The Working Waterfront - Feb/Mar 2023

News from Maine’s Island and Coastal Communities volume 37, no. 1

published by the island institute

Towns fear, fight aquaculture expansion

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DRAGGIN’ THE LINE—

Large-scale operations trigger moratoriums

By Stephen Rappaport

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here’s a new war brewing along the Maine coast, and the enemy is what some perceive as the uncontrolled spread of aquaculture.

According to the Department of Marine Resources, between 2017 and 2021, aquaculture leases in Maine waters increased from about 110 to approximately 185. The total acreage encompassed by active leases increased from less than 1,300 to about 1,750—an area slightly larger than Rockland Harbor.

The region has also seen the growth of aquaculture on an “industrial scale.”

Recently, four extremely large fish farming operations—three land-based and one in the waters of Frenchman Bay off Mount Desert Island—have been proposed or are in development in eastern Maine: • In 2018, Whole Oceans announced plans to invest $250 million to build a land-based recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) and grow 11 million pounds of Atlantic salmon annually on the site of a former Bucksport paper mill. The project

Mark Brown, left, and Ron Fitzgerald working aboard the F/V Erica Jade off West Harpswell in March of 2018, dragging for scallops. The boat is owned and operated by Tom Butler. The scallop season this year ends March 30.

PHOTO: KELLI PARK

received approval from the State and town but, except for some preparation work construction has yet to begin.

• Also in 2018, Nordic Aquafarms announced plans to build a 66-million pound salmon RAS in Belfast. Nordic’s plans, approved both by the state Department of Environmental Protection and the

city, generated substantial local opposition and the project is mired in litigation.

• In Jonesport, the Netherlands-based Kingfish Maine has received state and local approval for plans to build a $110 million RAS that could ultimately raise more than 18 million pounds of continued on page 7

Bees crucial to blueberries in good shape Damage by Florida hurricane mitigated for Maine

By Sarah Craighead Dedmon

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oneybees play an integral role in the pollination of Maine’s wild blueberries, and most of them spend their winters in the South. So when news broke that

Hurricane Ian destroyed upwards of 150,000 Florida hives last September, many Mainers wondered—will the blueberries be OK? The answer is yes, says Lincoln Sennett, owner of Maine’s largest beekeeping company, Swan’s Honey.

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“We actually winter our bees in “And we lost a big contract in south Georgia,” said Sennett, speaking California because we couldn’t split from the American the bees,” said Alderman.

Beekeeping Federation “By splitting them off, Conference held in that 500 hives might have Florida last month. “That made 1,000 or 1,500 hives Native topic of the hive losses in just a few weeks.” pollinators like has come up here. There A beekeeper’s ability the bumblebee are people struggling, but to generate more hives it won’t impact blueberry play a large role through splitting is one pollination.” reason Maine’s blueberry Hurricane Ian, a in wild blueberry crop is safe and sound— Category 4 storm with pollination won’t begin production, sustained winds greater here until mid-May, contributing than 155 mph, passed over leaving beekeepers plenty 15 percent of the nation’s of time to recover. around 40 hives, delivering finanBut circumstances in percent of the cial losses and wreaking California mean that not havoc for beekeepers. only blueberries but all effort.

Steve Alderman, who of the nation’s crops will in years past delivered likely have enough honeyhis bees from Florida to bees to go around this Washington County each spring, now year, even with Florida’s steep losses. assists a Florida beekeeper who lost 500 “The thing that is different this hives in the storm. continued on page 6

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The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

On the record with…

Former Project Puffin director Steve Kress Lessons from a lifetime of puffin protection

By Stephanie Bouchard

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ast fall, Dr. Steve Kress, PhD, received a lifetime achievement award from the Natural Resources Council of Maine. Kress, 77, has a long list of credits to his name, but undoubtedly he is best known for the work he spent much of his career doing: restoring and managing breeding populations of Atlantic puffins and other seabirds on Eastern Egg Rock, a small island six miles from New Harbor in Knox County.

Kress founded Project Puffin 50 years ago with six puffin chicks from Canada. The populations of nesting pairs vary year to year, but in 2017, for example, there were 172. The seabird restoration techniques that he and Project Puffin staff and volunteers established are now used in seabird restoration projects around the world. The Working Waterfront talked to him about his Lifetime Achievement Award, Project Puffin, and wildlife conservation.

Working Waterfront: You retired from Project Puffin in 2019. What is your involvement now with it?

Kress: I don’t have any kind of formal arrangement, but I’m available to help in any way that people are interested in having my help. One thing that I continue to do is to teach at Hog Island [Audubon Camp]. I have two sessions coming up next summer, and I create online educational courses for the Hog Island Seabird Institute as well. And I’m writing up some research about seabirds. These are kinds of things that I enjoy doing and they seem to be still helpful.

WW: What are your thoughts on the evolving attitudes about wildlife conservation? It seems that people are more willing to champion particular animals, such as whales, but have no problem with letting other types of species go extinct.

Kress: It’s easier to identify with creatures similar to ourselves, and so even though a whale doesn’t look similar to us and lives in a foreign environment, we know that they are mammals. We know that they share all the mammalian traits and they are big and they are rare, and big and rare are very appealing things to humans. They leave us in awe.

Whales leave us in awe. I think that losing something like that—even the thought of losing something like that—and being accountable for losing that other animal, causing its extinction, is a terrible thing. To know that they’re still with us gives us hope that we can actually make a difference here even if we never see one.

I think that those kinds of things drive people to care and to have opinions and to look for action that they might take so we don’t lose yet another species on our watch.

A recent photo of Steve Kress holding a puffin.

are really important because it’s hard to know when we have enough to back off of something. Certainly, when something is very common, often people aren’t paying attention to it.

WW: What are your hopes for Project Puffin going forward?

Kress: The interns on the islands have a dual role: one is to manage invasive plants and to have a presence that discourages predators from impacting the islands, and to clean up plastics and other kinds of things that wash up on the beach that aren’t good for the birds. The other role is to learn about the fisheries that are changing and learn about the effects of climate change on fish and birds. So, the interns who live on the islands now spend much of their time in these kinds of ongoing studies that are very informative about how the ocean, particularly the Gulf of Maine, is changing.

WW: The Project Puffin story is well-known; is there something about it that isn’t as well-known?

Kress: A question that I get less now than in the beginning is why bother to save a very common species and to invest in saving common animals?

I think it remains a very important question. One of the things that seabirds have shown us is that populations of animals can disappear very rapidly and in huge numbers.

WW: I remember going to Popham Beach as a child and seeing piping plovers everywhere. Now it seems like a miracle when I see them.

Kress: That’s one of the success stories in Maine.

But your memories of them being super abundant

Kress working on Eastern Egg Rock.

One of the very exciting things that’s changed since Project Puffin began is the technology for tracking animals. We didn’t even know where puffins went in the winter until recently. Now we are learning about where they are going.

What we do with that information is the bigger challenge that moves into political-economic decisions that people are going to have to make. It’s so exciting to see this sort of unveiling in front of our eyes and it just gets more and more amazing and more daunting because the places where they’re going are often the other ends of the world.

WW: It’s been a few weeks since you received the Lifetime Achievement Award. What are your thoughts about it?

Kress: I am very appreciative. It’s recognition that I think could help to inspire other people to do similar kinds of projects.

. April . february www.workingwaterfront.com www.workingwaterfront.com 2023 /march2020

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‘Women Behind the Lens’ reveals new perspectives Maine Maritime Museum exhibits three photographers

By Stephanie Bouchard

Emma Duncan Crooker Sewall grew up among the shipbuilding elite in uch of the maritime industry Bath, and was married to one of the and its history has been city’s top shipbuilders (and a candidate dominated by white men. for vice president of the United States), A new photographic exhibit at Maine Arthur Sewall. Josephine Banks was Maritime Museum in Bath seeks to take the daughter of a sea captain from a look at that male-dominated legacy Prospect who experienced transthrough the lens—literally—of three Atlantic travel aboard with her parents.

And Abbie Minott was the youngest women intimately connected to it.

“Women Behind the Lens” displays surviving child of the founder of together for the first time a selection Minott Shipyard in Phippsburg.

All three women took up photogof photographs by Maine photographers Emma D. Sewall (1836-1919), raphy as a hobby, but some of their Josephine Ginn Banks (1863-1958), photographs were published in local and Abbie F. Minott (1874-1944). The newspapers and even exhibited nation50 photographs in the exhibit come ally and internationally. Emma Sewall from the approximately 2,000 photo- received national and international graphs created by these three women awards for her photos, some of which which the museum has in its collection were exhibited in Paris in some of the same exhibits that famed photographer of 100,000 photographs.

The exhibit, said Catherine Cyr, Alfred Stieglitz exhibited in, said Cyr. This photo shot by Josephine Ginn Banks (sometime between 1900 and 1920) shows “These are just, for the most Stonington Harbor. PHOTO: COURTESY MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM the museum’s exhibition coordinator, part, average “shows that we women—they’re can broaden the not professional scope and narraphotographers— tive of what mariwho are just time history is happening to and how we tell capture both maritime history.” your everyday The photomoments but graphs in the Martin, Bud Staples, and Elsie Gillespie chat around the woodstove at the annual town meeting. also John significant exhibit document moments in the day-to-day work of ship- Emma D. Sewall’s photo of a "remote bay Maine’s history.”

Some of the building in Maine north of Phippsburg Center" (between at the turn of the 1883-1900). PHOTO: COURTESY MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM scenes they photographed are today last century and the seafaring people and communi- quite historically important, said Cyr. “Some of the images are so significant ties supporting those shipyards in the [because] they’re the only ones of that Abbie F. Minott photo of the four-masted schooner Ada F. Brown, circa 1901.

Midcoast and Penobscot Bay. Some are of places and scenes that type and documenting certain aspects PHOTO: COURTESY MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM are still recognizable today, such as of of the shipbuilding process that we have a horse taking a drink from a watering from any Maine shipyard,” she said.

This is particularly true for the shiptrough at the Civil War monument across from the front of the Sagadahoc yard photos taken by Abbie Minott.

“She had this really unique position Courthouse in Bath, and some detail the hard work done in shipyards and of being able to go onto the shipyard granite quarries, while others reflect that was just outside of her house and take photos of it being active,” said Cyr. privileged white domesticity.

While the photos of this trio may “That’s pretty darn cool.”

FINANCING FOR MAINE’S MARINE AQUACULTURISTS “Women Behind the Lens” is on present their world from the perspective of women, Cyr is quick to note exhibit in the museum’s Crooker Lower that it is still a perspective from a select Gallery until early November 2023.

Interest Rates Maine Maritime Museum is at segment of society.

“I was very cognizant that these are 243 Washington Street in Bath. It’s Available women of privilege,” Cyr said. “They open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Now! had leisure time, they could afford a Admission is $20; $18 for seniors; camera. But, at the same time, it is a free for youth age 17 and younger.

Funds can be utilized for boats, gear, equipment, Levi Moulden infrastructure, land and/or operational capital. perspective that has not necessarily Admission is free for all on weekends For more information contact: been valued or really looked upon as in January, February and March. Go to Nick Branchina | nick.branchina@ceimaine.org |(207) 295-4912 a source of material and of wealth of www.mainemaritimemuseum.org or Hugh Cowperthwaite | hugh.cowperthwaite@ceimaine.org | (207) 295-4914 Bud Staples Gerald “Punkin” call 443-1316 for more information. knowledge. ” Lemoine

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The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

Book Reviews

Mouth-watering recipes for a cause Cookbook inspires boldness, supports fisheries

Catch: A Maine Seafood Cookbook Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association

Review by Tina Cohen YOU MAY THINK Maine seafood is seasonal—as if lobsters, for example, are what you can find and enjoy only in the summer months. But Maine fishermen (and the term includes women) are hearty folk, out there working hard to provide fresh seafood throughout the year.

So if you were to read this cookbook while snow is falling, don’t let the weather deter you. And there’s plenty of inspiration to find and use local “catch,” reading the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association’s Catch: A Maine Seafood Cookbook.

The recipes are enticing and many and enjoyment of Maine’s seafood. They will astonish you with creative twists talked to people along the coast who and combinations you might never love to cook—whether for pleasure at home or professionally in restaurants. have imagined.

Maine seafood as exotic? The fish- Their request for recipes was met with ermen may not think of it like that, enthusiasm. They describe the cookbut the cooks and chefs who provided book as a tribute to Maine’s fishermen, recipes for this collection are taking a and a way to benefit “healthy fisheries bold, fresh approach. Even standard and vibrant fishing communities.”

Recipes are complimented by color dishes like chowders, fritters, and fried fish will surprise you with inno- photographs that are motivational, suggesting the outcome vative iterations. is well worth the effort.

But the point of this Whole meals can be book is not to remind us constructed, appetizers how limited our culinary to dessert, with mixed efforts might have been, Whole meals can drinks thrown in. I’ll be but as a fundraiser to be constructed, trying the cocktail called support those working “Island Time,” which, as in Maine’s seafood appetizers to a phrase on Vinalhaven, industry. Sales of this dessert, with serves to describe a more book help underwrite laid-back, “mañana” several programs MCFA mixed drinks approach to life. offers—one that places thrown in.

The drink combines a seafood in schools and coconut-flavored rum, food banks, and another triple sec, and pineapple that connects fishermen and orange juices with with mental and physical some Caribbean spices— health resources.

Monique Coombs, a staffer at MCFA, nutmeg and cinnamon. Oh, and could and Rebecca Spear, both married to I have that with an appy of lobster and commercial fishermen, wanted to create buttermilk corn fritters with remoua cookbook supporting consumption lade, please?

Next, I’d like the main dish “Maine Halibut with Three Sauces and Pickled Vegetables,” incorporating the Asian flavors of cilantro, ginger, and miso.

And to finish this feast, why not some Wild Maine Blueberry Shortcake. Here, the cake is actually a buttery lemon thyme scone topped with blueberry compote, then slathered with whipped cream and blueberry syrup.

There are a few recipes calling for ingredients I wouldn’t have on hand routinely and wouldn’t likely find in the Vinalhaven grocery, like wonton wrappers, poblano peppers, or Asian fish sauce.

And while fresh-picked crabmeat can sometimes be just as difficult to come by, when you can get some, indulge! The recipes here for crab dip, crab-topped haddock baked with a blueberry sauce and finished with a sprinkle of potato chips, and crab and corn chowder with smoked shrimp sound beyond delicious.

Hungry now? Order a copy on the website mainecoastfishermen.org, or use its link to find the bookstores along the coast that stock it.

Tina Cohen is a seasonal resident of Vinalhaven.

A sailing adventure enjoyed vicariously Around the world trip in 43-foot cutter recounted

In Slocum’s Wake

By Nat Warren-White Outskirts Press, Inc. (2022)

Review by Bob Gerber GARRISON KEILLOR once said something like, “We need to write because, otherwise, nobody will know who we are.” I think others write to find out who they, themselves, are.

Having known Nat Warren-White since the 1960s as a casual acquaintance, I think there is a little truth for him in both these statements. He writes about becoming a flaneur, or idler of the oceans, looking for interesting islands to visit.

Warren-White’s recent book, In Slocum’s Wake, is a recounting of his circumnavigation in the 43-foot cutter Bahati during the period 2006-2011.

The book’s name gives a nod to Joshua Slocum who is credited with the first solo circumnavigation, from 18951898, in the 36-foot yawl Spray.

Warren-White is a recreational sailor out of South Freeport and the fourthgeneration sailor in his family. After reading the book, I wrote to thank him for allowing me to vicariously sail the oceans, as it was something I once seriously considered doing but never did.

This is an excellent book for anyone who enjoys sailing and has ever contemplated what it might be like to sail through the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, the South Sea islands, cross the Indian Ocean, and round the Cape of Good Hope to return to Maine by crossing the Atlantic.

He sailed his vessel in a generally westerly direction, taking advantage of the trade winds as much as possible, and mentions continuous spinnaker runs of up to six days.

Besides his wife and son who were frequent crew members along the way, he had many “20 somethings” come and go to help with the hard work and keep up the energy and spirit on the

trip, which was punctuated by many island stopovers and wintering in New Zealand, plus two short-notice roundtrip flights to Maine, where both his parents passed away while WarrenWhite was on his voyage.

He is generous in his credit to all who helped him prepare his vessel, which was built in 1988 in Cape Town, South Africa. Portland area yacht services and sailmakers are particularly singled out.

Warren-White also describes what it takes in time and money to fit out the boat and live for years on it. There is a thorough bibliography and lengthy topical index, and throughout the book he names people and places along his route that provided repair services, weather predictions, clean fuel, provisions, and the many other types of assistance a long-distance sailor would need.

A voyage that spans five years predictably has its share of disasters and neardisasters and he does not spare the reader from these. His nighttime collision with a fishing vessel in the Malacca Strait while doing a two-day solo run is probably the scariest tale and highlights the problem of sleep deprivation when piloting alone or with small crews on an ocean filled with other vessels, shipping containers that have fallen off ships, long fishing trawls, and other garbage and debris.

The casual writing style can be disconcerting to someone looking for a travelogue; Warren-White intersperses many long asides about such things as relations with crew members, lessons from his father, battles with his own depression, and his frustrating dealings with foreign customs and immigration agents.

And the map graphics could be improved. But there are lengthy descriptions of the gorgeous beaches, breath-taking waterfalls, wildlife, camaraderie with other sailors in the anchorages, and the general good-natured behavior of the South Sea islanders they encounter that welcome him and crew into their homes and lives.

Warren-White is a gregarious person who easily greets and befriends people and the descriptions of his encounters with the native islanders and other sailors are some of the most fascinating parts of the book. Again, if you never plan to do your own long-distance voyage, you can still take one with In Slocum’s Wake.

Bob Gerber is a former sailor and island-owner in the Freeport area, now residing most of the year in Eagles Mere, Penn., and experiencing sailing vicariously.

www.workingwaterfront.com . february/march 2023

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Book Reviews

Listening to the landscape

Essays encompass memoir, natural history, tributes.

Notes on the Landscape of Home

By Susan Hand Shetterly Down East Books

Review by Carl Little Notes on the Landscape of Home confirms Susan Hand Shetterly’s status as one of Maine’s and this country’s finest environmental writers. Like Terry Tempest Williams, who lives nearby on the Blue Hill peninsula, Shetterly weaves personal life experience into outward-looking essays that focus in large part on nature and our interactions with it.

In the opening piece, “Children of Orion,” Shetterly offers her MO for regarding the world: “If you pay attention to the land where you live,” she writes, “…you enter into a conversation

with it, until it becomes a voice inside Cashes Ledge, a protected “hope spot” you and some of the boundaries in the Gulf of Maine.

A number of pieces pay homage to between you and it dissolve.”

Many of the 32 short essays recount individuals who have made stewardthose conversations and subsequent ship a part of their lives, among them, botanists Pam Johnson and Kate voices.

Shetterly takes us along to some Furbish, farmer Bill Thayer, biology of her favorite places. There’s Little professor Gayle Kraus, whale disenMoose Island, a 54-acre land-bridged tangler Joe Howlett, writer E. B. White, and bald eagle restorer (at low tide) retreat adjaMark McCullough. cent to the Schoodic Of special resoPeninsula. A visit in late Shetterly recounts nance are Shetterly’s fall of “the COVID year” her mother’s remembrances of leads to reflections on Passamaquoddy scholar climate change and the coming-of-age Wayne Newell, who crucial role horseshoe walking trip dedicated his life to crabs in Delaware Bay preserving his people’s play in the successful on Cape Cod language. annual transit of birds following in the In several pieces, along the Atlantic flyway.

Shetterly records the The perambulation footsteps of challenges, rewards, also inspires a charming Henry David and sometimes setbacks description of a greater Thoreau… to saving the land and yellowlegs “tipping— waters. In recounting the forward and back—as if it creation of the Carter were a pitcher of cream at Nature Preserve in Surry she describes a busy tea party.”

Among the creatures Shetterly the ups and downs of the process, from celebrates are elvers, alewives, frogs the Blue Hill Heritage Trust accepting and salamanders, bluefin tuna, turkey title to the property to the subsequent vultures, and the woodcock whose call arrival of unleashed dogs, campfires, she likens to “some sort of bizarre elec- cairn-builders, and rude foragers.

Like so many of us isolated by the trical malfunction.” She also honors forests, an apple tree, seaweed, and pandemic, Shetterly found relief in

outdoor-oriented activities, from joining a Social Distancing Bird Club (“birds are a way into the world outside ourselves”) to mapping out new gardens in her yard. The shutdown also leads to fresh riffs on literature (Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs) and art (Winslow Homer’s The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog).

One of the longer pieces, “The Map,” appears near the middle of the book, a fitting spot as it is the beating heart of the collection. Here Shetterly recounts her mother’s coming-of-age walking trip on Cape Cod following in the footsteps of Henry David Thoreau who traversed the peninsula in the mid-1800s.

Thoreau is one of the guiding spirits here; he is the focus of another essay, “The Art of Sauntering” and makes other cameos in the collection. You can hear echoes of him in Shetterly’s immaculate and lyric prose as when she writes, “We’re nourished by what’s left of wildness.”

She carries on his message and spirit with panache and plentitude.

Carl Little writes about art and literature for several publications and has published several books on art in Maine and New England. He lives on Mount Desert Island.

Coastal Maine airports get funds SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS, the ranking member of the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, announced that several Maine airports will receive a total of $14.7 million to make critical infrastructure improvements.

The funding comes from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Improvement Program. Collins co-authors the appropriations bill that funds this program each year.

“Maine’s airports are vital pieces of our state’s transportation network that promote job creation and economic development. Throughout the state, airports play a critical role not only in carrying residents and visitors, but also in facilitating medical services for those in rural communities in emergencies when seconds count,” said Collins.

Maine airports will use the funding to support airport improvement projects, such as runways and taxiways. Among award winners are the following coastal airports:

•H ancock County-Bar Harbor Airport, $650,000 to improve airport drainage and erosion control •B runswick Executive Airport, $147,000 to seal its taxiway pavement surface and joints •E astport Municipal Airport will receive $136,375 to install a runway vertical and visual guidance system • Portland International Jetport will receive $11,249,447 to rehabilitate its runway.

•P rinceton Municipal Airport will receive $60,000 to seal its apron pavement surface and joints •K nox County Regional Airport in Owls Head will receive $600,000 to acquire snow removal equipment •S anford Seacoast Regional Airport will receive $150,000 to update its airport master plan.

Maine delegation wins regulatory ‘pause’ Lobster industry gets six years before new rules MAINE’S congressional delegation has won a regulatory “pause” before new rules are implemented to further protect North Atlantic right whales.

The delay was crafted by Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and House members Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden and was included in the omnibus appropriations bill passed by Congress.

“Maine’s lobstermen and women have long demonstrated their commitment to maintaining and protecting a sustainable fishery in the Gulf of Maine,” the delegation and Gov. Janet

Mills asserted in a joint statement.

“They have invested in countless precautionary measures to protect right whales, including removing more than 30,000 miles of line from the water and switching to weaker rope to prevent whales from being entangled.”

Also noted was that no right whale death has been attributed to Maine lobster gear.

“We will pursue any and all policy solutions to protect our hardworking lobstermen and women,” the statement continued. “Our provision,

which relies upon the expertise of the professionals at the Maine Department of Marine Resources, will enable our lobster fishery to continue to operate while still complying with the National Marine Fisheries Service’s most recent right whale rule.”

Specifically, the provision in the omnibus: • Deems the current right whale rules sufficient to ensure the continued operation of the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries for six years (through Dec. 31, 2028)

• Provides that new regulations for the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries would take effect in six years (by Dec. 31, 2028) • Authorizes a new grant program that could fund innovative gear technologies and the monitoring necessary to support the dynamic management of fisheries. Fishermen and other participants within the maritime industry would be eligible for this funding.

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The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

BEES

continued from page 1 year is that the amount of [almond] acreage that requires pollination will stay level or drop, instead of expanding,” said Sennett. “You’ll have more bees chasing fewer acres.”

The majority of the nation’s hives—2.1 million last year—are transported to California for the start of almond pollination season, usually around Valentine’s Day. As beekeeping conference attendees learned last month, a drop in almond prices against the backdrop of California’s drought means that almond production could scale back in 2023, leaving some bees looking for work.

California’s almond industry is the single largest pollination event in the nation, but Maine State Apiarist Jennifer Lund believes Maine blueberries could be the second largest, or at least in the top four.

She agrees with Sennett that Maine growers won’t be at a loss for bees this year.

“We get about 50,000 hives that come up for blueberry pollination and a lot of ours do come out of Florida, but by then they will have built back up,” said Lund, also speaking from a beekeeping event in Florida, the annual meeting of the Apiary Inspectors of America.

Soon Lund’s office will begin preparations to receive those 50,000 hives for Maine’s blueberry pollination season, which begins when blueberries begin to blossom in May and lasts for about three weeks.

Native pollinators like the bumblebee also play a large role in wild blueberry production, says Lund, contributing around 40 percent of the effort. And because the bumblebee has “co-evolved” alongside the wild blueberry, unlike the honeybee which originates in Europe, the bumblebee is extremely efficient.

Using a technique called “buzz pollination,” one bumblebee can fully pollinate a blueberry blossom in about two trips, whereas a honeybee might need 12.

“The bumblebee will hang upside down from the flower, then vibrate its body at a certain frequency to release the pollen and nectar, which falls on their undersides,” said Lund. “And then they bring it back to the nest.”

Tim and Lydia Beal, who co-manage Josh Pond Farm in Whiting, rent honeybees to pollinate their organic wild blueberries, but have also supplemented with bumblebees in the past. They would do it again if honeybees became scarce, but from a business perspective, honeybees make the most sense.

“With honeybees, you can get this large volume of pollinators,” said Lydia. “Bumblebees are

more equipped to get into the blossom than the honeybee and very efficient, but you don’t rent them, you buy them, and they are very expensive,” she added.

“You really see an uptick in pounds per acre with honeybee pollination,” said Tim, who estimates honeybees increase Josh Pond’s per-acre production by as much as 33 percent.

Dr. John Gaddis, who manages his family’s Downeast blueberry land, rents Swan’s honeybees to pollinate his berries and agrees that honeybees increase his crop.

“Some people don’t want to spend the money but those who do usually find that they get a better yield, the bees pay for themselves,” said Gaddis.

If he couldn’t get honeybees from Swan’s, Gaddis says he’d work hard to find them somewhere else, because they’re superior pollinators. But he doesn’t have to worry this year, says Sennett.

“There are going to be plenty of bees that will be happy to get a pollination contract because some of those bees aren’t going to get one in California,” Sennett said. “Overall, I’d say the total number of colonies is holding good now. Beekeepers are getting better at managing and mitigating stressors for honeybees, and things are looking positive.”

Farnsworth marks 75th, announces exhibits Hopper, Wyeth, Katz all represented

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he Farnsworth Art Museum has announced its 2023 schedule of major exhibitions in celebration of the museum’s 75th anniversary.

From Feb. 11 through June 17 the museum will open a series of important shows that will transform every gallery and feature beloved favorites, as well as dozens of new acquisitions to the collection.

Exhibitions feature: an exploration of Rockland

by Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth, a collection of Andrew Wyeth’s watercolors traveling to Maine from Japan, and a new mural by Rachel Gloria Adams and Ryan Adams.

In preparation, the Farnsworth will close its galleries and reopen on Saturday, Feb. 11 with the first two of these exhibitions: “The Farnsworth at 75: New Voices from Maine in American Art,” and “Maine in America 2023: A Celebration of the Alex Katz Foundation.”

Drawn from the museum’s collection, Farnsworth at 75 is a two-part exhibition. The first part reexamines a selection of objects that underscore Maine’s important artistic contributions to American art during its early defining moment, and allows viewers to explore how a collection comes into being.

Founded as a bequest of Lucy Copeland Farnsworth in honor of her father, today the museum’s collection includes more than 15,000 works by approximately 1,300 artists, as well as two historic sites—the Farnsworth Homestead and the Olson House. The Farnsworth’s collection is nationally recognized as one of the finest repositories of American paintings.

New Voices from Maine in American Art unveils new acquisitions to the museum’s collection from the last two years and offers a window to the future of

“Lake,” 2020, by Erin Johnson

art in Maine. Organized thematically, the new acquisitions revisit histories, narratives, and myths about the sea, industry, identity, community, and both real and imagined places.

Artwork—in all media and dating from the 20thand 21st-centuries—offers new perspectives when viewed in dialogue with beloved favorites.

“Founded as a small art museum, the Farnsworth of today serves a national audience with its outstanding collection, and plays a vital role in our community, our state, and the nation,” said Christopher J. Brownawell, the museum’s director. “We’re planning a spectacular year—one that tells our incredible story and will delight and inspire.”

The Farnsworth Art Museum will also celebrate the Alex Katz Foundation for its years of philanthropic contributions of artwork by emerging artists. “Maine in America 2023: A Celebration of the Alex Katz Foundation” showcases a selection of the more than 60 works the foundation has given to the Farnsworth.

On May 27, the museum opens “Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth: Rockland, Maine,” which runs

through Aug. 27. One of Hopper’s most productive summers occurred in 1926 in Rockland; Wyeth, on the other hand, found inspiration in the town’s architecture, schooners, and environs for decades. The exhibition features the artists’ watercolors depicting places throughout Rockland, a city much loved by both of these prominent American artists.

On June 17, the Farnsworth opens “Alvaro’s World: Andrew Wyeth and the Olson House,” at the Wyeth Center, with works from the Marunuma Art Park in Asaka, Japan that are rarely seen in the U.S. Also, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary, the museum invites Portland-based artists Rachel Gloria Adams and Ryan Adams to create a new mural on Museum Street, extending art beyond the interior galleries. The pair will combine their signature styles of vibrant colors, “gem” (or geometric) letters, and flowers to paint a tailormade mural for Rockland.

For more information regarding Farnsworth programming, or to sign up for the museum’s newsletter, visit www.farnsworthmuseum.org.

www.workingwaterfront.com . february/march 2023 AQUACULTURE

continued from page 1 yellowtail annually in a facility on the shores of Chandler Bay. Some local residents have filed suit to overturn the town’s permit approval.

• In 2021, the Norway-based American Aquafarms applied to lease two 15-pen, 60-acre sites in Frenchman Bay to grow as much as 66 million pounds of Atlantic salmon annually. The company also purchased a one-time Stinson Seafood Company cannery in the Gouldsboro village of Prospect Harbor to use as a nursery and processing facility. Last winter, the Department of Marine Resources rejected the company’s application and the project is on hold, if not dead. The ferocious opposition the plan engendered, and the unrest over the three large RAS projects, continues unabated.

Recently, several towns have considered adopting 180-day moratoriums on large new aquaculture operations to allow voters to consider ordinances regulating these projects on shore as well as in tidal and sub-tidal waters. The proposed moratoriums and ordinances largely followed a model from the Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation, a Portland-based nonprofit formed about four years ago by opponents to a proposed 40-acre shellfish aquaculture lease in Maquoit Bay, between South Freeport and Brunswick.

So far, at least eight eastern Maine towns have voted to put a hold on new “industrial scale” aquaculture projects: Addison, Beals, Cutler, Machiasport, and Roque Bluffs, all in Washington County; and Gouldsboro, Winter Harbor, and Penobscot, all in Hancock County.

The ordinance defines “industrial-scale” as “a commercial facility on, in, or over Maine’s coastal waters (including submerged lands and intertidal lands) for the culture of finfish in nets, pens, or other enclosures or for the suspended culture of any other marine organism, that … occupies an aggregate surface area…greater than five acres.”

Gouldsboro has twice extended its 180-day moratorium, most recently last November, while the planning board labors over a comprehensive aquaculture

ordinance. The latest draft runs to 16 pages.

Gouldsboro resident Becky O’Keefe supports a town ordinance, though she would limit it to finfish operations. She said DMR doesn’t do enough to protect local interests during the leasing process and that there’s “a thumb on the scale” favoring applicants, in part because of pressure on DMR to encourage economic development.

“American Aquafarms felt like a giant walking into our community that would crush us,” O’Keefe said.

“Many of us did not trust the DEP or DMR would be well funded, well-resourced enough” to challenge the company’s science and experts.

Acceptance of a moratorium hasn’t been universal.

Last summer, voters in Lubec rejected the proposal, and Jonesport voters rejected a moratorium by a ratio of better than 2:1. Hancock, Stonington, and Deer Isle all discussed moratoriums but have not put the issue before voters.

One question confronting towns is whether they have any legal authority to control aquaculture or whether that is entirely within the state’s jurisdiction.

Protect Maine has been telling the towns they do.

DMR has warned the towns they do not.

On its website, the foundation contends that while DMR may have sole authority over aquaculture leases, towns have “broad authority” under the “home rule” doctrine to regulate activities—including aquaculture both on shore and within the town’s waters— occurring within their boundaries.

“The towns are being misled into believing they have the resources or authority to effectively manage aquaculture in state waters,” Sebastian Belle, Executive Director of the Maine Aquaculture Association, said recently. “This could cost towns millions over the years” in legal fees and the expense of staff needed to administer the complex provisions of the ordinance.

And, Belle said, it’s unnecessary. Towns already have an “elevated” position under DMR’s lease rules.

“I can’t recall any lease that’s been granted where the town objected,” he said.

ReVision wins $300,000 clean energy grant Workforce, training efforts targeted THE MAINE Governor’s Energy Office has awarded ReVision Energy a Clean Energy Partnership Workforce Development grant.

ReVision Energy, an employee-owned solar company with offices in South Portland and Montville, will be awarded $300,000 to advance workforce development and training for the clean energy field.

Funded by the Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan, the Clean Energy Partnership is an initiative focused on preparing more Maine people for jobs in the growing clean energy and energy efficiency fields, advancing innovation in the clean energy sector, and achieving Gov. Janet Mills’ goal of 30,000 clean energy jobs in Maine by 2030.

With this grant, ReVision Energy will increase the visibility of clean energy careers, develop tools to assist job-seekers and students in the identification of solar career pathways, develop and deliver trainings and apprenticeships resulting in industryrecognized credentials, provide hands-on experience

opportunities to trainees, and address barriers to participation for underrepresented populations.

ReVision aims to engage 850 students via its Tiny Climate Classroom, engage 100 job seekers through statewide webinars, support 110 participants in attaining NABCEP PV Associate certification, and support 16 participants in attaining a newly developed PV Design certification.

“Our ability to respond meaningfully to the climate crisis now depends on our ability to build a robust workforce that can design, build, and service clean energy systems,” said Vaughan Woodruff, director of ReVision’s energy training center.

The company hopes to “make these careers more visible to existing workers and to young people who are seeking to find meaningful work but lack familiarity with the opportunities within the solar industry,” he added.

The state needs to attract and train 6,000-7,000 new electricians during the next decade to meet climate goals, Woodruff said.

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The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

Rock Bound

More hands on the wheel for young adults Turning them loose in college is risky business

By Tom Groening IN THE WEEKS before Christmas, two tragedies hit close to home. Four Maine Maritime Academy students were killed in a vehicle crash while returning to the Castine campus in the early morning hours, and a University of Maine at Presque Isle student’s body was discovered on the shore of Sears Island in Searsport. The young man’s vehicle was left near the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.

You probably speculated about the same contributing factors as I did, and out of respect for the families and the ongoing inquiries, I won’t share those here. But this terrible loss reminds us of the precarious nature of life between, say, the age of 17 and the age of 23.

In my mind’s eye, I see that passage looking like a rickety catwalk spanning a deep ravine. On one side are the confines of high school and living at home with parental guidance. On the other side are unprecedented freedom and risky temptations.

Despite what the popular media implies, these are not the best years of one’s life. It’s a point I made to students and the young adults I knew during my brief careers as educator and then employment counselor.

Consider life’s milestones from age collectively, unwilling to devote the 17 to 30—choosing some kind of post- requisite resources to these roles.

But let’s focus on post-secondary high school training or education; moving out of your childhood home; institutions, which become second beginning to have serious romantic homes to our students.

When I was in college in the late and sexual relationships; narrowing career goals; managing the trials of 1970s, the state university I attended in New York part-time and summer jobs, had allowed or that first full time posieach dormition; finding a place to live.

There’s a lot to navigate.

So much has changed in tory to open a small pub Alcohol and drugs are more easily available at college life since my time. in the basethat time of life, especially Campuses no longer look ment of the buildings. when our young adults like the real world…

Students are away from watchful stocked parental eyes. And often, it’s beer, kept in those years that mental the books, illness emerges. Or just the powerful emotions of the age. To this and staffed the bar as a kind of busiday, I remember the story of a young ness practicum. But the driving idea man returning home to the Midcoast was that it kept students on campus after a first year at college to learn his and walking, not driving distance from high school sweetheart had broken up their rooms.

Of course, alcohol was legal at age with him. He bought a gun at Walmart 18 back in those days. Which raises and shot himself.

I don’t want to suggest that educators another point—should the legal age and counselors who work with this be lowered? A dozen or so years ago, a demographic are somehow derelict in letter signed by 100 college presidents their duty. Their jobs are challenging argued that it should, giving young on many fronts, and as is the case adults the opportunity to become with so many social problems, we are, experienced and hopefully mature

about their alcohol use, with parents being able to monitor that drinking.

Should colleges strike a more realistic posture on alcohol and drug use, perhaps sponsoring AA meetings, testimonials from those who have made a wrong turn because of substance use, or even helping coordinate ride services?

When our kids went to UMaine, my wife and I attended the joint student/ parent orientation, and at one point in the day, parents were separated from their children and we listened to university counselors describe the issues that would likely emerge, especially when our children came home for visits.

Good stuff. But couldn’t such sessions also offer warning signs of mental illness or hormone-driven depression?

So much has changed in college life since my time. Campuses no longer look like the real world, but rather as an institution with rules. More of that approach, I think, would help keep our young folks safe.

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

Reflections

Ferry hurdles don’t stop island competitors Extra steps involved, but LEGO event comes off Reflections is written by Island 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 Kaylin Wu OVER THE COURSE of three months, I worked with nine elementary/middle school students to build and program a LEGO robot that accomplished a series of tasks and challenges in under two and half minutes. It was months of hard work as I learned along with my students, many of whom had never worked with LEGO robotics or coding before.

After hours spent working as a team to build, tinker, troubleshoot, and overcome obstacles, we were ready for our competition in Jay where we would compete against teams from across Maine.

Something I didn’t consider before living on Vinalhaven, one of Maine’s unbridged islands, were the additional steps needed to participate in a competition in another part of the state. Specifically, how a one-day

Later that day, I collected the kids and competition would turn into a threegot in the vans with my two other chapday ordeal.

Growing up, I attended sporting erones. As we waited in line for the boat, events and National History Day a full hour before our departure time, I meets for school. These usually took triple counted our ferry tickets, making an afternoon or a day, at most. Because sure we had enough for each student in the vans and enough of the ferry schedule for the students we were and the distance from meeting in Rockland.

Rockland to Jay, it was Due to a gale warning impossible for us to As we waited in the day before, a 7th make it to the competiline for the boat, grade field trip to tion at 8 a.m. and make it back to Vinalhaven after a full hour before Boothbay was pushed back a day, meaning it 4:30 p.m., so we needed our departure now overlapped with to arrive on the maintime, I triple the day we were leaving land the day before the competition and leave counted our ferry for the robotics trip. The three 7th graders stayed the day after. tickets… in Rockland with our On the day we left, I school librarian instead was too nervous to do of leaving for Vinalhaven anything at work besides on the 3:15 p.m. boat. send updates to parents and pack the vans. The Vinalhaven Our plan was to pick them up at 4:30 School has two vans for transporting p.m. once our boat reached Rockland.

Part of living on an unbridged island students, on the island and off the island. I remember putting water is planning around the boats. While bottles and snacks in the back seats mostly reliable, they add another layer and asking myself if I was being thor- of planning to each trip you take to the mainland. Whether it’s checking ough enough.

weather forecasts, calling in for a line number, or waiting in the stand by line, it can feel like a stroke of luck when all of these logistics seamlessly fall into place.

I’m happy to report that all of our travel plans went smoothly that day. We made it to our hotel in Waterville and the kids got to spend all evening swimming in the hotel pool and eating at Five Guys. The competition was a blast for the kids and even though they didn’t win, their sportsmanship and teamwork alone were enough to be proud of. I can’t predict if we’ll have good luck with boats next year, but at least I have this year’s trip under my belt.

Kaylin Wu works with the Vinalhaven school supporting technology integration from pre-K through 12th grade. She also fosters a growing LEGO robotics club and other technology centered after school experiences. She graduated from Simmons University with a degree in English and studio art.

www.workingwaterfront.com . february/march 2023

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WAITING FOR A CHAINSAW— We’re not sure if chainsaws were in common use when this photo was taken, but a few surely were needed to cut up this massive downed tree. Judging by the Rockland police truck, the photo probably was taken in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Can any reader help with more information? Contact Tom Groening, editor, at tgroening@islandinstitute.org.

Op-Ed

Jonesport fish farm threatens Downeast Details of land-based project should worry residents

By Anita Herrick THE PRISTINE and productive marine environment in Chandler and Englishman bays where Jonesport, Roque Bluffs, and Roque Island are situated is now threatened by the plans of Kingfish Maine to build an industrial-sized, land-based fish farm in Jonesport.

I am part of Roque Island Gardner Homestead Corporation, a family community, which owns Roque Island. Preservation and responsible stewardship have been the focus of its management since 1806. We have worked hard to preserve the traditions of Maine saltwater farms, and to conserve the land and water around us.

We have striven to be an educational resource by providing access to scientists and students to do research on all aspects of the environment. We have also provided apprenticeships to young farmers interested in all around farming.

Understandably, our group is concerned about developments in the neighborhood. We have joined

Island Institute Board of Trustees Kristin Howard, Chair Douglas Henderson, Vice Chair Charles Owen Verrill, Jr. Secretary Kate Vogt, Treasurer, Finance Chair Carol White, Programs Chair Megan McGinnis Dayton, Philanthropy & Communications Chair Shey Conover, Governance Chair Michael P. Boyd, Clerk Sebastian Belle David Cousens Michael Felton Nathan Johnson Emily Lane Bryan Lewis Michael Sant Barbara Kinney Sweet Donna Wiegle John Bird (honorary)

forces with a local group, Protect pounds of nitrogen, and other unsaDowneast, which was formed by vory things such as formaldehyde.

The state Department of fishermen and residents similarly concerned about the economic, envi- Environmental Protection has made an ronmental, and cultural impacts that exception to allow Kingfish Maine to this plant will have on the community. release an excessive amount of nitrogen into the bay, above the Kingfish Maine proscribed limit. To describes the plant as put this in perspective, a recirculating aqua it is more than twice system, or RAS, which is the amount of nitrogen a misnomer unless one The plant will the entire city of Portland counts the sea as part of the plant. On the intake, draw in 28 million releases into the roughly 1,000 square mile Casco the water will be filtered gallons of sea Bay. By comparison, and heated, circulated water every day.

Chandler Bay is 14 through the plant, and square miles. then released into the The effluent from bay. The plant will draw the plant will spread in 28 million gallons of throughout the rivers, sea water every day.

That water will have been altered inlets, and bays in the vicinity and beyond. Increased nitrogen during its journey through the plant. eutrophication, which First, the initial filtration and heating causes will kill most of the microscopic causes algal blooms, reduces water phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish eggs, quality, and degrades commercial fishlobster, and shellfish spat. Secondly, eries. Ocean acidification impacts the what will be added is 6.5 million gallons bottom line for fisheries and Kingfish of “fish culture or process” water, 1,580 Maine is also proposing to significantly

THE WORKING WATERFRONT

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increase the acidification of the water.

This project is a threat to the entire Maine coast. Should it be allowed to proceed as proposed, it will open the gates for many more like it.

Furthermore, nothing is assured about the employment being promised.

According to the current plan, Kingfish Maine will inevitably cause environmental problems in this very rich and productive fisheries area.

It would be far better to encourage multiple smaller aquaculture projects which would not have a negative impact; in fact, would have a positive impact (think kelp, oysters, mussels), and would provide employment more in keeping with the coastal culture in this part of the state.

I urge readers to think of the Maine coast and its traditions, and not let Maine sell its abundant natural marine resources, yet again. Consider the fate of cod, herring, and sea urchins. Now is it going to be the sea itself?

Anita Herrick is a seasonal resident of Roque Island near Jonesport.

Editor: Tom Groening

tgroening@islandinstitute.org Our advertisers reach 50,000+ readers who care about the coast of Maine.

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The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

Greenland’s lessons for climate crisis Resilience and self-reliance characterize nation

By Peter Neill

first is research studies that reveal that rapid loss of sea ice exposes the sea to was in Greenland last year and the atmosphere, increasing take up of travelled north to south along the CO2 at a faster rate than elsewhere, and western coast from Baffin Strait contributing to amplified acidification to the Atlantic Ocean, visiting the of ocean water, circulated by natural four major coastal towns of Illulisat, currents that distribute the conseSisimuit, Nuuk, and Narsaq/Narsasuaq. quence worldwide.

Given the enormous volume of We travelled by coastal ferry and by internal air, at low altitude to see what the ocean, perhaps this seems insignificant, but the studies released by is called “sea ice melt.” the Polar and Marine This dissolution of the Research Institute glaciers that cover at Jimei University, most of Greenland was Greenland has China, and the School dramatically visible. of Marine Policy at As one of my travelling long been a focal University of companions observed, point for potential the Delaware in the U.S. “It was like looking back in time,” sugges- mineral extraction, indicate the amplification measured between tive of glacial melt and especially rare 1994 and 2020 shows retreat in other periods earth metals such a change of three to of global warming, beaufour times that of tiful, foreboding, and as uranium, gold, other ocean basins. stark evidence of the and zinc.

This will add to the source and volume of already critical ocean melt water, sea level rise, acidification challenge and temperature increase, now observable, measurable, with increased saturation and negaand implicative of serious consequence tive impact on ocean species, espefor a future that arrives inexorably cially plants and coral reefs. We have reached the point when incremental every day.

There are additional consequences change is critical change and without that have become apparent to me. The compensating action to reverse or

I

A view of Greenland’s glacial landscape. PHOTO: PETER NEILL

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www.workingwaterfront.com . february/march 2023 reduce the CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, we have done nothing but accelerate the problem.

A second consequence pertains to the sediment output of the meltwater flows, the release of cobbles and pebbles and grains of silt, previously frozen into the ice, now descending from the glacial face into ice floes, open streams, coastal deltas, and the open ocean. This phenomenon was dramatically visible from the air.

Greenland has long been a focal point for potential mineral extraction, especially rare earth metals such as uranium, gold, and zinc. Some of the identified sites are in some of the most beautiful and biodiverse areas in the world. Narsaq, the town adjacent to the Kujataa World Heritage Site, is downwind and downstream from a proposed uranium mine that has generated local and national opposition because of air quality and water quality issues, impact on tourism, social consequence of imported workers, and financial consequences of royalty payments and exported profits. The argument revolves around revenue and independence just as it does with proposed deep-sea mining projects adjacent to small island nations in the Pacific.

There is a different option, suggested by the study published in a 2019 issue of Nature Sustainability—taking from the newly revealed coastal sediment deposits of sand and gravel, not rare earth metals, but nevertheless a necessary

SOLD IN 2022

A view of a glacier. PHOTO: PETER NEILL

element in basic road construction and infrastructure rebuilding, in critical demand worldwide, located in the near shore zone to be mined and pumped by pipeline to offshore dry-bulk carriers by local employees, and traded by Greenland for perhaps comparable revenues.

There are always related problems, of course, specifically to fisheries and tourism, the other two major sources of Greenland’s financial security—the residues from extraction affecting adjacent fishing grounds, for example, or the industrialization of an otherwise wild Arctic coast. We have here again another one of those offsetting choices: to do or to don’t?

Greenland, by its location, has built a community of self-reliance, resilience, and independence. The Inuit population has escaped the worst of colonization, retaining generational strength, language, and cultural traditions.

Demark provides a large percentage of the annual budget, but there is a separate constitution and legislature.

Young people typically are educated abroad and many return and are now emerging in leadership positions in government and management.

But still, it is a place apart. There are no roads connecting the towns.

Subsistence has been reliant on hunting and fishing, travel by dog sled or small boats. No country on earth is dealing

with the impact of global warming, glacial melt, and sea level rise as directly.

There, the implications are facts; the future we envision is now. I felt great hope there, confidence in the people to meet, adapt, and invent a future built on history, values, and community.

We could learn so much from our past mistakes, so much from Greenland.

Peter Neill is director of the World Ocean Observatory, which produces weekly radio essays heard on WERU-FM, 89.9, on podcast at apple.com/us/podcast/world-oceanradio/id425361249, and at www. worldoceanobservatory.org/worldocean-radio. He lives in Sedgwick.

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The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

Scallop’s sweet season Harvesting that other white meat PHOTO ESSAY BY KELLI PARK

WHEN WINTER settles in and many in the lobster industry stay ashore, some seafood harvesters take advantage of the lull to pursue scallops, which are hauled up with a dredge, or drag, or are retrieved by divers on the bottom.

These photos, shot in March 2018, capture the scalloping done by Capt. Tom Butler’s F/V Erica Jade, a 46-foot Jarvis Newman. Butler’s crew includes Ron Fitzgerald and Mark Brown.

Butler’s family has lived and worked along the shores of Harpswell for six generations. In the early 1900s, his great, great grandmother purchased the 14-acre peninsula known as Basin Point, which eventually led to his grandparents establishing The Dolphin Marina and Restaurant in 1966.

In 2011, Butler and his wife Andrea started Erica’s Seafood, named for their daughter, and have earned a reputation for mouth-watering seafood.

As a diversion from his usual fishing pursuit, Butler enjoys the thrill of the chase in scalloping.

“It’s like a treasure hunt. You never know what’s coming up in the dredge. You never know what you’re going to catch,” said Butler, who has hauled up bicycles and antique snake oil bottles.

www.workingwaterfront.com . february/march 2023

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The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

Our Island Communities Remembering Capt. David Allen Long-time Sunbeam captain honored by successor

By Mike Johnson

S

tarting in 1971, Capt. David Allen made thousands of trips visiting islands along the Maine coast, first aboard the Maine Seacoast Mission’s Sunbeam IV and later the Sunbeam V. David and his wife Betty, who joined him aboard the Sunbeam as the steward in 1978, were the personification of the Mission for many islanders.

David, who captained the Sunbeam until his retirement in 2007, passed away on Oct. 3 with his family by his side. The Sunbeam V’s current captain, Mike Johnson, who started on the Sunbeam as Allen’s engineer shares his reflections on his time with David. ~~~~~~~~ “I recently unrolled an old paper chart from the Sunbeam and noticed course lines and dead reckoning plots written in Capt. David Allen’s handwriting. I realized that when Dave began his career for the Maine Seacoast Mission in 1971 that the only piece of electronic equipment on the Sunbeam was a basic radar.

“During Dave’s remarkable 35 years as captain, he had seen the biggest jump in marine navigational technology in human history. When I was his first mate, I was in awe of his ability to both understand the past and embrace the present. If there was a new piece of equipment available, he researched it and learned to use it. It was not unusual for him to have a full course plotted on the computer, but still stop in the fog to listen for “During Dave’s a particular bell buoy. remarkable “He was the perfect blend of old and new.

35 years as He was also unflappable captain, he when he encountered had seen the difficult weather. He rarely showed any outward sign biggest jump of stress and could often in marine maintain a lighthearted conversation with others navigational in the pilothouse. technology “Dave knew being a crewmember on the in human Sunbeam meant much history.” more than the job at hand.

He made deep friendships in the island communities and was always available in the salon to share a laugh or a fishing story. Of particular significance to Dave were funerals. He was aware of the Sunbeam’s importance in this role both symbolically and practically, and he was proud to transport mainland residents back to their islands to pay their respects. Another quality of Dave’s, and one that resonated greatly with me, was his ability to understand the prominence of the Sunbeam. When we were in small harbors, he knew that we could be in somebody’s way.

We frequently moved to allow lobstermen to hoist traps or for the mailboat to unload passengers.

“At sea, he never insisted on his right-of-way, be it with a yacht in the summer or a scallop dragger in the winter. He would always open the pilothouse door to give an enthusiastic wave. ‘Keeping it friendly’ was forever his motto.

The late Capt. David Allen photographed aboard the Sunbeam at Northeast Harbor. PHOTO: COURTESY MAINE SEACOAST MISSION

Capt. David Allen in the Sunbeam’s wheelhouse. PHOTO: COURTESY MAINE SEACOAST MISSION

“I consider it an honor to have served with Dave for seven years. This was a period of growth for me as I transitioned to a larger year-round vessel, and Dave could not have been a better mentor. He was not always academic in his teaching but would let me know in a respectful manner if I was making a mistake.

“I sometimes wish he were still standing next to me so I could ask his advice about a particular docking situation or rough offshore passage. One of Dave’s complaints was that many of his good friends that

he made during his career were passing away and making him sad. I hear you, Captain. This is clearly happening to me as well.”

Allen’s full obituary can be seen by searching the Mount Desert Islander website for obituaries and David Thurston Allen. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Allen’s name to the Mission. The Sunbeam will be taking his ashes to sea, for a final resting place, in early spring.

www.workingwaterfront.com . february/march 2023

15

North Haven’s Calderwood Hall evolves Brewery takes over first-floor restaurant space

By Courtney Naliboff

I

t started with an email with the subject line, “This is a crazy idea.” Fortunately, Liz Lovell, the 38-year-old manager of the North Haven Brewing Company, likes crazy.

Lovell and brewers Ben Lovell, her brother, and Jesse Davisson will be leasing and operating the first-floor restaurant space of North Haven’s historic Calderwood Hall building, taking the baton from building owner and original restaurant general manager Cecily Pingree.

Pingree purchased the building in 2012 from Herbie Parsons and converted it from a gift shop, studio, and storage space to three year-round apartments and a now-wildly popular pizza restaurant, which opened for its first season in 2014.

“My intention was to build out the space and make it sustainable and pass the torch to somebody else,” Pingree said. “It feels like it has surpassed anything that I had sort of thought the building or the space could be. The building is thriving, it’s busy, people are in here year-round, the lights are on all the time.”

The time to discuss a transition felt right to Pingree this winter, when she sent Lovell that email.

The North Haven Brewing Company began operating out of Calderwood Hall’s first floor in 2016, with the brewery and a small tasting room opening onto a roped-off courtyard with limited outdoor seating.

The business originally included sales to mainland restaurants, but the pandemic helped clarify the brewery’s priorities.

“Post-pandemic, we wanted to lean into the tasting room and provide a space for our community members, our patrons,” Lovell said.

North Haven Brewing Company already revitalized one beloved North Haven institution in 2022—Fox

The counter at Calderwood Hall.

PHOTO: COURTESY CALDERWOOD HALL

Island Printworks. The company was founded on North Haven in 2011 and sold its catalogue of Maineinspired designs to a mainland company in 2017.

“I was ready for another challenge and somewhere else to take the business, so we also purchased Fox Island Printworks this past year so we could use all of those amazing island designs for our cans and then print T-shirts and things like that we felt were really missing,” Lovell said. “It was a great opportunity to bring back some designs we really love.”

For the brewery and its patrons, as well as devotees of Calderwood Hall’s pizza, the brewery’s expansion into the upstairs space will bring benefits. Lovell said they are looking forward to using the original space exclusively as the production area, while the upstairs restaurant space will serve as their tasting room in the afternoons. Calderwood will still serve pizza and other favorites in the evenings with new kitchen manager Stephanie Brown, an islander with previous Calderwood kitchen experience, at the helm.

“For Cecily to be handing me the kitchen was a huge honor and super humbling,” said Brown. “I love the hall

and I love what Jessie and Cecily have done there so much and so to be sort of sworn in as the new generation taking it over is amazing,” said Brown, who accrued additional restaurant experience in Burlington, Vt., after graduating from Champlain College.

Beer aficionados will also have access to expanded outdoor seating, as the brewery’s license will now cover the entire Calderwood lawn.

Year-round island residents can look forward to something special.

“If all the licensing comes in on time, we’re hoping to be open one night a week February to April, then be closed ‘til June,” Lovell said. The off-season menu won’t include pizza but will include other freshly made items. The North Haven Brewing Company’s tasting room is currently open one night each week.

“It’s an important time to have space to connect to our community, have some version of a livelihood, where we don’t need to be having potlucks in our homes to see people,” Pingree said. “We could never figure that out upstairs. The brewery offers up such a better year-round fit.”

Remembering the colorful Kirstie Alley One-time Islesboro resident made an impact

By Craig Olson

L

ime green.

That’s what I think of when I think of Kirstie Alley. Odd, I know.

But when your first encounter is her pulling up in front of the Island Market in a lime green Suburban with a bubble gum pink leather interior you can’t get certain images out of your mind.

But it goes well beyond lime green.

When Kirstie died unexpectedly last month of cancer Islesboro lost a great friend—she was also a respected and valued community member. And yes, out here, she was simply known as “Kirstie.”

I didn’t know her very well. A few chats over the years, a hearty wave whenever we passed on the road. Other friends on the island had deeper relationships and great stories of her kindness, spontaneity, and great love of the island.

Before we moved here I’d never met many celebrities. In more than two decades on Islesboro I’ve met quite a few, from statesmen and billionaires to cast members from "Friends." Kirstie was the first.

I’ll never forget that first meeting.

The lime green Suburban pulls up to my bookstore, in she swooshes, I’m a bit tongue tied showing her books on interior decorating, and then all is normal. She was normal.

Don’t get me wrong, there certainly was a presence about her. It was also the voice. At first, it seemed so out of place here, when we were so used to hearing it on television.

What I quickly began to learn was that the thing about Kirstie was, to me, that what you saw on television or films was how she was in person. Funny, quirky, and kind. Only Kirstie would overnight a Marilyn Monroe costume and wig from Hollywood so she could sing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to John Mitchell at the annual talent show to celebrate his retirement as president of the Islesboro Historical Society.

Kirstie and her former husband, Parker Stevenson, spent a lot of time on the island in the early years. They hosted softball games on the diamond on their lawn next to the Alice L. Pendleton Library, ice skating on their pond, and acts of kindness that were personal. I don’t think she was one to write a check to a charity and leave it at that. No, Kirstie rented a bus and took as many kids and parents as could fit to the mainland for a movie—and paid for it all. A friend lost a dog, Kirstie found her a new one.

Those are just a few of the memories that were shared on our Islesboro Facebook page in the days following our loss.

She was as integral to this community as any other resident in those years.

And there was no whiff of celebrity.

She waited in line with everyone else at the Island Market and when she was here she always had a fabulous float in the Fourth of July Parade that always seemed to involve water guns. What I found for her and other residents like John Travolta was that it’s a place for them to relax, to not be fussed over, and people respect it.

And she respected us. In the midst of the COVID pandemic Kirstie sold her house. It was before vaccines when the pandemic was raging and we were all hyper-sensitive.

Although not personally on Facebook, Kirstie had a friend post a long note on her behalf alerting the island that she was flying privately to Rockland, taking a rental car to the island, had food with her, and was coming to pack things she wanted to keep before the closing. She was being very careful not to do anything that would endanger anyone on the island.

She also thanked them for their friendship and kindness over the years.

Kirstie didn’t have to do that, she could have come in and gone about her business and few would have known.

She felt an obligation to be honest with her community. She didn’t want anyone to think she was flouting the rules.

Kirstie Alley

I will never forget that last time I saw Kirstie. It was a summer Sunday morning around 7:30. Quiet at our house, I was enjoying a book and into my second cup of coffee. All of a sudden I started hearing loud music— it was getting closer and louder.

By the time I got up from my chair and looked out the window, the source of the noise was on the street in front of my house. It was Kirstie, in a powder blue retro bicycle with a boombox in the oversized basket, peddling slowly up the road, blasting “My Way,” and singing her heart out with Frank Sinatra.

That’s how we’ll always remember her.

Craig Olson owns Craig Olson Books, a used and rare bookstore in Belfast.

He and his family have called Islesboro home since 2001.

16

The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

Workers on Stonington’s Crotch Island in the early 20th century. PHOTO: COURTESY DEER ISLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Stonington’s past carved in granite Museum celebrating industry ready for next step

By Stephanie Bouchard

W

hen Frank and Denie Weil first visited Stonington by sailboat in the mid-1960s, they fell in love with the place and were particularly fascinated by the granite quarries on nearby Crotch Island.

As the decades passed, the Weils watched as the remnants of those once-booming quarries—the derricks, the power plant buildings and drafting offices, the steam-generating boiler, and the railroad system—disappeared through a combination of decay and purposeful dismantling.

Moved to share the community’s granite history with visitors and future generations, they created the nonprofit Deer Isle Granite Museum.

In the summer of 1996, they opened the museum in the Webb Building, a former general store on Main Street that the Weils own.

Now in their early 90s, the Weils are handing over the reins of the museum to a new generation. Last summer, the museum created an expanded board of directors that places its future firmly in the hands of Stonington residents.

“They understood that in order for this to be a local institution and less a ‘Denie and Frank’ thing, that eventually they would have to hand control of the museum to a group of locals,” said the Weils’ son, William, who is the only member of the family (and a seasonal Stonington resident) on the newlyexpanded board of directors.

In addition to William Weil, board members are Sally Richardson, who has been involved with the granite museum

A 1950s aerial view of Crotch Island, just off Stonington, where a major granite quarry operated, and still operates.

PHOTO: COURTESY DEER ISLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

since its earliest days; Linda Nelson, Stonington’s economic and community development director; and Kathleen Billings, Stonington’s town manager.

While two town employees are on the new board of directors, that does not mean the town is now responsible for the museum, Nelson said.

“The fact that we’re on the board does not mean that the town is taking this over, or funding this, or anything like that,” she said. “It’s still an independent 501(c)(3) and we just happen to be new board members.”

The new board of directors has many ideas about the future of the museum, said William Weil, but they aren’t

ready to announce those just yet. They will say, however, that they want to get the museum’s star attraction—a large model of a quarry circa 1900 on Crotch Island—repaired so that it’s fully operational again; refresh the exhibits every year; and have the museum open more often—it was only open three days a week last summer.

What won’t change is the commitment to celebrating Stonington’s history, said Nelson.

“I really think it’s about how do we keep our heritage alive, and how not only do we keep it alive for our local year-round residents, but how do we really advance cultural heritage

tourism, which is much more sustainable than ordinary tourism, and really use the assets we have and strengthen existing assets in order to do that.”

If you don’t live in or near Stonington, you may be surprised to learn that the community that is today known for its fishing industry (for five years running, from 2017 to 2021, Stonington was the most lucrative fishing port in Maine, coming in at a whopping $73.27 million last year) was once a graniteproducing powerhouse.

While fishing has always been an important industry in Stonington, from the mid-1800s to the first decades of the 20th century, granite was king.

. february . April www.workingwaterfront.com 2023 www.workingwaterfront.com /march2020

17 23

cRanBeRRy RepoRt

The granite quarries of Stonington (so opened in 2010 and the Philadelphia named because of those quarries) and Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ its surrounds, including Crotch Island, of Latter-day Saints, dedicated in 2016.

While the granite industry in were prized for producing high-quality granite, and particularly for two types Stonington today is a shadow of its heyday, its heritage is of granite that were critical to the commupinkish in color, called nity now as it faces likely “Sherwood pink” and upheaval in its fishing “Goss pink.” industry, said Nelson.

In the days before “We were able to glass, steel, and concrete “How do we really meeting will take place from on Islesford. transition granite became the primary advance cultural What’s for lunch?

Homemade to fishing, so pizzas, if we fabrics of construction, salads, and desserts.

Life gets busier By Barbara Fernald heritage tourism, have to transition in Stonington granite was as we volunteer tofuture, help prepare the the it’s not like used in many ordinary which is much community thethe season.

ACTIVITY on the islands, at the end first more we meal don’t of have resiland not-so-ordinary Town meeting is a great opportuof February and into March, is like a sustainable than ience and the capacity building projects, such winter from friends mirror image of the action at the end nity to hear about in this community to as the approaches to the ordinary tourism…” and neighbors.

“How was trip to of August into September.

Just as the make those your big changes Brooklyn Bridge; the grand-parenting summer residents of the Cranberry ...?” “Who knew because we’ve donewas it,” Museum of Fine Arts, so exhausting or that were so Isles end their vacations right before she said. there “I think that’s Boston; the 20-foot, many cold germs involved?”

“You did fall, many year-round why history is impor8-inch bowl of the residents end same telling questheir winter breaks just before the all that painting?” tant These and why Oceanus Fountain at tions could be asked in September at spring equinox. the Rockefeller family’s Kykuit estate these stories and thinking about what a school board meeting in a large subIt’s time to get back to work and in New York’s Hudson Valley; Sing our cultural heritage is, is important urb. (Preferably during the meetreconnect. it gives not people possible new Sing Prison; the Cathedral of St. John because ing while someone else has the floor!)

Our annual town meeting takes the Divine in Manhattan; and the John ways to think about change.”

In January and February, Bruce and place on the second Saturday in March.

F. Kennedy Memorial at Arlington I got to more spend a lottheofDeer timeIslewith our For selectmen and town employees, To learn National Cemetery. about grandchildren in Southern winter has been anything a vacaThe granite boom timesbut were long Granite Museum, go to https:// Maine.

Visiting them was the main goal of tion. by They working steadily, over thehave timebeen Frank and Deni Weil deerislegranitemuseum.wordpress.com. gathering information to write the sailed into Stonington in the mid- most of our winter travel. We considered trying to paintvideo our about kitchen, but warrantToday, for town time Watch 1960s. onemeeting. quarry It’s onthe Crotch the museum’s we kept catching odd coughing virusof year we come together as a town to Island is in operation. Run by New Stonington’s granite history at https:// es and experienced more down time decide on projects and spending and England Stone Industries/Granites of youtu.be/qFVrYqBh-no. than we wanted, so we never got to it. how much money is to be raised by America of Smithfield, R.I., the quarry Maybe I’ll paint it in May, when I can propertyMaine taxes. granite for projects big To learn more about the granite supplies have the on windows open.

Discussion the projects school include budget industry and small. Twoofrecent Deer Isle, read Denie Weil’s Bruce sawSlabs moreand than enough paint, alone well over an hour. the Artcan of take the Americas Wing of The the book, Stone Iron Men: The anyway, this winter.

During his “time islands take turns hosting the meetMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston, which Deer Isle Granite Industry. ing and the luncheon. This year, town off” he painted 600 buoys (white and

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

As winter winds down, islanders mix prep work and gatherings bright red with a black stripe) and, like piece of purple rope to the end of the every other lobster fisherman in Maine buoy line or toggle, but all attachments this winter, he read about, talked about, must be made with a splice or a tuck.

I know it’s a stretch to compare foland experimented with purple paint.

The 20-foot, 8-inch diameter bowl for the Oceanus Fountain for the Rockefeller family lowing Maine whale rope requireThe latest whale regulations require estate, Kykuit, in New York’s Hudson Valley, cut from a single, 200-ton piece of granite ments with a plein air workshop, but all Maine lobster fishermen to use new in 1913-1914. PHOTO: COURTESY DEER ISLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY markings on the ropes they attach to a person could return home from eilobster traps. Depending on how close ther and say that they’d been paintto shore they fish, they will have to add ing in their spare time. If Bruce were 2-4 purple marks on each buoy line. writing an essay on how he spent his On warps that are 100-feet or less there winter vacation, painting would be a must be one 12-inch purple mark with- part of it. Another part would be the in a few fathoms of the trap and a 36- description I heard him tell his brother inch purple mark within 2 fathoms of Mark about walking to get doughnuts, the buoy. If the warp is longer that 100 in February, with our son Robin, and feet, the requirement is for a 12-inch our grandchildren Henry and Cora. I purple mark near the trap, a second 12- was away with friends in Portland, and inch purple mark halfway to the buoy, Stephanie was away with friends in and a 36-inch mark near the buoy. Florida. Father and son were in charge.

“Yeah, we got doughnuts at The Bruce figures he will be putting 1,500 to 1,800 markings on his rope in all; two Cookie Jar and then walked to the to three weeks of extra work if he does beach for a picnic and to throw rocks.”

Eating homemade donuts and it without hiring help. A number of fishermen are applying paint to their ropes throwing rocks at the beach—if that by resting them in 3-foot long gutters isn’t a mirror image of many childmade from lengthwise-halved PVC pipe. hood summers on Islesford, I don’t Bruce’s first attempt was with spray paint know what is. q but he soon moved on to the more effibrush and latex paint. granite industry Barbara Fernald lives onISLEIslesford Acient model depicts Stonington’s past. PHOTO: COURTESY DEER HISTORICAL(Little SOCIETY Some fishermen will add a 3-foot Cranberry Island) with her husband Bruce.

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The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

Saltwater Cure

Building community by starting small Once united, a group takes on its own identity

By Courtney Naliboff THE MUSIC BLASTING from the preschool alternated between the Islands and Mamma Mia! soundtracks.

The cast of Little Women, our fall show, sang along as they got into costume, makeup, and hair in the Waterman’s preschool, our de facto green room.

There were 13 of them, plus a handful of crew members. Some were as young as nine (the run crew) and some were adults with kids of their own. I buzzed in and out, running upstairs to the booth to set up the sound board, then back down to make sure the stage was set for the top of the show.

I was separate from this scene, neither putting on a costume nor helping someone with an 1860s up-do.

But I thought to myself with satisfaction—this is a space that I helped create. As the director of the show, I put the people together, designers and actors, gave them a framework within

which they built trust and a genuine enjoyment of each other’s company, set the timeline and sense of urgency.

In any community, but perhaps especially in a geographically isolated area, creating opportunities for shared spaces and experiences is imperative.

Without them, we’re like neighbors in a city apartment building, adjacent but disconnected. But with a little structure—a gay/straight/trans alliance, a church, a coffee shop—people can organize themselves into interconnected networks.

This was illustrated very clearly at the season’s first Bus Line league basketball game in early January. Our co-ed team, consisting of six, fifth and sixth graders, went up against St. George’s 16-deep bench of seventh and eighth grade boys.

Within the framework of that valiantly fought basketball game, which naturally brought together the players and their coach, two high school

students were drawn in as bookkeeper and timekeeper, my run crew kids made a reappearance running the livestream camera, and the stands were filled with parent and student spectators.

By paving the way for the students to have a team, the coach, athletic director, and administration created an entire ecosystem for people with shared enthusiasms.

When you’re part of the creation of a space, watching it take on a life of its own can feel a little like watching your child become more independent.

Pride and possessiveness fight for supremacy—what was once yours is now part of the wider community.

Your name may not be associated with your creation anymore, you might feel like you no longer “get credit.”

But through that new independence, there’s so much more room for growth.

The ownership others feel, the empowerment that allows them to continue to grow the space, can only make it

stronger and more sustainable.

As curtain time drew nearer, actors departed the hair and makeup stations, leaving the green room quiet and littered with makeup-covered applicators, cotton balls, glittering piles of hair pins, street clothes, and the silenced speaker. I walked through the room on my way to the stage, observing my feelings of separation and of ownership, proud of what had become of the space I helped create.

Courtney Naliboff teaches music, theater, and writing at North Haven Community School and lives on the island with her husband and daughter.

She may be reached at Courtney.

Naliboff@gmail.com.

Journal of an Island Kitchen

Shrinkflation and reformulation woes How to combat changes in product ingredients, size

By Sandy Oliver SHRINKFLATION and reformulation are messing with our recipes.

This past year, inflation along with supply chain problems sharpened our attention to price increases. Did you notice, though, the few ounces sucked out of a package of your favorite products?

Coined around 2009 or so, “shrinkflation” refers to the reduction of the net weight of goods (like cereal, chips, tuna, soup) while prices remain the same.

Another term for shrinkflation is downsizing.

“Downsizing is really a sneaky price increase,” says Edward Dworsky, formerly an assistant attorney general in Massachusetts. He dedicates himself to consumer advocacy and maintains the website Mouse Print where you can read about the sly effects on our groceries (and many other things) caused by downsizing or shrinkflation. Really worth a look!

Manufacturers also tinker with weight to offset increases in ingredients and have done it for decades. There has been a conscious use of the practice this year to test consumer resilience: how high a price will we accept before squawking or refusing to buy?

Another dodge, reformulation, is when producers alter a product’s recipe to use a cheaper ingredient or to use less of one.

A young friend, a teacher in western All this compromises recipes.

Well, not all recipes, but many from Maine, told me about a class project the 20th and now 21st centuries. Lots a colleague instigated. She asked her of our favorite family recipes call for students to bring a family recipe from one can or package of something or home so they could assemble a cookbook.

“Most of the recipes were hacks,” she other but the can or package you buy isn’t your grandmother’s anymore, and told me, a dish produced by using a selection of pre-mades. recipes flop unless a For example, a quiche savvy family member made with pre-made pie tinkers with it.

And then refor- The more venerable crust, pre-cooked bacon, and pre-grated cheese. It mulation, especially the cookbook the tastes just fine, of course. the kind that substiI have a cinnamon tuted corn syrup more likely it is bun recipe that needs for sugar, can wreak to have unusable, frozen bread dough havoc because the syrup doesn’t react in extinct, recipes in it. plus a package of vanilla pudding as well as a recipe the way sugar milk, butter, sugar, and does. The problem is raisins. It’s delicious most acute in baking though I haven’t made it where proportion and chemistry matter more than in assem- for several years.

Does any of this matter, really? What’s bling a casserole.

Manufacturer’s test kitchens are the the loss of a recipe? I don’t know. Old proximate cause of this. Industrious farts like me shake their wattles over recipe developers are cooking up the these things. Thing is, I’ve seen folks recipes you see on packages, and over recollect fondly the flavors of their time some of those recipes slipped youth, flavors we didn’t care about 30 into family recipe files. Or even into or 40 years ago, but somehow become cookbooks, especially community more precious whenever connection cookbooks, assembled to raise funds seems more important.

It’s as if we are holding onto somefor many worthwhile institutions and causes. The more venerable the cook- thing we care about, but various book the more likely it is to have unus- forces—in this case, commerce—are prying our fingers off of it. able, extinct, recipes in it.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a Vienna Finger tasted the way it did at my grandma’s house? I bought some quite a few years ago and they had already changed so much I didn’t recognize them. Oddly, now that I am a little older than my grandma’s age when she was passing them out, that connection matters more.

Even though modern grains and fruits and some vegetables don’t taste quite like they did a couple centuries ago, we can still recreate early dishes and get a taste of the past. Seldom in human history has that been flat-out impossible, even with reverse engineering, a practice I employ when I feel too obstinate to buy some pre-made something or other—salad dressing, or packaged seasonings, for example. (I can mix my own damn spice blends, thank you!)

The cure? Cook from scratch— actual flour, sugar, butter, eggs. And try to remember Grandma’s home cooking and, if you’re the cook, make sure to leave the kids your from-scratch recipes.

Sandy Oliver is a food historian who gardens, cooks, and writes on Islesboro.

She may be reached at SandyOliver47@ gmail.com

www.workingwaterfront.com . february/march 2023

19

Cr anberry Report

Stormy times on the island home front Illness, power outage, and fire mar holiday

By Barbara Fernald TWO WEEKS before Christmas I came home from a weekend spent in Cape Elizabeth with two of our grandchildren. The next day, Bruce started to have a bad sore throat and cough. A number of others on the island were sick with the same symptoms. We heard it was bad and lasted at least two weeks.

Though I kept my distance from Bruce and washed my hands a lot, within a week I had a cold coming on.

Mild symptoms. I still felt good enough to be with our kids and grandkids for Christmas after two years of missing out.

Meanwhile, a powerful storm was due to arrive on Friday, the day we were going to leave. Predicted 70 mph gusts meant no boats and probable power outages.

I suggested leaving on Thursday but Bruce was not comfortable leaving the island at all. I was still fixated on finally being with our grandkids on Christmas Day. What if the power didn’t go out and we stayed home “for nothing?” Then again, what if it did?

By evening I was coughing, my chest hurt, I ached all over, and I had no energy or appetite. We were not going anywhere. The decision made for us.

The storm was nasty and power outages were widespread.

We lost our power and landlines around 3 p.m. on Friday and they stayed out until Versant could barge their trucks to the islands. By Christmas Day the temperatures were dropping, and we were hearing that Versant might not get to the islands until Tuesday.

Thanks to generators on both islands, we had internet service so we weren’t completely cut off during the outage, but by Monday night, one of them had run out of fuel and by daybreak on Tuesday our internet was out.

We learned through text messages that the store on Great Cranberry had burned to the ground overnight. It was an odd feeling to know something so devastating had happened on the big island and yet we knew so little of the story.

It was Richard Howland, our town fire chief, who first saw the orange glow as he was heading out from Islesford at 2:30 a.m. to haul traps. He quickly called

911 and alerted both island fire crews.

Firefighters came to help from Northeast Harbor and Southwest Harbor. The fire was out around 7:30, but the Cranberry General Store was a total loss.

There is no official word yet on the cause, but many speculate the generator may have developed a problem. The loss leaves a big hole in the community.

It was a gathering place for so many.

The good news is no one was hurt and the owner plans to rebuild.

Versant restored power on Great Cranberry by 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, but we waited tensely on Islesford.

They couldn’t find the cause of the outage and it was getting dark.

For a few minutes they thought the cable between the islands had finally let go. The new one was trenched in place five months ago, but not yet hooked up.

They found the problem elsewhere and our lights were on by 5 p.m. Many thanks to the Goodwin Barge for blocking out a whole day to wait for the Versant trucks to find the problem. They connected the new cable two days later.

It’s a new year and I’m finally recovering from my bout of the nasty virus.

I’m ready to let go of the disappointment of Christmas 2022. From my nest on the couch I had watched Bruce come and go many times a day to keep an eye on his mom and on other houses where friends were away. Should a storm like this ever again coincide with plans to go away, I won’t argue about staying home to help in case we lose power.

I’m so grateful to live in a place where people check on the homes of friends who are away; where people are willing to build a fire in another’s wood stove to keep their pipes from freezing. I’m grateful to live where people find a way to keep each other informed when all the usual means are not working. I can be happy to be starting a new year with some fresh viral antibodies in my system. So 2023—bring it!

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

Institute implements resiliency program Gouldsboro, Swan’s Island, Cranberry Isles served THE ISLAND INSTITUTE, publisher of The Working Waterfront, will be working with Gouldsboro, Swan’s Island, and the Cranberry Isles to oversee implementation of the state’s Community Resilience Partnership (CRP).

The CRP, a program of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, is designed for communities considering energy transitions and wish to become more resilient to extreme weather, flooding, and rising sea levels.

“These three communities have unique challenges, and we’re excited to assist them as they move through the community process of developing and enacting energy transitions and climate resilient strategies,” said Abby

Roche, Island Institute community development officer.

Through grants and direct support to municipal governments, the CRP assists communities in becoming more resilient to extreme weather, flooding and rising sea levels— and making smart choices about future energy production.

In addition to grants, enrolled communities have access to a regional coordinator through the Sunrise County Economic Council. This coordinator helps develop future project ideas and then aids in researching and applying for grants, especially federal grants.

“The town of Cranberry Isles is at an important juncture in our climate resilience journey with a solar energy project

in the planning stages and an interest in developing other related projects,” said Jim Fortune, administrative assistant to the Cranberry Isles Select Board. “We are grateful for this collaboration with the Island Institute to provide capacity to our community to make progress on these important priorities.”

Over the next year, the Island Institute will collaborate with the select boards, municipal employees, and citizen committees within the three communities to: • Support the creation or sustainability of a citizen committee or municipal employee position to coordinate activities to reduce energy use and costs, transition to clean energy, and

make the community more resilient to climate change • Complete two self-assessments to assess progress and identify potential next steps related to community climate resilience • Gather key stakeholders to facilitate community workshops to review the self-assessment results and prioritize projects for implementation • Enroll the community in the statewide Community Resilience Partnership program so it has access to regional climate resilience support and funding opportunities • Apply for a $50,000 community action grant through the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future.

St. Croix fish habitat restoration funded SENS. SUSAN COLLINS and Angus King announced that Maine is receiving $5 million to improve fish migration at the Milltown and Woodland dams on the St. Croix River in Washington County.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources’ project will expand aquatic connectivity for river herring and other at-risk species. The project will also help enhance watershed health and economic vitality in the St. Croix

River and Bay of Fundy regions. The project will significantly improve fish passage in historic spawning habitat and continue collaboration between U.S. federal agencies, Canadian agencies, tribal nations, the state of Maine, and other conservation partners.

“The St. Croix River and its watershed play a key role in sustaining the health of the ecosystem and the economy in Eastern Maine,” said Collins and King

in a joint statement. “By improving fish passages along the river, this project will help restore critical habitat to protect native fish populations, while also supporting migratory birds and other wildlife. We welcome this investment to preserve the environment and benefit current and future generations of anglers.”

These grants support projects that conserve, restore, and connect

habitats for wildlife while improving community resilience and access to nature.

Collins, the ranking member of the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, was part of a group of ten senators who negotiated the text of the bipartisan infrastructure law. The law will deliver billions of dollars to Maine for investments in roads, bridges, broadband, and more.

20

The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

In Plain Sight

One photograph, two stories

A master photographer captures master boatbuilder

By Kevin Johnson

Not bad for the humble son of a Bar Harbor lobsterman and a nurse.

The second story told in the photo MAINE BOAT building icon Ralph Stanley looks directly into the camera in of Stanley included here is that of the his boat shop in Southwest Harbor. He person behind the camera. Peggy sports a soft natural smile and his eyes McKenna was a career photographer who moved to Montville from New still have a spark despite his 77 years.

His working days were not done York City in 1971. She worked as a at this time though his boatbuilding photojournalist for the Republican Journal and the Waldo days were mostly over.

Independent as well as He would spend another doing freelance work for 15 years sharing his She made them Down East magazine, wisdom on the board of among other publications. the Penobscot Marine feel relaxed She also passionately Museum and his memory and willing to pursued her own photowith the Southwest share a bit of graphic interest which Harbor library.

Over the course of themselves. They was the photo portrait.

A strong portrait like the his career, he built or trusted her. one included here demonrestored more than 70 strates not only her skill boats. From lobster with a camera but also her boats, Friendship sloops, sailboats, and dories, the boats he ability to connect with her subject.

She made them feel relaxed and built all had one thing in common. willing to share a bit of themselves.

They were made of wood.

Before he died in 2021 at the age of They trusted her. While she made 92, his skills and career were recognized thousands of portraits of all types of with numerous awards including being people, some of the most memorable recognized by the National Endowments are those she made of the artists and of the Arts as a National Heritage Fellow. craftspeople of Maine. She preferred

Ralph Stanley, as photographed by Peggy McKenna. PHOTO: PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM

to photograph them in their studios or workshops, adding a layer of intimacy to their portraits. A master craftsperson herself, she respected her subjects and treated them accordingly, and it shows.

The Penobscot Marine Museum now has the Peggy McKenna collection of more than 100,000 slides, negatives,

and prints and is in the process of cataloging and digitizing them.

Kevin Johnson is the photo archivist at The Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport. See PenobscotMarineMuseum.org to view its extensive photo collections.

Fathoming

Climate is the real culprit in whale saga Warming waters disrupted food chains

By Susie Arnold IN FOLLOWING the rollercoaster of how new regulations designed to protect the North Atlantic right whale will impact Maine’s lobster fishery and the communities the industry supports, two recent announcements stuck out to me.

One is the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) five-year review of the species. The whales are still endangered, which is no surprise and not good news for anyone. The other is Congress’s 2023 appropriation which includes a pause on new federal whale regulations until the end of 2028 and allocates funds for more data and research.

At face value, these may seem juxtaposed. But within the fine print are advances that should allow us to more effectively monitor and protect an endangered species in the face of a rapidly changing environment.

The NMFS report acknowledges that climate change is a factor in the decline of the NARW and poses a significant threat to its recovery, and Congress gave us the time and resources to adapt.

It is well known that the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than most water bodies on the planet due to arctic warming changing our region’s ocean

circulation. The weakening of a major current system called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is shifting the warm Gulf Stream northerly while the cold Labrador Current retreats, resulting in warmer water entering the Gulf of Maine through the northeast channel.

This phenomenon explains the 2010 “regime shift” when the rapid warming of the Gulf of Maine progressed in earnest; 2021 was the hottest year on record in the Gulf of Maine, and the top five warmest summers all occurred in the last decade.

We know how warming impacts marine species like lobster, but it is also causing disruptions in predatorprey dynamics, particularly due to impacts on species at the base of the marine food web, such as Calanus finmarchicus, the copepod that is the preferred prey source for right whales.

The copepods are no longer occurring in dense patches where right whales once fed. These climate-driven changes lead to less favorable foraging, reducing the calving rate, and exposing them to greater mortality risks from ship strikes and entanglements as they seek food in areas where precautions are not in place.

Since 2015, more right whales are foraging in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Long term acoustic monitoring indicates the daily occurrence of right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence quadrupled after 2015 in comparison to 2011-2014. Coinciding with this change is an unusually high mortality rate since 2017, in part due to ship strikes and interactions with fishing gear, like snow crab gear with heavier traps and thicker line than used in Maine fisheries.

In the NMFS five-year review, mortalities and serious injuries from ship strikes and entanglements are considered “human caused,” and rightly so. But there is another human cause leading to the decline of not just right whales, but most endangered species on the planet—climate change.

We’ve all played a role in pushing species to the brink. Undoubtedly serious injuries and deaths are attributed to ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear, but it’s critical to acknowledge and consider the underlying stress from climate change that threatens every single whale, particularly reproductive females.

These announcements, for me at least, come with some hope—hope that we can do better. Funds have finally been allocated to fill serious information gaps and enable regulatory and

business decision-making based on facts and current data rather than worst case scenarios and data that no longer applies due to rapid ocean climate change.

Rather than continuing to document the decline of things we care about, let’s work together to solve the problem.

The challenge shouldn’t fall on hardworking fishermen engaged in one of the most sustainable fisheries in the world to support their families, communities, and the backbone of an entire state’s economy. The North Atlantic right whale is just one acute example.

The fact is we are living in a global biodiversity crisis, with a common thread— climate change. All of us can play a role in reversing this trend. Now, more than ever before, there are multiple pathways for action.

Susie Arnold is a senior ocean scientist at the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, working on the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on marine resources and fisheries-dependent communities.

www.workingwaterfront.com . february/march 2023

21

field notes

Working waterfronts ‘speak’ in podcast Common themes emerging along Maine coast

By Amy Rawn GALEN KOCH WANTS you to get curious about your local dock.

Maine’s working waterfront is iconic, and foundational to the culture and economy of many island and coastal communities. From bustling wharfs to lobster co-ops, to seafarms, boat builders and mechanics, the working waterfront is made up of the infrastructure, businesses, and access points that make it possible to make a living on the water.

But these critical institutions and links to the sea—like your local dock— are easy to overlook or take for granted and they are not always guaranteed.

With producer, writer, and educator Galen Koch at the helm, the Island Institute’s new iteration of its podcast “From the Sea Up” explores the past, present, and future of Maine’s working waterfronts. It examines challenges around access, infrastructure, workforce, housing, and investment in six episodes, each featuring a different community.

By uncovering the forces that have created these distinct working waterfronts, Koch sheds light on ways that Maine communities can have a hand in actively shaping—and preserving— their working coastlines.

“Trying to tell the story of a really mundane thing like a pier is challenging,

but it is also really fun,” Koch explains, but there is a lot below the surface.

Through a human-centered approach, Koch connects the threads between infrastructure, people, policy, and place.

The episode on Eastport explores a transition from a waterfront of empty factories to a vibrant multi-use working coast positioned to respond to an uncertain future.

In the second episode, we hear about how the historic fishing town of Gouldsboro has grappled with questions about what kind of future it wants for its working waterfront. In the Southwest Harbor episode, Koch examines how the community has maintained and supported its commercial fisheries through zoning, municipal planning, and town decisions.

Though each working waterfront community is distinct, Koch identifies themes that have emerged visiting towns along the coast. Upkeep, funding, and investment in local infrastructure are ongoing challenges, and some obstacles and options are explored in the upcoming episode on Boothbay Harbor.

A shrinking workforce and lack of housing are also issues impacting many working waterfront communities. In the upcoming episode on Deer Isle, Koch “digs into the domino effect of the housing crisis on a hyper-local level.”

Koch grew up on Deer Isle, where she was steeped in the stories and history of her community. She remembers making fiction movies with her brother using their family’s analog video camera and was a frequent cast member in productions at the Stonington Opera House.

Pivoting from her background in theater, she went on to attend Skidmore College where she pursued the visual arts. After moving to Portland, Oregon after college, however, she found herself called back to the narratives of her home state.

“Being from Maine, I had this strong sense of place and purpose growing up,” she says. “I knew the stories of my community.” She returned to attend the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies and began creating audio stories.

In addition to telling the present-day stories of Maine’s working waterfront, Koch is also devoted to preserving the voices of the past. For many years she has worked with Hugh French at the Tides Institute in Eastport digitizing interviews he conducted in the late 1970s and early ‘80s with folks who were employed in the former sardine industry. You can hear one of these interviews in the Eastport episode of the podcast—Alice Blaine shares about her 64 years as a fish packer.

Drawing from her deep experience with storytelling on the Maine coast, Koch reminds us that our history can be a helpful reference when navigating future changes, for Maine’s working waterfront has a legacy of adaptation, creativity, and resiliency.

“Remembering that fisheries and industries have changed and weathered it, is this really wonderful reminder of how strong coastal Maine is and has been,” says Koch.

With a deep knowledge of the coast, stories of the past close at hand, and a determination to unravel the web of political, ecological, and economic complexities that shape Maine communities, Koch asks the podcast audience to ponder the future of the working waterfront and the role we can have in shaping it.

Listen to the “From the Sea Up,” podcast at islandinstitute.org/podcast.

Amy Rawn is a marketing specialist with the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, creating and sharing content across communications platforms.

Observer

Childhood by neighborhoods and houses Growing family meant moving around the island

By Phil Crossman ON NOVEMBER 14, 1948, Mom, Dad—the man she’d married in Massachusetts four years earlier and who’d just been discharged from the army after a grueling couple of years in Germany—four-year-old me, and my two-year-old brother, moved back to her island home on Vinalhaven. We moved into a second story downtown apartment just above the street level Sim’s Pool Hall.

My industrious and artful Mom immediately established a gift emporium, The Seadrift Shop, in an empty space next to the pool hall, and my dad joined with my grandfather, Mom’s dad, in establishing a carpentry business, Crossman & Maddox, that lasted 33 years. Our apartment had an ice box, replenished with a big block of ice carried up the stairs once a week by—who else?—the iceman. Soon I entered kindergarten.

In February 1951, we moved, with a new ten-month-old baby brother, to a cozy little rented house in a nice neighborhood with lots of nearby children.

It had a real refrigerator instead of an ice box, but no plumbing. We used an outhouse in the back yard and bathed once a week in a big galvanized tub in the kitchen where Mom could continually refresh the water, heating on the stove in four big pots. This was a big event.

My baby brother slept in a dresser drawer in my parent’s room. I entered the first grade.

In October 1952, we moved to a house closer to town on Clam Shell Alley, another nice neighborhood right on the shore but with far fewer kids my age. One day my six-year-old brother was plucked up out of the yard and tossed overboard by a mentally ill islander, then rescued by a neighbor.

My two younger brothers and I walked regularly with Dad the 200 yards to town to get groceries or the paper. I entered the second grade.

We were only there for a few months before moving to a nice house high up on a hill on Lane’s Island, connected to the main island by a draw bridge which was being replaced by a conventional structure. I was nine years old and so walking to school to the third grade

while the bridge was being built, I had to “walk the plank.” The workmen always reminded me of the unfriendly troll who lived under the bridge.

In October of the same year we moved to “The Bucket,” short for the Bucket of Blood. It had been referred to thus for so long no one really knew what horrific event it referred to but there was such an event, make no mistake. We stayed there for five years to the day and, during that time, grew very well and comfortably acquainted with a ghost whom we lovingly called Uncle Tim. This was a great little house, great neighborhood, right on the shore of Indian Creek, lots of water activity, often rowing across the creek to build treehouses in the spruce of Armbrust Hill.

Dad used to climb a ladder to the roof and maneuver rabbit ears antennae so the reception would be sufficient for we three boys to watch the Lone Ranger.

A fourth brother was on the way and arrived in 1956.

In 1958, Mom and Dad said they had a surprise for us. They’d been saving money and had just purchased

the Moses Webster House. We were to move in that weekend. The Bucket had been cozy but really tiny; four brothers in two very tiny bedrooms. The Moses Webster House was a magnificent 12-room Victorian that lorded over the village below. I had just entered my freshman year. Each of the four brothers had a room of his own. So did Mom and Dad. It was astounding.

There was one bedroom left.

In 1959, some close acquaintances were involved in a very messy and tumultuous divorce. They had a lovely 14-year-old daughter and asked Mom and Dad to take her in for a year or so.

She took the remaining bedroom and pubescent and adolescent four boys who’d only known brotherhood were— well—awakened.

Phil Crossman lives on Vinalhaven where he owns the Tidewater Motel. He may be reached at PhilCrossmanVH@ gmail.com.

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The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

Art of the Waterfront

Down at the Monhegan Dock with Alison Hill Year-round island painter honors the working wharf

By Carl Little

T

he dock on Monhegan is the center of that farout-at-sea island’s universe.

“It’s our lifeline,” writes painter Alison Hill.

“It’s the first thing we see when we arrive,” she notes, “and the last thing we see when we leave.”

For Hill, who moved to Monhegan in May 2002, the setting conjures a range of images: the summer ritual of jumping off the dock, fishermen and women hard at work, the Monhegan Boat Line crew out in all weather, “and the way everyone pitches in to help unload or load whatever is needed.”

She is always impressed by the landing’s steadfastness and structure—it was first built in 1908—and has been inspired to paint it on many occasions.

In her 2015 exhibition “Castaway” at Archipelago, the Island Institute’s store in Rockland, Hill included several paintings of dock activities. One of them, “Coiling the Ropes,” depicts Chris Rollins, a ninthgeneration Monhegan islander on the deck of the Laura B, which is moored pierside. The painter

Alison Hill, “Coiling the Ropes,” 2015, oil on canvas, 24 by 30 inches.

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www.workingwaterfront.com . february/march 2023 wanted to represent island life in the off season by her skills at the Art Students League in New York City and Lyme Academy. showing this lone figure at work.

Over the ensuing 20 years Hill has painted the island Hill’s view looks past the Laura B’s pilot house toward the bow of the boat where supplies are piled. from edge to edge, capturing a diverse inventory of Her brushwork is loose yet sure as she renders the Monhegan motifs in all seasons and weather: the surfdock and its shed and the jacketed Rollins, coiling dashed coast, Fish Beach, the Sheridan shipwreck, cottages and gardens, the church, the lightkeeper’s ghostly rope that snakes across the wooden deck.

Hill works from life when she can but says the action house, the Island Inn. While she occasionally goes offpaintings are “mostly from photos and sketches, and island, for “fresh paint” events in Cape Elizabeth and Camden, Monhegan is her main muse. some memory.”

Hill manages a seasonal studio/gallery, open A note about the Laura B: the 65-foot vessel started out as a U.S. Army T-57 carrying troops between Memorial Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. That schedule allows and supplies—and a pair for a “good stretch of time” of 50-caliber machine guns for painting commissions, and a 20 mm cannon—in including portraits, and the Solomon Islands during creating new work for the World War II. After its gallery. Even in high season move to Maine in 1946, the boat transported lobsters to Her brushwork is loose yet sure she manages to get out every Boston and New York City as she renders the dock and its day before she opens and after she closes. before beginning its halfshed and the jacketed Rollins, Hill is well aware of the century-and-counting tenure coiling ghostly rope… island’s art history and as a year-round passenger turns to predecessors like ferry and freight and mail Jay Connaway, Alexander boat between Port Clyde and Bogdanov, Andrew Winter, Monhegan.

Alice Stoddard, and Don Hill’s first trip to Monhegan Stone for inspiration. She also aboard the Laura B took place in February 2002, at the invitation of her boyfriend admires many contemporaries, among them David and future husband, painter Ted Tihansky (1953- Vickery and Ralf Feyl. The island provides her with 2019), who wanted to introduce her to the island. subject matter, but also community. And it all starts Smitten, she sold her home in Newport, R.I., and at that iconic dock.

You can see more of Alison Hill’s work at www. moved lock, stock, and easel to Monhegan.

Hill held degrees in psychology, art therapy, and alisonhill.net. art education from, respectively, the University of Rhode Island, Leslie College, and Rhode Island College, and had worked at a variety of jobs, including body builder, carpenter, and telephone Islandport Press will be publishing Carl and David lineman. Taking up painting full time, she furthered Little’s The Art of Penobscot Bay in the spring.

23

Feds fund Camp Ellis fix

$45 million authorized for erosion U.S. SEN. SUSAN COLLINS announced that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes a provision she championed authorizing $45 million for a permanent solution to the severe, ongoing erosion at Camp Ellis.

The annual defense spending authorization bill sets the U.S. military’s priorities and policies.

The $45 million authorized would ensure that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has the funding necessary to construct a 750-foot spur jetty off the existing jetty and replenish 365,000 cubic yards of beachfront.

“For generations, the residents of Camp Ellis and the city of Saco have had to contend with a relentlessly receding shoreline that has claimed dozens of homes,” said Collins. “The devastating erosion impacting this community was caused by the jetty constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers more than 150 years ago at the mouth of the Saco River, and it is long past time to rectify this mistake.

More than 150 years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a jetty extending out from the Saco River, adjacent to Camp Ellis Beach, and expanded it in the 1950s. This jetty altered the pattern of currents and sand deposition and is the primary cause of the severe erosion of Camp Ellis, washing away 38 homes. The 1998 shoreline was 400 feet from where the shoreline stood in 1908.

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The Working Waterfront . february/march 2023

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Celebrating 40 years of building community from the sea up.

Creating a Resilient Economy • Implementing Climate Solutions • Empowering Strong Leaders With deep gratitude to our members and all who make this important work possible for Maine’s island and coastal communities.

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