowly

BY SANDY OLIVER

LAST WEEKEND we stacked firewood in the barn, collecting and piling small pieces separately for kindling. Over the 30-plus years I’ve cooked on a wood burning kitchen stove, I’ve gotten mighty fussy about firewood, and can tell just by looking at a stick whether it will fit the kitchen stove or the living room stove. Whether it’s soft or hardwood determines when I use it and the weather often determines the menu.

Pictures of our island from the last half of the 1800s and early 1900s show wide vistas of virtually treeless land. Wood harvesting, not just on islands, but throughout all of Maine famously for the mast trade and the lumbering industry, for making fields for pasturing and growing, and warming homes here and even elsewhere, cleared the land.

it fit perfectly in the space behind the stove between the boxed-in kitchen chimney and the wood room door, and its paint color matches the wall underneath peeling wallpaper. (The Bunkers used the same paint color in the privy.)

I suspect, though, that, as wood became scarce, Adrianna may have switched to coal at some point for at least one of the stoves that heated her home.

Nowadays, there are lots of trees growing here, mostly softwood perfectly OK for shoulder seasons, and the occasional oak, ash, and maple. For solid hardwood we’ve bought firewood from the mainland and cut birch, red maple, and even poplar from the property.

Recent ferry fare increases turned mainland firewood into a pricey proposition, so for now we rely on local supply.

Adrianna Bunker, who lived in this house before me, stored firewood in a green painted box. We found it in the dining room when we first moved in and moved it into the kitchen where

Unsuitable for heating, aging softwood that toppled over in many storms fills the woods here with masses of what look like pick-up sticks, is better suited as habitats for small creatures and microorganisms.

Recent ferry fare increases turned mainland firewood into a pricey proposition, so for now we rely on local supply. Several neighbors acquired pellet stoves

trail picks up as a mown grass path and continues through the woods to Boy Scout, the next beach in the chain.

After walking the length of Boy Scout, a trail entrance is easily seen connecting to Vista, a lookout point. This part of the trail is the best known and most dramatic and includes a little bit of a cliff walk with a safety rope. From Vista, the park road reconnects. I did this walk by myself in late summer, almost completely alone except for an odd trio napping and looking at their phones at the Vista picnic table. I say alone, but I was well accompanied by the ocean, which accommodated me for a quick dip at Big Beach, a few shy garter snakes, a red squirrel, and the clouds of birds enlivening the woods.

For them, these ways of seeing North Haven have always been accessible, and they’re generous to share it with us.

Courtney Naliboff teaches at North Haven Community School, plays in the band Bait Bag, and writs on North Haven. She may be contacted at Courtney.Naliboff@gmail.com.

and let a few mainland companies deliver it by the pallet. As time goes by, I may have to do that, too, or rely more on my solar panels to generate electric heat.

But you can’t really cook well on a pellet stove.

Lots of our old traditional Maine dishes assumed long, slow cooking. Baked beans, stewy soupy dishes, steamed puddings, and brown bread, which bubbled in hot water for a couple of hours, are not preferred activities conducted on metered or tanked energy.

When the temperature outside declines enough that a continuous woodstove fire is more than welcome, out come the chili, soup, and stew cookpots. It’s a good time to make more than we’ll eat in a couple days. At that point, glass peanut butter or canning jars full of deliberate excess becomes homemade fast-food stashed in the freezer for milder weather.

Otherwise, anything else fries, simmers, stews on the hot surface. A kettle of water humming on the back of the stove means a hot cup of tea on demand. Enough variations in temperature over the surface means that you can bring your oatmeal or rice to a boil, then shove it over to simmer along until done.

Lift one of the stove lids, and hot coals are perfect for grilling. I set a wok in the opening for stir fries. Of course, one can

do this on a gas grill, too, but when it is very cold, I prefer being inside.

In fact, when the forecast predicts very low temperatures for a couple of days, I soak beans to bake a pot full. My elderly stove no longer climbs to the heat needed for baking pie or a pan of biscuits. It will, however, maintain 200 to 250 when the stove is roaring along, sufficient to cook beans tucked into the back corner nearest the firebox.

I love the stove as a place to dry freshly washed pots and pans. Set a big old cook pot, soaking wet on the surface with a great rattle and hiss of steam and seconds later, I can put it away.

Evidence of cooking on wood and heating the house with it for three decades finally showed up in my body. Try as I might to switch off, I usually carry wood in my left arm and fill it with my right hand. As a result, my left shoulder is higher than my right, and so some of my clothes pucker oddly in the front.

You know what? I don’t care. I like cooking on wood.

Sandy Oliver is a food historian who gardens, cooks, and writes on Islesboro. She may be contacted at SandyOliver47@gmail.com.

Fernalds’ fall firewood ritual

Key fishing gear makes the process smooth cranberry report

BY BARBARA FERNALD

The islands are pretty active in October as most of us get ready for winter. This year, summer lingered beyond September and we’re off to a gorgeous beginning of a chorefilled month. The weather is so beautiful that there is no hardship in being outdoors to do the fall jobs.

At our house we begin with the firewood. Bruce has already started filling the woodshed with softwood that has been drying for a year in rows outside. Adjacent are rows of hardwood, cut and split in 2023. They will be moved and stored in another spot to stay dry and convenient on winter nights.

Bruce has devised a clever system for getting two cords of wood into the basement in sizes that are easy to manage. He couldn’t do it without an item that we will utilize all fall—the shrimp tray. At least that’s what locals call it.

A shrimp tray is a heavy-duty plastic container, 28-inches long, 16-inches wide, and 14-inches high. Kind of like a rugged oversized laundry basket without holes. The handles on each end are designed to allow the trays to

be either stacked when full or nested for storage when empty.

On the lobster boat, Bruce uses them to store bait, lobsters, rope, or whatever. On the island you see them by the co-op, near houses, on the floats, near gardens, and near workshops. If you see a lineup of these totes filled with wood in our back yard, here’s what we’re doing with them:

Bruce fills the shrimp trays with hardwood and drags them by rope to the cellar door. There he heaves them onto a wooden rail that he built to fit over the bulkhead stairs. The trays weigh about 75 pounds when filled with hardwood and they gather a fair amount of momentum coming into the basement on a 45-degree angle.

The sound of heavy, hard plastic being thrown onto a wooden ramp and sliding 10 feet across the cement floor is a call to start my job of stacking. I can easily pull the full tote across the smooth floor and soon I am tossing empty totes back up the stairs and out onto the lawn, ready for their next loads.

When we’re finished with the wood, it’s time to gather seaweed for the garden. I haven’t done this in four

observer

years so I’m especially committed to it this year.

We’ll pack ten of the empty shrimp trays in the back of Bruce’s truck and drive to a spot where seaweed sits and decomposes at high tide after storms. With pitchforks in hand and boots on our feet we drag the totes to the middle of the seaweed and start loading them.

It’s harder to drag them full, back up over rocks to the truck, but easier to lift them together up over the tailgate. It’s pretty satisfying to be able to get 500 pounds of seaweed in an afternoon.

The shrimp trays will once again get rinsed and stacked but I’ll set aside three that are cracked along the bottom or have holes. These are the trays I’ll use to “make dirt” for containers in my green house.

I’ll fill them halfway from the semicomposted dumping spot at the edge of our woods where leaves, weeds, and grass clippings have gone for years. I’ll add in any leftover soil from summer planters and cover it all with a thick pile of leaves.

I’ll top that with a nice thick layer of seaweed. I’ll water it and stick it in the empty greenhouse for the winter. By spring I’ll stir it up a little, then throw a

bag of potting soil on top and I’ll plant some lettuce seeds.

Shrimp trays have been a part of life that I never really thought about until I was trying to come up with a topic for this column while simultaneously stacking wood in the basement. I just took them for granted. I googled the term to try to find more information as to price and availability, but all I could find were offers of shrimp cocktail or the platters on which to serve it!

If you’re experiencing shrimp tray envy from hearing how useful they are, never fear. I persevered. They are called “85-liter fish totes” and are available at Hamilton Marine for $33.99. They also make a great little vehicle for pulling small children around in the snow. Winter is coming!

Barbara Fernald lives on Islesford (Little Cranberry Island). She may be contacted at Fernald244@gmail.com.

Remembering Lonnie and the Gawker

Against tough odds, he kept cooking

BY PHIL CROSSMAN

A MAN POSSESSED of a measure of resilience way beyond nearly anything the rest of us will ever have to muster, or need to, died on Sept. 29. Before that unexpected departure, however, Lonnie Morton and his devoted wife Kathy brought together and—for 20 precious and memorable years—sustained community and fellowship around a legendary and satisfying dining venue that was the Harbor Gawker.

The Gawker followed on the heels of the Mill Race, a similarly magical and communal dining adventure, featuring weekly sing-along evenings hosted by four loved and local talented musicians and overseen by John and Barbara Morton, Lonnie’s dad and stepmom, and it too gave us 20 memorable years.

I’ve written before about Kathy and Lonnie’s astonishing accomplishments and their perseverance in the face of so many obstacles. Certainly, the most profound of these was Lonnie’s 2002 diagnosis when he was found to be—I’m tempted to say “suffering from” but that would not at all describe this most determined and resilient

man—afflicted with Buerger’s Disease, an uncommon condition that causes blockages in blood vessels.

The Buerger’s persisted and he began to lose fingers and toes and eventually a lower leg to amputations. These were intended to save him from the infectious consequences of diminished blood flow to extremities even moderately injured by a minor encounter with a knife or open flame, wounds that happen all the time in a commercial kitchen, and that would require only a Band-Aid for anyone else.

He had been managing from an area in the kitchen where he could access a range, fryer, grill, oven, and related components, and create whichever of a seemingly impossible 140 entrees a diner might crave, but with one leg, it became difficult—difficult but not at all a deterrent. Rather, his determination and resilience grew in inverse proportion to his departing appendages.

When he lost his other leg, he simply had modifications made to kitchen gadgetry, and assumed command from a stool from which the backrest was removed so it wouldn’t interfere with his quickly twirling as much as 360 degrees from one station to another.

Perched on the magic stool, he managed the culinary wishes of 60 or 70 happy customers…

Perched on the magic stool, bellowing out to his wait staff, as he had for years, the name of each dish as it was readied, he managed the culinary wishes of 60 or 70 happy customers at any given moment. On a nice sunny day in the middle of July with a line that often extended around the corner and out onto the sidewalk, a waiting diner could glance it at Lonnie in his kitchen, a marvel to behold.

On Oct. 1, 2018, Lonnie, now with no legs and just a few fingers, put together one of several final meals— my favorite—the haddock and havarti sandwich, which I enjoyed and with a gusto that I’d reserved over the years for precisely that exquisite sandwich.

The season had passed, as it does every year on Labor Day, and I stood

with other year round islanders, each waiting for a final go at their own favorites, each adding their voices to the litany of grateful well-wishers who’d been stopping by to wish Lonnie and Kathy well and to tell them how much they and the Harbor Gawker had meant to them and to this island community.

“Fish and cheese,” Lonnie yelled from his perch, whereupon a responding waitperson, one of his devoted children or grandchildren, retrieved my sandwich from the kitchen and delivered it to me.

Several of us had taken a table in the far corner, next to the rushing water and, enjoying our last meal with bittersweet relish, we reminisced together about this place, about this extraordinary man and about the gift to us all that had been both Lonnie and the Harbor Gawker.

Phil Crossman lives on Vinalhaven. He may be contacted at PhilCrossman.vh@ gmail.com.

fathoming

Our ocean’s troubling plastic problem

Floating, sinking, it travels across the globe

BY JENNIFER SEAVEY

AS I STOOD on the Rockland breakwater, trying to pry a piece of Styrofoam from between two boulders, my Island Institute co-workers scoured the beach, picking up trash as part of the Maine Coastal Cleanup Program. With teamwork, we finally freed that stubborn piece of plastic and I felt a wave of relief wash over me—especially as shorebirds flitted about, preparing for their migration south.

Having worked as a seabird biologist earlier in my career, I understand the crucial role of removing plastic from the ocean. Although studies on the impact of plastic on Maine’s seabirds are limited, I’ve collaborated on some research that reveals a troubling trend: Maine seabirds, just like birds around the world, are ingesting plastic, and this can lead to their demise. Seabirds act as canaries in the “ocean coal mine,” highlighting the broader issues affecting marine ecosystems.

Scientists estimate that between five to 125 trillion pieces of plastic larger than a grain of salt are currently in our oceans. About half of this plastic floats, allowing it to travel via river currents and oceanic circulation.

While most plastic washes ashore or sinks within a month, some plastic bottles have been traced thousands of miles away from their origin, influenced by storms and currents.

In regions where currents converge, such as the notorious Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the scale of the problem becomes evident—it’s currently estimated to be twice the size of Texas (620,000 square miles).

Even the plastic that sinks can travel significant distances. For instance, researchers have discovered plastic lunch bags seven miles deep in the Mariana Trench. Plastic is incredibly durable; a grocery bag can take 20 years to decompose, while a toothbrush or coffee pod may take up to 500 years.

cleaning up our oceans and addressing our plastic consumption.

That said, it’s essential to recognize the remarkable utility of plastic. Since 1869, plastic has served various beneficial purposes: replacing ivory in billiard balls, enhancing food safety, insulating homes, and even improving healthcare with products like syringes and heart valves. Its many life-enhancing uses are integral to modern life, yet we must use it more responsibly and explore environmentally friendly alternatives.

Researchers have discovered plastic lunch bags seven miles deep in the Mariana Trench.

Unfortunately, as plastic breaks down, it fragments into smaller pieces, making it easier for wildlife to ingest.

Plastic poses a deadly threat to marine life. While I won’t dwell on this, it’s important to acknowledge that ocean plastic is a significant hazard for endangered species like seals, turtles, and seabirds. We need to do better in

reflections

Maine is leading the way in responsible plastic use. Our regulations on singleuse plastic bags and foam containers, along with the pioneering Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging law, position us as a national leader in environmental policy.

Moreover, we are innovating in alternative plastic production, utilizing abundant local resources like wood, mushrooms, and seaweed—which we are skilled at growing in Maine. It is particularly exciting when we ponder

In

the face of change, towns must plan

Community vision guides municipal futures

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 ALICE COCKERHAM

A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN is a town’s 12-year road map. While it holds no enforceable regulatory power, it outlines where a community is, where it wants to go, and how it wants to get there. Simply put, it guides a town’s growth and change, following the community’s vision.

Staff at the Hancock County Planning Commission engage communities in the comprehensive planning process and encourage residents to envision a future for their towns. What comes of these discussions are goals and strategies which we then weave into the plan itself. For some communities, these are exciting conversations. We go back and forth about revitalized downtowns bustling with businesses, streets lined with sidewalks and bike lanes, equitable access to water bodies, and affordable housing for anyone who wants to call that community home.

For others, we are met with hesitancy, confusion, and pushback. Change is not embraced by many rural municipalities, and planning for a future anticipated to be different from what it is now is not always readily accepted.

Often, communities are motivated and inspired to write and adopt a comprehensive plan to prevent change, so we find ourselves working with input that discourages innovation, difference, and diversity. Committees, and communities as a whole, can get really hung up on the thought that planning for change means inviting or encouraging it, but that isn’t always the case.

As a multi-generational Mainer, I believe what makes this state special is that there has been such little change.

(which, unsurprisingly, looks basically the same!).

During the first year of my fellowship, I’ve worked on ten different comprehensive plans. As an outsider in most of these communities, it’s been a balancing act trying to encourage, not impose, innovative ideas about the ways small municipalities can adapt to growing populations, housing demands, and a changing climate.

As an outsider in most of these communities, it’s been a balancing act trying to encourage, not impose, innovative ideas…

I’ve had the opportunity to work with several local historians who share photos of their town and it’s amazing how recognizable places still are. Just a few months ago, I found an old photo of my apartment building in Blue Hill

what this could mean for the diversification of our timber and aquaculture industries as well as possible uses we can employ right here in Maine.

For example, we might replace the plastic we purposely put into the ocean in the form of buoys, bait bags, and rope used in our maritime industries. Mushroom buoys are being actively tested and used in aquaculture and the lobster industry and seaweed replacements are not far behind.

By literally growing the material by which we can reduce plastic in the ocean, Maine is not only tackling the plastic pollution problem but also paving the way for a more sustainable future. With continued effort and innovation, we can protect our oceans and wildlife for generations to come.

Jennifer Seavey is the chief programs officer at Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. She may be contacted at jseavey@islandinstitute.org.

Planning can feel like a “blue-sky,” unattainable practice at times, but communities are facing real challenges that require people to sit down and have hard conversations about an unpredictable future. Accepting the responsibility of change and choosing the direction in which it is directed is attainable for municipalities of every size.

I’ve been grappling with my role in this work and how to communicate to people all over the county that change itself is constant, and resisting will not prevent it from entering our lives and our communities.

Our world is changing faster than it ever has. Storms are getting increasingly more severe, local industries that have been the backbone of many rural communities are under threat, and people who have lived here their entire lives struggle to afford a place to live and raise their families.

I’m encouraged that so many communities are choosing to write comprehensive plans. It is not an easy choice to make, as facing the reality of what’s coming isn’t always pleasant, but people are starting to see change as opportunity. I recently listened to a woman involved in community development work describe hope as a key to change. I’ve been thinking about this and would argue that hope is the key to change. Without hope of a better future, why plan at all?

Alice Cockerham works with the Hancock County Planning Commission helping it assist towns with comprehensive and resilience planning.

in plain sight

A misheard word led to iconic photo

An unusual Wyeth, Ruohomaa 1951 collaboration

BY KEVIN JOHNSON

A WORKING WATERFRONT is loosely defined as critical access to coastal waters for people engaged in commercial and recreational fishing, seafood processing, boat building, aquaculture, and other waterdependent businesses.

The accompanying photograph of the pier on Louds Island pushes that definition a bit, but it was in fact a water-dependent business with a humorous story to go with it.

One morning in 1951, photographer Kosti Ruohomaa received a call from his good friend Andrew Wyeth. The artist was very excited and said, “Jeese Christ, by god by god, we going to get the hearse, boy what a beauty out there on Louds Island, sleek dark and beautiful lines, want to come along, haven’t got much time, see you at Port Clyde in three quarters of an hour!”

Now Kosti was not a morning person, and though he thought he heard Wyeth say “hearse,” he assumed he misheard him and thought he said “nurse.” He responded, “OK Andy, if you are going to pick up a sleek dark nurse off an island, I will be glad to come along. By the way, how long has she been out on this deserted place?”

Andy responded, “You won’t believe it, Kosti, but ever since 1830 and in damn good shape, too!”

You can’t make this stuff up!

FIELD NOTES—

Once part of Bristol, Louds Island became an unincorporated territory overseen by the state. Nautical charts called it Muscongus Island, its Wabanaki name, until 1962, when it was then named Louds, reflecting the surname of its first English settler.

It was a thriving fishing and farming community in the early 1900s, with a population of 150, two stores, and scheduled steamboat service. About a mile separates the island from the mainland near Round Pond. Most of the year-round residents left the island in 1962 after the school was closed by the state.

Andy Wyeth was known to explore the many islands off Maine’s Midcoast, observing and sketching. He discovered the hearse in a building near the island’s cemetery, tracked down the owner and bought it for $25.

The challenge was getting the hearse off the island, as there was at the time just this one pier that could only be accessed by a small boat for a couple hours at high tide.

In addition to Ruohomaa, Wyeth recruited a few others to help with his quest. Lobsterman Dick Percy offered the use of his lobster boat to act as the transport carrier. Artist Bill Thon, also of Port Clyde, came to lend a hand, as did Ralph Cline, a sawmill owner and a regular model for Wyeth’s paintings.

With much huffing and puffing, the group managed to get the hearse to the

pier and load it onto deck of Percy’s boat where it was then brought to and unloaded in Cushing. There they were met by Wyeth’s wife Betsy with the couple’s brand-new Lincoln Continental to tow the hearse to the Olson Farm, where it was stored for some time before being donated to the Maine State Museum. It resides there today.

While this story and the photos Kosti took to document the occasion were never published in any magazine, they are available to viewed and enjoyed in the Penobscot Marine Museum’s online database, along with 39,000 of his other photographs, contact sheets and ephemera.

The funding for this monumental task was largely provided by Linda Bean and her sister Diana. Sadly, we lost Linda earlier this year before we finished the project. While we have some more money to raise, we want to express our heartfelt thanks to Linda Bean for her support and encouragement. Making this collection available was a real gift to Maine and photography lovers everywhere.

https://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/kosti https://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/ andrew-wyeth-collects-a-hearse/ Kevin Johnson is photo archivist at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport.

At the mussel farm with Island Institute’s Lia Morris

NAME: Lia Morris

TITLE: Senior community development officer in Island Institute’s Center for Marine Economy.

FOCUS: I lead our marine decarbonization projects, which over the last three years has had a significant focus on electric and hybrid-electric marine propulsion solutions. My team is focused on bringing forth the tools, resources, technical assistance, and systems-level thinking that will allow marine related businesses to make transitions to manage their bottom line while also reducing carbon emissions.

IN THIS PHOTO: On July 24, I spent the day on the water with members of local and state government and staff from Sunrise County Economic Council touring Marshall Cove mussel farm off Islesboro. That’s me in the center of the photo. Shey Conover is seen at far right talking about the benefits and challenges of running a sea farm. We followed our visit to Shey and her team by giving rides on Take Charge, the all-electric work boat at Pendleton Yacht Yard.

Andy Wyeth and the hearse in question being moved off Louds Island.

PHOTO: KOSTI RUOHOMAA COLLECTION/PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM

A modernist visits Hinckley boatyard

Bechtle translated Maine into lively abstracts art of the waterfront

AN E-BLAST FROM the Farnsworth Art Museum back in July highlighted the acquisition of a watercolor, “Boat Yard,” by C. Ronald Bechtle (1924-2014), a modernist painter who spent time on Mount Desert Island starting in the 1960s. In its communiqué, the museum mentioned that Bechtle’s son, Reid, traced the inspiration for the painting to his father’s visits to the Hinckley Company yard in Southwest Harbor in the early 1990s.

“He was not a boater,” he recalled, “but appreciated the quality of the Hinckley boats.”

Looking at the painting, Reid makes out the contours of buildings and a dock stretching at an angle into the water. He notes that the facility was smaller in 1991, the date of the watercolor. That year Hinckley produced the last of its signature Bermuda 40 fiberglass sailboats.

Bechtle offered an intriguing assortment of symbols and shapes to represent the marine setting, including bright red pennants, a black cross, circles, and squares. These diverse abstract elements are set against a blue background that might be the land and sea, with a horizon line bisecting the picture. No guide to the watercolor’s visual language is required to appreciate its lively yet balanced composition.

The painting was not part of a defined series, Reid notes, although style-wise it relates to the two other Bechtle watercolors recently added to the Farnsworth collection, “Sea Storm,” from 1987, and “Late June—Just

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C. Ronald Bechtle, “Boat Yard,” 1991, watercolor on paper, 22 x 30 in. COLLECTION OF FARNSWORTH ART MUSEUM, GIFT OF REID AND DOROTHY BECHTLE

Out There,” 1995. The latter was inspired by his visits by mailboat to the Cranberry Isles to visit artist and writer friends, including Emily Nelligan (1924-2018).

Bechtle started out as a representational artist, painting scenes of life around his home in Philadelphia. Over the years his subjects included still lifes, street scenes, and social-realist images of various figures, including a crowded night club.

After serving in the Army Air Force, Bechtle studied painting at Eastern Tennessee University, Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture, the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, and the

Philadelphia Museum and School of Industrial Art. He also took private lessons with famed lithographer Benton Spruance (1904-1967) in the 1950s.

While working for the Philco/Ford Corporation, an electronics manufacturer in Philadelphia, Bechtle painted every day. Around 1954, he turned to abstraction, influenced by modernist modes of rendering the world. A few years later he shifted to watercolor, drawn to the “chance effects” the medium presented. His sense of invention grew from there.

Bechtle first came to Maine around 1965. After his wife, Jenny Manchur, passed away in 1962, he

The Watson Homestead is one of the loveliest, and said to be the oldest, of the center chimney capes on the Hancock Point Peninsula. Built in the late 1700s, when they knew how to site houses, this one sits on slightly elevated 2.05 acres with a small field on the south side and stately pines and spruces, a few old apple trees on the north side, and surrounded by 30 acres of conservation land. With a good many original details intact, such as original doors and hardware, three interesting wood-burning fireplaces, one in the front parlor, one in the keeping room, and one in the back first-floor bedroom, the charm has been maintained. A long ell connects the kitchen to a shed and barn, all south facing offering a sunny kitchen with a wood cook stove to gather around in a warm and inviting room. An architectural classic, the house is owned by a land trust with a set of restrictions to maintain the integrity of its history. The house needs considerable work but with meticulous and knowledgeable restoration, it will be the beauty it once was. Near great restaurants, tennis courts, beaches, harbors, some within walking and biking distances, this is a fabulous location which also includes the Schoodic branch of Acadia National Park a half hour away. $295,000.

remarried. The parents of his second wife, Isabel Korkmazian, had a home in Seal Harbor given to them by David Rockefeller.

Isabel’s mother, Mary, headed up the households for the Rockefellers’ island residences and her father, George, repaired their oriental rugs, a skill he learned in Armenia. The couple worked for the Rockefeller family for 50-plus years.

Upon Isabel’s parents’ death the house passed to the Bechtles. According to Reid, his father spent at least six to eight months of the year in Maine at the Korkmazian home, which he refurbished. He also built an addition for his studio.

“My father loved Maine as he could find the quiet isolation he enjoyed, especially out of season,” Reid recalls. He describes his father as a loner who struggled with personal demons. “He was a gentle man but distant. His life was painting.”

During weeks-long visits nearly every year from 1970 to around 2008, Reid would enjoy breakfast at his father’s favorite Bar Harbor diner. Later, at home in Seal Harbor, the two would sit on the porch and chat over a Scotch before dinner, “but for the most part,” Reid remembers, his father would “steal away and paint most of the day.” The onset of dementia led to his being institutionalized in 2009.

Bechtle never showed in Maine and didn’t exhibit his work beyond the 1970s, his son relates. “He painted for the love of painting,” he said.

The Farnsworth’s acquisition of three of his watercolors will help widen the audience for an artist who found inspiration on the shores of his adopted home.

A selection of Bechtle’s work can be viewed at www.crbechtleart.com. Thanks to Reid Bechtle for responding to questions about his father’s work. Carl Little’s tribute to Sargent Mountain Pond is featured in Alive to This: Essays on Living Fully by 20 Maine Writers (Littoral Books).

C. Ronald Bechtle in his Maine studio, ca. 2002. PHOTO: COURTESY REID BECHTLE