The Working Waterfront - September 2024

News from Maine’s Island and Coastal Communities

Planning for a stormy future pays off

Town climate committees help secure funding

BY JACK BEAUDOIN

Some local leaders are crediting municipal sea level rise and climate resilence committees for giving their communities a head start in the race for millions of federal, state, and private dollars that are now heading for Maine’s coast.

“It’s really important to have this town infrastructure in place,” said Bill Zoellick, who chairs Gouldsboro’s Coastal Resilience Committee. “In most communities of our size, there’s absolutely no way they can have a paid planner on staff… so there’s no employee who can write grant proposals, track opportunities, and manage the follow-up reporting that’s required.”

Zoellick’s committee began as an ad hoc group of volunteers who built consensus around the preservation of shore access, clam flat restoration, and building more resilient infrastructure. After some early success securing state grants for their projects, the town “suddenly had the energy to bring this ad hoc group into its committee structure,” Zoellick said. And that,

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in turn, has increased the towns’s capacity to work with regional partners and win more state funding.

In early July, Zoellick announced two $50,000 grants for Gouldsboro to study the town’s vulnerabilities to

rapidly rising sea levels and begin planning mitigation efforts. The first, a Community Action grant from Maine’s Community Resilience Partnership Program,

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Ruins in Lubec are possible Norse settlement

Acadian, Wabanaki origins also possible explanations

BY LURA JACKSON

Acollection of sites in Lubec previously identified as having a possible connection to Norse settlements is raising interest from anthropologists. While evidence

continues to be circumstantial, those who visit the sites agree they are worthy of further exploration for the clues they may offer to early Norse, Acadian, or Wabanaki settlements.

The first identified site in North Lubec is an approximately 250-foot by

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90-foot oval-shaped berm with knee walls and a 30-foot-wide entrance on its northeast side. The flat interior of the berm measures about 3-feet lower than the surrounding land. It was discovered by Mike Prenier of Lubec while hunting in 2015, concluding it was “not something you’d normally find in New England.”

After doing some research, Prenier found a 2014 article in The Quoddy Tides that referenced possible Norse settlements in the region and led him to Dr. Harold Borns, the state’s leading geologist at the time, who had given an open call to anyone finding ruins with potential Norse characteristics.

1000 AD,” according to his written report, and he recommended it be explored further. Borns died in 2020 before being able to return to the site.

In 1949, Edward Reman determined that Vinland may have been in the Bay of Fundy or Passamaquoddy Bay area.

Prenier has since identified other places of interest, including six round sunken foundations close to the shore. The features are all the same size, measuring 16-feet in diameter with a depth of 18 inches. One has a small hand-dug well next to it.

A third site consists of an 8-foot by 8-foot stone frame at ground level, and a fourth site appears to be another large earthworks. Each of the sites has been compared with known historic foundations to rule them out as possibilities. With multiple sites identified, Prenier has been working with experts

Borns investigated the berm and concluded it was a site of “a possible Norse habitation dating to around continued on page 6

Bowdoin College junior Caitlin Panicker (left) and post-docorate scholar Liam Taylor weigh, band, and take a blood sample from a herring gull chick while spending their summer at the Bowdoin’s scientific station on Kent Island in the Bay of Fundy. One of the ongoing research projects at the station is investigating the decline of herring gulls. For more photos of the students working on Kent Island, see pages 14-15. PHOTO: MICHELE STAPLETON

Maine photographer dives into Gulf of Maine

Brian Skerry’s PBS Nova series examines changing waters

BY CLARKE CANFIELD

Brian Skerry has traveled the globe for decades taking photos and videos of ocean ecosystems off all seven continents. His latest project took him to the waters of his own backyard—the Gulf of Maine— where as a child he discovered his love for the sea.

The result is a three-part series that has aired over the past month on Nova, a popular primetime science television program on PBS. The series, “Sea Change: The Gulf of Maine,” examines the history, science, culture, and stories of the people who live and work on the body of water that is warming faster than 97% of the world’s oceans.

Skerry’s corresponding story and photos of the changing Gulf of Maine were the cover story in the June issue of National Geographic.

Skerry, who lives in York, first started scuba diving in the Gulf of Maine about 45 years ago as a teenager, fascinated by the diversity and abundance of marine life. But in revisiting those areas for the series, he was saddened to see much of that marine life had vanished. The changes, he said, can be summed up in one word: Drastic.

When Skerry got the green light for the Nova series and the National Geographic cover story, he wanted to show readers and TV audiences the beauty of the Gulf of Maine.

“I wanted to show and surprise them with all the color I used to see, the invertebrate life and the fish and all the cool things that I fell in love with from an early time,” he said in a phone interview.

But when he went to different places for filming, for the most part he found there were fewer sea anemones, fewer starfish, and simply less ocean-bottom diversity than when he first dove off Maine years ago. (Cashes Ledge, about 90 miles offshore, was a notable exception and still rich in marine diversity).

Nowhere were the changes more pronounced than off Eastport, he said, which used to be “like an aquarium” when he was young.

“I used to make night dives there and see basket stars and soft corals, anemones, and all this beautiful color, and redfish and wolffish and all this kind of stuff,” he said. “I went back twice for a week each time for these projects, and it was like a ghost town. It was almost devoid of life. There was an occasional anemone here and there, but it was nothing like I remembered.”

Skerry, 62, regularly visited beaches in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts with his family while growing up in Massachusetts. He realized as a teenager he wanted to be an ocean explorer—with a camera in hand.

He got his start on a charter boat out of Rhode Island, diving on and photographing shipwrecks off New

England, including German U-boats and the famous 700-foot Andrea Doria oceanliner that sank off Nantucket in 1956.

He turned his passion for the ocean, along with his diving and photography skills, into a long career as an accomplished marine photographer with still and video cameras.

Since 1998, his photos have been featured in 33 stories in National Geographic, including seven cover stories. His documentary film credits include Secrets of the Whales (produced by Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Cameron) and Return of the White Shark.

His work has taken him to the far corners of the Earth, in tropical coral reef environments, in temperate waters like the Gulf of Maine, in polar regions from the high Arctic to Antarctica, in open ocean pelagic zones, in deep oceans using submersibles and ROVs, and in mangroves.

He once spent a week on the ocean bottom in what’s known as a “saturation facility.”

Skerry, who moved to York seven years ago, pitched his idea for a series on the Gulf of Maine in 2019 to public TV station WGBH in Boston, which produces Nova. It was important, he said, to tell the story of how the 36,000-acre Gulf has changed over time, primarily due to overfishing and climate change.

This summer, the series premiered in late July and early August. The episodes are titled “Bounty,” “Peril,” and “Survival.”

Besides coming up with the series concept, Skerry served as a producer and an underwater director. With underwater photographers shooting video for the series, Skerry gave them directions with hand signals on specific things that should be focused on.

Even though he’s dispirited and troubled by the changes in the Gulf of Maine, and less optimistic about the future than he was five years ago, Skerry still retains hopes that things can turn around. Where he finds optimism is in the people of the Gulf of Maine—fishermen, scientists, aquaculturists, and others—who recognize the threats at hand and are searching for answers.

“I guess where I find hope is that everyone knows things are changing and we need to implement solutions now,” he said. “I do fear it’s going quick. I think the window of opportunity to save what remains is closing.”

The Nova series is at: pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ series/sea-change-the-gulf-of-maine/

National Geographic article: nationalgeographic.com/environment/ article/gulf-of-maine-climate-changephotographer

Brian Skerry on assignment. PHOTO: BRIAN SKERRY

Tribal advocates honored at Abbe Museum

Wishcamper, Ahearn, and Newell highlight Native determination

BY EMMA DAVIS/ MAINE MORNING STAR MaineMorningStar.com

The Wabanaki Nations embody what Carol Wishcamper characterized as patient persistence.  Wishcamper, a founding supporter of the Wabanaki Alliance, was one of three people honored July 11 at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor at Nihkaniyane, the second year that members of the alliance and allies have come together to recognize the coalition’s work and the relationships that make it possible.

Each of the honorees spoke to this ability—being able to hold a vision, despite setbacks and slow progress, toward the overarching goal of having the state of Maine recognize the sovereignty of the Wabanaki Nations.

The Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, Mi’kmaq Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe, and Penobscot Nation—collectively known as the Wabanaki Nations—joined together in 2020 to push for changes to the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act, which has set the Wabanaki Nations apart from the other 570 federally-recognized tribes in the U.S. in being treated more like municipalities than independent nations.

In the four years since the founding of the Wabanaki Alliance, a coalition that has grown to more than 250 organizations across Maine, progress has been made, said Maulian Bryant, Penobscot Nation tribal ambassador and president of the Wabanaki Alliance, though trust between the tribes and state remains tenuous.

While Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, has opposed sweeping reform of the Settlement Act, she’s ushered through piecemeal changes pushed for by the tribes, lawmakers, and constitutional officers—several of whom were in attendance in Bar Harbor, including House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland) and Attorney General Aaron Frey.

“The Wabanaki people know, probably better than most, that change takes time,” Bryant said. “It takes a relentless pursuit of equity and justice. It takes convincing folks that it is needed one heart and mind at a time. The way to get this done is with drive, dedication, and a tireless passion for sharing humanity.”

In addition to Wishcamper, the alliance on Thursday also honored the

contributions of Rena Newell, former Passamaquoddy Tribal representative to the legislature and former chief of the reservation at Sipayik, and Beth Ahearn, who this year retired as director of government affairs for Maine Conservation Voters, a nonprofit focused on protecting the environment and one of the earliest members of the Wabanaki Alliance.

Newell, who currently serves as interim associate director of the Wabanaki Alliance, said the relationships people have with one another allow for collective learning and movement forward.

During her time in the State House, Newell led efforts to expand tribal-state coordination, including paving the way for greater sovereignty for the Passamaquoddy two years ago. Newell sponsored legislation that provided tribal members at Sipayik, also known as Pleasant Point, more power to regulate local drinking water by, among other means, removing barriers in the Settlement Act that had prevented the tribe from fully accessing federal funds and remediation resources that were available to other federally recognized tribes.

“I have been blown away by the determination and perseverance that you have shown and modeled on striving toward tribal sovereignty,” Ahearn said at the event. “I know you’re going to get there because that’s what you have, incredible determination and heart.”

Wishcamper, who served as co-chair of the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission which investigated the state’s compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act and removal of Wabanaki children from their communities, said one of the gifts of her life has been having relationships with Wabanaki people and being able to learn from each other.

The commission found that Wabanaki children entered foster care at disproportionate rates, often failed to be identified as eligible for Indian Child Welfare help at intake, and were less likely to be adopted than children overall—findings that the commission concluded can be viewed as evidence of cultural genocide.

The commission issued its report in 2015, mere weeks before the

Wabanaki delegation walked out of the State House over growing disagreement between the tribes and state over sovereignty.

“The tide was beginning to change,” Wishcamper said. “That was a watershed moment.”

Still, Wishcamper said, the first recommendation in the report—to respect tribal sovereignty—has not yet been implemented by the state. Wishcamper said she plans to keep showing up, as the Wabanaki have demonstrated for her, to “hold the vision, know that it’s right and true.”

While the third attempt at sweeping sovereignty legislation languished this year, the most substantive change to the Settlement Act did become law: extending tribal authority to prosecute more serious offenses committed on tribal territory by tribal members.

Last year, Congress amended one of the federal protections the Wabanaki Nations had been excluded from under the Settlement Act, the Violence Against Women Act, providing the Wabanaki Nations expanded jurisdiction.

Bryant said that provides a solid foundation for the tribes to again take on more responsibilities and expand court capacity under the new state law.

The larger Penobscot Nation and Passamaquoddy Tribe have full court systems, whereas the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians opened the doors of a Healing to Wellness Court earlier this year, which is focused on offering alternatives to jail for those that have substance use issues.

The law expanding criminal jurisdiction also extended the period for the Penobscot Nation to certify a law the legislature passed last year allowing the tribe a greater role in the management of its drinking water, which the tribe did unanimously in June, Bryant said.

But the session also saw alliance’s priority bills fail, including the proposal to create an office of tribalsate affairs and to pilot a Wabanakifocused curriculum for public schools.

Last fall, voters also overwhelmingly supported a measure to put the state’s obligations to the Wabanaki Nations back into print in the state Constitution, after the requirements had been redacted in 1876 despite still being in effect.

Newell recounted advice she offered someone starting work in the Wabanaki Alliance: “Just be open. Together, if we come to the table in an open, respectful manner, I think we can go far.”

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

Gerald “Punkin” Lemoine

Levi Moulden

Bud Staples

Honorees, from left: Beth Ahearn, Carol Wishcamper, and Rena Newell hold baskets woven by Richard Silliboy, vice chief of the Mi’kmaq Nation during Nihkaniyane on July 11.

PHOTO: EMMA DAVIS/MAINE MORNING STAR

PLANNING

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will fund a project to identify new road designs for Corea Harbor—including a causeway that, by Zoellick’s estimate, carries about $200,000 in lobsters, other seafood, bait and supplies every week. The second, from Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry’s (DACF) Municipal Planning Assistance Program, will be used to inventory and assess vulnerable infrastructure in three other Gouldsboro harbors that are home to 47 commercial fishing vessels.

Some grant categories are now explicitly tied to participation in the state’s Community Resilience Partnership Program, which requires a municipal climate resilience committee. That may explain the program’s rapid growth, which added 52 new partners in the first half of 2024. But even when such committees are not explicitly required for grants, their presence provides towns with the capacity and commitment that state agencies look for when awarding funds.

In Vinalhaven, Town Manager Marjorie Stratton said the involvement of the community’s Sea Level Rise and Climate Committee was valuable in winning $50,000 to assess vulnerability and begin engineering and cost estimates for the reconstruction of a pier, floating docks, and wave attenuator/ crib damaged in the January storms.

“It illustrates the greater public purpose of these projects,” Stratton said of the committee, which dates back to 2016. “There seems to be a lot of resiliency funding for working waterfronts, and this infrastructure

has been on our radar for years, so their work as a partner was important. And the more partners you have on a grant, the better.”

Averi Varney is executive director of the Hancock County Planning Commission, which won a Coastal Community Grant for a project it calls “Climate Ready Communities: A Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Plan for Coastal Sullivan and Sorrento.” That project, Varney said, provides joint flooding and sea-level rise vulnerability assessments and adaptation plans for the two towns.

“Low-resource communities struggle with staff and funding already,” Varney pointed out. “Then they get hit with those winter storms—it’s hard to imagine how badly they got hurt. Ocean Avenue in Sorrento, for example, just got destroyed. There’s a lot of work to be done, and not always enough people to do it.”

Varney said one of her organization’s goals is to enroll more communities like Sullivan, Sorrento, and the island community of Frenchboro into the state’s Community Resilience Partnership Program.

has a background in grant writing. Not everyone has a Bill.”

Zoellick says a well-functioning resilience committee may, in some ways, be the most important piece of “infrastructure” in a small coastal community. That’s because the work it engages in is the precursor to the more expensive engineering tasks to come— raising roads, realigning causeways, and building wharves and piers higher and stronger than in the past.

Coastal communities with strong resilience committees like Gouldsboro and Vinalhaven will be wellpositioned for grants…

For instance, his committee has used a town drone to fly over Gouldsboro’s wharves and waterfront to create 3D models of the infrastructure, which helps residents, fishermen, officials, and engineers visualize where rising sea levels threaten the town’s economy. It has created and updated flood maps, partnered with professional engineering firms like Scarborough-based Streamworks, and written the grants that should lead to “shovel ready” projects when funding becomes available.

And those projects may be right around the corner.

coastal communities from future storms and rising sea levels.

“We are in a critical fight to protect the health of our people, the health of our environment, and the health of our economy from the ravages of climate change,” Mills said in a statement after Maine was named one of ten states to receive funding as part of NOAA’s Climate Resilience Grant Challenge. She said the funds would “accelerate and expand our already aggressive work to make our state, especially our vital working waterfronts, stronger and more resilient to the severe storms we know are ahead.”

That level of commitment excites Stratton, because she sees huge challenges ahead for Vinalhaven, which is already working on a major downtown project to improve resiliency.

“It’s tough, because without raising Main Street, there’s not a whole lot we can do,” she said. “We’re not building a wall. We can’t prevent sea level rise. We can’t stop the surges.”

Varney says she has no doubt that coastal communities with strong resilience committees like Gouldsboro and Vinalhaven will be well-positioned for grants to fund larger climate mitigation efforts. And she says smaller communities can benefit from a regional approach that pools capacity and experience together.

“The idea is to build more structure and capacity in these small towns as a first step,” she explained. “Gouldsboro is fortunate to have a Bill Zoellick, who

In late July, Gov. Janet Mills announced that 68 working waterfronts damaged by devastating winter storms had qualified for $21.2 million in state-funded “resilience” grants. A week later, the Mills administration celebrated a $69 million climate resilience grant to protect Maine’s

“We know that it’s hard for towns to work across borders,” she said. “We need to find ways that enable small communities to work together while maintaining control over administrative functions. The more they can plan and prepare, the less money they’ll need down the road.”

Bill would offer tax credits to working waterfronts

Storm damage would trigger eligibility for federal benefit

U.S. SENS. ANGUS KING, I-Maine, and Bill Cassidy, R-La. are introducing legislation to offer a disaster mitigation tax credit to working waterfronts located on coasts and navigable waterways. The Working Waterfronts Disaster Mitigation Tax Credit Act would provide working waterfronts with a 30% tax credit on up to $1 million in mitigation expenses, adjusted for inflation annually.

The proposal comes on the heels of 2023 winter storms that caused more than $3 billion in damage in Maine. King has been at the forefront of supporting working waterfronts as they face the effects of sea level rise and storm damage. Last winter, he joined the Maine delegation in writing to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in support of Gov. Janet Mills’ requests that they treat the multiple devastating winter storms as a disaster event for purposes of damage assessment and federal reimbursement for cleanup.

This new legislation would ensure that working waterfronts have the financial resources to shore up their infrastructure and prevent the oftentimes devastating consequences of natural disasters.

“Maine’s coastal communities are changing,” King noted. “From a warming climate to an evolving economy, the Gulf of Maine faces both historic opportunities and challenges that will define our state’s success for generations.

“The Working Waterfronts Disaster Mitigation Tax Credit Act would provide working waterfronts up and down the coast of Maine with the necessary financial resources to adapt to the rapidly shifting dynamics of natural disasters affecting economic and tourism operations,” he said.

Cassidy said preparation was key.

“Let’s empower coastal businesses to invest in flood and disaster prevention before a storm hits,” he said. “Doing so protects our way of life, fishing and

coastal industries, and the livelihoods of Louisiana families.”

Working waterfronts are comprised of physical property (including support structures over water and other facilities) that provide access to navigable waters to persons engaged in commercial fishing, recreational fishing and boating businesses, boatbuilding, aquaculture, or other water-dependent business used for the purpose of supporting a water-dependent business.

The tax credit would be available to any small business that operates a working waterfront. For example, a coastal business owner can use this tax credit to invest in business-related infrastructure to protect property so that it does not suffer damage from rising water and storms.

“Island Institute is grateful to Sen. King for introducing this visionary piece of legislation,” said Kim Hamilton, president of Island Institute. “Maine’s working waterfront businesses will need all the tools

they can get; this tax credit will be an important resource for small business owners, many of whom were affected by catastrophic January storms. This bill assures that small working waterfront businesses can take steps today that will help them to prepare for future impacts of climate change.”

King is a longtime supporter of working waterfronts and small businesses. He previously introduced the bipartisan Providing Resources for Emergency Preparedness and Resilient Enterprises (PREPARE) Act to reauthorize the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Pre-Disaster Mitigation Pilot Program, which would give small businesses the opportunity to take out low-interest loans for the purpose of proactively implementing mitigation measures that protect their property from future disaster-related damage. Most recently, he was named a 2024 Hero of Main Street for his support of small businesses across Maine.

State awards $21.2 million in resilience grants

SIXTY-EIGHT MAINE working waterfronts will receive $21.2 million in resilience grants from the state to support recovery and rebuilding from damage caused by devastating storms this past winter.

The Working Waterfront Resilience Grant Program are funded with $60 million in state funding authorized through the supplemental budget in May— the single largest investment in storm recovery by any administration in Maine history.

The working waterfront projects receiving grants represent a range of needs, including reconstruction and improvement of damaged wharves and piers, rebuilding and restoration of key support buildings such as bait sheds, and repairing and upgrading fuel and electrical systems.

“Working waterfronts are a cornerstone of our coastal communities and our economy, and last winter’s devastating storm demonstrated just how vulnerable they are to extreme weather and climate change,” said Gov. Janet Mills. “These grants will help rebuild working waterfronts to

better withstand storms, protecting access to the water now and for generations to come.”

Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher said the funding is “an important investment in Maine’s critical yet vulnerable working waterfront. With commercial access already so limited, it is imperative that we protect these properties from climate driven events and safeguard an industry that is so important to our state’s economic future.”

Hannah Pingree, director of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future and co-chair of the Maine Climate Council, said the storms were “a wake-up call for many across our state to the need to urgently invest in resilience to the growing effects of climate change, such as flooding, storm surge, and intense, extreme storms.”

Linda Vannah, manager of the New Harbor Co-op, said the funding “is critical for us, because we had to replace both docks after the storms destroyed pilings, snapped fuel lines, left our office building with no support structure, and damaged

electrical wiring and our freezer.”

The money will help rebuild the docks higher by up to two feet.

“Without this funding we wouldn’t be able to complete the reconstruction of our wharf,” said Ron Trundy, manager of the Stonington Co-op. “We were able to start the process so we could return to work by June, but this funding lets us complete the work by reinforcing the base of the wharf with stonework and increasing the height of the wharf by two feet, which will make the co-op resilient to future storms.”

The Island Institute and the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association also dedicated resources to help property owners complete and submit grant applications.

The program enabled grant applicants to request up to $2 million for design, permitting, and construction of their project; applicants were also required to provide a 1-to-1 financial match toward the cost of the work.

In addition to the Working Waterfront Resilience Grant Program, the governor and legislature allocated

$35 million to two other funds for storm recovery: the $10 million Business Recovery and Resilience Fund, to provide direct support to businesses harmed by the winter storms, and $25 million for the Maine Infrastructure Adaptation Fund, for projects that make public infrastructure more resilient to storms and flooding.

In May, Mills signed an executive order to establish a commission to develop the state’s first plan for long-term infrastructure resilience, following the two devastating winter storms and a record eight stormrelated federal disaster declarations in Maine over the past two years.

The 24-member commission will engage with communities, industries, and organizations across Maine to understand challenges following storms, identify and bridge gaps in resources like funding, financing, and insurance, how to improve the resilience of energy systems, propose new approaches to improve disaster recovery and response, and strengthen resilience supports at the state, regional, and local levels.

Working Waterfront Resilience Grant Program

NORSE

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to arrange an exploratory excavation, but has not yet succeeded, leaving the origins an ongoing mystery.

James Moreira, associate professor of anthropology and community studies at the University of Maine at Machias, has visited the sites several times with Prenier.

“If [the settlement were] Acadian, they were people fleeing the expulsion [from Quebec]. That would be incredibly interesting.”

FINDING NORSE RUINS in North America—aside from the famed L’anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland—would be a significant discovery. For decades, amateur archaeologists and artifact hunters in the state have been looking for concrete evidence that the Norse came to Maine during the time of the Greenland colony between 985 and 1300 A.D., but findings have consistently been discredited.

That’s not to rule out the possibility that the Lubec ruins are Norse in origin, however. After all, Moreira points out, it took several years of digging at L’anse aux Meadows before enough definitively Norse artifacts could be recovered for the site to be declared an official Norse habitation.

There are similarities between the two sites. Of the Lubec site, Born wrote that it “has some of the characteristics of one of the multi-room Norse building sites at L’Anse aux Meadows.” Other similarities in construction include rounded corners, sunken floor foundations, and opposing knee walls.

More clues come from the Norse themselves. In the Icelandic sagas, composed in 1250 A.D. and detailing the explorations of Leif Erikson, the Norse wrote of finding and settling

“Vinland,” later identified as a shortlived colony in North America.

In 1949, Edward Reman, an experienced seaman and navigator, translated the sailing instructions in the book and determined that Vinland may have been in the Bay of Fundy or Passamaquoddy Bay area. He compiled his findings in The Norse Discoveries and Explorations of America, including among the anecdotal evidence a reference to a passage where the Norse sailors experienced “astonishment and dismay” by “a tide fall such as they had never seen or heard of before.”

It’s known that the Norse who lived at L’Anse aux Meadows also traveled south, says Terry Deveau, former president of the New England Antiquities Research Association and consultant for the Oak Island excavation in Nova Scotia.

“The presence of three butternuts and a burl of butternut wood at the L’anse aux Meadows site, dated to coincide with the Norse occupation there circa 1021 AD, is incontrovertible proof that they ventured considerably farther south of this location at that time.”

and continuing into the growth of New Acadia over the next century and a half. Beginning in 1755, the British forced the Acadians gradually south, resulting in temporary settlements popping up along the eastern seaboard as they traveled.

Some Acadians arrived in Lubec, according to a report on the Maine Memory Network by local historian Jennifer Multhopp titled “Lubec: A Border Town Shaped by the Sea.” That point is further substantiated by a reference to Acadian settlements “within the present limits of this town” and relics that are still visible in North Lubec and South Bay in James McGregor’s History Of Washington Lodge, No. 37, Free And Accepted Masons, Lubec, Maine, 1822-1890.

The area has historically been associated with French settlements, going back to the St. Croix Island expedition in 1604…

Tying it back to the Lubec site, Deveau further adds that it is a “curious coincidence” that “specifically butternut trees appear to be a significant highlight” there.

WHILE THE LUBEC ruins may be seen as a candidate for Vinland, that’s not the only archeological value they offer. The area has historically been associated with French settlements, going back to the St. Croix Island expedition in 1604

The timeframe would align with some of the features at the Lubec sites. Regarding the large earthworks site, Borns noted that “the flattening of the floor to this degree appears to have been done by machinery, not by hand,” which would date the process to later than the 16th century.

The flattening could have been done to an existing structure, meaning it doesn’t rule out the potential that the earthworks are older.

The mixed origin of the features are problematic for researchers, explains Deveau.

“This typically causes difficulties for archaeologists, who are generally reluctant to devote resources to investigating ‘potentially older’ sites in relative proximity to sites of fairly recent activity, since things like agricultural or logging practices can leave behind traces that mimic what might look like ancient constructions.”

Outside of the features that are European in origin, Lubec has a

long history of habitation by the Passamaquoddy Tribe, and Moreira readily agrees there are “undoubtedly Native remains there as well.” Prenier contacted tribal historian Donald Soctomah and discussed the features of the sites, with Soctomah subsequently determining the structures did not seem to be Passamaquoddy in origin, based on the discussion.

Markings around the sites may have been made by the Passamaquoddys, however, at least based on recent findings that Moreira identifies as potentially being “incised Native petroglyphs” made post-contact.

Despite visits from several knowledgeable experts in their field, the Lubec ruins remain unexplored by a dedicated research team. “My main quest is to get an archeologist who is interested in the site” and get out there and excavate, Moreira says. “Who knows what its potential is?”

Borns also thought the site worthy of excavation, writing that “an exploratory archeological dig should be done by a trained archeologist” under state guidance to determine the origins.

“It is essential that the archaeological potential of the site be preserved by preventing disturbance of the soil in and near the potentially older features, otherwise the archaeological record becomes scrambled and the opportunity is lost to adequately understand the story that the site has to tell,” Deveau said.

He also warns about the possibility of “pot hunters” who could come in and spoil the site prematurely.

For Prenier, it’s been a long waiting game, but one he’s willing to continue. “Hal [Borns] told me I was going to hit it out of the park with this. I think that’s one reason I’m still doing this— because I haven’t yet.”

This story first appeared in The Quoddy Tides and is reprinted with permission and gratitude. A longer version is available at QuoddyTides.com.

A fishing boat returns to Johnson Bay in Lubec in late July. PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Coastal cleanup returns

THE MAINE COASTAL Program, a division of the Department of Marine Resources (DMR), has opened registration for the annual Coastal Cleanup, a volunteer-driven initiative designed to clean debris from shores and waterfront communities.

Part of the International Coastal Cleanup, Maine’s Coastal Cleanup will run from Sept. 7-21.

Anyone who wishes to coordinate a local cleanup can register online by completing a brief form on the DMR website and selecting a site along the coast.

Once a registration has been received, DMR will remove the chosen location from the available sites on the online registration form. If a coordinator indicates on the registration form they are seeking volunteers, DMR will list that site along with contact information so interested volunteers can reach out to the coordinator.

Prior to the date of each cleanup, coordinators will be sent a package containing resources to collect and record trash.

“We encourage coordinators to have their volunteers bring gloves, hats, sunscreen, and water to stay hydrated,” said Theresa Torrent, outreach and stewardship specialist for the Maine Coastal Program.

The international cleanup was established over 35 years ago to address the problem of trash in our oceans and on our coasts. The non-profit Ocean Conservancy, which coordinates the global initiative, maintains a database of all the items that volunteers around the world record when collecting trash.

“Every year the Maine Coastal Cleanup provides a chance for people to join a global initiative aimed at improving the health of our oceans and to support Maine’s vital coastal communities and,” said Torrent.

Anyone interested in coordinating a Coastal Cleanup can register online via the DMR website. For more information contact theresa.torrent@ maine.gov.

‘Unbridged’ Island Reader published

FOR ALMOST 20 years,  The Island Reader has featured the work of residents living on Maine’s unbridged islands. Each edition, published annually by Maine Seacoast Mission, contains a range of stories, prose, art, and photographs from a wide variety of island residents and is also edited by islanders. The recently published Vol. 18 is “the unbridged edition” and features the work of 46 islanders.

This year’s Island Reader  includes poetry, a ghost story, short stories, beautiful photographs, vibrant paintings, and other art that encapsulates what it means to live on an unbridged island.

Submissions come from 14 islands stretching from Casco to Frenchman’s Bay including residents of Chebeague, Cliff Island, Frenchboro, Great Cranberry, Isle au Haut, Islesford (Little Cranberry), Long Island, Matinicus, Monhegan, North Haven, Peaks Island, Swan’s Island, and Vinalhaven.

A dedicated team of co-editors including Gary Rainford of Swan’s Island oversees content and selects what is included in each edition. This year’s editors are Kendra Chubbuck of Isle au Haut, Ingrid Gaither of Great Cranberry Island, M.T. (Toby) Martin, Jr. of Islesboro, and Kimberly Peabody of Matinicus. Douglas Cornman, the Mission’s director of island services, is also a co-editor and serves as a liaison between the editorial team, the Mission, and the islands.

From July 1 to Jan. 15 the editorial team welcomes submissions for the 19th edition. Submissions of visual art, poetry, and prose are accepted from writers and artists living on unbridged Maine islands.

To order a hard copy of the 18th edition or to see virtual copies of previous editions, visit seacoastmission.org/sunbeam/island-outreach/ the-island-reader/.

Boothbay Maritime Foundation plans pier

THE BOOTHBAY REGION Maritime Foundation has recently signed a contract with Fuller Marine to build a new pier and seawall at Carter’s Wharf, 87 Atlantic Avenue, the former site of the Sea Pier.

The seawall will be constructed from granite and will be raised to meet current FEMA flood zone height requirements. The pier will have a pouredin-place concrete deck. The site plan has been engineered by Gartley and Dorsky Engineering & Surveying, the seawall has been engineered by Summit Geoengineering Services with Gartley and Dorsky, and the pier has been engineered by GEI Consultants, Inc.

Funds for the $2.1 million project include grants from the state, the Mildred McEvoy Foundation, and other anonymous grants as well as donations from generous individuals. Additional funds are being sought for the remainder of the project which include construction of a buying station, fueling station and marina. Donations towards the final phase of the project can be mailed to the address below or made

through the Foundation’s website at boothbayregionmaritimefoundation.org/.

Anyone interested in using the wharf for commercial fishing should send a letter to the Boothbay Region Maritime Foundation, PO Box 285, Boothbay Harbor, Maine, 04538. Individuals as well as businesses are encouraged to inquire. Only licensed commercial fishermen and buyers will be considered. Bids for construction of the buying station are now being sought. If you are interested in submitting a bid proposal for the building please request a bid package at the address above. Bids are due no later than Sept. 16.

Questions can be directed to the BRMaritimeFoundation@gmail.com. Carter’s Wharf is owned by the Boothbay Region Maritime Foundation, a 501 C3 nonprofit formed in 2018. Its mission is to preserve maritime heritage by supporting working waterfront, promoting sustainable practices, and embracing the educational opportunities this stewardship provides.

from the sea up

Saving our safe passage sentinels

Lighthouses saved, quilts bestowed, lessons learned

BY KIM HAMILTON

I AM NOT MUCH of a historian. I spend most of my days thinking about the future and how to work with Maine’s coastal communities to prepare for and adapt to what’s to come. This summer, however, I’ve had the opportunity to delve into some meaningful stories from our 40-year history. An unlikely source took me on a journey: a quilt.

Every day I’m in the office, I walk by an extraordinary quilt that decorates one of our walls. This isn’t just a pretty quilt; it is a piece of art, with carefully hand-dyed and painted material, fine embroidery, and neatly stitched appliqué. Each of the squares is a colorful representation of the lighthouses that dot our coast from West Quoddy Head to Spring Point Ledge. While I had admired the craftsmanship, I hadn’t noticed until recently the decorations in the bottom corners of the quilt: the Chebeague Island Historical Society logo and the perfectly hand-embroidered signature by the artist, Shirley Burgess.

In fact, this quilt came to Island Institute as a recognition of its efforts in the early 1990s to secure the future of Maine lighthouses. Lighthouses all along the coast were facing demolition by the U.S. Coast Guard as coastal navigation became automated. With no need for lighthouse keeper homes, or the lighthouses themselves, these sentinels of the coast were at risk of disappearing forever.

Enter the Maine Lights program. Through this program, conceived and initiated by our co-founder, Peter Ralston, several of those lighthouses came directly to Island Institute and we, in turn, ensured they were transferred into the hands of groups committed to preserving the lighthouses and ensuring public access. It took an act of Congress and some well-placed support from then Sen. George Mitchell to seal the deal, resulting in the transfer of 27 lighthouses into caring hands. The sale of Jamie Wyeth prints helped facilitate the costs of transfer.

Although lighthouses had become a capital expense for the government,

their spiritual value to local communities has never waned.

Like many, quilt-artist Shirley Burgess felt a personal connection.

“How many of us wouldn’t be here on Chebeague today if it weren’t for the lights?” she wondered. The quilt that hangs at Island Institute is emblematic of that deep connection between coastal communities and our maritime history—15 squares representing the trust between seafarers and lighthouse keepers and the lives saved through that partnership.

Shirley gifted the quilt to the Chebeague Historical Society, which in turn gifted it to Island Institute.

As Donna Damon, one of our board members at the time said, people “have a hard time understanding why one nonprofit would donate to another, but it’s part of island culture. All groups are related, one group of people to another.”

Ultimately, the Maine Lights Program formed the basis for the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act, which earned Peter Ralston the “Keeper of the Light”

award from the American Lighthouse Foundation and cemented Maine’s role in this important effort.

Knowing its history, I view that quilt today in a different light, as the daughter of a Navy veteran, as a resident of Chebeague Island, and as the president of Island Institute.

We are all, in fact, keepers of the light through our connections to each other, ensuring that future generations have safe passage and that Maine continues to light the way. As Shirley’s son, Ernie Burgess, so aptly put it in a 1995 interview, “lighthouses look awful, awful good when you’re not sure where you’re going…”

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

Let’s be real about crime anxiety Numbers

don’t lie—Maine remains a safe place to live rock bound

BY TOM GROENING

A COUPLE OF MONTHS ago I saw a news item about human remains being discovered in Gorham, just west of Portland. I looked for the follow-up story, and it turned out the remains were traced to someone who had recently gone missing and no “foul play” was suspected.

What interested me was tied to one of the first big stories I covered while at the weekly paper in Belfast. On Labor Day weekend of 1988, a man from Lexington, Mass. claimed he and his wife were taking an impromptu trip to Bar Harbor and stopped at the Belfast Renys store for her to use the bathroom. She never returned to the car, where he was waiting.

Inconsistencies emerged. Why Renys, and not the nearby McDonald’s? The husband purchased several negligee items for her at the Renys while waiting for her return and put them in her suitcase. Why?

One of the couple’s children was due to arrive in Lexington for a visit, so it seemed an odd time to head to Maine. The husband claimed the couple had a fight, reconciled, and decided to visit Bar Harbor.

I spoke to the couple’s two adult daughters when they went public

with their belief that their father had killed their mother. Blood was found on carpet in their bedroom, and her hair was found on an outside step. The body was never found.

My theory was that the husband killed her during a conflict and then disposed of the body somewhere between his home and South Portland, where he spent the night in a motel. He then decided to report her missing in Belfast, thinking—I theorized—that a small-town police department would be easy to deceive.

In fact, Belfast had, and still has a first-rate police department. The chief told me privately that officers from Lexington and Belfast were questioning the husband and it appeared he was close to confessing, but a Lexington officer told him there was witness who saw him putting something that looked a body in the trunk of his car.

The man’s demeanor immediately changed and he refused to answer any more questions because, the chief explained, the couple’s garage was attached to the house, and so it was clear a witness didn’t exist.

What does this have to do with life here on the Maine coast? Well, I think crime will always be a factor in how we evaluate our communities. Crime certainly

becomes a political issue around elections, and it seems candidates are able to easily frighten voters with distorted accounts of the state of crime.

And news media are culpable in this distortion.

We see how cable news provides breathless coverage when a young, attractive, often blonde woman going missing. Never mind that more women of color go missing. Child abductions also generate wall-to-wall TV coverage.

Yet in a country with a population of more than 320 million, these cases are aberrations, statistically insignificant.

When we first bought land in Belfast in 1984, I was shocked and worried to see reports of cocaine-related murders in the area. What had we done, planning on settling here?

It took some time, but I finally took comfort in the fact that this violence, though abhorrent, was not random. When I became a reporter in town, I saw this borne out in the weekly police blotter, especially as the chief would tell me, off the record, the back story—a score being settled, a jealous boyfriend, a drug deal gone bad, a party that got out of control.

I would not want to live in a community in which I would be fearful walking down a street at night. And

so I am comfortable remaining in Belfast. Drugs, and our seemingly insatiable appetite for them, have spurred disturbing acts of violence in Portland, but again, victims are mostly involved in this illicit business.

In fact, Maine’s violent crime rate is the second lowest in the nation, with 1.1 incidents per 1,000 people. The property crime rate is fourth-lowest per capita, at 12.4 (the national rate is 20.7).

Just before my parents retired to Maine from New York, a woman was robbed in a grocery store parking lot there at 10:30 a.m. It was the store at which my mother shopped. I urged my parents to hasten their move to Maine. Crime is a legitimate quality-oflife issue. We must invest in our local police, and we must urge them to adopt proven community policing methods. But let’s not elevate fear beyond its potential threat.

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

BLACK, WHITE, AND BLUE HILL—

Blue Hill’s Duffy-Wescott American Legion post is pictured here in this image, probably from the early 20th century. Do readers have more information? Contact editor Tom Groening at tgroening@islandinstitute.org.

Bike and walk to a better climate future

Preparing for people-powered access pays dividends

BY JEAN SIDERIS

CLIMATE CHANGE arguably is one of the biggest challenges we face as a nation, as a world. It is a challenge that does not have a single solution, but requires us to deploy a wide range of actions to drastically reduce global warming, pollution, and to prepare for the climate changes we can no longer avoid.

It’s no surprise that we at the Bicycle Coalition of Maine (BCM) see biking and walking as climate solutions. While they are not the largest pieces of the emissions reduction pie, they allow us to chip away at emissions reductions while providing a wealth of co-benefits including improved health, greater connection to community, safer roads, more vibrant downtowns, and economic development.

Not to mention that expanding lowcarbon transportation options will lift up those in our community who are unable to drive, do not have access to a car, or need a reliable way to get to a job, school, or other services.

Unlike investments in cars and car-centric infrastructure, investments in active transportation yield

Island Institute Board of Trustees

Kristin Howard, Chair

Doug Henderson, Vice-Chair

Shey Conover, Secretary, Chair of Governance Committee

Carol White, Chair of Programs Committee

Kate Vogt, Treasurer, Chair of Finance Committee

Bryan Lewis, Chair of Philanthropy Committee

Megan Dayton, Ad Hoc Marketing & Comms Committee

Mike Boyd, Clerk

Sebastian Belle

John Conley

David Cousens

Mike Felton

Nathan Johnson

Emily Lane

Nadia Rosenthal

Michael Sant

Mike Steinharter

Donna Wiegle

Tom Glenn (honorary)

Joe Higdon (honorary)

Bobbie Sweet (honorary)

John Bird (honorary)

Kimberly A. Hamilton, PhD (ex officio)

environmental, financial, health, and social benefits. Given that the average daily trip in Maine is five miles (including in rural parts of our state), active transportation is clearly the best investment. Nothing is cleaner, more affordable, more accessible, and therefore more equitable than walking and biking.

We were glad to see the latest recommendations to the Maine Climate Council include more active transportation (biking, walking, other mobility devices) elements than in the first round of the council’s plan. The BCM has been a member of the transportation working group of the council since its inception and played an active role in the process to update the recommendations.

Under the council’s “reduce vehicle miles traveled” strategy, several active transportation solutions were included that deserve a shout-out.

Under the council’s “reduce vehicle miles traveled” strategy, several active transportation solutions were included that deserve a shout-out. The plan calls for expanding safe, active transportation

options by improving options in villages and downtowns, paving shoulders along highways (principally in rural areas), and active transportation trail development. It also includes continuing and expanding pilot programs such as the electric bike program partnership for underserved individuals seeking transportation for employment and healthcare purposes and expanding the electric bike rebate.

However, the Maine Climate Council only recommends actions; they are not required by law. The Bicycle Coalition of Maine, partner organizations, and stakeholders will need to work tirelessly to ensure the implementation and funding of the active transportation initiatives outlined in the plan.

We need your help to make sure these good ideas don’t sit on a shelf and

THE WORKING WATERFRONT

Published by Island Institute, a non-profit organization that boldly navigates climate and economic change with island and coastal communities to expand opportunities and deliver solutions. All members of Island Institute and residents of Maine island communities receive monthly mail delivery of The Working Waterfront. For home delivery: Join Island Institute by calling our office at (207) 594-9209 E-mail us: membership@islandinstitute.org • Visit us online: giving.islandinstitute.org 386

collect dust! Here are three steps you can take today:

Share your comments on the recommendatons. You can comment on all sections or skip some; be sure to comment on the value and importance of robust, active transportation initiatives: Maine.gov/future/climate/ council/workinggroups/2024strategies

Tell your local and state elected officials that climate action is important to you, and you would like to see biking, walking, and transit be included in our action plans.

Get involved with the Bicycle Coalition of Maine. Volunteer, become a member, and stay informed as we craft our policy goals for next year in collaboration with partner organizations: bikemaine.org.

Jean Sideris is executive director of the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, a statewide voice of cyclists and pedestrians since 1992, working to make Maine better for bicycling and walking by protecting the rights and safety of cyclists and pedestrians through education, advocacy, legislation, and encouragement.

Editor: Tom Groening tgroening@islandinstitute.org

Our advertisers reach 50,000+ readers who care about the coast of Maine. Free distribution from Kittery to Lubec and mailed directly to islanders and members of Island Institute, and distributed monthly to Portland Press Herald and Bangor Daily News subscribers.

To Advertise Contact: Dave Jackson djackson@islandinstitute.org (207) 542-5801

www.WorkingWaterfront.com

Northern nightmares: Monsters in Inuit art

Peary-MacMillan Museum features Arctic-inspired art

BY KELLI PARK

Life on the northern frontier is not for the faint of heart.

The extreme environment has shaped those who have called the Arctic home for thousands of years and has inspired myth and folklore. The stories have taken on a life of their own with a darkness reminiscent of the polar night.

The newly constructed PearyMacMillan Arctic Museum at Bowdoin College in Brunswick features the exhibit “Northern Nightmares: Monsters in Inuit Art” through May 2025, offering a glimpse into this dark side of Inuit mythology.

From Alaska to Canada to Greenland, the origins of these mythical figures vary depending on their location and the diverse cultural characteristics of each Inuit community. The sense of spirituality imbued in Arctic lands and waters, however, is shared by all. It is this otherworldly presence that has given life to these haunting figures in stories that have withstood the test of time.

The creatures in these stories are often inspired by encounters with danger in the Arctic wilderness. Some of the stories offer guidance on proper social behavior and warnings for survival to ensure children do not wander too close to the edge of the ice, for example.

sharp teeth and multiple stomachs (filled with human limbs) who lurks in shallow water to devour people at water’s edge.

Some are origin stories and may tell the tale of people who have cleverly overcome peril, including the story of how fog came to be from Nunavik, Canada, in which a man-eating giant was outsmarted by a hunter who was about to be eaten for dinner.

There are some stories that would likely mystify those outside the culture and not offer up perceivable morals.

Naalikkaatseeq of Greenland is known as “the eater of entrails” because she intercepts angakuit (shamans) traveling to visit the Man in the Moon and fulfills her promise to eat their entrails should they smile or laugh during her dance performance.

As more Europeans explored eastern Greenland in the 20th century, the demand for depictions of the tupilak began to grow

In Alaska, some figures were painted on kayaks to ward off danger, including palraiyuk, a lizard-like creature with

The mystery of these figures is not locked in the past and continues to evolve within and beyond contemporary Inuit culture. The 20th century gave rise to a new wave of Inuit artists who moved beyond traditional folklore, inspired by increased contact with the world beyond the Arctic.

Genevieve Lemoine, curator at the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, said the evolution of the tupilak—a monster or a carved replica of a monster—from Greenland is one of the ideas that became a source of inspiration for this exhibit.

“The tupilak is a very interesting story,” she explained. “What is a ‘real’ tupilak, so to speak? How have they

A depiction of the mythical tupilak, gift of Peter Witt and Joyce Nies.

PHOTO: COURTESY PEARY-MacMILLAN MUSEUM

evolved in Greenlandic art? The shift has been surprising.”

Historically, a tupilak spirit was called upon to help against a foe by a shaman who secretly created a grotesque figure from bones and parts of animals, which became a home

back to kill its originator. After the task was accomplished, the tupilak ceased to exist.

As more Europeans explored eastern Greenland in the 20th century, the demand for depictions of the tupilak began to grow and resulted in carvings made from wood, bone, tooth, horn, and antler. The more grotesque the carving, the more popular it was among western buyers, who were enchanted by the grimacing, skeletal figures. Over time, local artists developed their personal style and carved a variety of beings from their old stories, which were then marketed by companies as tupilaks to appeal to buyers.

more surprising, however, is the shift in meaning. Tupilaks are now being interpreted in modern artistic expression and sold to tourists in souvenir shops and airports as sources of protection, a far cry from their origins as a malevolent spirit meant to inflict death.

for the malevolent spirit after a spell was cast over it. The tupilak was then released into the world to find the enemy and kill him; however, if the tupilak’s victim had greater powers than its creator, the attack could be repelled and the tupilak would be sent

In recent years, tupilaks have evolved to meet demand and are being carved from antler, bone, soapstone, stone and wood for the tourist market because whale tooth may not currently be exported. Perhaps

Historically, a tupilak spirit was called upon to help against a foe by a shaman who secretly created a grotesque figure...

No matter how these myths and meanings evolve, one thing is certain, says Lemoine.: “Everyone has nightmares.” She hopes to feature Greenlandic horror films, among others, during a cinematic showcase in connection with the exhibit.

Admission is free at the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. Hours are: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 1-5 p.m. To learn more about it other exhibits, see and bowdoin.edu/ arctic-museum.

A baby seal tupilak made by an unidentified Inuk artist.

PHOTO: COURTESY PEARY-MacMILLAN MUSEUM

Another rendering of a tupilak, gift of Wilfred Richard, PhD, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center. PHOTO: COURTESY PEARY-MacMILLAN MUSEUM

Christa Thorpe brings global perspective to Bremen

BY JOHNATHAN RILEY

To connect with others is a deeply human experience, and Christa Thorpe has been fostering those connections her whole life through roles as teacher, community development coordinator at Island Institute, school committee member, and chairwoman of a town broadband committee.

Thorpe, of Bremen, has a deep family history in Lincoln County, which she said started as far back as the 1767 marriage of Samuel and Elizabeth Pierce on Monhegan Island. In 1829, her father’s side of the family arrived in Christmas Cove in South Bristol and have been on the peninsula ever since.

Bangladesh, a nation east of India along the Bay of Bengal, where her parents were serving in a ministry organization working on educational projects related to art and music.

“Growing up, I felt fairly bicultural,” she says. “I felt fairly at ease in Asia, and I ended up going back later in life for a couple of different reasons.

“Anyone who is drawn to teaching cares about the community,

—CHRISTA THORPE

“I feel very rooted here, although I didn’t always,” she says.

After being born in Bath, Thorpe spent her first eight years in

Coming home to Maine was just as much home as the very busy streets of Dhaka,” the capital city of Bangladesh and one of the most populous cities in the world.

When her family returned to Lincoln County, she attended Great Salt Bay Community School in Damariscotta and graduated from Lincoln Academy in Newcastle in 2005.

After high school, Thorpe attended Wheaton College in Illinois, where she intended to further her studies in music: a lifelong passion she’s had particularly for playing the flute,

having grown up in a musical home. Her father was a band teacher, so there were always instruments around.

The Midwest was a culture shock.

“Losing the ocean was disorienting,” she said. “The lake helped, it looked like the ocean but didn’t smell like the ocean.”

On top of disorientation, Thorpe wasn’t thrilled with the classical approach to her course of study, so she switched focus and graduated with a degree in anthropology. She then earned a master’s degree in intercultural studies and teaching English as a second language, a way to make her anthropology degree marketable.

The job she got was back in Bangladesh, where she taught English as a second language and directed curriculum at Asian University for Women.

During a weeklong trip to Chicago for a friend’s wedding, she experienced homesickness for Maine so intense it altered the direction of her life.

“You go where the jobs are,” she said. “And that was a defining moment: I wanted to choose where I lived. So I came back.”

Thorpe began working at Lincoln Academy in 2013 teaching English as a second language and helping the

school develop its curriculum for new international boarding students.

“I felt honored to become colleagues with the people who had been my beloved teachers,” she said.

In 2016, she left teaching to engage with the community outside of school. Her partner and future husband, Bennett Collins, was leasing farmland in Bremen and running a wood-fired catering business, Harvest Moon Pizza.

“I had the opportunity to plug in and support some formative years of that small business, but also get my hands in the soil and help learn about gardening and raising animals,” she said. “I got to just be free for a few years and figure out my next step.”

In 2017, Thorpe joined the Bremen School Committee because she wanted to continue to be involved in education even outside of the classroom.

“As soon as I stopped teaching, it was like, ‘How do I remain involved in supporting education in this community, which I care deeply about?’” She is serving her third, three-year term on the committee.

She also joined the Bremen Conservation Committee, a committee focused on the conservation and

well-being of Bremen’s flora and fauna, from 2014 until 2019.

Thorpe began her position at Island Institute (publisher of The Working Waterfront) in 2019 as a community development officer. The organization’s mission is to build community sustainability in island and coastal communities and share solutions for addressing the coast’s most critical issues.

Her departure from the conservation committee was to focus on the Bremen Broadband Committee after she saw the town’s need for a high-speed internet infrastructure.

Thorpe’s sense of obligation to work with and in the community is one she suspects is in her DNA, but it’s also something in the DNA of being a teacher.

“Anyone who is drawn to teaching cares about the community, but specifically the future of their community,” she said.

upload is how Maine talks to the world,” she said. “That’s a big part of what drew me to the mission of Island Institute, is that piece of being able to empower communities to drive solutions and then share those out.”

Outside of her work on town committee’s and at Island Institute, Thorpe continues to play music with the Seacoast Community Orchestra in Damariscotta, and enjoys spending time with her partner and children in Bremen and working with the land they steward.

“People say ‘Let’s keep Maine the best kept secret,’ but we can’t, we are so interconnected...”

This notion is what may have drawn her to help set up broadband infrastructure in the town. A project that wasn’t just about connecting Bremen to the world, but the world to Bremen.

“Peggy Schaefer, the former director of ConnectMaine, said download is how the world talks to Maine and

One of her favorite crops to grow is flint corn, a variety grown by Abenaki people throughout New England. She loves the plant because of its “deep roots” in New England and the story is its resilience and connection.

Abenaki flint corn was the only crop that survived 1817, a year where there was a frost every month in the year because of a cloud of volcanic ash spewing from Europe. For Thorpe, the plant’s story is a cautionary tale about how everything is interconnected.

“People say ‘Let’s keep Maine the best kept secret,’ but we can’t, we are so interconnected, a volcano somewhere else caused a frost every month of the year,” she said. “We are not isolated.”

This story first appeared in the Lincoln County News and is reprinted here with permission and gratitude.

• Fendering, pilings, pile caps, ladders and custom accessories • Welded marine aluminum gangways to 80’ • Float construction, DIY plans and kits Delivery or Pick Up Available!

Clockwise from top left: Randy Fein, Painted Lobster Plate; Kaitlyn Miller, Summer Story (detail);

Christa Thorpe

How I spent my summer vacation

Bowdoin College students do science on Kent Island

PHOTO ESSAY BY MICHELE STAPLETON

The Bowdoin Scientific Station in Canada’s Bay of Fundy on Kent Island off Grand Manan Island hosts about ten Bowdoin College students who are awarded fellowships to spend a summer engaged in scientific field research and artistic residencies on the island.

John Sterling Rockefeller donated the island to Bowdoin in 1936 with the college committing to maintaining it as a bird sanctuary.

Students gain hands-on research experience with birds including Leach’s storm-petrels, Savannah sparrows, and gulls, as well as with trees, plants, pollinators, and intertidal ecology.

Some of the data sets began being gathered in the 1950s, providing valuable trend information.

Our Island Communities

Sunbeam cuts through foggy day

Maine Seacoast Mission vessel visits Frenchboro

Adreary start to Saturday, Aug. 3 didn’t dampen the day for those attending Frenchboro’s annual lobster festival. In fact, the morning rain gave way to sun and occasional fog, which somehow suited the island setting.

My wife and I hitched a ride to the island on the Maine Seacoast Mission’s Sunbeam V, the 74-foot steel-hulled vessel with which the Northeast Harborbased nonprofit serves islanders. The vessel was built in 1995 by East Boothbay shipbuilder Washburn & Doughty and underwent an extensive retrofit in 2019 at Belfast’s Front Street Shipyard.

Staff use the vessel to provide education programs, fellowship through coffee and pastry gatherings, and, with registered nurse/nurse practitioner Simone Babineaux, healthcare in Sunbeam’s medical suite. Islanders can sit in the private room and have a physician on the mainland review, in real time, their vitals. Babineaux explained how she can virtually “examine” islanders from her mainland home, thanks to upgrades on islands.

The vessel includes a spacious and well-appointed saloon area, a kitchen, and below decks, four bedrooms for staff, a guest bedroom, and a storage room.

On Saturday, the dozen or so aboard the vessel were welcomed by Douglas Cornman, director of island services. Cornman delivers programs on islands for children and adults.

Capt. Mike Johnson allowed us to join him in the pilot house, which offers a high-above-the-water view of the islands we passed.

On Frenchboro, more than 100 people sat on the church lawn to eat lobster, which had been donated by island fishermen, and bid on various donated goods and services. The event is a fundraiser for the church.

My wife and I enjoyed walking to the south shore of the island, which offers vistas of the open ocean.

Thanks to Kierie Piccininni, the Mission’s chief marketing officer, for inviting us aboard.

—Tom Groening

The lobster was fresh and tasty. PHOTO: TOM GROENING

The Seacoast Mission crew aboard the Sunbeam V, from left: Siobhan Harrity, Sunbeam steward; Douglas Cornman, director of island services; Simone Babineaux, nurse practitioner; Kierie Piccininni, the Mission’s chief marketing officer; Capt. Mike Johson; and engineer Storey King. PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Nurse practitioner Simone Babineaux in the medical suite.

PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Capt. Mike Johnson peers through the fog, relying on the vessel’s electronic navigation aids. PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Island Institute adds four board members

ISLAND INSTITUTE recently appointed four new members to its board of trustees. Each member will support and guide the Institute’s mission to boldly navigate climate and economic change with island and coastal communities to expand opportunities and deliver solutions.

“It is with great enthusiasm that I welcome four exceptional individuals to our board of trustees,” said Kristin Howard, chairwoman of the board.

“These new members exemplify our diligent efforts to maintain a diverse board of experts dedicated to championing Maine’s coast and advancing our mission,” she said.

“The new trustees are joining us during a period of notable momentum and impact,” said Kim Hamilton, president of Island Institute. “I deeply appreciate their contributions and insights that will further enhance Island Institute’s role as a steadfast and strong community partner with bold aspirations for the future.”

John Conley is a board member and investor at Boston’s Launchpad Venture Group, the largest angel investor group on the East

Coast, and serves on the boards of its healthcare portfolio companies. He was a co-founder of the RNAinterference therapeutics company Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Over ten years at Biogen he served in several marketing, business development, sales, and finance positions.

For the past ten years he has been a director of the national YMCA of the USA.

Des FitzGerald graduated from Harvard University in 1975 then attended a year of graduate school at the University of Washington, College of Fisheries, in Seattle before founding Ducktrap River Fish Farm the following year. He sold a portion of his company to Continental Grain and a year later was named CEO of ContiSea, a holding company made up of Ducktrap River Fish Farm and Atlantic Salmon of Maine. Fitzgerald was a management consultant with Brimstone Consulting for two years and taught a class on “Leadership for the 21st Century” at the University of Maine as an adjunct professor. In December 2008, he became the vice-president of business development for Principle Power

Acadia seeks ‘soil haulers’

Hikers needed to carry bags to summits

Acadia National Park, in collaboration with Friends of Acadia and Schoodic Institute, invites tenacious hikers to bring bags of soil to the summits of Penobscot and Sargent mountains.

This year, the recurring Save Our Summits volunteer program will take place every Wednesday from June through September. Hikes run from 8:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., weather permitting. Advanced registration is required. Register for your Save Our Summits hike and learn more about how to prepare for the event on Friends of Acadia’s website, FriendsofAcadia.org )click through to “get involved.”)

Despite growing in hard conditions, Acadia’s mountain plants are not adapted to foot traffic, and decades of trampling by humans have damaged plant communities and eroded soil at

Inc., a deep-water wind technology company based in Seattle.

He serves on the board of The Natural Resources Council of Maine, The Camden International Film Festival, The Camden Conference, The Maine Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, Maine Businesses For Social Responsibility, Coastal Mountain Land Trust, two local school boards, and The Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership.

He and his wife live in Rockport.

Nadia Rosenthal is the scientific director and Maxine Groffsky Endowed Chair at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor and holds a chair in cardiovascular science at Imperial College London. She obtained a PhD from Harvard Medical School where she later directed a biomedical research laboratory.

Rosenthal established a laboratory at the Cardiovascular Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-published a textbook, Heart Development, followed by its sequel, Heart Development and Regeneration, considered the definitive texts in its field.

In 2001 Rosenthal established the European Molecular Biology

Laboratory campus in Rome and acted as its head until 2012.

Rosenthal has served on the board of trustees at College of the Atlantic and on the scientific advisory board of the MDI Biological Laboratory and the Institute of Medicine at the University of Maine. She resides in Seal Harbor and on Sutton Island, where she spent summers as a child.

Mike Steinharter and his family have a lifelong commitment to Deer Isle. He chairs the board of directors of Junior Achievement of Greater Fairfield County in Connecticut and provides pro bono consulting services to other non-profits via the National Executive Service Corp. He retired from corporate life in the information technology industry having spent 22 years with IBM and another 18 years with various IT services and software companies. He holds a BA degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business. He is married with four children and acts as chairman of Ospreys Echo Sea Kayaking, his son’s business, based in Stonington.

Groups funded for Penobscot clean-up

The court-appointed trustee directing work to remediate mercury in the Penobscot River estuary has identified 13 beneficial environmental projects to receive funding to begin delivering tangible benefits to affected communities and ecosystems. These projects will begin to fulfill a 2022 settlement in which a federal judge approved a multi-hundredmillion-dollar clean-up and restoration for the estuary.

Recipients in this first round of funding include Coastal Mountains Land Trust, Ducks Unlimited, Great Pond Mountain Conservation Trust, Penobscot Nation Department of Natural Resources, town of Frankfort, town of Penobscot, and town of Orrington.

Several of the projects will improve recreational and emergency boating access on both sides of Penobscot River

and on Verona Island. Others will improve fish passage throughout the watershed, building on various recent efforts to restore Penobscot River fish populations. And the Penobscot Nation will receive funding for projects to help protect its members from mercury and other toxics in fish and wild foods.

For over five decades, the river and estuary have contained elevated mercury levels, and the 2022 settlement was the result of a decades-long lawsuit brought by Maine People’s Alliance and Natural Resources Defense Council to compel the cleanup of mercury from the Penobscot River. The settlement includes a total of $20 million for beneficial projects, as well as requiring various efforts to remediate mercury contamination in the estuary.

the top of mountains. More frequent extreme weather events, which damage landscapes, cultural resources, and infrastructure, are speeding the loss of soil and making it harder for plants to grow back on their own.

For the last several years, Acadia National Park, Friends of Acadia, Schoodic Institute, and Native Plant Trust worked together to evaluate how to best restore Acadia’s summits. It turns out that replacing soil lost from the summits is a critical piece of the revegetation puzzle, providing a place for seeds to settle and grow.

Last year, volunteers helped carry 3,765 pounds of soil to the summits. By carrying soil to the summits of Sargent and Penobscot Mountains, you’ll play an important role in the restoration of these vital ecosystems and their resilience to a changing climate.

Doc Martin meets All Creatures Great and Small in Dr. Chuck Radis’s Go by Boat and Island Medicine, stories of his unique medical practice on the Casco Bay Islands.

Last year, volunteers helped carry 3,765 pounds of soil to the summits of Sargent and Penobscot mountains in Acadia National Park. By carrying soil to the summits of Sargent and Penobscot Mountains, you’ll play an important role in the restoration of these vital ecosystems and their resilience to a changing climate. PHOTO: FRIENDS OF ACADIA

Maine granite firm works on Lady Liberty

Orland’s Freshwater Stone improves parapet walls, terreplein

BY STEPHANIE BOUCHARD

Help wanted signs offering a plethora of enticing benefits are ubiquitous these days as companies large and small struggle to find enough workers, but a set of such signs posted along Route 1 in the Hancock County town of Orland offers a recruitment enticement you don’t see every day: Join the team at Freshwater Stone and help rehabilitate the Statue of Liberty.

Founded in the early 1970s, Freshwater Stone has made a name for itself as a supplier of granite and for its stone craftsmanship for projects ranging from landscaping to kitchen counters in homes and on yachts.

Increasingly, the company has gained attention for its historic restoration work. It’s done stonework for historic buildings such as the Cathedral of St. John Divine in New York City, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Dallas County Courthouse in Texas, and Fort Gorges in Casco Bay, among others. The reputation it’s built doing this sensitive work is why, a couple of years ago, staff got a call from Allegrone Masonry.

Allegrone Masonry, which specializes in historic restoration, is the general and masonry contractor for the Statue of Liberty rehabilitation project. Freshwater Stone hadn’t worked with the Massachusetts-based company before, but “They’d heard of us,” said John Horton, Freshwater Stone’s architectural stone manager and head of the marine division.

At the time, Allegrone was working on rehabilitating the parapet walls of Fort Wood, the 11-pointed, star-shaped fort that supports Lady Liberty. Built between 1808 and 1811, Fort Wood originally served as part of New York City’s and New York Harbor’s defense

network. The War Department used it as an army post until 1937. The statue’s pedestal was built between 1884 and 1886 within the fort’s courtyard.

In 2022, the National Park Service (NPS) awarded a $22 million construction contract to make repairs to Fort Wood and Lady Liberty’s pedestal. The funds are from the Great American Outdoors Act, a bipartisan infrastructure law that includes the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund, which provides the NPS with up to $1.3 billion per year for five years to address needed repairs and maintenance at national parks.

While the Statue of Liberty underwent an extensive restoration in the 1980s, 200-plus years of weather makes an impact on the fort’s infrastructure. Multiple phases of repair work are underway at the national monument and Freshwater Stone has been part of two of them so far.

The first project the Orland-based company participated in was the rehabilitation of the fort’s parapet walls, which had deteriorated over the centuries.

Freshwater Stone supplied Freshwater Pearl granite from its Mosquito Mountain quarry in Frankfort to replace deteriorating stone material that was jackhammered out of the layers in the walls. The light-gray, black-speckled granite from Maine “adds a lot of structure that won’t degrade over time,” Horton explains, and is similar in looks to what is already at the fort.

Because of the complicated geometry and “nightmare” drain boxes of the star-shaped walls, Freshwater Stone’s designers developed computer-generated drawings for each piece of granite they cut and shaped for the project.

The wall project, with 35,000 square feet of walls rehabilitated, ended

in 2023, but Freshwater Stone was tapped again for another project, rehabilitating the fort’s terreplein, an area historically used for mounting guns, but used today as the national monument’s walking plaza.

After the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal was built into the middle of Fort Wood in the late 1880s, the area between the pedestal and the fort’s walls was filled in with earth to create a two-storyhigh walking plaza. The last time major work was done on the terreplein’s surface was during the statue’s restoration in the 1980s.

In the decades since, freeze-thaw cycles have displaced some of the pavers and rainwater has deteriorated some of their surfaces. Among the repairs to the terreplein is the replacement of those pavers, and that’s where Freshwater Stone comes in. The company is providing granite pavers for the approximately 50,000-squarefoot walking surface of the terreplein, said Jerry Willis, a public affairs officer for the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island.

Like the wall project, the $27.5 million terreplein project is funded through the Great American Outdoors Act’s National Parks and Public Land Restoration Fund. The project is about a third of the way through, expected to be completed in 2025, Willis said.

At this point, Freshwater Stone has delivered about 20,000 square feet of granite pavers to the site, said Horton. Each paver, made from Freshwater Pearl granite, is four feet square.

These projects for the Statue of Liberty have meant a “tremendous amount of work for us,” said Andy Odeen, Freshwater Stone’s president and owner, in terms of both the physical work on the stone and in the scope of

the projects. The granite pieces for the walls were hand-distressed so the stone would fit in with the older materials of the fort, which takes a lot of effort, and the square footage of the projects is “the largest we’ve ever done,” he said.

In terms of the financials, while the Statue of Liberty is not the most lucrative project Freshwater Stone has worked on, the two jobs combined are worth more than a million dollars in work for the company, said Horton, “which is great for the local economy, because we employ about 60 people.”

An intangible benefit of the projects is the satisfaction employees feel working on this historic restoration project, Horton and Odeen said.

“The employees are really excited about it and proud to be part of history,” Odeen said. “In the community, people heard about what we’ve been doing and have been really excited and supportive.”

Odeen and Horton don’t know at this point if more Statue of Liberty work is coming after the paver project is completed, but it would be welcome. “It’s interesting, meaningful work,” Horton said.

Freshwater Stone is still recruiting employees—hence the signs on the side of the road. Potential employees don’t have to have previous stonework experience, said Odeen. In addition to benefits, including profit sharing, the company is offering a sign-on bonus of between $500 and $2,500.

Go to www.freshwaterstone.com to learn about career opportunities. Go to allegrone.com/our-work/rehabilitationof-the-stone-walls-of-historic-fort-wood to see videos of the wall work done at the Statue of Liberty.

A view from the Statue of Liberty showing the work around the base being done by Freshwater Stone. PHOTO: COURTESY FRESHWATER STONE

In the flow—cytometry tracks tiny organisms

Café Sci presentation explains use of laser technology

BY STEPHANIE BOUCHARD

Since the start of this century, many things have changed for Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences—scientists have come and gone, new research and technologies have brought more insights, and a move from McKown Point to its current home in East Boothbay came in 2012—but one thing has remained the same: Every week or two scientists from Bigelow make their way during high tide to a dock near the state’s Department of Marine Resources in West Boothbay Harbor.

There the scientists collect ocean water as part of the lab’s Booth Bay Time Series, a study that examines the long-term physical and chemical changes in the waters of the Gulf of Maine and changes in population of tiny organisms called phytoplankton that play an important role in the ocean by producing oxygen, sequestering carbon, and providing a food source at the base of the marine food web.

The research tools the scientists use to probe the changing ocean—flow cytometry and imaging flow cytometry, and the insights they enable—were the topic of the second presentation in Bigelow’s annual summer series, Café Sci, held in July at the Opera House at Boothbay Harbor due to construction happening at Bigelow’s East Boothbay campus.

One of the first scientists to participate in the Booth Bay study, Nicole Poulton, a phytoplankton ecologist, explained to the Café Sci audience how Bigelow scientists pioneered flow cytometry and imaging flow cytometry.

Developed for use in the biomedical industry in the mid-20th century, flow cytometry uses lasers to analyze individual cells. In the early 1980s, Clarice Yentsch, one of the cofounders of Bigelow, pioneered the use of flow cytometry to study phytoplankton in the marine environment.

The advantage of using flow cytometry, said Poulton, who is director of the Center for Aquatic Cytometry at Bigelow, is the rapidity at which particles can be quantified and identified. Use of flow cytometry has resulted in important revelations about phytoplankton, such as that a marine cyanobacteria called Prochlorococcus is one of the most abundant photosynthetic organisms across the globe.

also responsible for 20% of oxygen on the planet, says Poulton.

“Every fifth breath that you take comes from this organism. So it’s very, very important,” she said.

As the scientists at Bigelow continued to use and encourage others to use flow cytometry in the 1980s and 1990s, its scientists expanded the technology.

In the mid-1990s, Charlie Yentsch, cofounder of Bigelow, and research scientist Michael Sieracki worked with Christian Sieracki to create an imaging flow cytometer built from parts purchased at a local Radio Shack that combined digital imaging, flow cytometry, and microscopy. Imaging flow cytometry captures photographs of individual particles and measures and counts them.

“Every fifth breath that you take comes from this organism. So it’s very, very important.”

Since that discovery in the late 1980s, scientists have been modeling this organism because it’s critical to nutrient cycles, also called biogeochemical cycles, that various organisms, including humans, depend on. Prochlorococcus is

Today, Poulton and other scientists at Bigelow and elsewhere are using flow cytometry and imaging flow cytometry to try to understand how the ocean is changing and the impacts of ocean warming. For example, using flow cytometry and imaging flow cytometry to monitor and study phytoplankton allows scientists to understand shifts, and potentially, changes, in the food web, Poulton said. These tools also can be used to detect and identify microplastics

Maritime film festival returns to Bucksport letters

THE INTERNATIONAL Maritime Film Festival returns to Bucksport’s Alamo Theatre in September. The festival is supported by the town of Bucksport and community organizations in the Bucksport area, and includes partner WERU-FM community radio.

The festival was launched prior to COVID and is now in its eight year. The World Ocean Observatory creates and manages the juried contest, making these unique and exciting films readily available, both in person and virtually worldwide via its on demand festival (see link information below).

Celebrating maritime heritage, the spirit of adventure, the ingenuity of boats and waterborne pursuits, climate issues, and odes to our precious ocean environment, the International Maritime Film Festival is the premier event for maritime-themed filmmaking. Often including personal appearances by the filmmakers themselves, these works bring remarkable stories of the courage, skill, innovation, and adventures of mariners and their watercraft and the marvels and perils of our oceans.

World Ocean Observatory (W2O) is the leading organization advocating for the health and sustainability of global climate and ocean through an accessible worldwide network of communication. Through education, partnership, information exchange, public connection, and relentless communications, W2O is committed to building an expansive global community of ocean literate

individuals who will promote and conserve natural and marine resources for the future of all mankind.

World Ocean Radio airs on WERU (89.9 FM) and other radio stations around the world, bringing timely updates and news to the global community. Learn more and listen to stories at WorldOceanObservatory.org.

The 2024 in-person festival will take place Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 26-28 at The Alamo Theatre in Bucksport, and the online festival will follow from Oct. 1-31 on Vimeo.com. A one-month pass will cost $10 and films will be made available for whatever time or frequency viewers wish to watch during the month. The link to the Vimeo option will be provided shortly on the IMFF website.

A major motion picture will screen Thursday evening after a welcome from W20, Friday evening brings music, and the films screen on Saturday. During scheduled intermissions of the in-person event Saturday, festival attendees will have opportunities to explore downtown Bucksport and its eateries, shops, and scenic waterfront walkway overlooking Penobscot Bay, with views of Fort Knox and the Penobscot Narrows Bridge. Festival tickets can be purchased via the IMFF website and at the door.

On Friday night, Sept. 27, 7 p.m. bring music from The Oystermen, a muchloved trio who regale their audiences with tunes of the sea and sailors. Joining The Oystermen will be Kate McCann, a folk singer and banjo player.

in the water and to validate satellite data of the ocean’s surface.

While flow cytometry and imaging flow cytometry revolutionized slow and tedious manual processes late in the last century, looking to the future, these technologies hold even more promise, in particular if paired with autonomous boats or drifters and artificial intelligence, Poulton said.

“If an iPhone can detect who’s in the audience, we can do this with phytoplankton,” she declared. “I do believe in the next 50 years … these instruments will be collecting data for us, analyzing it for us and spitting back the data to us in real-time so that we can understand the distribution and the composition of the phytoplankton, and assess the changes in the ecosystem.”

For coastal communities and those who make their living from the ocean, Poulton said in an email following the presentation, the data from real-time monitoring of phytoplankton in coastal regions could serve to alert coastal communities and fisheries of the presence or absence of harmful algae that could directly impact a local fishery.

“This information,” she wrote, “could directly impact local businesses as to when harvesting would take place.”

To watch a recording of Poulton’s Café Sci presentation and the other presentations in the four-part series, go online to Bigelow’s YouTube channel.

to the editor

Down-home writing

To the editor:

I thoroughly enjoyed David Platt’s guest column in the August issue about “just plain rowing.” He has a wonderful command of language which allows the reader to experience the rowing, the tug of the tide and wind. Immensely enjoyable, as is every edition of the The Working Waterfront, just down-home stuff written by real people.

—Bill Macleod,

Yarmouth

Healthy tip

To the editor:

Sandy Oliver may remember me as an accompanist for the CODA Chorus with Dale Perkins and later as conductor. I remember our many years of collaboration with the Islesboro Community Chorus and loved the joint performances. It was always a joy to see Sandy.

Her “Journal of an Island Kitchen” columns in The Working Waterfront are the first I read. They are so informative and very entertaining. Regarding beets, the topic of the August column, I am eating them again because they are one of the beneficial foods for controlling high blood pressure. Fortunately, I have always liked them. Unfortunately, I have always loved whoopie pies even more.

—Ed Larson, Brunswick

Photo clarification

To the editor:

I was reading the August issue of The Working Waterfront and I believe I have some clarifying information regarding the vintage photo showing the corner of Congress and High streets in Portland (page 7). The sign in the photo that reads “Fountain Lunch” was actually on the Walgreens Drug Store, not the bus station, as the caption reports. It was Walgreens, circa 1940, and eventually became a Dunkin’ Donuts, and was torn down circa 1973. The bus station was diagonally across the square from Walgreen’s. When I was a kid, the Nellie G. ran from Chebeague to Falmouth and then we took a bus that dropped us off at that bus station.

—Donna Damon, Chebeague Island

Correction: An editing error resulted in the story about the Eastern Maine Skippers Program in our August issue incorrectly reporting that the program operated in night schools. The sentence should have noted that the program operated in nine high schools.

The Working Waterfront welcomes letters to the editor, which should be sent to Tom Groening at tgroening@ islandinstitute.org with “LTE” in the subject line. Longer opinion pieces are also considered but should first be cleared with the editor.

guest column

Sea cucumber gunk: deadly weapon, potential biopolymer

Scientists study expelled organ’s ability to cling and tangle

BY SAIMA SIDIK

IN CASE THERE was any doubt, our August heat wave makes it clear that summer is in full swing. Summer means the beach, with all the weird sea creatures it has to offer.

Among these weirdos is the tropical sea cucumber, Holothuria leucospilota, which is mainly found in the Indian and Pacific oceans. As soft bodied, slow-moving animals, sea cucumbers seem pretty vulnerable, but they have a weapon up their sleeves.

Well, actually it’s up their butts—Holothuria leucospilota deter predators by ejecting a sticky web-like structure known as the cuvierian organ through its anus, trapping and often killing other animals with the gunk.

A paper published last year shows Holothuria leucospilota in action. A supplemental video shows a crab poking at a sea cucumber, thinking, perhaps, that it would like to make itself a summer seafood salad. Instead, the crab becomes ensnared in an opalescent net that emanates from the animal. A slow motion battle ensues, with the crab becoming more tangled with each move it makes.

The cuvierian organ has been known to scientists since French zoologist Georges Cuvier described it in 1831, but the recent study, published by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their colleagues, dug into questions like, what is the cuvierian organ made of and what triggers its release?

The cuvierian organ is partly made of protein tangles called amyloid aggregates, similar to those associated with the human diseases Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, the researchers learned.

Holothuria leucospilota deter predators by ejecting a sticky weblike structure through its anus…

After the sea cucumber exacts its revenge, it detaches from the cuvierian organ and slithers away. It takes a few weeks for the organ to regenerate, and then the sea cucumber is once again ready for war.

Although amyloid aggregates are best known for the pathology they can cause, some have benefits. For example, amyloid aggregates help bacteria stick to each other and survive rough conditions. The cuvierian organ seems to fall into this beneficial category.

Despite its similarity to spider silk, the structure of the cuvierian organ is very different. Many researchers aspire to create super strong synthetic substances based on biological material, and sea cucumbers could provide new inspiration.

Figuring out what causes the cuvierian organ to be expelled required some poking and prodding. When the researchers squeezed sea cucumbers

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at various points along their lengths, the posterior region was most likely to cause the sticky web to shoot out.

The manuscript doesn’t say what the researchers used to squeeze—their hands? Or perhaps some kind of sea cucumber lasso? I can only imagine they hired some eager undergraduate students to do the honors.

As for how pressure causes release of the cuvierian organ, researchers only have the basic outline. Pressure seems to cause the sea cucumber to release a chemical called acetylcholine, which transmits signals through the nervous systems of many animals.

Acetylcholine opens channels on the surfaces of the cells that make up to cuvierian organ, causing calcium— a prevalent substance in the outside environment—to flood in. Somehow (the details aren’t yet clear), it seems that this calcium causes the cuvierian organ to be released.

So if you run into a sea cucumber in the wild, maybe hold off on giving it a hug. You just might end up in a pickle.

Saima Sidik is a freelance science journalist who grew up in Lincolnville and currently lives in Somerville, Mass. To follow her writing, subscribe to her newsletter at saimamay.com/newsletter.

Advertise in The Working Waterfront, which circulates 45,000 copies from Kittery to Eastport ten times a year. Contact Dave Jackson: djackson@islandinstitute.org

History, fiction tell tale of escaping slavery

Novel includes true story of Maine couple’s help

Escape from Bunker Hill: A Historical Novel

By Dale PotterClark (2022)

REVIEW BY TINA COHEN

IT TURNS OUT the hill named in Escape from Bunker Hill: A Historical Novel is not the one in Boston. Instead, it is the name of a plantation in Jacksonville, Fla., where author Dale Potter-Clark has based some of this novel’s action.

She blends real history with an imagined story of four young adult Blacks in that part of Florida being helped to reach New England via the Underground Railroad, which included going by ship, wagon, and train, and hiding in places where residents were willing to feed and shelter them.

The story’s primary characters are taken from history, a white married couple, born and raised in Maine, who moved to St. Andrew’s, Canada and then to Florida. Joseph and his wife Myra Mitchell came from Newfield, Maine. Joseph attended the Parsonfield Seminary, then Harvard (class of 1847), and Boston’s Eclectic School of

Medicine, graduating in 1848. In 1852 the couple moved to Jacksonville.

The plantation they bought was outside the city along the St. Johns River, part of an escape route for runaways. Dr. Mitchell had trouble building a medical practice as his opposition to slavery set him apart. He gained acceptance after helping locals fight off a Yellow Fever epidemic.

In 1861, Florida withdrew from the Union and Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C. was fired upon and surrendered to Confederate soldiers, sparking the Civil War. In 1862, Mitchell joined the Union Army and was assigned to a military hospital. He left the Union Army in 1864, after being assigned to work with soldiers torching the city of Jacksonville, including the hospital in which he once worked. He returned to his family in Maine.

The Mitchells contributed money to build a new hospital in Jacksonville and moved back there in 1865, but kept a house in Readfield.

Among Potter-Clark’s few fictional characters are two young Black women who were enslaved on a plantation near Bunker Hill, and two Black men who were free and had some education. All four knew not only the risks they were taking in wanting to flee the South, but that others—both white and Black— were also taking a great risk in

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assisting them. Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell helped plan and arrange their escape from the South, reaching Readfield, where they were able to reunite.

Potter-Clark draws in other Maine references, including Harriet Beecher Stowe’s controversial book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written in Brunswick; Frederick Douglass, who spoke in Augusta in 1864; and Reuben Ruby, born in Gray in the 1820s, son of a North African slave. Living in Portland, he operated a successful taxi company and became a conductor on Portland’s Underground Railroad.

Portland’s first African-American church, the Abyssinian Religious Society’s meetinghouse, was built with money and on land he donated on Newbury Street on Munjoy Hill.

There is plenty to learn in this short book about the ways enslaved Blacks’ quest for freedom and equality was supported here in Maine, with many influential if invisible backers. Another story not often told is what happened in Maine to Malaga Island less than a hundred years later.

The island, 20 miles northeast of Portland, hosted a mixed-race community, but the state forced residents to leave their homes in 1912. The ignorant views of the time suggested the mixedrace residents (Natives, Blacks, and

whites) and Black inhabitants were inferior to whites. The state saw the island as prime for rusticator and tourism development, and the residents, who lived peacefully, raised families, farmed, and fished, were evicted.

The Working Waterfront in 2023 published a review of author Paul Harding’s This Other Eden, a book of historical fiction about Malaga. It got a scathing review, in which both the newspaper’s reviewer and Maine’s state archivist agreed “it perpetuates all the myths about early Maine history.”

In contrast, Potter-Clark’s book suggests that before and after the Civil War, Mainers vigorously supported equality and human rights. Her profile of the Mitchells may be idealistic, the couple representing an anomaly. Some Mainers undoubtedly did take great risks to help Blacks gain their freedom and equal rights.

So much needed to be done in secret that the story of support for the cause may never be fully told. Potter-Clark reminds us of the challenges and dangers faced in working for racial equality. Escape From Bunker Hill can be ordered from its publisher, crossings4u@gmail.com.

Tina Cohen lives on the island of Vinalhaven most of the year.

saltwater cure

Oh for a life on the rolling sea…

Sailing school is a big success

First things first: I have to express my gratitude to all of you who reached out after my last column. I did, very fortunately, find out that my biopsy was benign. I also learned a lot about how commonly experienced, and how terrifying, this process is for so many people. Solidarity.

FROM THE WHALER, Bill and I could just see the top of Penrose’s head peeping up over the edge of her Opti. Her sail had red lettering and her life jacket was blue, which helped us keep track of her in the bumper-boat crowd of Optis and 420s, all gathering in Brown’s Cove for their first race of the season.

This is Pen’s fourth summer in the North Haven Casino sailing program, and her first in the Opti racing class. After three summers in a boat with a partner, often a kid her age whom she was meeting for the first time as they took turns crewing and captaining, sailing in the Thorofare, she was now solo in a boat.

And, after some initial reluctance, she had decided to give racing a try.

Bill and I followed her and her classmates from the Casino dock, through the crowded moorings, to Brown’s Cove. It was overcast, cool, and misty, the gray sky and gray water blending at the horizon. The three Optis were skillfully navigated by their tiny captains, all girls, all ten or younger.

We hovered a safe distance from the racecourse, which was marked by pink and yellow mooring balls, and were joined by some of the other class parents in their sailboats, whalers, and Axopars.

We quickly realized, watching the Optis and 420s cluster and jostle, hearing the whistle from the committee boat, that we had no idea what we were looking at. Unlike the rest of Pen’s activities—music and theater especially—we have no sailing experience at all. This has allowed her to feel complete ownership over it.

Sailing is something she can teach us, and she tries to, quizzing us on terminology and rights of way, drawing racing

diagrams and steering a tiny paper boat in imitation of the way she was taught. In fact, I had to consult with her several times on terminology for this column. She doesn’t yet have her own boat (we’re in the market!), but longs to take us out or sail with her friends.

This all speaks volumes about the success of the Casino program. Although as a nervous non-sailing parent I was initially skeptical about the wisdom of putting tiny irrational people together in boats on the actual ocean, it’s paid off in confident sailors who have learned to trust their own skills and judgment.

The instructors, teens and young adults themselves, have fostered an environment in which the students feel safe and supported enough to take appropriate risks and seize opportunities to level up and try out new skills.

The boats sailed in loops, at times seeming to zag wildly off course, only to quickly correct and come back around. The 420s and Optis staggered their start times, but still overlapped during the race. There were several

journal of an island kitchen

The evolution of taste

Time and age change what we like

BY SANDY OLIVER

FLAVOR MATTERS SO much when we eat. Cooks sample as they go along to make sure the seasoning is just right, that the balance of salt, sweet, spicy, sour, bitter, and umami is pleasing.

Still, each of us experiences flavor in highly personal ways, hence, “De gustibus, non disputandum est.” In other words, when it comes to taste, there’s no agreement possible among us all about what tastes good. The last column here dedicated to beets underlined that for me: so many comments from readers fell on one side or the other of the love them/hate them line.

Sometimes taste buds have nothing to do with whether something tastes good or not. A family story about my grandparents’ early encounter with Italian spaghetti sauce reported that when Grandma got the recipe from her immigrant neighbors, “of course” she left out the garlic. My Yankee grandpa didn’t want to smell like a Catholic immigrant. By the time I was ready to add garlic to dishes I cooked, thank goodness that prejudice had evaporated.

Nowadays, the younger people in my life have a higher tolerance for capsicum heat than many in my generation. One young friend sprinkled her avocado toast with eye-popping

quantities of red pepper flakes. Chili crisp, hot sauces of all sorts, and salsas sporting dangerous sounding names adorn their tables. If I were to eat those, all I’d experience is pain.

It turns out that actually I am missing out on many of the flavors possible to detect in the food I eat. I learned this at a food professionals conference I attended a number of years ago, at a session led by taste scientist Linda Bartoshuk.

One part of her presentation included having the participants chew a piece of filter paper and write down their reactions. I looked around the room while I chewed away on my little piece of paper, tasting nothing, and noted faces scrunched in distaste.

When the time came to discuss this part of the exercise, Bartoshuck asked how many in the room had tasted nothing. A scattering of hands went up, including mine. Apparently, we were supposed to have detected bitterness.

It turns out that those of us who detected nothing have a recessive gene that would have otherwise provided us with more taste buds on our tongues and more sensors on each one. It helped explain why I like dark chocolate, strong coffee, and gin.

This was a startling revelation. I suppose the reason I could cook food

near collisions. One hapless 420 sailor fell out of his boat mid-race.

“I think Penrose won that one,” some more expert sailing parents commented to us as they cruised by in their beautiful boat. I wish we could have said we had seen it happen, but we really hadn’t. It was exciting news regardless.

Other than a hasty steam back to town so I could use the bathroom, we watched the students race for two hours. As each little boat crossed the finish line in the final race they were told to sail back to the Casino.

We followed Penrose on her way home, marveling as she threaded her Opti through the bigger boats on their moorings, an elbow propped on the lip of the boat, calm and unconcerned by the labyrinth she had to navigate.

Courtney Naliboff lives, writes, teaches, and plays music on North Haven. She may be contacted at Courtney. Naliboff@gmail.com.

that other people with more taste buds than I had could enjoy was that by the time I seasoned it enough that I could actually taste it, it must have been really pretty flavorful.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that I am losing more capacity for taste. At first I thought it was minty toothpastes that I was supersensitive to, but shifting to fruit flavored ones didn’t help much. Having COVID can diminish taste and smell but my lack appeared before I ever caught it. Apparently, alarmingly, it is also a symptom of Parkinson’s disease.

Some flavors still register. Dark chocolate, Scotch, gin, smoked ham, cheese, especially cheddar, ginger, blue cheese, coffee ice cream, but less so my morning coffee, even dark roast, unless I add a little milk. Garlic and onion penetrate. Celery, olives, and most pickles taste good. So do deviled eggs, mostly because of the mayonnaise.

Salt and sweet endure. Of course. Wouldn’t you just know that cake, cookies, brownies, salty pretzels, potato chips, corn chips, the whole family of reprocessed grains and vegetables, blown into funny shapes and heavily salted would continue to please?

Lots of vegetable charm has faded; I used to relish a first summer cucumber sandwich; this year’s didn’t cut it. I eat

fresh garden vegetables as an exercise in enjoying a good memory.

Texture has taken over. A recent New Yorker cartoon showed a child sitting at the kitchen table with one her mom’s friends while mom pours pasta squiggles into a pan with a caption beneath saying, “I vary her diet with a variety of pasta shapes.”

It’s amazing how much one can enjoy different pasta shapes. I love mezze rigatoni and big fat bucatini. Chewy barley or farro is more fun than rice. A lightly steamed green bean that squeaks a little when you bite into it is wonderful. Crunchy is good whether the exterior of a fishcake or oven roasted tofu. Chewy bread with a crust that resists the teeth is terrific.

The general trajectory of this particular personal trend towards tastelessness is a little dismal. Just figure on feeding my doddering self with a plateful of brownies and a glass of Scotch.

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

cranberry report

Raspberry bounty leads to recipe

It took time, but the harvest is bringing clafoutis

BY BARBARA FERNALD

SEVEN OR EIGHT YEARS ago I asked my neighbor Mary, who was off island at Surry Gardens to buy some plants, if she would pick up three small raspberry bushes for me. It has always been my dream to have a raspberry patch in my own yard, one that would produce enough berries to bake with, to freeze, and even to invite friends over to pick.

I cleared out a neglected area of my fenced-in garden, lovingly spaced my plants with room to grow, and crossed my fingers. It took a while for those little bushes to produce. Every year I would get a few more berries, but maybe only a cup at a time. The new plants started to spread but the dancing red quarts of my dreams were not to be found in my garden.

This year, in May, I cut off the dead canes and pulled out the young plants that were crowding the more mature ones in the patch. I supported some of the taller stalks, weeded, spread out plant food, and

covered the ground with straw. I’ve been diligent about watering and the summer weather has cooperated. Ta da! This year, my raspberry dreams came true.

I’ve picked and picked again. I’ve made desserts and baked oatmeal with my raspberries. I’ve frozen a couple quarts to use in the winter, and I invited Mary over to pick, especially since she was the one to choose the original plants.

I’ve picked and picked again. I’ve made desserts and baked oatmeal with my raspberries.

One of my favorite ways to use berries is to make a “clafoutis” (pronounced: klafoo-tee) which is defined as “a tart made of fruit, usually cherries, baked in a sweet batter.”

I have made this before with cherries, and gooseberries, but this year the raspberry clafoutis is my go-to.

Historic buildings live on

Older island structures retain grandeur observer

BY PHIL CROSSMAN

NOT LONG AGO— well, I guess that just because I remember it doesn’t mean it wasn’t long ago—Vinalhaven’s downtown was an architectural wonderland, lorded over by three Second Empire Victorian structures, each three stories, and a fourth building, marginally more magnificent, but lacking the Victorian’s mansard.

This fourth edifice was the Memorial Hall. Our lovely post office—an antiquity in retrospect, with brass mailbox doors, each about 5-inches by 7-inches with a little window so one needn’t waste time getting access if there was no mail—took up half its ground floor. A retail space occupied the other half.

There was no third floor, the ceiling of the second floor extended to the roof, gifting us with a stately meeting/function/dance hall/theater, complete with a commanding proscenium, full wings, sound, lights, and ample space backstage.

It was so memorably and so continually alive—orchestras, ballroom dances, and theatrical productions. Memorable town meetings there were all day affairs, complete with dinner, or lunch, as some would call it today. The Memorial Hall reposed where

today’s brick post office languishes, flanked by the Oddfellows Hall (Star of Hope) to the east.

In 1820, a couple of simple two-story gable-end structures, side by side, stood where the beautifully, though only partially restored, Oddfellows Hall is today, each occupied by essential retail of the time: perhaps Millinery & Fancy Goods or Stoves & Tinware.

The Independent Order of Oddfellows was formed in 18th century England, it’s mission “to visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead and educate the orphan.” Fraternal organizations such as the Masons, Knights of Templar, Commandry, and Oddfellows took root quickly in the United States during the 19th century for obvious reasons—all offered the essential fellowship that couldn’t be found elsewhere and each also had a mission not unlike that of the Oddfellows.

Those noble missions, essentially looking after those in distress, were particularly important in communities where dangerous occupations were prevalent. In Vinalhaven those were certainly granite quarrying and fishing, each too frequently resulting in crippling injury or death.

The Vinalhaven branch of Oddfellows held its first meeting in November

I’m sharing the recipe, fully remembering my mistake of leaving out the key ingredient of a recipe the last time I shared one and hoping you will trust me on this one! (Those missing two cups of oats will haunt me forever.)

Raspberry Clafoutis

Ingredients:

2-1/2 to 3 cups raspberries—enough to cover the bottom of a 12” skillet.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 eggs

1-1/2 cups half and half powdered sugar

1 tablespoon butter, for buttering the skillet

Instructions:

Butter bottom and sides of a 12-inch cast iron or stainless-steel skillet (one that can be baked in the oven). Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Bring the half and half to a boil then remove from heat.

Let cool for about 5 minutes.

Add the half and half to a blender along with the eggs, vanilla, sugar, salt, and flour.

Blend for a few minutes, making sure the batter is very smooth. No lumps! Arrange raspberries in the buttered skillet and pour the batter over them. Bake for about 45 minutes, until fully cooked. (No gooey batter)

Dust with confectioner’s sugar and serve warm or cool. Serves 8.

This recipe seems pretty adaptable. I hope to try it with peaches soon. I’ve read recipes that use almond flour instead of all-purpose flour which would make it gluten free, but I haven’t tried that yet. The leftovers make a great breakfast with a dollop of yogurt on top. Happy picking and happy baking!

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

1874 in one of these two structures. A decade later, the lodge had grown to such an extent that a larger space was called for. Alexander Currier, an architect employed by the Bodwell Granite Company, was engaged to create the Oddfellows Hall we know today and he went all out. The result, while having illadvisedly incorporated the two structures, was a magnificent Second Empire Mansard that featured several intriguing spaces including “The Hall,” the group’s ornate third floor meeting space, accessed by modestly secretive passages. The ground floor continued to house varied retail.

The Oddfellows abandoned their charter in the 1960s and the building was purchased by well-known photographer Eliot Elisofon around 1970. At the time, it was in very rough shape. Eliot rented and then sold it to Robert Indiana who engaged a great deal of work improving its function and appearance inside and out.

foundation created by his will and left with the continued care of the building— contracted Rockport Building Partners to conduct a structural analysis which revealed that the building was not far from complete collapse, due in part to the poorly incorporated two original buildings.

Those noble missions were particularly important in communities where dangerous occupations were prevalent.

After Indiana passed, the Star of Hope Foundation—an artist-endowed

The same firm was engaged to undertake restoration and the result—that which we can all see and appreciate— is quite spectacular, although a great deal of work, beyond the facade remains to be done.

In 1981, the Star of Hope was included in the National Register of Historic places.

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

fathoming

Strategies for a climate-ready coast

Nature-based approaches are emerging

BY JENNIFER SEAVEY

MAINERS ARE FAMILIAR with the challenges facing our rocky shores— rising sea levels, shoreline erosion, and increasingly intense storms. We’ve seen these impacts firsthand over our lifetimes as well as in single storm events such as last winter’s significant coastal erosion.

The state’s geological survey reports that January’s storms caused 15- to 30-feet of erosion. With sea levels projected to rise by 1.6 feet here over the next 25 years, compared to a national average of 12 inches, immediate action is crucial.

Millions of dollars are flowing from federal and state funds to help Mainers enhance our climate change readiness. As we figure out what to do, it is critical to have a clear vision for our future. By necessity, we will need to blend a bunch of strategies together. Here are some of those options:

One strategy is managed retreat, which involves strategically relocating people, buildings, and assets away from vulnerable areas. This can be implemented through setback policies, zoning restrictions, or incentive programs. Managed retreat is a proactive approach compared to the reactive and often chaotic forced relocation due to massive or chronic storm damage.

Many communities and entire countries around the world are designing and implementing managed retreat or

managed realignment. For instance, New York has undertaken several projects to address coastal risks, including the creation of new parks and green spaces that serve as flood buffers, and the development of “resilient neighborhoods” which involve relocating vulnerable infrastructure and integrating flood protection measures into urban planning.

Entire communities are designing their retreat. The threat of rising sea levels and storm surge induced the U.K. village of Fairbourne to begin a multi-year program to relocate 850 residents and their houses and business. The area will then be turned back into a tidal salt marsh—a nature-based solution to shoreline buffering.

Oyster reefs provide similar benefits. Restoring them averages $2,260 per hectare, significantly cheaper than traditional structures like bulkheads, jetties, and breakwaters, which can cost over $1 million per hectare.

Engineering solutions abound, like floating structures. Floating roads, bridges, buildings are all being built around the country and world. Most of Maine’s aquaculture farms and of course many wharves float, but what if we expanded them and reduced the amount of fixed infrastructure?

For Maine’s rocky shores, offshore seaweed habitats and oyster reefs can effectively reduce wave energy.

Nature-based solutions use natural systems like barrier islands, salt marshes, and oyster reefs to mitigate coastal hazards and offer various environmental and socio-economic benefits.

For Maine’s rocky shores, offshore seaweed habitats and oyster reefs can effectively reduce wave energy. Restored kelp forests in Norway have cut wave height by up to 50% and wave energy by 70-80%, enhancing shoreline stability.

reflections

Floating infrastructure can move with the sea level, be easily expanded or modified over time or retracted in big storm events. Finally, there are innovative options that blend natural systems with traditional engineered structures. These solutions are going to be useful for protecting infrastructure that needs to remain on the shore—think working waterfront and parts of large cities that are difficult to move.

In Boston, the exterior of seawalls, pilings, and various concrete shoreline protection structures are being covered with textured surfaces that marine plants and animals make homes in, thereby enhancing marine

Community at the heart of resilience plan

MDI ‘Climate to Thrive’ effort has led to tangible results

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 BRIANNA CUNLIFFE

A CHORUS OF VOICES voting yes at town meeting—voting to adopt the community resilience plan I spent my fellowship creating for Tremont— was the sweetest sound I heard this summer. But the successful passage of this roadmap to a more climate resilient future, with only one vote opposed, is just one of the treasures offered by my last months on Mount Desert Island. I marvel at others as they pile up in the library: Live fresh lobster from three different lobstermen; eight yards of screened loam, delivered locally; two years of free oil changes from the garage down the street; a hand-knotted rug picturing the harbor; a fruit pie from the market; pet grooming; guitar lessons…

These gifts from our community are for a fundraising raffle that will shore up the library’s resilience. They might turn into a generator, into workforce support, a tool library, or a community check-in network.

Perhaps I’m over-romanticizing a simple raffle. But in my last days as an Island Institute Fellow, I can’t help but see it as an example of exactly what island communities do on our best days—weave together our eclectic offerings into something that is of service.

Our community resilience plan was created this way, with residents offering what they had to give, their knowledge of history and place, their ideas and visions, and what they valued. Community scale change building is scrappy, fickle, and tenuous. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that this plan would pass a democratic vote.

Success hinged on a hundred small actions by a gathered group of neighbors, the introductions they made, their cautionary tales, their willingness

biodiversity. In New York City, oysters are being used to populate artificial breakwaters with a native ecosystem, reducing storm impact and improving water quality.

Both examples produce benefits such as supporting fish habitat and water quality.

By combining these strategies across a range of scale and use, we can shape a resilient future for our shorelines. Doing so will require an integrated strategic planning process that addresses the challenges of climate change through a comprehensive systems-based approach. It demands the development of adaptive solutions that can be implemented at various levels, blending large-scale coastal and individual property options.

Integrated adaptive planning requires collaboration among governments, landowners, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and other relevant stakeholders. Prioritizing resilient and adaptive measures will help mitigate the risks to coastal regions while protecting and enhancing the value of coastal zones.

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

to listen. It might not have happened without the school newsletter, the free use of the legion hall, the potluck food, the people who took a survey, took photos after the storm, or who knew how to cut through the fog and reach a neighbor with whom they’re at odds.

Success hinged on these champions, these partners, these neighbors, and leaders—on these many generosities, both loud and quiet. Our work towards the future is made possible by this often-invisible web of care. We rely on it, whether we see it or not. I think we see it on islands more often. We feel it draw tight around us, in hard times and in times of upheaval and change.

Here’s another gift from this summer: local contractors who donated their labor and time to repair the road to Seawall which had been closed since the January storms. This week we watched the first cars drive through, trailing behind fire engines, horns blaring, in an impromptu parade.

Amidst my joy that we are reconnected to this much-loved place and

that businesses get a reprieve from the closure’s impact, I also find my chest tight, knowing this won’t be forever. Knowing another storm’s devastation will likely come, that we will have to negotiate this again, trusting that we will.

This August, I’m holding all these truths at the same time—a road that we gratefully travel together, for now, with no guarantee of what the future may hold. A plan, created by this community’s vision, now in its hands as I bid it goodbye for now. An abundance of gifts, gathered in the little library, generosity bent towards a shared purpose—a purpose that I am so lucky to have shared.

Brianna Cunliffe works with A Climate to Thrive on Mount Desert Island focusing on education and communitybased climate action. She graduated from Bowdoin College with a degree in environmental studies and government.

in plain sight

Intriguing photo reveals a boat’s essence

Jimmy Steele’s peapods were renowned Downeast

BY KEVIN JOHNSON

Ihave always been drawn to unusual photographs. I love how the camera can take a slice out of the real world, which, once removed from its context, becomes a riddle for the viewer to figure out.

I had this reaction when I first saw the accompanying photograph of Jimmy Steele of Brooklin. If you didn’t know that he was a boat builder or knew very little about boat building, as I did at the time, you might wonder: what is going on in this photograph?! Is that a giant two-headed ski or an enormous bow and arrow he’s eyeing up? It just looks so odd.

Of course, when the story is revealed, it all makes sense.

The photo was taken by photojournalist Everett “Red” Boutilier in 1975 using his old school Speed Graflex press camera. Had it been taken from the other direction, you would have seen Jimmy’s shop building and his sign advertising “New Downeast Peapods For Sale,” which would have offered a significant clue.

knowledge you can connect the dots and see this is part of a small(ish) boat.

More specifically, it’s the entire backbone of a peapod, consisting of two stems, two gripes, and a single keel timber—all of oak, bolted together with bronze, like that of a traditionally built Downeast peapod, a double ended rowing boat.

Jimmy Steele was born in Ellsworth and got an early start building boats with stints at the Weber Cove Yacht Yard in East Blue Hill as well as at Arno Day’s yard in Brooklin before drifting into high-end home building.

Peapods are double ended, meaning they can be rowed in either direction, making them very maneuverable…

In 1965, Steele learned that Capt. Havilah Hawkins had just acquired the schooner Mary Day and was giving up his winter business of building peapods for summer people. Steele decided to fill that void and over the next 40 years built more than 170 peapods, many of which are still in use today. He once said, “Building houses made me rich but building peapods made me famous.”

Each of Steele’s Downeast peapods were 13-feet, 6-inches on the gun’ales, 4-feet, 6-inches wide, and 18-inches high amidships. They were planked with cedar over oak frames with an oak keel and oak stems. He offered three different models featuring different species of wood that he named the “Chevy,” the “Cadillac,” and the “Rolls Royce.”

much of the contents of his shop to the museum. This season a new permanent exhibit opened at the museum that recreates his shop and displays his jigs, tools, and ephemera, as well as many peapod samples. The museum is open through Oct. 17 and there is no longer a detour in Searsport. Come visit!

The shape of the sign, which was in the shape of a boat, would be another clue, especially if you thought peapods grew only on a vine. Armed with this

Peapods are double ended, meaning they can be rowed in either direction, making them very maneuverable, and they were traditionally used for lobstering inshore and as yacht tenders.

Red photographed and interviewed Steele again in 2002. His photographs of Steele, his shop, and peapods can be found in the Penobscot Marine Museum online database.

Steele died in 2008 and his wife Pam and his friend Donald Tofias donated

Ogunquit museum shows Krasner’s work

First time her paintings have been exhibited in Maine

THE OGUNQUIT Museum of American Art is presenting the first exhibition in Maine of work by the artist Lee Krasner (1908–1984). On view through Nov. 17, “Lee Krasner: Geometries of Expression” sheds light on the often-overlooked early career of Krasner and places her work within the context of her peers.

In the 1930s and early 1940s, Krasner rose to prominence as a dynamic voice within the vanguard of artists living and working in New York City. During a period fraught with socio-economic turmoil and political upheaval, the artist was politically active, taking part in lively debates at the Artists Union and protesting the Museum of Modern Art. Her network was far-reaching and animating, including relationships with European émigrés like Piet Mondrian and Hans Hofmann and organizations such as the American Abstract Artists Group.

“Geometries of Expression” brings to light Krasner’s resilience and creativity in a challenging era for artists, especially women. As Devon Zimmerman,

the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art explains:

“Krasner’s work during this moment of her career is a testament to her artistic prowess, but also a reflection of the relationships she forged with a network of artists, patrons, and critics that spanned all corners of the art world at the time. This exhibition aims to illuminate the centrality of Krasner in the advocacy and advancement of abstraction in the U.S.”

Krasner’s serious engagement with abstraction began in 1937 when she enrolled in New York’s Hofmann School of the Fine Arts. From the late 1930s until her marriage to painter Jackson Pollock in 1945, she developed an artistic vocabulary that would be sustained throughout her career.

Krasner’s exploration of geometric abstraction during this period was buoyed by her participation in organizations like the American Abstract Artists group and the Works Progress Administration, and relationships with many of the foremost practitioners of abstraction.

Kevin Johnson is photo archivist at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport. Learn more about the museum at PenobscotMaineMuseum.org.

The exhibit is organized around four nodes of Krasner’s far-reaching network: her studies with the influential teacher Hans Hofmann, her work for the Works Progress

Administration (WPA), her involvement in the American Abstract Artists group, and her relationship with the circles around European émigré Piet Mondrian.

Jimmy Steele poses with the beginnings of one of his legendary peapods in a photo by Everett “Red” Boutilier. PHOTO: PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM

Lee Krasner’s “Lavender,” (1942) oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches.

COURTESY: THE OLIVIA COLLECTION, LOS ANGELES AND MEXICO CITY.

A painter on Ministers Island

Railroad tycoon Van Horne’s artistic side

BY CARL LITTLE

THE TWO TIMES my wife and I have visited Ministers Island we have parked the car on the mainland side and walked across the bar. We want the exercise, yes, but also the experience of approaching a separate world. And there may be a blue heron standing in the fog or a couple of men digging clams to enhance the approach.

David Sullivan’s Minister’s Island: Sir William Van Horne’s Summer Home in St. Andrews (2007) tells the remarkable story of this 500-acre island just off that New Brunswick resort community.

Open seasonally to the public—during low tide— the place offers a mix of nature and history. You can walk the trails, including a wonderful allée of cedars, visit the massive barn with its collection of vintage farm machinery, or proceed directly to Van Horne’s sandstone mansion, “Covenhoven,” named after his father, Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne.

This summer there’s an extra incentive to visit the latter: “From The Last Spike to Art Connoisseur: A Journey with Sir William Cornelius Van Horne.”

Designed by Exporail, the Canadian Railway Museum in Montreal, the exhibition highlights the Illinois-born railroad tycoon’s artistic chops and the remarkable collection of art he gathered in his lifetime.

As president of the Canadian Pacific Railway— he oversaw the completion of the country’s first

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Crossing the Bar. PHOTO: COURTESY PROPTONICS

Covenhoven

The bathhouse

transcontinental rail line—he had the wherewithal to pursue his artistic inclinations and gather an impressive group of European and Canadian masterworks.

As curator Jean-Paul Viaud notes, painting helped provide some balance to Van Horne’s life as a businessman. The exhibition, which has been mounted in his main floor studio, features two easels from his Montreal residence and ten paintings owned by the province of New Brunswick. The canvases, mostly landscapes, reflect a romantic sensibility, from “Sunburst over Ministers Island” to “Moonlight on the Sea.”

The star of the show is “.007,” a painting prompted by a short story of the same name by Rudyard Kipling. Van Horne had read the tale, told from the viewpoint of a steam engine named .007, and invited the famed writer to take a cross-Canada rail tour.

Upon Kipling’s return to Montreal, Van Horne presented him with the large oil on canvas, which illustrates the tale’s final scene as pictured from the rear platform of the painter’s private railway car, the Saskatchewan. The only train-themed painting by Van Horne, the canvas has been in storage for almost a century. It’s a powerhouse of a picture.

Van Horne, the art collector, shows up in a series of exhibition banners offering reproductions of some of the paintings he acquired. It’s an all-star line-up: prime works by the likes of Inness, Delacroix, Sisley, Daubigny, Cézanne, Rembrandt, and Renoir. Van Horne had an excellent eye.

The exhibition highlights other aspects of Van Horne’s artistic practice and predilections, including watercolor studies of fungi, his collection of Japanese ceramics, his forays into architecture, and his illustrated travel journals. After viewing the show, tour the

On Goods Point, this house sits on a little knoll looking east, southeast to Pop Island and down Dyer Bay accessed through soft, moss-covered paths to a set of steps to the beach where just off the last step, sea lavender is in full bloom, it’s purple flowers blooming under salt water at high tide. From the screened porch the view is fabulous through healthy balsam firs to the bay and islands down to open ocean. With a living room opening onto the screened porch, the dining area at the end off the kitchen is all open with views to the Pop Island channel. A den/office or first floor bedroom is across from a full bath and laundry off a hallway to the garage. The second floor has two lovely bedrooms, the primary, with bay views, has a lovely sitting area, the landing has room for a tiny office or reading nook across from a full bath. Open deck meets up with the screened porch on the water side, so nice to have both. Dining area on the porch allows for plein air dining, in the magic hour as the sunset glow casts its colors on the opposite shore. An incredible kayaking area with great areas to explore, some shallow waters for seeing lots of things going on under water and bird life galore above and on the water. A magical place. $595,000

rest of the mansion, which includes an exhibit devoted to Passamaquoddy artists, and roam the grounds where you’ll find a bath house and a windmill, plus the stone remnants of greenhouses. Whatever you do, keep an eye on the time and the tides.

“From The Last Spike to Art Connoisseur: A Journey with Sir William Cornelius Van Horne” is on view through Sept. 30. The show will travel to other venues in the coming years. Open hours and ticket purchases are available online at www.ministersisland.net

Sir William Cornelius Van Horne’s “.007,” ca. 1897, oil on canvas. PHOTO: CARL LITTLE

The barn