The Working Waterfront - October 2023

Honoring Maine’s immovable beacons

Lighthouse stories highlight important history

BY SARAH CRAIGHEAD DEDMON

Lighthouse keeper Willie Corbett knew Velma Johnson was the woman for him when she arrived for a visit in a bosun’s chair strung between a ship’s mast and the island holding Saddleback Ledge Light.

“He thought, ‘If she can handle this, she can handle anything,’” laughs his granddaughter, Delia Mae Farris, retelling the story. “He called that station ‘nothing but a damned bare rock.’”

That might be an apt description of Saddleback Ledge Lighthouse, which warns mariners of danger from its perch atop a quarter-acre of granite in the deep waters between Isle au Haut and Vinalhaven. But there were dangers for the lighthouse keepers, too. Once, after returning to Saddleback from leave, Corbett found his metal cot turned on its side and bent to the shape of the wall.

“An enormous storm had struck, and the sea had crashed in through a window—that’s power. Papa really became very respectful then. And probably

very quickly put his name in to go to the next lighthouse,” recalls Farris, again laughing.

Corbett was serving at a series of what were known as “stag” stations—where women were not present— like Saddleback, while he courted Velma, having joined the U.S. Lighthouse Service in 1908. And as the daughter of a lighthouse keeper herself, Johnson was

Yes, the rain hurt Maine tourism

Outdoor recreation saw biggest dips

BY STEPHANIE BOUCHARD

During the rainy months of June and July, Aaron Lincoln, captain and owner of the schooner Olad and the cutter

Owl out of Camden Harbor, would run into people he knew at the local grocery store.

“People were giving me condolences like my dad had died,” he said. “I realized ‘It really is as bad as I think.’” In July, he said, about half of the trips his

CAR-RT SORT POSTAL CUSTOMER

an apt match. The pair married and had eight children together, including Farris’ mother Ruth. They raised their family on the 15-acre island in Cutler, keeping the Little River Lighthouse from 1921-1945. Lighthouse people are hardy, says Farris, and they’re also good storytellers. Today she and her Corbett

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boats would have made didn’t happen because of rain or fog.

Before June and all the rain hit, said Tony Cameron, CEO of the Maine Tourism Association, most people were optimistic about the season.

“Travel demand across the board was there and the sentiment to travel was very high, and all the national surveys and the things that we rely on to help with predictions were all very, very positive.”

Glenn Tucker, owner of Coastal Kayaking Tours and Acadia Bike in Bar Harbor, echoed the bad news, good news assessment.

“It’s been a challenging year for everybody who’s involved in the outdoors tourism business,” said.

“We’re fully staffed this year for the first time in quite a while, so we’ve had plenty of guides, but not quite enough work for everybody.”

June and July were rainy, and when it wasn’t raining, there often was fog, which is just as bad as rain for those working on the water, he said. “I know for instance, all the excursion boats in Bar Harbor, they’ve had a difficult time with not only rain, but fog,” he said.

The National Weather Service in Gray said that 5.68 inches of rain fell in

While the official state tourism numbers won’t be released until later this year, Cameron said our “mixed bag” summer won’t be a washout. “I don’t think that we’re going to have a record-breaking year,” he said, “but I also don’t think that it’s going to be a horrible year by any measure.” continued on page 7

Becky Bartovics tends to her sheep at Cider Hill Farm on North Haven. For more photos of North Haven, see Michele Stapleton’s photo essay on pages 14-15.

“They came here to do outdoor things and they’re sucking it up and they’re going biking and they’re going kayaking…”

ALMOST WOOL-WEARING TIME—

Secret Schoodic

PHOTO ESSSAY BY LESLIE BOWMAN

The Schoodic peninsula—whose name may derive from the Mi’kmaq word eskwodek for “the end,” plays no second fiddle to its neighbor to the west, Mount Desert Island. Like MDI, it hosts part of Acadia National Park, but it also includes the pretty villages of Winter Harbor, Birch Harbor, Prospect Harbor, and Corea.

Ann E. Slattery at the Winter Harbor to Bar Harbor Ferry station. The ferry was not running that day due to high surf.

Unloading lobsters at the Winter Harbor Lobster Co-op.

Downtown Winter Harbor has several shops, galleries and eateries.

Andrea Roberts, left, and Charity Robbins from Leonard Middle School in Old Town attending an educators workshop at the Schoodic Institute.

Ruth Mapleton stands in front of the Winter Harbor Public Library for which she is director. Built in 1888 as a Unitarian chapel, the building is preserved as the library.

Liza Fisher, potter and one of the family of craftspeople at U.S. Bells in Gouldsboro

Surf was up at the ledges and people cautiously walked to the edge. The terrain never disappoints.

LIGHTHOUSE

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cousins do their part to keep their family lighthouse stories alive. Many still reside in Cutler, where in the 1990s they met a kindred spirit who also moved to Cutler because of the lighthouse and who worked, maybe more than anyone, to keep lighthouse stories alive.

“Tim [Harrison] thrived on them. He was so excited by lighthouse stories, his enthusiasm was boundless. How could we resist it when he said, ‘May I come and sit down with you?’ recalls Farris. “‘Of course, Tim.’ And the stories would roll with our family.”

Harrison died Aug. 19, leaving a legacy that includes more than 30 years publishing stories in Lighthouse Digest magazine, and in 14 books about lighthouses, alongside extensive preservation and advocacy efforts and the founding of the American Lighthouse Foundation which, in 2007, became the first nonprofit in New England to obtain ownership of a Maine Lighthouse—the Little River Light in Cutler.

Harrison had an ear for lighthouse stories, recording the facts, the tragedies, and the whimsy of lighthouse life, too. In his book, Lighthouses of the Sunrise County, Harrison recounts the tale of a Corbett family cow who never adapted to island life “...and kept swimming to the mainland, so keeper Corbett had to go and fetch him and bring him back to the island,” wrote Harrison. “After a few times doing this, Corbett gave up, and the cow spent its remaining years on the mainland.”

As a child, Harrison fished next to the Holland Harbor Lighthouse in Michigan, and in 1989, he and his wife, Kathleen Finnegan-Harrison, traveled to visit Maine lighthouses, and eventually relocated to Cutler.

“It just was the perfect place for him to be because he was surrounded by people who were still alive, who knew all the stories, and could look at the photographs and say, ‘Oh, we can tell you about that one,’” says Farris.

Harrison was devoted to preserving the Little River Lighthouse. Built in 1847, in 1998 it was listed as one of Maine’s ten most endangered historic properties. Having read about Harrison’s preservation efforts online, in 2011, Bill Kitchen asked if he could live there and work on the lighthouse while raising money and awareness for its restoration. Harrison said yes.

“Tim knew more about lighthouses than anyone else on the planet, and

not just Maine lighthouses, lighthouses across America, and around the world,” says Kitchen, noting the positive impact Tim and Kathleen’s tight working relationship also made on their work with lighthouses.

“It is rare to see a couple so dedicated to a professional mission,” Kitchen says.

Today, the Little River Light still shines at the mouth of Cutler Harbor, and visitors can stay in the beautifullymaintained Little River keeper’s house through an overnight stay program.

“For the past nine years our caretaker Terry Rodin and his wife Cynthia have entertained guests from all over the world,” says Bob Trapani, executive director of the American Lighthouse Foundation, which still owns the lighthouse. “It’s just a little island paradise, and you can just get away from the world.”

In 2009, the American Lighthouse Foundation started Open Lighthouse Day, which took place this year on Saturday, Sept. 9. Nineteen Maine lighthouse towers were open to the public, as well as some keeper’s houses, the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland, and the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath.

Open Lighthouse Day was founded, says Trapani, to bring attention to the need to preserve Maine’s lighthouses, to shine a light on the Coast Guard’s involvement in keeping the lights and horns working, and to showcase the beautiful places where they’re situated.

“We live in a digital age, where everything is social media, and lighthouses can sometimes be seen as static, but step inside one and it’s almost like you get to go back in time,” says Trapani, also the author of several lighthouse books, including Gleams & Whispers: Maine’s Lighthouses and Their Allure, released this year.

“Today we have GPS, and all these other digital technologies to guide boats. But there’s still something about a lighthouse, the fact that it sits there, it doesn’t move, you can always rely on it if you need it.”

There are 66 lighthouses in Maine, 55 of which are still active today, and 36 still have foghorns. The lights and horns are maintained by the Coast Guard, though the structures are maintained by other entities. Those entities can use a helping hand to continue their important work.

“The lighthouses are helping people but we need to help the lighthouses, too,” says Trapani. “We want to carry these forward, and the only way to do that is that people who care about them can give the lighthouse some of their time, or talent, or money, to help keep it standing there and gifting it to the future.”

Delia Mae Farris holds a book featuring a photo of her mother, Ruth Farris, who was raised at Little River Light in Cutler.

Little River Light off Cutler in Washington County. PHOTO: BOB TRAPANI JR.

Little River Light off Cutler in Washington County.

PHOTO: BOB TRAPANI JR.

Lightkeeper Willie Corbett knew Velma Johnson was the woman for him.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF DELIA FARRIS

ESSAY

Raise a pint to remember David Geary

Homegrown brewer helped create today’s Portland

BY TOM MAJOR

THE DEATH OF David Geary earlier this summer invites consideration of his contribution to craft beer in Maine. To understand his influence, it’s helpful to remember how dire the American beer scene used to be. In 1980, only about a hundred breweries existed, down from 750 in 1935. Nearly all of them brewed fizzy, yellow lager.

“You got to the point ten years ago,” Geary told the Evening Express in 1987, “where five breweries sold 95 percent of the beer in the country.”

DL Geary Brewing, New England’s first craft brewery, was conceived at $3 Dewey’s in Portland in 1981. Peter Maxwell Stuart, a Scottish Laird visiting to promote his Traquair House Ale, invited Geary, an aspiring brewer, to visit Traquair. David and Karen Geary incorporated their company in 1983, and Geary finally accepted Stuart’s invitation in 1984.

While Karen cobbled together small investments to raise $300,000 in startup capital, David visited Traquair House to learn the basics. From there, he toured several other British breweries, most notably Peter Austin’s Ringwood Brewery in Hampshire, England.

Under Austin, he studied commercial brewing in earnest. He also enlisted Austin’s associate, Alan

Pugsley, to travel with him to the U.S. to install the brewhouse.

In 1985, the Gearys began construction in Portland’s Evergreen Industrial Park. The location proved auspicious, as ten other brewing companies have since begun in the neighborhood. Maine’s largest brewery, Allagash, may be the most famous, but Maine Beer Company, Bissell Brothers Brewing, and Rising Tide Brewing all started there, outgrew their space, and moved into larger facilities.

Four others remain in this brewery incubator: Foundation, Austin Street, Battery Steele, and Definitive.

On Dec. 10, 1986, the first pint of Geary’s Pale Ale was poured, again at Dewey’s. The earliest extant menu shows that a pint cost $2.75, 25 cents more than Portland Lager, which had beaten Geary to the market by a few months. Few people remember that brand, which Maine Coast Brewing contractbrewed in Wisconsin and New York. Maine Coast’s plan for a microbrewery in the Worumbo Mill in Lisbon Falls literally went up in smoke in July 1987 when the mill complex burned down.

Although it’s a footnote in craft beer history, Portland Lager illustrates two points. First, it followed the pattern set by Jim Koch’s Boston Beer Company by introducing a lager, while Geary brewed an ale. Lager was far more popular back then, as it is today.

By leading with a pale ale, Geary’s risks were somewhat greater, but his beer was more distinctive. Second, Geary was actually brewing, kegging, and bottling his own beer. Maine Coast Brewing sadly never got a chance to do that, and the Boston Beer Company would not have its own brewery in Boston until 1989.

Unlike many pioneering craft brewers, Geary did not disparage contract brewers like Boston Beer Company. In a keynote address at the Great American Beer Festival in Colorado, he scolded fellow brewers for criticizing Jim Koch, reminding them that Koch had carved out a market for them. Eventually, Geary’s company would become a contract brewer for other brands, like Belfast Bay Brewing, which the DL Geary Brewing recently purchased.

Craft beer would have come to Maine with or without Geary. Harpoon in Massachusetts and Catamount in Vermont went on tap in 1987. In 1988, Gritty McDuff’s became Maine’s first brewpub, and in 1990, Bar Harbor Brewing sold its first pint at the Lompoc Cafe.

Yet David Geary’s success fundamentally shaped craft beer, not just in Maine, but regionally and even nationally. By recruiting Pugsley to install his brewery, he established the malty, English ales as the defining regional style.

Selfie magnet—Eastport’s artsy buoy

Painted bell buoy photographed, shared

BY TOM GROENING

Eastport has plenty of bragging rights—its pretty, compact downtown with red brick buildings and handsome 19th century homes. Its dramatic, wild tides and its setting at the confluence of two bays, the Passamaquoddy and Cobscook. Its proximity to Canada, visible across a strait.

But why not follow Key West’s lead, where a large buoy has been set in that Florida island community, boasting of its southernmost U.S. location? And so Eastport now has a buoy, duly noting its status as the easternmost U.S. city; city, of course, referring to its form of government. (Yes, Lubec. You may be the easternmost municipality, but you have a town form of government.)

The Eastport buoy project was cooked up by Karen Raye of the city’s chamber of commerce and Chris Gardner of the Eastport Port Authority, and thanks to Joan Lowden of Eastport ArtWorks, the idea was shared with Alison Brynn Ross, an artist who arrived in Eastport recently from Charleston, S.C. The focus of Ross’s work has been murals, signs, and sculpture,

though she notes that she recently has been teaching brush lettering.

The city and port were interested in creating a landmark that would draw visitors and locals to the breakwater for a photo op, Ross said. Visitors taking selfies and sharing them on social media then serves as free and widespread marketing for the community.

She believes the buoy that now sits on a wooden deck area just off the breakwater—and across from the Coast Guard station—was an active Coast Guard bell buoy that broke loose and washed up in the area. It was given to the port authority.

“In many ways, Eastport feels like a bit of a time capsule, with the old-school WaCo diner, family-owned hardware store, and lovely downtown,” Ross said.

“With this imagery in mind and sifting through some of the old signage from the area, we decided to give the buoy a retro 1950s style lettering.”

She hand-lettered the script and digitized it, after first painting the base blue on the cleaned and primed buoy. The sign was hand-painted.

“The artwork from the buoy is now also being licensed out to local businesses by

the Eastport Chamber,” Ross added, “with funds going directly to the buoy project. There are plans to continue making the area more of a draw with kiosks with historical information on the platform, seating, and regular container plantings

Pugsley later installed more than 80 other breweries and trained generations of brewers. He was a partner at Shipyard Brewing, the 46th largest craft brewery. Most recently, Puglsey has been working with Orange Bike Brewing, which will soon release a line of gluten-free beers.

Geary’s influence can even be found in the history of Allagash Brewing, Maine’s largest brewery. Founder Rob Tod learned to brew in Vermont, but was drawn to Portland by its vibrant beer culture. Recognizing the dominance of English-style ales, he opted to brew Belgian-style ales to set himself apart. Allagash is now the 20th largest craft brewery in the U.S.

The Maine Brewers Guild estimates that craft beer contributes around $250 million to the Maine economy, more than the potato industry. More than 160 Maine breweries employ more than 1,600 workers.

Beer still falls far short of the lobster industry’s impact, so the lobster on the Geary’s Pale Ale label might be an homage to Maine’s traditions, but also expresses an aspiration for prosperity.

Tom Major writes about beer and other subjects for the Portland-based publication The Bollard. A version of this essay appeared in The Bollard earlier this summer.

from the Eastport Garden Club.”

For more information about Alison Brynn Ross, see: AlisonBrynnRoss.com; email info@alisonbrynnross.com, or find her on Instagram or Facebook @alisonbrynnross.

Eastport’s buoy on a foggy day in August.

PHOTO: TOM GROENING

A

BY GALEN KOCH

IF YOU VISIT 44 North Coffee’s Stonington location through mid-October, you’ll notice something different about the beloved cafe. This year, 44 North is hosting an exhibit of photographs, audio stories, and a soundwalk by The First Coast, a collective of storytellers and documentarians that I helped curate.

Founded in 2016 with a grant from The Kindling Fund and distributed by Space Gallery, The First Coast is a multimedia storytelling project that documents and shares stories of rural coastal Mainers. The Deer Isle-Stonington Exhibit and Soundwalk joins the ongoing series of community exhibits thus far in Lubec, Jonesport, and Beals Island.

Many of the interviews featured in these exhibits are from historic archives, or were conducted by me with residents who have lived through incredible periods of change on the coast. While each location of The First Coast exhibits is unique, the stories featured share similar themes of family, place, community, fishing, and identity.

When I started The First Coast it was, aside from collaborations with photographers, a completely independent project. I renovated a leaky Airstream and for a few years, I’d spend chunks of time collecting interviews and living in that old trailer with my dog.

In 2020 The First Coast officially partnered with College of the Atlantic, Island Institute, and Maine Sea Grant and the project expanded. As part of that partnership, I committed to teaching one class per year and mentoring and advising students at COA.

The exhibit was written, edited, and produced by two of my students at COA, Annika Ross and Celia Morton. They pored over hundreds of hours of interviews, digging through transcriptions of audio interviews from the Deer Isle-Stonington Historical Society and The First Coast archive.

Through the process of listening to oral history interviews, Annika and Celia became immersed in Maine’s coastal history and the culture of Deer Isle.

They learned about sardine factories, lobster regulations, island life before the Deer Isle-Sedgwick bridge, fish camps, and back-to-the-landers.

After listening to the interviews and pulling their favorite stories and themes, I gave Annika and Celia the incredibly daunting task of creating a 45-minute non-narrated audio exhibit. They learned tangible professional skills such as how to synthesize information, structure a story, and use audio editing software. They also learned about ethics, accountability, and critical thinking. We talked at length about the role of an editor and artist; how do we decide what stories stay and what stories go?

I grew up in Stonington. The community members featured in the interview archives are people I have known for most of my life. This made the process of mentoring Annika and Celia especially meaningful.

Annika and Celia brought outsider perspectives to the project; they heard moments in the interviews that I would have missed. They found simple interactions in interviews very profound, like when a subject offers me a cup of coffee and a piece of cake. By incorporating those moments, and stories of community care, family, and love, they created an audio story for the Deer Isle-Stonington Exhibit that is deeply informative, personal, and caring.

The Deer Isle-Stonington Exhibit and the Stonington Soundwalk are intended to be an asset to the community and town. As cultural heritage tourism, the exhibit and soundwalk offer visitors a way to engage with history.

Stonington is, first and foremost, a fishing town. It can be challenging to get a sense of that history and identity when visiting the island for a day or overnight trip. The stories in the exhibit and soundwalk give insight into the year-round community; the values, culture, and shared memories that make Stonington special.

The exhibit inside the cafe features 24 stunning photographs by Greta Rybus, Justin Levesque, and Jenny Rebecca McNulty. Each photograph has a corresponding caption and QR code that, if scanned, will play the audio edited by Annika and Celia.

For this exhibit, we also debuted a new method of sharing stories with the public: digital story frames designed by Perch Made. These story frames feature all of the audio and photographs in a touchscreen interface that can be installed in community spaces after the framed photographs come down in October.

The Stonington Soundwalk takes the exhibit outside the walls of 44 North’s cafe. A soundwalk is an immersive experience. The intention of a soundwalk is for the listener to be outside, moving, engaging with a landscape and a place. The stories are intrinsically tied to place, something that’s difficult to achieve in any other storytelling experience.

If you take the soundwalk, you’ll wander through the main streets of downtown Stonington, guided by my voice and the stories of community members. You might be shrouded in fog, or walking in a brisk autumn wind. You may be navigating tourists or find yourself on empty streets in the off-season. You are invited to engage with history, memories, and place while witnessing the town and community firsthand.

Most importantly, the exhibit and soundwalk were made for the Deer Isle and Stonington community. It is with their ears and eyes in mind that Annika, Celia, and I created this work.

On July 1, we hosted the official opening of the Deer Isle-Stonington Exhibit and Soundwalk. Some of the first people to arrive at the event were two of the 90-year old island residents featured in the exhibit. We gave them mp3 players and headphones and I cued up some stories.

When the audio started to play one of them exclaimed, “That’s Andy!” as the voice of the late fisherman Andy Gove played from the headphones. They started beaming from ear-to-ear and nodding, listening to a story about the herring fishing.

At that moment I felt the true impact of this work. We create the work to share memories, stories, and histories, but sometimes the most important thing is the simplest: hearing the voice of a friend you thought you may never hear again. It is almost a kind of magic.

For more about Galen Koch and her work, see GalenKoch.com and TheFirstCoast.org.

curated coast—stories preserved and amplified ‘First Coast’ collaboration in Stonington through mid-October

Andy Gove.

PHOTO: JUSTIN LEVESQUE

Stonington village. PHOTO: GRETA RYBUS

Stonington fish houses. PHOTO: GRETA RYBUS

MONHEGAN REUNION—

In 1972, the student body of the Monhegan School posed for a photograph. In that image are, from left: Ruth Ives (standing); back row from left: Kelani Cundy (seated), Lisa Dickson, Louisa Boehmer (Wickerd), Donna Cundy, Kris Boehmer, and Zoe Zanadakis (seated); middle row, from left: Jeff Rollins, Chris Rollins, and Courtney Day; bottom

row, from left: Lance Burton, Tim Boehmer, Kathy Wincapaw (Velek), and Rev. Bob Ives (standing).

The 2023 reunion photo shows, back row, from left: Kelani Cundy (seated), Lisa Dickson, Louisa Boehmer (Wickerd), Donna Cundy, and Kris Boehmer. In the middle row from left are: Chris Rollins, Courtney Day, Zoe Zanadakis (seated). In

the bottom row from left are: Lance Burton, Kathy Wincapaw (Velek), Rev. Bob Ives (standing)

Absent: Ruth Ives and Jeff Rollins (deceased), Tim Boehmer (not able to attend).

The Working Waterfront is grateful to Lance Burton for providing the photos and names.

TOURISM

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Portland in June, which doesn’t seem like a lot when it felt like it rained nearly every day, but is far above the average of 3.77 inches for June. July was a repeat of June in many ways, with 5.75 inches of rain in Portland, again exceeding the average, which is 2.32 inches in July.

Interestingly, while August with more sunny days felt like a vast improvement over cloudy June and July, there was more rainfall—preliminary rainfall totals for the last month of summer were 5.8 inches in Portland, when the average is 3.57 inches. Instead of being spread out day after day, like in June and July, August’s rain happened in concentrated storms.

While rain can mean trouble for outdoor-related activities in Maine, for places not outdoor-focused, the summer’s rainy weather was a boon.

“I can definitively say that rain is good for business,” said Amanda Pleau, marketing and communications manager at Maine Maritime Museum in Bath. The museum’s top two busiest days as of the middle of August were on days when it poured, she said. On the museum’s best day, 591 people visited. The museum’s daily average in the summer is 236.

The rain also didn’t seem to deter people from eating out or camping. People still lined up under umbrellas waiting to place an order at Red’s Eats in Wiscasset.

Sean Brown, co-owner of Brown’s Clam Shanty in Wells said he’s had a good year, and a spokesperson for Sandy Pines Campground, a glamping resort in Kennebunkport, said they’ve had a great season with nearly every weekend almost completely booked.

Further supporting Cameron’s belief that this summer won’t be the worst ever, the rain and gloom didn’t stop people from pouring into Acadia National

Park. While the numbers of visitors are lower this summer than last, it’s not by much.

In June, visits were down by just over 6%, with 572,841 visits, 37,682 fewer visits than the previous June. In July, the number of visits was down only 3.31% from last year, with 772,434 visiting this July and 798,858 in 2022. Numbers for August were not available at press time.

While the weather of June and July is the worst stretch of bad summer weather he’s seen in 28 seasons, Glenn Tucker acknowledged it hasn’t been devastating—at least for him.

“I don’t mean to paint too gloomy a picture because we’re surviving fine and a lot of the tourists are here,” he said. “They came here to do outdoor things and they’re sucking it up and they’re going biking and they’re going kayaking—just not in as great numbers as they ordinarily do.”

Aaron Lincoln agrees. He’s had boom seasons and tough seasons, he said, and this is just one of those tougher seasons.

“It’s easy for us to sound super pessimistic, but I have an awesome life. I’m not discouraged.”

from the sea up

Rewriting the storyline of island schools

Institute works to support these small institutions

BY KIM HAMILTON

MY FATHER HAD the honor of cutting the celebratory ribbon for the 150th anniversary of the Chebeague Island District 9 School House last month. At 93, and as the oldest living graduate, he can still remember specifically where he sat in the school room, “middle row, at the very end,” and how he cried as a kindergartener when forced to wear uncomfortable school clothes after spending summers running carefree.

He likes to say that he graduated second in his class—a class of two! The statistics on that 1948 graduating class of two are easy to comprehend. As my tall-for-his-age father wrote in his comical salutatorian speech, 50 percent of the graduating class were shorter than average, and 50 percent were taller. In fact, exactly one half of the class was 20 inches shorter than the other; 50 percent were male, and 50 percent were female. And so it continued.

Height notwithstanding, that graduating class might have included more graduates had some of the students not moved to the mainland or simply left school to go fishing—challenges that persist today.

Across Maine this autumn, almost 175,000 students are in schools across the state, and some have returned to schools on islands along the coast. Like my father, many are facing small class sizes in schools with diminishing attendance over the past decades.

On some of our year-round, unbridged islands, total enrollment is hovering between four to 10 students and in one case it is as low as one student, and in some cases, as low as one or two students.

Teachers are returning, too. Teaching on an island requires a level of ambidexterity that is impressive. A conversation with Kaylin Wu, one of our ace Island Institute Fellows working with Vinalhaven’s Lego Robotics Club, highlighted this. She reminded me that what might be a day trip for most mainland students can become a demanding, multi-day commitment for students, parents, and teachers who must navigate ferry schedules, additional expenses, and over-night travel.

It seems like the grim storyline is already written for island schools given the shrinking number of students, the challenges of attracting and retaining teachers, and the growing expense of funding island schools. The odds are not in their favor.

rock

bound

Schools, however, play an undeniable role in the ecosystem of a thriving, island community. They are the centerpiece for attracting young families, who are essential to sustaining our islands. They attract energetic and courageous teachers who are drawn to island schools and become part of the fabric of the community. Schools are often meeting grounds for community activities. They are at their core an essential institution that fosters diversity, critical thinking, and principles of democracy.    Investments in island schools are investments in long-term community health.

The research literature points to a few critical interventions to fortify remote schools:

• focus on place-based education to build excitement about our island communities and their inherent assets

• expand broadband quickly to ensure that all students and teachers can take advantage of online educational resources at school and from home

• welcome teachers into the community while also ensuring they are connected to other teachers facing similar challenges, have professional development opportunities, and

connect remote island communities and students to each other.  Island Institute’s own Outer Island Teacher and Learning Collaborative (TLC) is a pioneering effort putting these recommendations into action. Even before the pandemic, we were working with island communities to create a resource-rich, peer-to-peer network to enhance the education and support for students and teachers alike.

Our experience with this program suggests the future of island education and community vitality is still very much ours to define.

The school that graduated my father and his singular classmate is now the home to the Chebeague Island Historical Society. There is now a new school on our island, which continues a longstanding commitment to island education and serves as a centerpiece of this community. We’re still writing the story.

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

Why

am I painting the living room? Savoring summer poses conundrum

BY TOM GROENING

AS SUMMER WANES, the urgency to squeeze out the last of projects and fun grows to a fever pitch, especially so in Maine, where the season is so fleeting. That urgency comes with a conundrum—how to balance projects with fun?

Lyrics from an old folk song by the husband and wife duo Peter and Lou Berryman come to mind each year at this time, and those lyrics can be understood in a larger context as well.

The song, “Why Am I Painting the Living Room?,” juxtaposes pressing global problems one might work to address with the simple joys of life. She sings the first verse, in a cadence that connotes the seriousness of these threats:

Holes in the ozone the size of Brazil

Barges of trash in a chewable breeze

Pools of industrial waste paté

Sulfur dioxide dissolving the trees

Pretty soon it will all end with a boom

Why am I painting the living room?

His voice, in a lilting melody enters:

I have the whole day off

‘Cause it’s a Saturday

There is a bluegrass band

Somewhere along the bay Look at the lilacs bloom

Why am I painting the living room?

And that, I think, is the conundrum of summer in Maine. I feel the pressure to stack the firewood I purchase, and cut and split another cord or so. I need to replace some deck boards, finish trimming the porch, and I probably should reshingle the north-facing roof.

But this also is the time to continue my quest to kayak both shores of Eggemoggin Reach (I’ve covered most of it). And to visit Castine on a late afternoon for drinks on the wharf. And venture to Eastport for a walk around this (sort of) island town. Two of those three were accomplished, and some of the projects can be checked off, but the question remains: Why am I painting the living room?

contemplating it as a home improvement during the dark winter months. But it’s rarely necessary or pressing. And it can be done in the winter.

One simple summer joy is enjoying live music. Belfast has developed, with volunteer effort and a little funding, a music series called Belfast Summer Nights.

In its early years, the Thursday evening event was moved around town, but now it is regularly held at a flat expanse of grass along the waterfront known as Belfast Commons.

In its early years, the event was moved around town, but now it is regularly held at a flat expanse of grass along the waterfront…

Hundreds of people attend, setting up beach and lawn chairs, bringing food, and—the dominant activity—catching up with friends, acquaintances, and neighbors. Handshakes and hugs dot the crowd throughout the couple of hours of music. We see and catch up with folks we haven’t seen since last summer.

Given that it starts at 5:30 p.m., I don’t have to forgo my “painting the living room” responsibilities—that is, putting together this newspaper.

Thirty-five years ago the folk duo was raising the specter of “holes in the ozone” and other environmental degradation, and surely similar problems remain. Beautiful Maine isn’t immune from the climate crisis, the dearth of affordable housing, poverty, drug addiction, and on and on.

So what is the answer to the question?

Well, I think living rooms do need to be painted, but our corner of the world also needs our individual and collective effort to make things a little better. And we are better at both painting and community action if we take time to savor what’s outside the living room window. Especially in summer.

Painting the living room can be satisfying and provide a sort of pleasure in

Yes, there is dancing up by the stage, and the bands have been better and better in recent years, but it’s really a social event that strengthens the community fabric.

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

NO TRAFFIC, BUT ROUGH ROAD—

This late 19th century photograph of Camden’s Elm Street shows an unpaved road with a handful of horse-drawn wagons and carriages. The three story brick building at the center of the image today houses the town office and the Camden Opera House. The two wood-frame structures on the left remain standing. On a rainy day, it might have been slow going for those horses and wagons, while today it’s tourist traffic that clogs up busy Route 1.

A top-notch choice

Memories of beloved Belfast, and all of Maine

BY LUCY WEBB HARDY

I AM WRITING to simply say I greatly enjoyed your column “My happy Maine anniversary” (Rock Bound, September issue). I was enjoying reading your essay—Deer Isle is my ancestral home, both parents born and raised there, and I got a tingle. But then you went and done it. You decided of all places to buy land, you chose Beautiful Beloved Belfast, the little city that could. The place where my father worked to support his family (at Dutch Chevrolet; our family home was in nearby Prospect).  The stamping grounds of my youth and then the location of my wedding reception (Jed’s Restaurant, now a bowling alley).   Belfast. Even in its rougher days, there was a spirit there that was cultural and edgy in the best of ways. I remember when I was a student at Bucksport High School in the mid 1970s, we thespians

Island Institute Board of Trustees

Kristin Howard, Chair

Douglas Henderson, Vice Chair

Charles Owen Verrill, Jr. Secretary

Kate Vogt, Treasurer, Finance Chair

Carol White, Programs Chair

Megan McGinnis Dayton, Philanthropy & Communications Chair

Shey Conover, Governance Chair

Michael P. Boyd, Clerk

Sebastian Belle

David Cousens

Michael Felton

Nathan Johnson

Emily Lane

Bryan Lewis

Michael Sant

Barbara Kinney Sweet

Donna Wiegle

John Bird (honorary)

Kimberly A. Hamilton, PhD (ex officio)

were lucky to get six rows of attendees at our plays.

And Belfast? Literally the line to get into their plays would be stretching into the parking lot. The Broiler Festival (Waldo Chick, the head honcho with his famed barbeque techniques all over New England; I live just five minutes from his farm here in Wells and am very good friends with the couple who lives there and who were like family to him.) The riverside concerts, the Chorale, the bookstores. It is where we shopped for any goods we needed—farm tools, clothing, groceries.   While I was growing up in Prospect, the population was 406 (and that number might have included a cow or two). I worked locally as a secretary in

Searsport for a couple of years, but in typical youthful thinking, yearned for the bright lights and fast pace of a “real” city. So off I went to Portland where I had a fine time.

Even in its rougher days, there was a spirit there that was cultural and edgy in the best of ways.

Six years later, I was flirting with going back “home,” only to go to a dance one night where I met my husband (37 years and counting). He had land in Wells so I’ve been here since. But I confess this. About a half dozen years ago, the longing to go back home came roaring fiercely back. And so I asked him if we could move to Belfast. And he said OK. Egads! But for a variety of reasons, after giving the matter serious thought, I believe I was romanticizing such a move. You have heard it said, “You

THE WORKING WATERFRONT

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can never go back home again.” Some truth to that, I believe. So here we stay. Life in Wells is nice enough. And what I have learned over the years (especially since buying a little camper trailer and traversing this state of ours), is that all of Maine is beautiful, magical, and stunning. Despite what you or others may have heard, Southern Maine has many quiet spots rich with Mother Nature’s blessings. You just have do a little digging.   A yearly (and sometimes more frequently) stop in Belfast is a must-do when I am visiting family in the Bucksport/Orland area. Just last weekend my husband and I had yet another glorious bicycle ride on the rail trail. So count yourself very lucky that Maine charmed you. And your choice of where to settle is—without question— top notch.

Editor: Tom Groening tgroening@islandinstitute.org

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Lucy Webb Hardy lives in Wells.

Island Institute announces new Fellows

Service areas range from Machias to Vinalhaven

New Fellows include:

communities to use the trail more fully for transportation, recreation, and community building.

education and community-based climate action, including support for the town of Tremont’s community resilience plan.

Olivia Jolley is the Swan’s Island Fellow working with the island’s historical society to structure and digitize its archives, manage volunteers, curate exhibits and museum displays, produce oral history collections and multimedia

content, and write grant applications for building restoration projects.

Olivia (Liv) Lenfestey is the Islesboro Fellow working with the town’s sea level rise committee to support communitywide resiliency and adaptation planning. This follows her first year of her fellowship curating and reopening Islesboro’s Grindle Point Lighthouse Museum.

Alice Cockerham will be working with the Hancock County Planning Commission to transition its resources to be available digitally and assisting towns with comprehensive and resilience planning.

Grace Carrier will work with Brooklin’s newly formed climate response committee to connect residents, business owners, and municipal leaders to energy- and cost-saving programs.

A close working relationship with your insurance agent is worth a lot, too.

Morgan Karns will be the Mount Desert Island and Outer Islands Fellow and will work with the community at MDI Biological Labs, collaborating with outer island residents in a statewide initiative to test drinking water for heavy metals and plastics. Partnering with the Seacoast Mission to get the word out to the communities, Karns will work alongside seniors and schools on how to sample their water.

Claire Oxford will be the North Haven Fellow working with the town to shore up the island’s working waterfront from recent and future storm surge and sea level rise.

Returning Island Institute Fellows include:

Kaylin Wu, who works with the Vinalhaven school supporting technology integration from pre-K through 12th grade. She also leads a growing Lego robotics club and other technology-centered after-school and summer experiences.

Katie Liberman is the Deer Isle and Stonington Fellow, supporting afterschool and summer programming on and working with the local program Mariners Soar! to expand offerings.

Brianna Cunliffe serves on Mount Desert Island, working with the A Climate to Thrive group, focusing on

We’re talking about the long-term value that comes from a personalized approach to insurance coverage offering strategic risk reduction and potential premium savings. Generations of Maine families have looked to Allen Insurance and Financial for a personal approach that brings peace of mind and the very best fit for their unique needs.

We do our best to take care of everything, including staying in touch and being there for you, no matter what. That’s

Lavinia (Livy) Clarke will be the Machias Fellow working with the Sunrise Trail Coalition engaging

Island Institute Fellows, including those returning for a second year and those beginning their fellowship this fall, pose for a photo during an orientation in St. George. Back row, from left: Katie Liberman, Olivia Lenfestey, Lavinia Clarke, Olivia Jolley, and Kaylin Wu. Front row, from left: Alice Cockerham, Brianna Cunliffe, Grace Carrier, Claire Oxford, and Morgan Karns.

PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN

Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, has announced its new cohort of Island Institute Fellows who join a group returning for their second year. The Fellows program places recent college graduates in island and remote coastal communities to do service work.

Saving a cemetery

Twice-buried history unearthed in Friendship

STORY AND PHOTOS BY TOM GROENING

It’s not hard to imagine the scene 250 years ago. On a treeless headland where the Meduncook River meets Penobscot Bay, families gathered for the somber ritual of burying a deceased relative, the stone being carefully set.

Today, that plot of land—known as Wadsworth Point—is shaded by a tangle of fir trees, and though there are gravestones standing, indicating a cemetery, others are broken or lying flat.

But this isn’t a forgotten bit of history, thanks to several women who live in the small enclave of houses on the point within the town of Friendship. They have, on their own initiative and with their own money and some donated funds, begun reclaiming and restoring the Wadsworth Point Cemetery.

The history at stake is substantial. Some of those buried there include a direct descendant of Gov. William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony and Paul Jameson, an earlier and prominent European settler of the Meduncook Plantation, now known as Friendship. And at least one of those interred was a veteran of the Revolutionary War.

In recent months, the fate of the cemetery had become a topic of conversation among the residents of the point, said Lanette Sigel, and she and Judith Goold, Sally Barrett, Sally Melrose, and the women’s husbands, among others, got involved in trying to restore it.

“I was just amazed at the dates and the historical significance,” said Sigel, who hails from Idaho, where European settlement history is not as old. “Finally, we decided, let’s do something about it.”

Goold said the work was urgent.

“It wasn’t staying the same. You could see it disappearing before our eyes.”

An older resident told the women that many more stones had been visible a few decades ago. Many of those that had fallen flat were covered with fir needles, and a recent big storm broke a tree trunk, further degrading the site. Erosion along a steep embankment, possibly the result of rising seas and storms, is also evident, with as much as 20 feet gone, said Sally Melrose.

“You got the sense that it was slipping away from you,” Goold said.

A brochure the group produced helps slow the slide into obscurity, listing the stones which can still be read and located, among them: Cornelius Bradford (1788-1857), Hannah Gay Bradford (1786-1857), Eleanor Jameson Gay (1806-1839), and Paul Jameson (1728-1803). In all, about 25 are believed buried there.

Jameson, Sigel said, hailed from Scotland, moved to Ireland, then to Southern Maine, and finally to Friendship. He participated in the Boston Tea Party.

Research the women have done reveals that in 1754, just 11 years after the plantation was settled through the Waldo Patent, 22 families resided in the community. One of those early settlers, Abiah Wadsworth, set aside the land as a burying ground, granting it to the town. He came to Friendship from Duxbury, Mass. in 1759 and ended up raising about 15 children.

The group doesn’t want to burden town government with expenses to improve the site—especially since there are as many as 15 cemeteries within Friendship—and so they stress that improvements are self-funded.

Recently, a local arborist was hired to cut some of the encroaching trees and cut up downed branches and trees. One gravestone actually was engulfed by a tree, but the stone has since been liberated from the trunk.

Possible grave sites have been marked with small orange flags, and in looking over the site with those markers, order begins to emerge. Most of the plots include footstones, and when they have been unearthed, the direction of the burial is revealed. Some of the headstones have been reset in concrete bases.

The Friends of Wadsworth Point Cemetery have connected with other groups around the state that work to research and preserve cemeteries, and the group maintains a Facebook page, an email address— WadsworthPointCemetery@gmail. com—and a mailing address—PO Box 122, Friendship, ME 04547.

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Judith Goold, left, and Sally Barrett inspect one of the older slate stones.

Judith Goold looks over one of the stones near the embankments.

Lanette Sigel inspects one of the intact gravestones.

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

Gerald “Punkin” Lemoine

Levi Moulden Bud Staples

“ You got the sense that it was slipping away from you.”

Mural honors Belfast’s sturgeon story

Artist creates ‘ecosystem’ on waterfront

BY TOM GROENING

Let’s get the pronunciation lesson out of the way first. The river that flows into Penobscot Bay in Belfast is called the Passagassawakeag, which in the native Wabanaki language means, “Place where sturgeon may be speared by torch light.”

It’s pronounced: puh-SAG-uh-sa-WAW-keg.

There don’t seem to be many sturgeon in the river today, but that hard-to-pronounce name and its meaning are part of Belfast’s identity. And so it made sense for local artist David Hurley to propose painting a mural on a prominent building along the city’s harbor walk.

The building had been a garage for a Belfast fuel company’s fleet, but in recent years it was purchased by Paul Naron, who came to town about ten years ago and has turned a former window and door company’s warehouse into a year-round farmers market.

Naron has renovated the garage building into the Bayview Point Events Center, and Hurley, who had completed a mural for the farmers market building, pitched the idea of painting a sturgeon on the lower portion of the event center. Hurley said Naron was less than enthusiastic about paying for it, and suggested he raise the money elsewhere.

Hurley easily raised the funds, he said, and then came the planning.

“I knew I wanted a really big sturgeon,” he said, and he wanted the scene to reflect an ecosystem. “I included cod, other sturgeon, pogies.”

Since the building includes trusses that support a large deck overlooking the water, Hurley decided to paint the scene on 18, 4-foot-high plywood panels. The

knowing sturgeon

BY MAYA STEIN

process included creating a scale model of each panel. Then he found that the trusses didn’t conform to regular measurements, and so they had to be cut and shaped.

“It was like creating a puzzle,” he said of the 34-foot long mural. Trying to assemble the pieces in his garage didn’t work, so a friend who got to know Hurley when he painted a mural at the city’s airport offered the use of a hangar.

Painting began on May 17, which would have been his father’s 100th birthday and concluded in July.

“It’s funny,” Hurley mused. “You have this idea, but then it’s like, how do I do this? I had a hundred problems to solve.”

What I know about sturgeon could fit in the gap between two of my knucklebones. But because this is a poem about sturgeon, I’m wondering about sturgeon bones, and how many they have And it turns out they don’t have any, that their skeleton is made of cartilage and an armor of plates down their sides, and I try to imagine what it would be like to have a body with only cartilage for bones, and armor down my sides.

What I know about sturgeon could fit in the shallow glass by the side of the sink where I brush my teeth, but because this is a poem about sturgeon I’m wondering how many teeth sturgeon have, and it turns out they don’t have any teeth, and instead drag whiskers called “barbels” on the bottom of the sea to catch what they eat, and I try to imagine what it would be like to have to drag my chin on the bottom of the sea for my dinner.

What I know about sturgeon could fit inside the pencil case I took to school in 4th grade, when for the first time, I learned to write a poem. But because this is a poem about sturgeon, I am wondering if sturgeon move in the way of other fish, (you know, in schools) and it turns out they spend more time alone, traveling in the open sea for years before returning to the coast to spawn, and I try to imagine what it would be like to manage the turbulent waters of the world with so little company.

At the public opening for the mural, Hurley brought in musicians—including Native drummers, an academic to speak about sturgeon, and the Penobscot Tribe’s James Francis.

Naron installed panels listing facts about sturgeon along the city’s public harbor walk, and more information will be added near the building, Hurley said.

Though sturgeon are not seen—or at least, seen with any regularity—in the river, Hurley remains confident they are there.

“No one sent the sturgeon a letter saying ‘Don’t come here,’” he said.

What I know about sturgeon could fit in the back pocket of my jeans where I keep loose notes and receipts and sometimes a $5 bill just in case, but because this is a poem about sturgeon, I am wondering about all the empty spaces I could fill with notes about sturgeon, facts and figures and scientific names, what would make me sound as if I knew something beyond the gaps between knucklebones and a shallow glass and my pencil case and my pockets.

There are so many books to read and I know so little about sturgeon. But to know a thing is not these things. To know a thing, you have to lean into the whispers of its briny cells. You have to sniff the fossils of its memory. To know a thing you have to listen to its language, even when it’s unfamiliar or absent of words, and especially then.

To know a thing, you have to honor the stories of those who knelt at the river first, who prayed to the movements in the water and held sacred the current.

To know a thing you have to travel deeper than your eyes can see, and your mouth can speak. You have to bow to the mysteries of what is underneath, so far below and beyond.

To know a thing, you have to put the books down. You have to open your arms wider than your own imagination. You have to let go of the edge of understanding. To know a thing, you have to swim toward where the sturgeon go, even if you never get there, and perhaps, especially then.

Artist David Hurley poses near his sturgeon mural on the Bayview Events Center, near Belfast’s harbor walk.

PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Maya Stein is Belfast’s poet laureate and she wrote and read this poem at the dedication of David Hurley’s sturgeon mural.

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"DR. HASKELL SAVED MY LIFE"

Brunswick resident, Suellyn Richards had been experiencing the painful side effects of Peripheral Neuropathy. "My feet and legs were extremely painful. My doctor told me there was nothing they could do—that I would have to take Gabapentin for the rest of my life.” Then she met Freeport's very own Dr. Chris Haskell.

Peripheral Neuropathy is the pain, discomfort, and numbness caused by nerve damage of the peripheral nervous system. Suellyn explained that daily tasks like opening doors and using the bathroom were overwhelmingly painful. “How can you live for the next 30 years when you don’t even want to get out of bed to do simple things?”

Headquarters:

Unfortunately, Suellyn’s story is all too familiar for the over 3 million people in the U.S. suffering from Peripheral Neuropathy.

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She was experiencing the burning, numbness, tingling, and sharp pains that those suffering from neuropathy often describe. “The way I would describe it is that it's like walking on glass.” Suellyn hadn’t worn socks in five years and was wearing shoes two sizes too big so that nothing would ‘touch’ her feet. www.peregrineacupuncture.com

If you’re unfortunate enough to be facing the same disheartening prognosis— Maybe you can't sleep at night because of the burning in your feet or you have difficulty walking, shopping or doing any activity for more than 30 minutes because of the pain. Perhaps you struggle with balance and even live in fear that you might fall. Did your doctor tell you to ‘just live with the pain’ and now you take medications that don't work and have uncomfortable side effects?

Fortunately, four months ago Suellyn read an article about Dr. Chris Haskell and the work she was doing to treat those suffering from Peripheral Neuropathy, without invasive surgeries or medications.

Dr. Haskell, founder of Peregrine Acupuncture in Freeport, Maine is using the time-tested science of Acupuncture

and a technology originally developed by NASA that experdiates recovery and healing. “Now when I go to bed at night I don’t have those shooting pains. I don’t have that burning sensation. I don’t have pain coming up my legs and I can walk on the beach with my husband again,” Suellyn enthusiastically describes life after receiving Dr. Haskell’s treatments. “I can wear socks and shoes!” Suellyn can now go for walks, sometimes 5 miles a day.

Dr. Haskell has been helping seniors for over 20 years using the most cuttingedge and innovative integrative medicine. Specializing in

“It’s life-altering. As far as I’m concerned, Dr. Haskell saved my life!”

chronic pain cases, specifically those that have been deemed ‘hopeless’ or ‘untreatable.’ Dr. Haskell consistently generates unparalleled results. If you’ve passed on walking along the beach because of the pain, or missed too many activities because you’re afraid of falling, it’s time to call Dr. Haskell and her staff at Peregrine Acupuncture, located on Lower Main Street in Freeport, right across from Gritty's Brew Pub.

It’s time. Let your golden years BE GOLDEN!

Dr. Haskell is now accepting new patients but only for a limited time. In an effort to protect her patients, both new and currently, she has made the difficult decision to limit the number of patients who are seen so call (207) 222-3109 to schedule a consultation today!

Beautiful, bucolic North Haven Island community features walkable village

PHOTO ESSAY BY MICHELE STAPLETON

The exterior of the Turner Farm’s barn.

The Turner Farm’s barn, hosting an event.

The village is often busy with pedestrians after the ferry arrives.

David Wilson’s paint brushes seen at his studio.

North Haven’s Gift Shop.

Our Island Communities

Dave Macy steps away from the pulpit

Long-time North Haven minister retires

BY COURTNEY NALIBOFF

After 32 years as pastor to the North Haven Baptist Church and missionary at large to the island, Dave Macy is retiring.

Macy was hired in 1991 by the Maine Seacoast Missionary Society as a full-time minister, taking the pulpit from a part-time predecessor.

“I would speculate that it always feels better to have a full-time minister,” Macy said.

He took on that position with his community roots already established—he and his wife Kathy, an islander by birth, had lived on North Haven from 1976 to 1981, prior to Macy beginning his education at Bangor Seminary. After five years at a church in East Machias, the position at the North Haven Baptist Church opened.

“The minister on North Haven at the time was retiring just as we were looking for a new church,” said Kathy Macy. “Dave reminded me that the usual stay for a minister was five to ten years, and we would probably then move on. I acknowledged that, but didn’t agree. Guess I was right,” she said.

Macy’s tenure has been defined by the ways in which both he and the church have impacted the community at large, beyond Sunday morning services.

“That would probably be my vision—providing a place for community to come together,” he said. “It’s a way to bring people together, it’s a ritual, a rite. That’s what my sense of my ministry is here. A church in this situation exists as a place for community events to happen.”

The North Haven Baptist Church building, which celebrated its centennial on Sept. 2, hosts weddings, funerals, school graduations and baccalaureates, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, veterinary clinics, a food pantry, doughnut and coffee hours, music rehearsals, and meetings for organizations of all stripes. Financially, the church has provided for community members in times of need through its discretionary fund and its association with the Pulpit Harbor Foundation, which provides support for medical expenses.

Douglas Cornman, director of island services for the Seacoast Mission, sees Macy’s community extending beyond North Haven through his use of social media.

“I looked forward to reading his responses, as well as the responses of others, to his ‘For what shall we pray this day?’ posts on Facebook,” he said. The Seacoast Mission paid for one third of his salary until 2019, according to North Haven Baptist Church president Candace Brown.

Macy himself serves North Haven in countless ways outside of Sunday mornings, and affirms his strategy of “becoming available outside the church, so I would be known to people in case there was a need. That’s why I was involved in plays, I got on the ambulance out of a sense of civic duty,” he said. Macy has been involved with North Haven Emergency Medical Services since 1993, serving as a first responder, ambulance attendant, ambulance driver, and chaplain in his 30 years on the crew. His musical talent, which brought him briefly to Berklee College of Music, is also often called into service in and out of the church.

Without him, said islander Lisa Shields, “There’s no way we could have a choir, which people love. Or a band on occasion.” Macy’s trumpet can be heard playing “Taps” on Memorial Day, and he often performs in a small brass ensemble at the island’s blessing of the fleet.

Macy’s ministry of community, and the ecumenical nature of his denomination, United Church of Christ, is also evidenced in the weekly Pub Theology sessions he has co-hosted with Ben Lovell, of the North Haven Brewing Company, since March 2017.

“You definitely don’t feel like you have to be a follower of any specific faith or a faith at all to come in and kind of explore the ideas,” Lovell said. “Dave’s not interested in telling anybody what to think. He’s more interested in asking them where they’re coming from, and kind of exploring his own thoughts around those things.”

Although the role of the church— and its pastor—on North Haven have continued to increase over time, attendance at church services has decreased dramatically, with as few as seven congregants in attendance on some winter Sundays.

“It’s not just me leaving, it’s a huge existential transition because we’re following a national trend in some ways,” Macy said.

To determine the future direction of the church against this backdrop, an ad hoc task force comprised of North Haven Baptist Church members, summer services members, and representatives from the Unity Guild convened several times over the summer. It marked the first such combined meeting of members of the year-round and summer churches.

At their first session in the church’s memorial room, stakeholders gathered around tables laden

with cheese and cracker plates and abundant homemade baked goods.

Using a four-page document titled “What Dave Does—version 2023” as a starting point, task force members identified three priorities for immediate attention: continuity of worship, maintenance of the church building, and administrative duties.

By the end of August, an ordained church member had committed to conducting services for the month of September and a part-time interim minister from Vinalhaven was in line to do the same through the end of December.

Islander Harold Cooper was hired as the building’s caretaker, taking over Macy’s duties of shoveling snow, mowing the lawn, and generally maintaining the building. Administrative duties will be carried out by the current bookkeeper, with some support from the Unity Guild.

“This is triage—fix the most broken things first,” said Bill Kennedy, the summer services member leading the task force. “Once you have stabilization, then you can go forward.”

Although Macy is remaining on North Haven following his retirement and will still be making music and waxing philosophical at Pub Theology, his departure is strongly felt in the community. Hundreds of well-wishers packed Calderwood Hall on Aug. 20 for his retirement party, which included speeches, tributes, and a flash mob choir.

“When you’re the minister that long and in the community that strongly, it’s just going to be kind of depressing,” said Brown, the church president. “Everybody likes Dave, and it’s just going to be very difficult for people not to reach out to him,” she said.

Kennedy sees one more way in which Macy’s ministry of community has borne fruit.

“Maybe some goodness and growth will come out of this. For one thing, joint meetings of islanders and summer people solving problems they both need to solve.”

The Rev. Dave Macy poses in the North Haven Baptist Church. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

“It’s a way to bring people together, it’s a ritual, a rite.”

Collins secures aquaculture funds

Sen. Susan Collins, vice chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced that she advanced $7 million in congressionally directed spending to establish an Aquaculture Workforce Innovation Center at the University of Maine in the fiscal year 2024 commerce, justice, and science appropriations bill.

“Maine’s aquaculture industry has seen significant growth over recent years, but more needs to be done to support its expansion and economic opportunity in our state,” Collins said. “This funding would strengthen UMaine’s position as the nation’s premier research and training resource for the aquaculture industry.”

“Our state is recognized nationally as a leader in cold-water aquaculture,” said Deborah Bouchard, director of UMaine’s Aquaculture Research Institute, “in great part due to UMaine’s expertise in aquatic animal health and fish nutrition research. This funding would allow us to construct a state-of-the-art workforce training and testing center where UMaine faculty and student researchers, as well as land-based aquaculture businesses, can work together to develop the talent and innovation this growing industry needs to realize its full potential.”

Funding for this project would support the construction of the Aquaculture Workforce and Innovation Center, a 15,000-square-foot, functional state-of-theart cold-water demonstration, training, and research facility located on UMaine’s Orono campus.

Acadia tourism contributed $479 million

A new National Park Service (NPS) report estimates that Acadia National Park’s 3.97 million visits in

2022 provided $479 million in visitor spending to the local economy. That spending supported nearly 6,700 jobs in the local area and had a cumulative benefit of $691 million.

“Since 1916, the National Park Service has been entrusted with the care of our national parks,” said NPS Director Chuck Sams. “With the help of volunteers and partners, we safeguard these special places and share their stories with more than 300 million visitors every year. The impact of tourism to national parks is undeniable: bringing jobs and revenue to communities in every state in the country and making national parks an essential driver to the national economy.”

Acadia’s Kevin Schneider,

said “People come to enjoy and learn about the park’s incredible landscape and history dating back to ancestral home of the Wabanaki people.”

The peer-reviewed visitor spending analysis was conducted by NPS economists. The report shows $23.9 billion of direct spending by nearly 312 million park visitors in communities within 60 miles of a national park. This spending supported 378,400 jobs nationally; 314,600 of those jobs are found in these gateway communities. The cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy was $50.3 billion.

The lodging sector had the highest direct effects, with $9 billion in economic output nationally. The restaurants sector had the second greatest effects, with $4.6 billion in economic output nationally.

Owners want to semi-retire. They have decided to sell their complete molds for the Calvin Beals and Young Brothers boat lines and CAD ever-popular Calvin Sports Fishing Design. Trademarks, web addresses accounts for each line are also included. A partial list of the molds

Owners want to semi-retire. They have decided to sell their complete line of molds for the Calvin Beals and Young Brothers boat lines and CAD drawings for the ever-popular Calvin Sports Fishing Design. Trademarks, web addresses and e-mail accounts for each line are also included. A partial list of the molds being sold:

• 44' CB Hull and top molds

• 42' CB Hull mold

• 38' CB Hull and top molds

• 36' CB Hull and top molds

• 34' CB Hull and top molds

• 44' CB Hull and top molds

• 30' CB Hull mold

• 42' CB Hull mold

• 45' YB Hull mold

• 38' CB Hull and top molds

• 42' YB Hull mold

• 36' CB Hull and top molds

• 40' YB Hull mold

• 34' CB Hull and top molds

• 33' YB Hull mold

• 30' CB Hull mold

• 45' YB Hull mold

Douglas Erickson, CCIM

• 42' YB Hull mold

• 44' CB Hull and top molds

• 42' CB Hull mold

Owners want to semi-retire. They have decided to sell their complete line of molds for the Calvin Beals and Young Brothers boat lines and CAD drawings for the ever-popular Calvin Sports Fishing Design. Trademarks, web addresses and e-mail accounts for each line are also included. A partial list of the molds being sold:

• 38' CB Hull and top molds

• 36' CB Hull and top molds

• 34' CB Hull and top molds

• 30' CB Hull mold

• 45' YB Hull mold

• 42' YB Hull mold

• 40' YB Hull mold

• 33' YB Hull mold

• 40' YB Hull mold

• 33' YB Hull mold

SVN The Maseillo Group erickson@soundvest.com (207) 446-3333

Douglas Erickson, CCIM SVN The Maseillo Group erickson@soundvest.com (207) 446-3333

Douglas Erickson, CCIM SVN The Maseillo Group erickson@soundvest.com (207) 446-3333

the park’s superintendent,

Visitors have flocked to the Belfast Footbridge in recent weeks to see what are now three large inflatable ducks secured in the harbor. The ducks bear the words “Joy,” “Greater Joy,” and “Greatest Joy.” The mystery of who is responsible for bringing the critters to the harbor remains unsolved. PHOTO: TOM GROENING

ON THE RECORD WITH…

GrowSmart Maine’s Nancy Smith

Advocacy group asserts that economy is tied to land use

BY TOM GROENING

When Nancy Smith first came to Maine in 1981, she was thinking, professionally, about the growth of trees and forests. Today, her work focuses on ensuring that Maine communities retain their character and function. Or, in other words, that they grow smart.

Smith grew up in Connecticut and went to college in Durham, N.H. to study forestry. She had considered attending the University of Maine.

“Orono seemed too far north,” she recalls, yet ironically, her first job interview—and the job itself—were in Lincoln, Maine.

Though an out-of-stater, Smith’s family’s history has Maine ties.

“We have roots that go back to the 1800s in Belfast and Westbrook, and even the late 1600s in Portland. I felt like I belong here,” she says.

Smith later lived in central Maine and served four terms in the Maine House of Representatives, representing Monmouth, Litchfield, and Wales. Thirteen years ago, she joined the nonprofit advocacy group GrowSmart Maine, where she is CEO.

Our interview with her was edited for length and clarity.

The Working Waterfront: How do you define smart growth?

Smith: Smart growth is a set of principles that promotes long-term sustainable solutions for communities. It’s about providing choices in how you manage growth and change. Change is going to happen. It is human nature to try to put a stake in the ground and say, “I like the way it is now. Stop.”

And that’s not what happens. Who is going to be in charge of what that change looks like? It’s not just the immediate—what’s it going to look like 20 years from now, 50 years from now?

Smart growth is that balancing act, so that we have what we need now but also making sure our communities are as strong in the future as they are now.

WW: And that term has been in usage by policy makers for, what, 20 years? Longer?

Smith: It probably came out of the ’70s when we started looking around and said something isn’t right. I think everybody has stories about sprawl, which is what we’re trying to prevent. I grew up outside of Hartford, Conn. The places I grew up sledding became hundred-unit single-family subdivisions. I didn’t know what they were called, I just knew I couldn’t go sledding there anymore. And it felt “off.”

We want to keep those things that make us proud to be Mainers, but we also need economic activity and opportunities.

WW: I’ve tried to make the case that there’s a positive connection, a causality between smart growth and economic activity. Can you talk about that?

Smith: Oh, absolutely! I describe the work that we do by saying that GrowSmart Maine—smart growth—is the one place where historic preservation and downtown revitalization come together with farmland protection. These are really opposite sides of the same coin.

And a community should never feel they have to choose between the two. Those principles reinforce each other.

The best tangible example I have of that is that the farmers market is where you see it. When the farms have the land to produce the product—mostly food, but also other things—that people are interested in, they bring them into the community where people are. There is economic activity in farmers markets. And they are in the downtowns, where people, ideally, are interested in living.

WW: What are the unique challenges that the coast of Maine is facing?

I see our beautiful downtowns— whether it’s Rockland, Belfast, Damariscotta, or Eastport—they’re a real draw to young people. I feel like these downtowns are threatened.

Smith: Your readers are going to be the experts on that. But the working waterfront—if you don’t have access to the clam beds or the piers, and don’t have the infrastructure fishermen need on site, then you’re losing the economic driver of what makes it a fishing community. That’s got to be at the forefront.

I think the coast is seeing it as much and probably more than the rest of the state. Now that we’re finally getting people to move to Maine, which we’ve been saying we need because we’re not producing enough native Mainers, what does that look like? What does it mean for pricing out working people? That is, I think, exponentially more difficult on the coast.

I live in Ellsworth now. I lived in Monmouth outside of Augusta for 30 years. When I drove from Monmouth to Portland, I would see lobster traps outside of houses in Lisbon. I know, because of my work, it’s because they can’t afford to live on the coast.

I think that tension has been there for decades. But it’s going be more so because people can live and work anywhere, and they come to where they love, which is Maine, because Maine is amazing.

What does that do to the infrastructure they need? And housing as a piece of that?

WW: That leads into my next question—how can smart growth make housing more affordable?

Smith: What GrowSmart has been working on in the legislature is removing barriers and creating incentives for building housing where it makes sense in the long term. Some of the proposals we’ve made that will make it easier and less expensive to build affordable housing include a complete rewrite of the growth management law, which is where comprehensive plans are. This is so communities can really think about, “What are the ways we want this town to feel like and look like, and what are the barriers we have in place with our own zoning ordinances?”

Another really cool proposal would have the state create a catalogue of preapproved residential building types, from cottages and single-family to duplex and four-family to eight- to tenunit. The best comparison I can make is the Sears catalogue houses.

So if the state comes up with a selection of five different categories and eight different choices within those, if we come up with a catalogue, a municipality goes through all their public processes and says, in our village centers or downtowns, these are the buildings that we feel are a fit. We like these. If a developer came in to do these, we’d be OK with that.

A developer can still propose building whatever they want, but if they choose one of those preapproved building types for the areas that the town has identified as where they want growth, then the municipal approval process is simply administrative. It’s not short-circuiting the public process, because the public approval has already happened.

Let’s have these conversations about what we want for a particular area before there’s a specific proposal that gets people excited.

WW: For a time, back in the ’90s, towns started adopting ordinances that mandated 2-acre or 5-acre minimum lots, but that’s now understood as wrong. Why?

Smith: No one is benefiting from that, or from requiring 200 feet of road frontage. And talk about the cost implications—when a household has to have at least two vehicles, there is a calculation that the general cost of owning a vehicle is $800 a month, so every time we require a family to own two, that’s $1,600 a month.

There’s also a cost to the municipality. It’s that many more roads to plow, that many more school buses. All the services that we expect at 200 feet a shot, or in the village at 20 feet?

WW: Does the legislature understand these issues? And do people in inland towns understand the pressures?

Smith: I’ve been with GrowSmart for 13 years and for the first ten years, I would have to insert smart growth ideas into conversations. Because of the housing crisis, and the combination of the pandemic and the climate crisis and people moving here because they’re thinking about where they want to be in 30 years, it’s now at the forefront.

Now, conversations are leading with land use and smart growth.

WW: What about commercial sprawl—places like High Street in Ellsworth, Cooks Corner in Brunswick. Is there any way to reverse that?

Smith: Yes. And municipalities have tremendous power.

One proposal in the legislature was the “thriving corridors” bill. It requires DOT to work with municipalities and land use when we have “graying” commercial strips that aren’t working. How do we have them work as mixeduse spaces?

Some changes include putting in a hotel, workforce residential, along with commercial. The magic of that is they use the same parking spaces at different times of day. If we’re going to do that and get creative with mixed use, and invite people to walk on sidewalks, we need to make roads safe.

We really need to coordinate the investments that Maine DOT makes and our impression of what a road is. If we want transportation to be part of the planning of what we our communities to be, we need to rethink it. I live on a street in a neighborhood. Most of the traffic is neighbors coming and going. Roads are bigger, often with numbers on them. Then you’ve got “stroads,” a street serving the role it wasn’t built to do. When we get too many “stroads,” it doesn’t work for anybody.

WW: How can smart growth mitigate climate change?

Smith: It fundamentally does. When communities are thoughtful and take all of these components and think about them together, your economy is stronger, your municipal budget is stronger, and the climate implications are better. If people have to drive less and have more options when they do need to use transportation, it’s better economically, socially, it’s better for farmland. It’s better for the climate.

Nancy Smith

A fresh look at Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

New biography, On Great Fields, digs into his Maine life

BY STEPHANIE BOUCHARD

Having just been informed that a crowd of angry men was gathering, threatening to kill him, 52-year-old Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain buttoned his coat and strode to the rotunda of the capitol building in Augusta and dared those assembled to kill him. He was there to keep the peace and the honor of the state, he told those gathered.

“I am here for that, and I shall do it,” he said. Opening his coat he declared, “If anybody wants to kill me for it, here I am. Let him kill!”

This mind-blowing scene, recounted in Ronald White’s new biography of Chamberlain—On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain—took place in January 1880, when the state government was on the brink of collapse and threatened armed confrontation over election shenanigans prompted the governor to issue an order that essentially made Chamberlain military governor of the state for 12 days. In a letter to his wife Fanny, Chamberlain called the day of his rotunda speech “another Round Top.”

To most people, Chamberlain is a Civil War hero and what they know most about him are his heroics at Gettysburg and Petersburg. But White’s new biography—the first major, full-life biography of Chamberlain in more than 20 years—delves into his life in Maine, especially his childhood and student days.

“We’ve so focused on him as the Civil War hero. I get that. But there’s so much more to his life,” said White in a phone interview from his home in Pasadena, Cali. “I think [it is] so important to understand Bowdoin College and its classical education and the kind of Calvinist Christian trajectory that his parents imparted to him. Both of those things really shaped who he [was].”

Having written and researched two major biographies of the most prominent actors of the Civil War—Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant—White knew something about Chamberlain, but not much. When someone in the audience at one of his lectures suggested his next book be about Chamberlain, White mentioned it to his editor and publisher, who jumped on it. So in 2017, White found himself making his first research trip to Maine. “Of course, I fell in love with Maine,” he said.

In Maine, White worked with many Chamberlain resources, including the Pejepscot History Center in Brunswick, which owns Chamberlain’s Brunswick home, Bowdoin College, First Parish Church in Brunswick, Brewer Historical Society, the University of Maine in Orono, the Maine State Archives, and the Maine Historical Society in Portland.

Researching a major biography of someone like Chamberlain is a huge task and one that’s collaborative, and, in White’s opinion, more fruitful if done in person.

“You have to go,” he said, because “someone like Larissa [Vigue Picard, executive director of the Pejepscot History Center], is very, very important, saying, ‘Ron, are you aware of this? Have you thought about that?’ And so each of these archivists … all helped me think about [how to shape the biography].”

There’s a constant stream of scholars and writers interested in Chamberlain, said Vigue Picard, so assisting in research is not something new or a burdensome task, but being a part in

the creation of a new major biography written by a noted biographer is something special.

“It’s very exciting for us to have a major biography come out,” she said. “We have had other people write about Chamberlain … but, yeah, this is definitely a more ‘headline’ kind of author, and we do certainly look forward to it.”

While Vigue Picard hasn’t read the book yet, John Cross, secretary of development and college relations at Bowdoin College, has reviewed parts as it was in development and thinks the new biography will present a more fleshed out picture of Chamberlain than previous biographies.

“Ron has an appreciation of Chamberlain as a very complex figure,” Cross said. “I think Ron is getting at some of the tensions and the contradictions in Chamberlain that make him, I think, more interesting.”

White’s biography makes a point of discussing recent arguments that Chamberlain overinflated his Civil War heroics, and addresses the potential abuse of his wife, Fanny.

As White acknowledges in the book, there are few known sources to shed light on a letter written by Chamberlain to his wife in which he describes that he has heard that she has been telling others he was physically abusing her.

“I really struggled with what to say about this, and I didn’t want to come down with a verdict,” White said.

“So, I made the suggestion—which others have made—that perhaps for a while, they lived separately, that they had this thing going on. But then I wanted to come back and say, I think they repaired their marriage.”

And as White notes in the book, available materials suggest that while the couple did have rocky times in their marriage, they seemed to care for and respect each other.

Not having more evidence, said Vigue Picard, “is very frustrating because in a day and age where we want to call out these people who did unseemly things, it’s a real limbo area. We don’t have another piece of evidence to say, ‘Oh yeah, he did it, and boy, that’s pretty reprehensible.’ But nor can you obviously just sort of toss that letter aside and ignore it. So I think the thing is to talk about it, and again, explain these complexities. This is not just a hero who did all these famous things.”

“ We’ve so focused on him as the Civil War hero. But there’s so much more to his life.”

“I really sort of said, we don’t know, and sadly, the correspondence is missing. We don’t have any of her correspondence. How did she experience this? How did she understand it?

White’s On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, will be released Oct. 31. White will talk about his book at Bowdoin College in Brunswick on Nov. 8. A specific location and time have yet to be determined for the free event. When details are available, you can find them on the Pejepscot History Center’s website, pejepscothistorical.org.

Ronald White

“I think Ron is getting at some of the tensions and the contradictions in Chamberlain that make him more interesting.”

Tragedy and hope in debut novel

Northern Maine setting rendered with tension

was full of tragedy and compromises, I didn’t feel flattened by it; it held hope, too, and provided a reminder that people struggle but they also cope. It really is that: a book about coping.

The Road to Dalton

By Shannon Bowring (Europa Editions, 2023)

REVIEW BY TINA COHEN

SHANNON BOWRING’S debut novel, The Road to Dalton, has earned high praise from some Maine all-star authors. Richard Russo has a rave on the front, as does Morgan Talty; Susan Conley’s is on the book’s back cover.

But apart from that, if I told you only that it’s a book about death, some close calls, and complex and difficult relationships, all set in the bleak landscape of northern Maine, is that something you’d jump to read?

Well, then I’d have to tell you that although initially I was lukewarm, the book soon caught my attention. I began to care about the characters and their plights. As much as the book

Set in a small (fictional) town—Dalton—in the 1990s in Aroostook County, some of the events and undercurrents we read about here could have, in another kind of book, easily been sensationalized.

Extramarital affairs?

Taboo intimacies?

Abusive spouses, drunk partners? Instead, she treats these situations with respect, recognizing that choices have many different reasons, or don’t feel like choices. There are lessons to be learned here about not rushing to judge life experiences of others. People settle into complex situations. And they learn to cope.

I was reminded of author Ruth Moore and her books about small town Maine. There is in Bowring’s writing some of that same vibe of tension, uncertainty, and potential threat. We can, with both

authors, feel a bit off-kilter, sensing that tragedy could be just ahead, and that people’s reputations, relationships, or future could be ruined in one fell swoop.

If you have enjoyed the fiction of Ruth Moore, give Bowring a try.

Here, in one sentence, is an example of how Bowring shares a character’s reality:

“He only knows it’s the Fourth of July because he gets stuck at the top of Depot Hill for the parade on Main Street with all the same parade-things he’s seen all his life, the firetrucks and ambulances and the Chief driving one of the DPD cruisers, and the potato harvesters and massive John Deere tractors and Girl Scouts dancing to some Whitney Houston song and Boy Scouts dragging their heels across the hot asphalt and candy thrown everywhere and sirens and horns and bursts of laughter and happy screams and babies crying and kids demanding more candy, more firetrucks, more everything, and the sun is big and round and yellow, and

The fate of frogs on Oxbow Island

Young readers appraise Peaks Island author’s latest

Oxbow Island Gang: Leap Frog

By Rae Chalmers

Maine Author Publishing (2023)

REVIEW BY CARL LITTLE

IT’S APRIL BREAK from school and Berend Houtman—known to his family and friends as Bear—can’t wait to visit his grandmother, Sally Parker, on Peaks Island. He has to jump onto the ferry at the last minute—the first of many leaps in Oxbow Island Gang: Leap Frog.

Bear finds his best island friend Olivia Anaya on the boat and they discuss plans for the week off, which include looking for frogs (she’s a budding naturalist). The two are disturbed by the sight of ambulances at the dock and emergency fire boats on the water. What has happened, who is hurt?

Like the other three titles in Peaks Island resident Rae Chalmers’ Oxbow Gang series, all illustrated by fellow

islander Jamie Hogan, the book spins a mystery related to an environmental issue, in this case the appearance of deformed frogs on Dump Road (a handy map at the beginning shows this landmark and others in the story). Like the other titles, Leap Frog highlights the can-do attitude of island kids.

Being 60-something, I recruited three of my grandchildren— Maria, 10, Serita, 9, and James, 6—to help me review the book. Begun in Charlottesville, Virg., and finished in Somesville, the book had several different readers, each revealing new clues, chapter by chapter.

In a post-reading interview, the girls chose Sally Parker, Bear’s grandmother, as their favorite character.

“I really like how she’s so determined and cheers everybody up,” said Serita. Maria added, “She thinks about everybody and is serious, but also cheerful and makes Bear feel better when he’s feeling nervous.” James leaned to Bear, in part because of his name.

None of the kids knew the answer to “who done it” till the end, although they had inklings that whoever owned Bug-Out Farm, a peculiar property tucked away in the woods, might be the villain. The need to solve the mystery kept them engaged.

Favorite scenes included several related to this hideaway and its surveillance cameras, which swivel to follow the motion of intruders.

In one, Dr. May Silva, a biologist who comes to the island to test the water, decides to moon walk in front of the cameras. In another Bear and Olivia pretend to be stealing from the premises—a ploy that ends up helping them solve the case of the poisoned frogs.

All three young readers recognized the importance of the island setting. Serita and Maria noted that when an elderly lobsterman has a stroke, they can’t just get in an ambulance and go to the hospital. James felt the island was a good place for a hideout.

The book’s ending left them frustrated. They felt there could’ve been

Nate has to find a different way to get to Bergeron’s, where he forgets what he came to town for and ends up buying a quart of Allen’s and a box of powdered sugar donuts and that’s what he’s drinking and eating when, later that night, he tastes blood and hears the distant boom of fireworks down at the river.”

A Fourth of July celebration in a familiar setting should feel enjoyable— after all, it is rich with traditions, an upbeat event—but here we are seeing it become nightmarish. The description reads as stream of consciousness; disorienting to the reader, it allows us to experience the character’s own disorientation.

Stay tuned to read more from Shannon Bowring. She credits growing up in Ashland as inspiration for Dalton, 20 miles west of Presque Isle in Aroostook County. Now living in Bath, she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has a Master of Fine Arts from Stonecoast, University of Southern Maine. Her sequel to The Road to Dalton is described as nearing publication.

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

more information about the people behind Bug-Out Farm, “how they got their money, if they were smugglers or a gang, why they needed an escape place.” That said, Maria, Serita, and James enjoyed the swings of mood— from happy to sad, funny to scary— and the spirit of the kids who didn’t give up trying to help the frogs despite some naysayers.

For this reviewer of a certain age, several references to Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World” (“Jeremiah was a bullfrog…”) brought a smile (and an earworm). I also appreciated the multi-generational nature of the story and its evocation of island life: going to Mooney’s Market to find out what’s happening, acknowledging that the community can be split by issues. Also well-wrought: the relationship of Bear and Olivia and the escapades of a couple of charming dogs. Chalmers knows how to tell a tale at once entertaining and intriguing with a message, to quote one of the grandkids, that encourages everyone “not to give up.”

More about Rae Chalmers is at raechalmers.com and about Jamie Hogan at jamiepeeps.com.

There is in Bowring’s writing that same vibe of tension, uncertainty, and potential threat.

Carl Little lives on Mount Desert Island and relies on his grandkids to keep him honest and afloat.

Being 60-something, I recruited three of my grandchildren— Maria, 10, Serita, 9, and James, 6—to help me review the book.

book reviews

Getting serious about the heat

Climate writer gets to the boiling point

Town meeting, painting lines, eating doughnuts, and throwing rocks

As winter winds down, islanders mix prep work and gatherings

By Barbara Fernald

The premise of Goodell’s thoroughly researched insights and layman friendly prose is simple: Heat is a lethal force that impacts every living cell on the planet.

meeting will take place on Islesford. What’s for lunch? Homemade pizzas, salads, and desserts. Life gets busier as we volunteer to help prepare the first community meal of the season.

The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet

By Jeff Goodell

Little, Brown and Company (2023)

on the islands, at the end of February and into March, is like a mirror image of the action at the end of August into September. Just as the summer residents of the Cranberry Isles end their vacations right before fall, many year-round residents end their winter breaks just before the spring equinox.

It’s time to get back to work and reconnect.

REVIEW BY TOM WALSH

Our annual town meeting takes place on the second Saturday in March. For selectmen and town employees, winter has been anything but a vacation. They have been working steadily, gathering information to write the warrant for town meeting. It’s the time of year we come together as a town to decide on projects and spending and how much money is to be raised by property taxes.

SPARE ME, you’re thinking. Please, not another book on climate change. Greenland’s last iceberg hasn’t even calved, and already we’re awash in Doomsday books about climate. Not one more. Please.

Maybe you can judge a book by its cover. Or at least by its title. This new and insightful analysis by veteran climate science writer Jeff Goodell can be judged by its cut-to-the-chase title: The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.

Discussion of the school budget alone can take well over an hour. The islands take turns hosting the meeting and the luncheon. This year, town

“My goal is to convince you to think about heat in a different way,” Goodell writes. “The kind of heat I’m talking about here is not an incremental bump on a thermometer or the slow slide of spring into summer. It is heat as an active force, one that can bend railroad tracks and kill you before you even understand your life is at risk. In the long run, extreme heat is an extinction force. All life has a temperature limit.”

Town meeting is a great opportunity to hear about winter from friends and neighbors. “How was your trip to ...?” “Who knew grand-parenting was so exhausting or that there were so many cold germs involved?” “You did all that painting?” These same questions could be asked in September at a school board meeting in a large suburb. (Preferably not during the meeting while someone else has the floor!)

In January and February, Bruce and I got to spend a lot of time with our grandchildren in Southern Maine. Visiting them was the main goal of most of our winter travel. We considered trying to paint our kitchen, but we kept catching odd coughing viruses and experienced more down time than we wanted, so we never got to it. Maybe I’ll paint it in May, when I can have the windows open.

Goodell reinforces the reality that the oceans are the main driver of Earth’s climate system. While every second the seven seas may be busy absorbing the equivalent of the heat of three nuclear bombs, oceans store

Bruce saw more than enough paint, anyway, this winter. During his “time off” he painted 600 buoys (white and

heat for later release, not to reverse it. Until now, he points out, oceans have been the “hero of the climate crisis” by absorbing 90% of the additional heat generated by the global burning of fossil fuels over the past 200 years. And counting.

bright red with a black stripe) and, like every other lobster fisherman in Maine this winter, he read about, talked about, and experimented with purple paint.

The latest whale regulations require all Maine lobster fishermen to use new markings on the ropes they attach to lobster traps. Depending on how close to shore they fish, they will have to add 2-4 purple marks on each buoy line. On warps that are 100-feet or less there must be one 12-inch purple mark within a few fathoms of the trap and a 36inch purple mark within 2 fathoms of the buoy. If the warp is longer that 100 feet, the requirement is for a 12-inch purple mark near the trap, a second 12inch purple mark halfway to the buoy, and a 36-inch mark near the buoy.

Not even 20 years ago, shrimp were sold for a dollar a pound in brown paper lunch bags along Downeast Maine’s highways, critters so fresh from the sea most were alive and kicking. No more.

“As fish and other species migrate to cool waters or die off from temperature changes, there can be big impacts on local fisheries,” Goodell writes. “Just ask the cod fishermen in Alaska, or shrimpers in the Gulf of Maine, who have been wiped out by rapidly warming waters in the Atlantic.”

Bruce figures he will be putting 1,500 to 1,800 markings on his rope in all; two to three weeks of extra work if he does it without hiring help. A number of fishermen are applying paint to their ropes by resting them in 3-foot long gutters made from lengthwise-halved PVC pipe. Bruce’s first attempt was with spray paint but he soon moved on to the more efficient brush and latex paint.

Some fishermen will add a 3-foot

A basic premise and lingering conundrum of science is the more researchers know, the more there is to know. That’s especially true of understanding the structure, physics, and chemistry of the oceans. While oceans may cover 70% of the planet, they remain largely unmapped and mostly unexplored. Scientists know far more about the surface of the moon than they know about the vast, mountainous seafloor terrain below the surface of Earth’s oceans.

piece of purple rope to the end of the buoy line or toggle, but all attachments must be made with a splice or a tuck.

I know it’s a stretch to compare following Maine whale rope requirements with a plein air workshop, but a person could return home from either and say that they’d been painting in their spare time. If Bruce were writing an essay on how he spent his winter vacation, painting would be a part of it. Another part would be the description I heard him tell his brother Mark about walking to get doughnuts, in February, with our son Robin, and our grandchildren Henry and Cora. I was away with friends in Portland, and Stephanie was away with friends in Florida. Father and son were in charge.

Climate scientists, meanwhile, are busy learning more and more each day about how heat impacts marine dynamics.

“Extreme heat is a force beyond anything we have reckoned with before,” Goodell contends. “It may be a human creation, but it is godlike in its power and prophecy. Because all living things share one simple fate: if the temperature they are used to—what scientists call their Goldilocks Zone— rises too far, too fast, they die.”

“Yeah, we got doughnuts at The Cookie Jar and then walked to the beach for a picnic and to throw rocks.”

Eating homemade donuts and throwing rocks at the beach—if that isn’t a mirror image of many childhood summers on Islesford, I don’t know what is. q

Tom Walsh is an author, academic, journalist, and science writer now based in landlocked Minnesota.

Barbara Fernald lives on Islesford (Little Cranberry Island) with her husband Bruce.

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“In the long run, extreme heat is an extinction force. All life has a temperature limit.”

saltwater cure

Alive in the time of herons

Encounter while swimming prompts reflection

BY COURTNEY NALIBOFF

ON AN OVERCAST August day, my teammates and I set off on a training swim down the Millstream. We were building up mileage ahead of our 5K fundraiser for LifeFlight of Maine, our fourth such venture in as many years.

As we passed the waterfront house that serves as our halfway point, we noticed a great blue heron perched on shore to our right. A quick turn of the head revealed a second one to our left.

Of all the birds North Haven has to offer—and there is a robust variety— the great blue heron is the most charismatic to me. While I love the rapidly plunging terns, the high circling eagles and ospreys, the disproportionately aggressive hummingbirds, and the chatty warblers, herons stir my heart.

Our swim team, officially Team North Haven, adopted the heron as our mascot a few years ago after several sightings.

They supposedly represent fierce independence, a trait we all happily claim during our cold-water miles.

As we drew nearer, the heron to our left took off, unfurling its massive wings and tucking its neck and legs. It flew low over the water, coming within feet of our heads. We gasped in unison, following its flight with our eyes as we treaded water. It landed not far ahead as if waiting for us to catch up. We obliged, swimming on.

by a pterodactyl or an archeopteryx or some future majestic flyer.

The presence of herons also implies the presence of food for herons—fish, frogs, insects—themselves harbingers of the health of an ecosystem. Also implied is the delightful thought that somewhere hidden on the island there are enormous nests with baby herons.

We were awed, seeking to imprint the moment on our minds.

I saw an Instagram post recently, a meme to the effect of “You could have been born any time, but you were born when great blue herons are alive.” The thought has stuck with me—that I could be in a time or place without these quiet giants, where their niche might be filled

As we approached the heron, it once again silently took flight. It seemed unperturbed by us, flying on to find more minnows or crabs or to offer us an incentive to keep going. It swooped so near our heads that we instinctively ducked out of the way. Far from threatened, we felt acknowledged as fellow water-lovers.

The heron landed just ahead once more, taking off for a final time as we

journal of an island kitchen

The plant-based food masquerade

BY SANDY OLIVER

IF IT EVER LIVED—moved, breathed, ate, drank, grew from within—it is probably plant-based. My house has a plant-based structure, filled with plant-based things to sit on, sleep on, dine and write at, and filled with plantbased creatures, humans and a cat, who are covered, as much as possible, with plant-based clothing and fur.

Generally, plant-based refers to vegetative matter. These days plant-based sounds terribly virtuous, and people will assure me and each other that they prefer a plant-based diet. We walk through grocery stores whose shelves hold products proclaiming plant-based and dairy sections with plant-based milks and faux-cheeses.

Is there something wrong with this? I suspect it depends on how much tolerance one has for fooling ourselves.

Consider what’s conventionally described as plant-based: almost anything that comes in a box or bag and goes crunch, whether or not it has nutritive value. You can be a vegetarian and never cook a vegetable.

The problem is it’s all processed food. If one is hoping to tread more lightly on the earth, one must consider the carbon required to take commodities like corn, soy, grains, and nuts and turn them into a product packaged and distributed far from the source. Big food manufacturers cheer every time

the public decides it wants some new dietary regimen.

Plant-based milks are another source of troubling questions, mostly because of water use. Why are we drinking milk, period? Milk as a beverage for anyone not a baby human or animal is a fairly recent phenomenon, only a hundred plus a few decades old.

Milk is a wonderfully useful substance, goodness knows, for cooking or fermenting into cheese or yogurt. Several different animals contribute milk to the cause: goats, sheep, buffalos, yaks, camels, etc., so cows needn’t be a sole source.

A worthwhile book sheds light on our reliance on cow’s milk. Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as Superfood by Anne Mendelson—which I highly recommend—tackles head-on the idea of milk as a dietary necessity.

So instead of pasturing them to eat grass as Mother Nature designed them to do, we are raising dairy animals confined in huge buildings, fed a grainbased diet and egregious amounts of water in order to provide a beverage we don’t need.

Almond milk, which requires much less water, is still too water-costly

coming from almond tree plantations often growing where they must be irrigated. Oat and soy milk both require much less water than almond milk, but, as one in my household points out, oat milk doesn’t taste very good, and the least water consumptive— soy—never seems to darken our door.

As for me and milk, I never touch the stuff. As a kid, I hated it, and I like it mainly when it’s made into chocolate pudding. Or ice cream.

All the assertions that our diet is easier on our climate when we don’t eat much meat ignores that animals are also plantbased. How we raise them harms our environment, health, and the health of the animals themselves. Why do we raise them that way? Welcome to the United States of Cheapskates, people—cheap burgers, chicken tenders, the world of pink slime. If we dialed meat consumption back to a couple or three times a week, we could have our meat and eat it, too, and the climate wouldn’t be taking it on the chin.

entered the harbor. We were awed, seeking to imprint the moment on our minds.

I had a second delightful heron encounter on Fresh Pond, the island’s reservoir. As I kayaked through the water lilies, blooming in white spikes and yellow globes, a heron suddenly rose aloft from behind a clump of alders. It landed a little further down the pond and I followed, gliding on water as it did in the air, acknowledging that we are two of a kind, dependent on and loving the fresh and salt water of North Haven.

Courtney Naliboff teaches theatre, music, and writing at North Haven Community School and lives on the island. She may be contacted at Courtney.Naliboff@gmail.com.

If we shifted slaughtering and butchering closer to home, we’d reduce the incidence of foodborne illness and the carbon foot-print.

I notice Mother Nature seems to like animals as part of her overall growing practice, managing it with balance. It’s humans who throw it all out of whack.

We’ve got ourselves so far down the road of immoderation in food production that there are no simple solutions left. For meat eaters, the simplest so far seems to be deer and moose hunting which puts lean, clean, free-range, organic meat in our freezers.

For islanders and rural dwellers, and even urban gardeners, the home vegetable plot is part of our salvation. The old family cow, pig, and a flock of chickens is not practical for most of us. Farmer’s markets offer good ingredients to the few who have access to them and can afford fresh and gorgeous produce.

What else is plant-based? Would you accept homegrown, home-cooked food? How about a wider perspective, generosity, and wholesome humility?

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

Milk as a beverage for anyone not a baby human or animal is a fairly recent phenomenon, only a hundred plus a few decades old.

cranberry

report

That pause between summer and fall

Feelings of regret mingle with anticipation

BY BARBARA FERNALD

I’M AT MY LAPTOP on a Tuesday, wracking my brain for a subject to write about. It is Bruce’s birthday. I promised to bake an orange cake with orange chocolate frosting and I’m starting to get anxious.

I’m fully confident in my breadbaking capabilities, but cakes are not my forte. I spent most of yesterday writing so that I only needed to bake today. With the column well under way I would have plenty of time to make a second cake if the first one fails.

My deadline is not until Friday, so why panic on a Tuesday? Because I have to go off island tomorrow for a dentist appointment and a memorial service, and on Thursday I’m headed to Belfast with a friend. This is my moment to be creative but I don’t like what I wrote yesterday, so I’m back at square one. I’m experiencing writer’s block and I don’t like it.

Mark Twain said, “Write what you know.” At this time of year, as I pass through the gateway between an island summer and the magic of fall, what I know is that I feel untethered. I look forward to September as the calm,

summer’s end I’ve craved, while at the same time I wish the month could just procrastinate its arrival.

Every year I think I’m going to find a way to avoid this uncomfortable transition but then I start “feeling the feels,” as they say. I get rear-view FOMO (fear of missing out). Did I make enough memories this summer to sustain me through the winter? Are there people I wish I had seen more often? Yes to both. I feel happy and sad at the same time. It’s the only seasonal transition that hits me this way.

Robert McClosky describes a similar feeling in his children’s book, Time of Wonder. As the family closes up their summer home getting ready to leave for the fall they are “a little bit sad about the place they are leaving and a little bit glad about the place they are going.”

Not everyone feels this two-sided ache but those of us who do just nod to each other, roll our eyes, and wait. The others have moved straight to celebrating the end of a busy work season.

observer

An island musical legacy Return of ‘Rampage’

honors local man

BY PHIL CROSSMAN

ON A TUESDAY evening earlier this summer, representatives of the Jeff Tolman Music Award, a 501(c)3, presented themselves at a select board meeting to make an unreasonable request: that they might close and be given free rein of the only—and very busy—town parking lot, from noon and through the evening, on a midAugust Saturday for a musical event, an event that might devolve into whoknows-what.

The board granted it unanimously, a measure, truly, of its own magnanimous vision and of the regard they had for this organization and not, as it might have appeared, because the town manager was herself an old rocker who expected to be among the performers.

Jeff Tolman, already a talented, enthusiastic, and innovative musician when he graduated from Vinalhaven High School in 1990, went on to the University of Maine at Augusta for further musical education but then, while certainly not tiring of music, he returned to our island to pursue lobstering.

He acquired a boat and named it Rampag&, an amalgamation of “Gram”—his grandmother, Marion— and “Pa”, her musician husband

(Bob)—and the ampersand implying, perhaps, things to come.

Back at home, he and an island girl he’d only known as a child, but who was now a teenager, fell unmistakably in love and on August 10, 2002, he and Alexandra (Ali) Bickford married. They were soon blessed with a daughter, Isabella, and for a tragically short time, Jeff was her loving father, but on April 27, 2006, on his 34th birthday, Jeff had an unexpected heart attack and died.

A month or so after he died, grieving fellow enthusiasts Richie Carlsen and Tracy Wotton organized a musical event to benefit Jeff’s daughter, Bella, and to help the community heal and to carry on Jeff’s love for music.

Four years later, Ali married Johnny McCarthy, another island boy and clearly to anyone watching—and on this little island-bound community, we are all always watching—the very best next step. The devoted couple had two more children, Jack and Faith, while Bella quickly grew to become as gifted a musician as her dad, albeit a vocalist and drummer.

Not much later, Ali, Richie, and Tracy established the Jeff Tolman Music Award. Its mission is “To encourage and instill a love for music in people of all ages,” and since then, the group’s made yearly donations to the school music

They welcome the quieter streets and less crowded ferries with no yearning for the season just past.

In short order I am more than a little bit glad that September is here. It is the prettiest and most varied month of the year. Weather-wise, we can encounter a heat wave, a cold snap, and even the remnants of a hurricane all in one week.

Usually the days are sparkling and dry with nights cool enough to encourage a good sleep. The ocean air protects us from early frosts giving our tomatoes just a bit more time to ripen. (They need it this year.)

The beach is empty in the afternoon and the sea water is about as warm as it’s going to be all year, around 60 degrees. There are enough people staying on for the month that we can still meet up with friends for a walk or a dip. There will still be dinners together and the restaurant stays open for most of the month.

At this time of year I can be in my studio with my window open and listen to gray seals “singing” from the back

beach. It’s one of my favorite September sounds. If you sit on the rocks of Gilley Beach, when the tide is low enough to expose the ledges in the Gut, you can hear them.

I learned from the internet that gray seals only gather on land for mating, pupping, and molting. Apparently they also gather for songfests, though I had trouble finding much information about their vocalizations. Here’s the link to a short YouTube video of the sound I’m talking about: https://bit. ly/3sGec8cIf. Or, just imagine a pack of beagles taking turns howling with an eerie edge.

Meanwhile, my cake turned out OK… I think. I hope you learned something about seals you didn’t know. And I hope the month of September is magical for all of us, giving us good stories to tell in October.

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

program, provided a college scholarship, funded music lessons, and contributed to other organizations or events that promote an appreciation for music.

In 2015, 11-year-old Bella spoke about her dad during the award of a $6,000 scholarship to a deserving graduate.

In 2007, the award’s founders hosted an outdoor musical event, widely and wildly attended, featuring musicians from all over the island. They called it “Rampage,” and it was, but only in the very best sense. The event took on a life of its own and Rampage was held for the next nine years, until her death, at Charlotte Goodhue’s spacious and somewhat removed estate at Roberts Harbor.

For a few years following, there were events, as the program clung to life, but not of the same magnitude, and then COVID struck.

On Aug. 19, the town parking lot was closed to traffic at noon. Folks who might have expected to park in the lot and run errands were untroubled. A local freight company drove their tractor-trailer to the lot and deposited the latter to serve as an enormous stage.

Countless folks showed up to set up huge tents—just in case—and to install hundreds of chairs in front of the stage. Attendant booths popped up—kid’s face painting, sales of T-shirts, etc.;

several downtown businesses donated $250 to this re-birth of Rampage, and a very ambitious food emporium was established at the opposite end of the lot from the trailer.

During the afternoon a big crowd began to assemble. By 5 p.m., it far exceeded expectations and available chairs. The first of eight gifted, local musical groups, including the very entertaining old rocker, took the stage at 5, and within minutes, five generations, from two to 93, were dancing in the big open space between the chairs and the stage, matched by equally copious crab rolls and treats at the lot’s other end, prepared by Johnny’s extended and supportive family. The joyous music and the infusion of loving comradery continued all evening.

A palpable, collective, and sustained sigh emanated from us all that night and now, weeks later, we’re still breathing deeply.

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

Not everyone feels this two-sided ache but those of us who do just nod to each other…

What is driving right whales to extinction?

Answers emerge from trend lines, patterns

BY BOB STENECK

WHEN I WAS a child, I listened to Smoky Bear tell us, “Only YOU can prevent forest fires!” That was a clear and direct message but it was wrong. This summer, vast regions of North America were on fire and most of those fires started from lightning strikes, but the expansive tinder-dry conditions fueling the fires resulted primarily from climate change.

Closer to home, we learn that the North Atlantic right whale is on the brink of extinction. That is serious and shocking, but from my perspective, current explanations are wanting.

NOAA Fisheries states that these whales are “dying faster than they can reproduce, largely due to human causes…” It identifies those causes as “vessel strikes and entanglements.” This leads many to think the lobster fishery can prevent right whale extinction.

As a professor in the University of Maine’s School of Marine Sciences, I teach students they must first determine patterns of distribution and abundance and then consider which factors are most consistent with, or most likely causing those patterns. When I apply that approach to the right whale and the lobster fishery, the patterns and timelines don’t seem to fit.

The latest information on the NOAA Fisheries website notes that in 1990, fewer than 270 North Atlantic right whales existed but their abundance steadily increased to a peak of 480 in 2010. They then declined steeply to the current 340.

During the 20-year population increase, lobster trap tags issued in Maine (for each trap, associated lines, and buoys) increased from 2 million to 3.5 million, peaking in 2005, ten years before the right whale population started to decline. Similarly, NOAA’s “cause of death data” shows a decline in vessel strikes.

So, what corresponds with the population decline? Let’s consider trends in birth rates and death rates.

Right whale calves peaked at 39 in 2009 but declined to zero by 2018. The consequence of no offspring is obvious. However, since then, 64 calves have been born and only 16 whale deaths have been documented. NOAA’s causes of 36 deaths from 2017 to 2023 shows 12 from vessel strikes and nine from entanglement, with most of those in Canada. While those sources of death are likely under-counted, they do not account for the decline of 140 whales since 2010.

Right whales got their name because they were slow swimmers that float when dead, perfect for 18th century

reflections

whalers. Some hypothesize dead whales are sinking and that explains underestimating mortality rates.

Admittedly, Maine’s lobster fishery has more vertical lines in the ocean than any other area or any other fishery. Although entangled right whales have rarely been seen in the Gulf of Maine, researchers have seen entanglement scars and speculate that repeated entanglement with fishing gear happens and it is so stressful that they deplete their blubber reserves, fail to reproduce, and when they die, they sink. NOAA estimates about three whales die for each identifiable death (called cryptic mortality).

So, if trends in lobster fishing gear do not correspond to population decline, then what does? Nutrition, in the form of the planktonic food right whales eat. Calves started to decline in 2010, the year Gulf of Maine oceanography changed, according to a scientific publication.

Climate change shifts the Gulf Stream closer to the Gulf of Maine. Starting in 2010, warm salty tropical water started entering the Gulf of Maine, also blocking the cool nutrient rich water from the Labrador current. This spelled trouble for cold water zooplankton such as Calanus finmarchicus, (the whale’s most important food). Without Calanus, right whale

Island Institute Fellows are explorers

Summer programs on Deer Isle were rich and active

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 KATIE LIBERMAN

ISLAND INSTITUTE FELLOWS are adventurers and explorers by nature—they flock from all corners of the country seeking new experiences and community in some of the most remote places along Maine’s coastline. Fellows don’t know what their placements will be when they are applying. It’s a complete mystery. Fellows can find themselves creating town plans, working in museums, volunteering with food banks, and building community.

Not long after landing on Deer Isle, I found myself barreling down the Kennebec River in an inflatable raft with a bunch of middle schoolers kids in from Deer Isle and Stonington’s after-school program.

We paddled furiously—though not always in sync—responding to our guide’s commands. The kids and I

attempted to stay in the raft, but as we bobbed closer to a Class 5 rapid dubbed “Big Mama,” I was almost sure we would capsize.

The raft vaulted forward and careened at breakneck speed. Water sloshed into the raft and sprayed our faces which showed excitement, fear, and determination. There were delighted squeals and anxious exclamations. Almost as soon as we had approached Big Mama, she had left us swirling around in the river exhausted, laughing, and soaked.

The Deer Isle and Stonington “Mariners Soar!” after-school program’s motto is “When Mariners soar, the sky’s the limit!” It’s a fitting motto for an afterschool program where adventure and exploration are the modus operandi.

During this summer, Mariners Soar! had a series of summer camps that catered to varying interests: visual and performing arts, gardening, adventuring outdoors, and more. I found myself often leading expeditions with a couple of vans full of kids to do stuff I could only dream of doing at their age—sea kayaking in the rain, rock climbing in the rain, visiting an outdoor art gallery in the rain, hiking

in the rain, taking a ferry in the rain— you get the idea.

It was a very damp June. Rain or shine, the kids were always down for an adventure with smiles on their faces.

Because of my background in marine sciences at UMaine, I was able to plan and run a week-long marine sciences camp with the after-school program. It was an interesting challenge because I knew ahead of time that we’d be short-staffed.

Calling on veteran community partners, creating new partnerships, and going with the flow were essential to making the week a success.

The week kicked off with a short visit to Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport where the kids rigged sails and made fish prints. We visited the Discovery Wharf at Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries in Stonington and listened to Capt. Leroy’s sailing stories, and perused the touch tank.

We explored tidepools around the island and of course had beach days. The kids also took a “Discover Scuba” class with Oceans Wide at the end of the week.

One of the best things about my fellowship is that I get to bring my passions into my work. I am an avid

nutrition was compromised and likely contributed to the declining calving rate.

The study also showed right whales leaving the Gulf of Maine for cooler Canadian waters, possibly reconnecting with their favorite food resulting in calving increases since 2018.

This leaves us with the unsettling notion that even if all lobster traps were removed from the Gulf of Maine, North Atlantic right whale populations may fluctuate as an indirect effect of climate change.

If so, perhaps in the long run Smokey Bear was right to say, “Only you can prevent forest fires.” Only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions globally will we eventually see climate-driven ocean currents, zooplankton, and the lobsters and whales that depend on them return to the Gulf of Maine. I just hope the whales can hold on until then.

Robert Steneck is a professor at the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences and a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation.

lover of the ocean, plants, and outdoor adventuring.

As loud as the after-school program is, I find myself enjoying the quiet moments in the school garden. The greenhouse is my sanctuary. Weeding, watering, and tending to the beds leave me time to reflect on my day and fellowship.

The satisfaction of harvesting a handful of tomatoes or a bag of greens that I grew is a reminder that all good things come with time. Not every seed that I sow will grow, and that’s OK. Just like all relationships and partnerships, the ones you water and tend will grow.

And sometimes the seeds we unintentionally sow into our communities surprise us: a gigantic squash might pop up out of the compost bin and produce the largest squash in the whole garden.

Katie Liberman works with school and summer programming on Deer Isle and Stonington. She has undergraduate and masters degrees in marine biology from the University of Maine.

Shipbuilding legacy strengthened by unions

BIW’s history tells tale of worker leverage

BY KELLY PAGE

Maine’s proficient, hardworking, and regionally low-paid laborers helped to secure a competitive edge in the shipbuilding industry of the 19th century, contributing to the state’s significance as a center of American shipbuilding and fleet ownership.

Like many historic narratives, this shipbuilding prominence has often been examined through the lens of prominent entrepreneurs. But without a workforce, the achievements of these men would not have been possible.

Generations of Maine shipbuilders have developed and honed skills amid war, economic shifts, and technological advances. This legacy is alive and well in Maine today, particularly in Bath—a city that has continuously built ships on the banks of the Kennebec River since the 1780s.

Bath Iron Works (BIW) is Bath’s last remaining shipyard. Formerly a builder of a variety of vessel types such as yachts, freighters, passenger steamers, and railroad ferries, it has been in business since 1884 and has built exclusively for the U.S. Navy for over 30 years.

As an employer of 6,500, BIW’s contributions to the local economy are immense. Over 4,000 of these employees work in the trades and make up the membership of the Local S6 Chapter of the International

Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. This labor union just voted in August to accept a new three-year contract among which minimum pay rates and benefits are negotiated along with other provisions.

In 2020, similar contract negotiations with union membership failed, with workers voting to reject terms and go on strike. This has happened only a handful of times since BIW trades have been represented by a single union in the early 1950s.

The duration of these strikes has ranged from less than a week to over three months. The image pictured here was taken in the summer of 1985, during BIW’s longest Local S6 strike to date—99 days. Those in the picket line stand across the street from the union hall and at the edge of a parking lot that has seen little change since. Such scenes have been rarely documented throughout the history of labor disputes in Maine’s shipyards.

The fact that BIW’s longest strike occurred in the 1980s is not surprising given the national climate of tensions between businesses and unions. The Reagan White House had openly supported the swift firing, and lifetime employment ban, of a group of specialized government employees on strike.

Private sector employers were emboldened to stand up to their own union-backed workforces, portraying them as selfish and impediments to

economic growth. With weakened leverage, union membership declined.

Along with trickle-down economic policies of the era, this series of events has been linked to decadeslong income-gap widening and wage stagnation. For comparison, the national union membership rates of 40 years ago were double today’s 10%.

The fact that Bath Iron Works employs Mainers from all 16 counties certainly says something about the attraction, and importance, of stable wages that a union can help to maintain.

Bath has had a lengthy history with organized labor in its shipyards. As far back as 1841, there is evidence of a movement to reduce workdays to ten hours via a group that was aptly named the Bath 10 Hour Association. They were specifically opposed to the practice of a year-round, sun-up to sundown workday that neared 15 hours per day in the summer.

By 1850 this reduced schedule was a common practice throughout the city’s 20 shipyards, and adjacent shipbuilding communities followed suit.

This was decades ahead of Progressive

guest column

Era and Great Depression policies. Eventually, federal legislation established a 40-hour week with overages eligible for overtime pay until 1940.

Kelly Page is collections and library services manager for Maine Maritime Museum in Bath. Explore resources and plan your visit at www. MaineMaritimeMuseum.org.

BY PATRICIA ESTABROOK

IN 7TH GRADE Gavin Bradstreet looked like a choir-boy angel with a moon-shaped face and round glasses, but looks were deceptive and the school found him “a handful.” Now he is on his way to college, with greater aspirations than he or his family could have imagined seven years ago.

The turn-around could be due to his family, a caring school department in Searsport, steady work at Nautilus Restaurant, or the dedication of his mentor, Brian Phelps. All of these played a part, but Gavin cites the I Know ME program for raising his aspirations and supporting his accomplishments.

The I Know ME program seeks to raise aspirations in youth over a course of six years. Beginning in the 7th grade, cohorts of ten students meet to explore Maine and to gain insights into their

own strengths and personal assets. The program is funded in part by the Rural Futures Fund and run by Maine Youth Alliance, which also runs the Game Loft in Belfast.

Gavin entered I Know ME because he had an interest in role play games. He is proud to say that he was the first I Know ME recruit. Over the years games became less important as Gavin learned new skills and developed new interests. He visited 32 state parks from Aroostook to Cumberland counties.

He learned to enjoy camping and the outdoors, he experienced live theater, he explored a variety of work opportunities, and he met interesting adults who make up the fabric of Maine life.

Gavin, who is no stranger to hard work to help support his family, learned the value of volunteering and being part of a community of interest.

Gavin, who is no stranger to hard work to help support his family, learned the value of volunteering and being part of a community of interest. In the six years of the program, he volunteered in: Machias, DoverFoxcroft, Dexter, Belfast, and in many state parks. Wherever Gavin and the I Know ME cohorts go they are congratulated for their hard work and dedication to a good life in Maine. Kids like Gavin who live and work on Maine’s waterfront are our future. Keeping them in Maine, with aspirations to be productive, contributing adults is crucial for the success of the state.

For the past 25 years the Game Loft and I Know ME programs have created positive relationships that strengthen academic and social skills. Participants have learned meaningful roles in their communities and to see the state as a resource and their responsibility. They have had opportunities to engage with peers and adults in the community that are positive and productive. If you love Maine, you worry about its future. Keeping our culture and values depends on the generation of Maine workers who are now in middle and high school. Please support positive youth development programs in your community.

Patricia Estabrook is the founding codirector of the Game Loft/I Know ME program. She and her husband, Ray, have served youth for 25 years. They live in Belfast.

Strike at Bath Iron Works, July 1, 1985. PHOTO: GEN WILLMAN

When teens can say ‘I know Maine’ Program fosters positive community engagement

Diana Young’s Penobscot River view

Bangor’s

BY CARL LITTLE

IN THE HALF CENTURY Diana Young has lived in Bangor—she and husband Jim moved there in 1973—she has painted all over the Queen City, so many different scenes she should be declared painter laureate. Her views are always animated, full of a kind of motion that often compels one to smile. There is never a dull moment; even buildings seem to be on the move, leaning this way and that.

“Boom Island” was inspired by one of Young’s walks along the Penobscot River with her standard poodle, Polly. In the foreground, the stone chessboard installed on the Brewer Riverwalk Trail tilts slightly toward the water. Anchored on the far shore is what appears to be an ocean-going vessel or service boat, its black hull jutting into the river. Beyond the boat lies the skyline of Bangor with the spires of churches poking the sky.

The painting’s title refers to the island in mid-river, one of several in the Penobscot made from timber and cobble that served as log booms during the glory days of Maine’s timber industry.

In Young’s hands the islet and its Lorax-like trees seem to bend with the flow of the river yet hold it in place, the foundation of the island appearing to grip the water. This mid-river waymark serves as a monument to a longago working waterfront, the toots and creaks of boats replaced by the music of James Taylor or Santana.

Young has always been drawn to water. Born and brought up in New Haven, Conn., she spent summers in nearby Stonington (she loved it so much she chose it as her middle name when she was seven). She made

Linkel Construction, Inc.

Diana Young’s Boom Island, 2023, tempera, 16 by 20 inches.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL HALLAHAN

art from an early age, supported by her mother, Jane Kellogg Corbin, who found her a Saturday art class when her high school offered none and supplied her with a sketchbook on a trip to France when she was 15.

Young attended the Rhode Island School of Design, class of 1957, which she considers a blessing.

“I met people from all walks of life, many just as art crazy as I was,” she recalls. They included her future husband James Young, a Mainer from Somerset County. He became a professor of chemistry at St. Francis College in Biddeford and later an analytic chemist with his own lab in Bangor. In both places she was fortunate “to live near tide water.”

Young set aside creative pursuits while raising three children, but returned to painting with a vengeance, hitting her stride in her 60s. In addition to Bangor, she has painted Eastport where in the ‘80s she bought a small banged-up house as a getaway (she paints there to this day). For many years she and several artist friends calling themselves the “Plein Air Heads” rented a cottage on Monhegan and painted to their heart’s delight. For her 80th birthday, Young treated herself to a cruise on the Rhine and Danube rivers. From the top deck of the ship she sketched the passing scene every day.

“This was ideal since we went about 15 mph,” she reports, “about the same speed of local cyclists on the riverside paths.”

Young loves living near the Penobscot, which, she points out, moderates Bangor’s downtown weather.

“Even from the interstate in Etna,” she notes, “one can often see a long thin cloud marking the course of the river.” She wonders at the city’s “delicious relish of geography,” which has prompted so many of her wild and joyous paintings.

Young shows her work at the Eastport Gallery, the Boothbay Region Art Foundation, the Bangor Public Library, the Kimball Street Studios in Lewiston, and St. Joseph’s Hospital as part of its Healing Arts program.

DREAMING OF INDIGO—

On Sunday, September 24, the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art—in partnership with Indigo Arts Alliance—will present the Beautiful Blackbird Children’s Book Festival in Rockland. Programming will include a reading by author Dinah Johnson from her picture book Indigo Dreaming from 1-2 p.m. in the Farnsworth Library, and art-making activities in the Farnsworth’s Gamble Education Center, where free copies of Indigo Dreaming as well as tote bags containing Beautiful Blackbird Children’s Book Festival books will be given out.

The Festival was created to honor the legendary and highly acclaimed children’s author and illustrator Ashley Bryan, whose award-winning picture book Beautiful Blackbird is a celebration of blackness.

Admission to the program is free from 1-3 p.m., but registration for the book reading is recommended. All ages are welcome, and free books will be available for younger, middle, and intermediate level readers. For more information or to register, please visit www. farnsworthmusuem.org.

Dinah Johnson