News of Maine’s Coast and Islands
THE WORKING
Volume 34, № 2 n April 2020 n Free Circulation: 50,000
published by the island institute n workingwaterfront.com
Biddeford: From mill town to ‘Brooklyn North’ City leaders focused on redeveloping vacant mills, which became assets
nonprofit that works to boost the city’s downtown, students were warned away at their orientation. Campus security officials told incoming students to avoid being downtown after dark. If they did venture into town, they should wear steel-toed shoes as protection against hypodermic needles that might be lying on the sidewalk. But since reputation usually lags behind reality, Poupore and her organization took on this undesirable image head-on. Two years ago, they hosted a
“What’s been happening here is a rebirth.” —Alan Casavant
A drone view of the 1-million-square-feet of mill space in Biddeford.
By Tom Groening This is the first in a series of stories about coastal towns facing challenges.
M
ost towns would boast about hosting a college, and Biddeford is no different in its pride in having the University of New
PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN
England within its borders. After all, being a college town brings a certain amount of culture and entertainment. Status follows having a seat of higher learning in the community. And, perhaps most enviable, students bring a lively, youthful energy. For Biddeford and UNE, though, the sentiment was not reciprocal. In fact, says Delilah Poupore, executive director of the Heart of Biddeford, a small
block party downtown for all 700 first-year students. This school year, Heart of Biddeford created 26 opportunities around town for students to fulfill their required community service. It’s just one story in a remarkable transformation, one that seemed unlikely even a decade ago. But Biddeford has, in a phrase coined by one local observer, undergone not only a renaissance, but a “Biddesance.” Another phrase local leaders use in describing the new Biddeford is Brooklyn North, because, in fact, several entrepreneurs have come to this Maine town continued on page 2
Lobster landings again top 100 million pounds
Value of state’s signature seafood at $485 million in 2019 By Tom Groening
D
espite a summer marked by light hauls, the overall lobster catch for 2019 again cracked the 100-million-pound threshold, the
ninth consecutive year to do so. Total landings were 100,725,013 pounds. To put last year’s landings in historical context, Department of Marine Resources data shows that lobster landings in 1980 were 21.9 million NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID PORTLAND, ME 04101 PERMIT NO. 454
CAR-RT SORT POSTAL CUSTOMER
pounds, 28 million pounds in 1990, 57.2 million pounds in 2000, and 96.2 million pounds in 2010. Though 2019’s lobster landings were more than 15 percent lower than 2018’s, fishermen earned $485 million, ranking 2019 as the fourth most lucrative. “Even with a slow start last year,
harvest, the commissioner said. More historical context: Twenty years ago, in 1999, about 26 percent of the lobster catch was recorded in Maine’s two most southern counties, Cumberland and York. In 2019, less 15 percent of the harvest was landed there. In 1999, the state’s two most north-
“Even with a slow start last year, Maine’s lobster industry ended the year strong…” Maine’s lobster industry ended the year strong, with landings picking up significantly in the last few months,” said DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher in a press release. Last year’s cold spring delayed the molt, when lobsters shed their shells, which typically marks the bulk of the
easterly counties, Hancock and Washington, accounted for about 28 percent of landings, while last year, those counties were where more than half the catch was landed. Scientists say that as the Gulf of Maine warms, juvenile lobster are betcontinued on page 5
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
BIDDEFORD
continued from page 1 directly from that New York City borough, and because its core has a dense, urban feel. Yet this community of 21,500 is still a place where residents wave to each other on the street, and it boasts of having the lowest median age—35—in the state. Community leaders point to a few key elements that helped turn the town around. One turning point came when a dominant business was shut-down and demolished. Another was seeing large, 19th century industrial buildings not as a liability, but as an asset. A third was celebrating the city’s cultural heritage, not running from it. Municipal investment also was key. And lastly, a concerted effort was made to fan the flames of community pride.
TRASH TALKING When Biddeford High School basketball teams played other schools, they caught the brunt of trash talk—quite literally. Students from other schools would denigrate Biddeford for being home to the Maine Energy Recovery Company—MERC—incinerator. The large facility, which burned municipal waste to fire turbines to make electricity, was the city’s dominant, if noisy and smelly, employer and tax base. Alan Casavant, now the city’s mayor, has seen the arc of a 20th century industry in the MERC facility. A history teacher in the high school, now retired, he served on the city council while in his 20s when the plant opened in 1988. “It contributed significant tax dollars to the community,” he said, but it didn’t perform well and, yes, “the stink from the garbage” hauled in from the region hung over the downtown. “Biddeford was called ‘trash town.’” Still, Casavant admits the city council’s decision to purchase, close, and demolish the plant “was gutsy.” MERC employed 80 people in good-paying jobs and was the biggest taxpayer. In 2012, following a community meeting at the City Theater on Main
Katie Pinard and Michael Macomber operate Elements, the coffee shop/pub/bookstore.
Street, the council voted 8-1 to purchase and demolish the plant. It was a tough sell in the dark days of the Great Recession, but the mayor notes that all the councilors who voted in favor of ending MERC’s reign were reelected. “We were dead-on,” he says of the decision. “Except the speed. (The transformation) was much more rapid than we expected. What’s been happening here is a rebirth,” he said. “Not just the reinvestment, but the community pride.” Promotional materials once referred to Biddeford as being “in the Portland area.” Now, boosters are proud to utter the city’s name. It took more than trashing MERC, though. Casavant says to lure new investors downtown, the city had to be a reliable investor itself. “In terms of attracting investment dollars, you have to invest yourself,” he said, and the city installed new street lighting, sidewalks, cobblestones, and
Patrons enjoying a break at Elements. PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN
even brought in flowers, “to add color to our incredible architecture.” A river walk, with a $1 million public investment, will be completed, linking existing legs. Such municipal investment signals the city is serious in building publicprivate partnerships, the mayor said.
TEXTILE TOWN
Biddeford Mayor Allan Casavant.
PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN
PHOTO: COURTESY PAQUIN & CARROLL INSURANCE
Stroll or drive through downtown, and Biddeford’s 19th century history and its 21st calling card command your attention. Fortress-like brick mills tower over the streets, some 1 millionsquare-feet in all, spread across several buildings owned by several investors. The Saco River winds around and through this brick canyon. As Poupore of Heart of Biddeford points out, parts of the textile mill complex were still operating a dozen years ago, and so the community is in the enviable position of having substantial, attractive, and well-maintained infrastructure. Casavant is proud to be a native of Biddeford, and proud of his French heritage, an ethnic group that helped run the textile mills that made the city
hum in the 19th century. And yet, as he is quick to point out, it was also Greek, Italian, and Irish immigrants who helped build the mills and do other work. Some of the first mosques were in the mills, too, further reflecting the international flavor it brought to Biddeford’s beginnings. “The French were the last big wave,” he said. The city’s La Kermesse festival, begun in the 1980s to celebrate its Franco heritage, may have begun to fade away, as younger people don’t identify as closely with their ethnicity. But the mayor and others came to believe the event should remain and be valued, and it is a centerpiece as a community celebration. Not only does Biddeford have the lowest median age in Maine at 35, but its downtown has a median age of 29. Of course, Casavant jokes, he and the reporter have together nudged that number up, meeting in city hall. Post-trash incinerator, Biddeford has “what the younger people want. It’s an attractive place for them. They don’t need a car,” with pubs, restaurants, and coffee shops all downtown. And they don’t have to go to Portland to find those amenities.
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020 ESSENTIAL COMMUNITY ELEMENTS Katie Pinard and her business partner Michael Macomber own and operate Elements, a combination coffee shop, pub, and bookstore, which serves breakfast and lunch, launched in 2013. She grew up in town, and he grew up across the river in Saco. Both left for college, experienced urban life, and separately came back to Maine. “We’ve really seen the lifecycle of both downtown communities,” she said, remembering Biddeford’s thriving commercial district when she was a child in the 1980s. Macomber, who was teaching at UNE, responded to a business plan contest more as an exercise than a serious bid, Pinard explained, but when it began to come together, he decided to take the plunge. She, too, has heard the stories about UNE’s fears about the downtown. Now, most of the staff at Elements are students, and customers include undergrads, graduate students, and faculty. Downtown businesses cooperate instead of compete, she said, because “The better we each do, the better we all do. There’s such a fantastic collective spirit among us.” The components she believes fueled the revival are the Heart of Biddeford, an arts organization called Engine, the City Theater, and entrepreneurs. “There’s been a remarkable transformation,” with Biddeford becoming “an up and coming food and beverage hub. I feel good about it as someone who’s from here.”
Delilah Poupore, executive director of Heart of Biddeford.
Poupore joined Heart of Biddeford in 2011, moving to town from Minnesota. The organization was established by a $150,000 “community heart and soul” grant from the Orton Foundation, and now operates on a lean $100,000 annual budget. The organization hosted 33 public meetings and events and created a master plan, 80 percent of which has been completed, she said. The community work paid off. “When we were getting rid of MERC, we were able to say to city council that
PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN
350 people came to meetings and said being ‘family friendly’ was important,” Poupore said. Heart of Biddeford established five community values for its work: • Biddeford is good for families • History is important • Diversity is a plus • Biddeford is making a comeback • A great small-town feel Poupore sees the mills—Lincoln, River Dam, North Dam, Pepperell—
unequivocally as an asset. She and her husband and child live in one, and dozens of start-ups are renting space there. “It is a great asset for the fact that you can add jobs and add housing,” she said, noting that in other cities, additional floors must be added to accommodate growth, a costly proposition. Casavant has been involved at city hall long enough to know the city can’t coast. Challenges loom. Though plenty of double- and triple-decker houses remain from the textile mill days, investor interest has begun to push up rents. The city’s daily newspaper, the Journal Tribune, was shuttered in the fall. Without it, providing residents with accurate information about city initiatives has been more difficult. “It was the voice of reason, the voice of record,” he said. The city is now in the midst of working with a developer to build a 600-space parking garage on the property where the incinerator once stood, and Casavant says some public outcry has been based on inaccurate posts on social media. The city is hiring a communications director to help fill the void left by the newspaper’s demise. Mathew Eddy, the city’s planning director and a veteran of other municipalities, believes knowledge is critical. “Understand your community—do a deeper dig,” he urges those wanting to replicate the city’s success. “Inventory what’s going on, who’s living there, and ask, ‘What’s your niche?’” And what about UNE and the sting of its warnings to students? “We would love to get them into the downtown,” Eddy said. q
Old bakery serves new Biddeford Reilly’s retains best of sweet bakery treats
Sophia Morin, left,and Myisha Cutler at work in Reilly’s Bakery. PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN
By Sally Noble
I
n a town brimming with youth, Reilly’s Bakery, a Biddeford Main Street institution for 100 years, thrives as an old-fashioned landmark. Confections are packaged with genuine kindness and boxes are delicately tied with string. If the Hallmark Channel came to Biddeford, this is where they’d set up the cameras.
Founded in 1920, Reilly’s Bakery is a familyowned and operated business now in the hands of the fourth generation. Elizabeth Reilly Hussey, 44, took over the bakery with husband Kevin two years ago this coming April. “It doesn’t feel like work because I love what I do and the bakery has always been home,” she says. A day at Reilly’s begins around 3 a.m., when the rotating gas oven is first fired up. On a chilly, predawn morning, outside, the festive canopy of white lights drapes atop the bare trees on Main Street. Inside, the early-morning scene is magically warm. In the corner, a curtained-off area seats customers at a few tables. At 6:30 a.m., there might be a young couple having pastries and coffee before heading to work. And always holding forth are the gaggle of older gentlemen, like Roland and Donald, old friends from the neighborhood who have been meeting there every morning. “For over 30 years,” one chimes in. “I call them ‘The Board of Directors,’” smiles nononsense Hussey, who takes a break to banter with the guys. “They come in at 6:15 and if someone’s not there by 6:45, we’re wondering where they are.” Large men stroll in around this time, collecting the discreetly stored, very large plastic bins filled with leftover bread and doughnuts, intended for the Biddeford Food Pantry. Center stage stands the large, folding blackboard prominently displaying the daily specials for the week: two-for-one crème rolls, chicken pot pies, 20 kinds of doughnuts. I personally can attest to the perfection of The Old Fashioned Glazed, made with hand-cut, raised yeast dough, fried in soybean oil and drizzled with the baker’s secret ingredient to result in a delicious, icy glaze.
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And the pastries: Neopolitans, eclairs, whoopie pies, and swiss rolls are also high popular, according to Hussey. It’s amazing how much a tasty morsel of a Reilly’s confection can make loyal customers not only satisfied, but also happy. Ask the local dry cleaner and her associate tailor to reminisce about a pastry: “It was a lemon coronet,” recalled Linda, who went to high school with Denise Reilly, Hussey’s mother. “I bought you one, remember?” “Yes, yes, that was very good,” mused Maria, a Bavarian-born woman who boasts knowledge of what constitutes good pastry. “Getting pastries from Reilly’s Bakery was always a treat in our household,” recalls my neighbor Spiros, who grew up in Biddeford as the son of one of the owners of the former Wonderbar Restaurant. Like so many, his mother always bought hot-cross buns at Reilly’s every Easter. “What I remember is the old-school bakery aroma when you walk in,” he continues. “I took my daughters for donuts when they visited a couple of summers ago.” Reilly’s new management appears to be remarkably similar to the old. “We honor traditional recipes that are non-negotiable,” asserts Hussey. “Reilly’s sells the same butter cookies my grandfather introduced in the 1950’s.” And, recently, on the blackboard were the pork pies Hussey’s French Canadian grandmother first baked—all these decades later, this Christmas treat still maintains a strong neighborhood following. Anything new? Hussey recently hired Amy Springer, a cake decorator, to make “more of an emphasis on artistic technique.” New, creative cakes take the spotlight on the bakery’s Facebook page. q
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
The truth about marine salvage
Southport Island’s Capt. Bruce White explains maritime tradition
Capt. Bruce White poses on the Portland waterfront.
PHOTO: MICHELE STAPLETON
By Stephanie Bouchard
W
ith two October storms causing havoc across the state, but especially along the coast, a number of boat owners found their boats in trouble—sunk at their docks, broken free of their moorings, even too damaged to float on their own. They needed assistance with their boats, but would that assistance be a recovery service (a tow, for example) or a salvage? “People get twisted up over salvage stuff,” said Capt. Bruce White of Southport Island, co-owner of Sea
Tow Portland/Midcoast Maine, which among other things, offers vessel recovery and salvage services. Many people are confused about marine salvage and vessel recovery. There is a difference between them—and every boat owner should understand that difference—but misconceptions about salvage often cause undue anxiety in boat owners, White said. The biggest cause of anxiety, said White, is based on a finders-keepers misconception. When boat owners find out a marine assistance company such as his is going to salvage their boat, they panic, believing that they’re going to lose their boat, but that’s
not how it works, he said. “It’s not finders-keepers at all,” he said. “If you find a boat that’s abandoned somewhere, that’s in peril, and you do something to make it safer, better—you take control, care, and custody of it—(then) you’re entitled to a reward for your time, but it’s not your boat.” A marine salvor can hold your boat as collateral, however, until paid for the services rendered. Marine salvage is a federally-defined service with a specific set of criteria to be met by salvors. It applies only to marine property—boats and cargo, he said—and the salvor is entitled to a reward for properly carrying out salvage services. To claim a salvage reward, a salvor has to meet federally-regulated criteria, foremost being: there’s a marine peril, the service is voluntarily carried out (meaning, there’s no pre-existing contract between the salvor and the distressed vessel’s owner), and persons and/or property were successfully saved. Claiming a reward (which is usually based on a percentage of the value of the item, such as a boat, or items, in the case of cargo, salvaged) doesn’t necessarily mean a salvor will actually get paid that reward. In contested circumstances, legal action may determine if a reward is warranted and how much of a reward should be paid. Vessel recovery services that are not deemed salvage, on the other hand, are not legislatively defined, and generally are billed on an hourly or flat-fee basis. He likens non-salvage vessel recovery services to the roadside assistance services drivers get through AAA. Generally speaking, professional marine salvors will assess the situation and tell the boat owner if it is a salvage scenario or not, but boat owners can also— and should—ask the person providing assistance if the aid being offered is salvage or not. “It’s a good question and there’s no reason not to ask that,” he said, and boat owners can turn down an offer of salvage services. There are some extreme circumstances, however, in which boat owners are legally required to take whatever steps are necessary to avoid or minimize damage to their own vessels, other vessels, or to the environment. If the boat owner is aboard, then permission must be granted for salvage. White uses the U.S. Open Form Salvage Agreement, also known as the MARSALV contract, to lay out the terms of the salvage. If a boat is found floating, a salvor can go and get it, he said, but, he stressed, the salvor doesn’t then own that boat. The salvor must track down who owns the boat. The owner will be liable for payment for the salvage services rendered. Anybody can be a marine salvor, including passing boaters who come across a boat in distress. No special license is required, but to provide commercial water assistance, a captain’s license and towing endorsement from the U.S. Coast Guard are necessary, White noted. q
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LOBSTER LANDINGS continued from page 1
ter able to live and thrive along the northeast coast, where waters remain cooler—for now. According to NOAA, American lobster was the most valuable single species harvested in the U.S. in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, with Maine landings accounting for about 80 percent of value each year. “Our lobster industry continues to be one of the most important economic engines in Maine and its reputation is worldwide,” said Gov. Janet Mills in the DMR press release. In all, the total value of Maine’s commercially harvested marine resources was nearly $674 million. “Maine continues to produce the highest quality seafood in the world,” said Mills in the press release. “The exceptional value of our marine resources is the result of a steadfast commitment to responsible, sustainable harvesting, innovative cultivation practices, and delivery of the highest quality product.” Elvers again topped $2,000 per pound which resulted in an overall value of $20.1 million, ranking it as the second most valuable species harvested in Maine in 2019, and again the most valuable on a per-pound basis. Softshell clammers raked in an additional 623,000 pounds compared to 2018, which generated more than $18 million for harvesters and made softshell clams Maine’s third most valuable species. The oyster harvest in 2019 was 3.2 million pounds, an increase of 460,911 pounds over 2018, for a total value of $7.6 million, making oysters the fourth most valuable species. “Maine’s fishing and aquaculture industries have again shown what hard work, and a commitment to sustainable, responsible harvesting and cultivation practices can accomplish,” said Keliher. “But Maine continues to face challenges associated with climate change, federal whale regulations, and working waterfront access. These are challenges that the Mills administration will continue to work on to make sure Maine’s marine economy remains strong for future generations.” More landings data can be found at https://www.maine. gov/dmr/commercial-fishing/index.html. q
And the children shall lead them…
U.S. Coast Guard continues to urge use of flotation devices
A
bout 15 minutes into his presentation at the annual meeting of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association during the Maine Fishermen’s Forum on March 6, U.S. Coast Guard Commander Jason Boyer began shedding his uniform. It wasn’t a strip tease, exactly, but it was a deliberately provocative move. When Boyer removed his uniform jacket, he revealed that he was wearing underneath it a personal flotation device, or PFD, the kind that looks something like a snake draped over the shoulders and chest. A drawstring, easily visible from the audience, would be pulled to inflate the device. The stunt was aimed at undermining a universal argument fishermen use to explain their unwillingness to wear a PFD—that it’s uncomfortable and inhibits the ability to work. Boyer, whose job title is “chief of prevention,” raised and moved his arms around to further demonstrate the ease of wearing this particular device. When the Coast Guard inspects fishing boats, he said, fishermen readily dig out the required life vests, “excited to show us,” yet the PFDs are in their original plastic packaging with the price tag still attached. As far as Coast Guard safety goes, the lobster fishery is “the least regulated commercial
vessel” sector, Boyer said. “How do we change the culture of not wearing life jackets?” One way of changing that culture was proven in Alaska. Boyer said Coast Guard officials couldn’t make headway in changing the culture among adult fishermen in Alaskan Native villages, so they went to schools, met with students whose parents fished, and worked with them to draft a contract which they would present to their parents. The children would then ask their parents to sign the contract, agreeing to “Do everything I can to come home.” Emotional blackmail? Perhaps. But given the low rate of PFD use, and what Boyer described as a “rite of passage” for those reaching the age of 13, when they no longer are required to wear the device, change is needed, he said. A “life jackets for lobstermen” program run by the Northeast Center for Occupational Health & Safety visited 53 ports where 1,076 PFDs were sold in recent years. In Maine, 774 PFDs were sold, Boyer said. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association also was a partner in that effort. He also urged fishermen to include “kill switches” for their boat’s engines, and to install anti-entanglement devices to avoid getting caught up in gear going overboard. —Tom Groening
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AQUACULTURE LEASE APPLICATION
NOTICE OF HEARING
The Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is holding a public hearing to take evidence on an aquaculture lease application for the following:
Applicant Name and Lease Type Culture Type
Species General Location, Town Acreage Requested Lease Term Requested
Western Bay Oyster Company LLC Standard Lease Suspended culture (gear on bottom and/or suspended) Bottom culture (no gear) Shellfish Off Old House Cove/Spruce Point, Western Bay, Bar Harbor, ME
3.36 acres 10 Years
The public hearing on this application has been scheduled as follows:
April 2, 2020 6:00 p.m. Bar Harbor Council Chambers 93 Cottage St., Bar Harbor, ME 04609 If the public hearing listed above is postponed or cannot be concluded by a reasonable hour, an alternate public hearing will be held on April 8, 2020, at the same time and location. Notice of a postponement or a continuance will be posted on the Department’s website. Applications to intervene need to be received by DMR no later than 4:00 p.m. on March 19, 2020. DMR will decide whether to grant intervenor applications five days before the hearing. Please review the section below for more information.
My business is everything to me. Who understands my passion and investment? That’s where we come in.
INFORMATION ON DMR WEBSITE: See DMR’s website, for the lease application and DMR site report: http://www.maine.gov/dmr/aquaculture/leases/pending/index.html
PARTICIPATING AT THE HEARING: Any interested person may attend the hearing and ask questions of the parties or testify under oath about the effect of the proposed lease. Aquaculture lease hearings are adjudicatory proceedings. If you intend to participate, please visit DMR’s website to learn more about these types of proceedings. On DMR’s website the following are posted: the lease criteria, hearing procedures, and suggestions for effective public participation during the hearing. https://www.maine.gov/dmr/aquaculture/public-participation.html INTERVENING: If you apply for and are granted intervenor status, you become a legal party to the proceeding. See the contact information below to request an intervenor application from DMR.
RELEVANT AUTHORITY: The rules governing the leasing program are found in Chapter 2 of DMR regulations. The statutory provisions are: 5 M.R.S.A. §9501 et seq. & 12 M.R.S.A. §6072(1) et seq., & 12 M.R.S.A. §6072-A(1) et seq. Address questions to: Maine Department of Marine Resources Attn: Aquaculture Division 21 State House Station Augusta, Maine 04333-0021 (207) 624-6567 Send emails to DMRaquaculture@maine.gov
For disability accommodations, contact Meredith Mendelson at: (207) 624-6579 Meredith.Mendelson@maine.gov
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
Rockland’s ‘rise and renewal’ documented in new history John Bird recounts city’s early years through decline, then revival
John Bird speaks at the Farnsworth Art Museum PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN.
By Tom Groening
T
oday, Rockland is a lively, commercially diverse service center. In summer, tourism dominates the downtown, thanks to the Farnsworth Art Museum, galleries, schooners, and several fine restaurants and coffee shops. The city also boasts a large working waterfront, with a marina and boat service yard, a U.S. Coast Guard base, and a ferry terminal. But it was industry that has been Rockland’s raison d’etré, and even today, it has about 1,000 manufacturing jobs, putting it third in the state, per capita. The city’s story has been told most recently by John Bird, a Rockland native whose career in private education administration took him south along the East Coast, to the Midwest and Southwest. When a career change beckoned, he and his wife happily returned to the Midcoast in 1990. Bird’s Rockland, Maine: Rise and Renewal, a generously and richly illustrated narrative history, promises to be an engaging read, despite its size. As Bird jokingly explained in a presentation at the Farnsworth on Jan. 23, “I’m getting critiques about the tome-like size of the book,” which weighs-in at more than seven pounds and includes more than 500 pages. In his talk, Bird recounted the early days of European settlement. Among the first families in the 1760s were the Tolmans, Reeds, Lindseys, Crocketts, Jamesons, Spears, Rankins, and Blackingtons, and some bearing those names live in the area today. Rockland was once part of neighboring Thomaston, Bird explained, and in fact was not incorporated as its own municipality until the relatively late date of 1854. But by 1850, its population of 5,000 was double that of Thomaston. At that time, the peninsula now bounded by Main Street, Park Street, and Tilson Avenue—mostly built on fill—was punctuated by piers and covered with lime kilns, shipyards, and manufacturing plants. By 1910, other elements had been added. Steamships were landing at the South End, linking the Midcoast to Boston. An Andrew Carnegie-funded library had been built. And the Samoset Hotel had opened on the northern edge of the city. W.H. Glover, whom Bird described as “the master builder of Rockland,” was the contractor for the Samoset (it burned in the 1970s). He also built the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse, the McLain School, and the court house, which Bird called “perhaps our most distinguished building.” Glover also built about half of the shingle-style “cottages” on Islesboro.
But resource extraction continued to define Rockland for much of the 20th century, most notably, the processing of lime. The stone was quarried in the area, shipped to the harbor where it was cooked in kilns, and then sent to ports along the East Coast for use in mortar and plaster. The last kiln closed in 1958. David Hoch, the last president of the Rockport and Rockland Lime Co., verified the city’s claim to having the deepest lime quarry in the world with classic Maine understatement: “It’s deep enough.” Notable women in Rockland’s story include Jessie Dermott, born to a sea captain in the city, who later earned fame as an actor on stage and screen as Maxine Elliott. Elliott was one of the most photographed actors of her time. She became the first woman to establish, own, and operate a theater just off Broadway in New York. Another stand-out, also in the arts, was Louise Nevelson, whom Bird called “the incomparable Louise,” a colorful character whose sculpture won her critical favor in the 1940s. Born in Russia, her family emigrated to Rockland in 1905. A third woman whom Bird labeled perhaps the most influential in Rockland history was Lucy Farnsworth, daughter of a prominent granite business owner. She died in 1935 and in her will, Farnsworth bequeathed funds to start the museum bearing her name and which has become the centerpiece and transformative driver of the city’s current prosperity and creative economy. But Rockland saw darker days through global changes that hurt manufacturing in the U.S. through the 1970s. One of the industries that remained was a fish-rendering plant which covered the town in an offensive smell. In a bold move, a city council in the 1980s began pressuring the large employer to clean up its act, and the plant finally closed in 1987. Bird recalls an observation made about the downtown in those years: “You could roll a bowling ball down Main Street on a Friday night in 1985 and not hit a soul.” Not so today. Bird cited the 2006 Brookings Institute report on Maine which urged coastal towns to “meld tradition and the creative economy. Rockland is the poster child for that,” he said. He also dated the city becoming a tourist destination at the early 1990s. A local booster group, Rockland: Share the Pride, marked a turning point, he said. When the group went dormant, civic leaders didn’t feel the need to revive it—which revealed that the city was now optimistic about its future.
In an earlier book, 2011’s Rockland, Maine’s Tidal Turn, Bird gathered profiles of some of the “heroes” who helped revive the city. It included chapters recounting “the birth of the blues,” when an unlikely cultural institution, the Rockland Blues Festival, was established, and another unlikely community catalyst, the Rock City coffee shop, helped push the revival. Today, some 25 galleries and restaurants operate in the city. “Rockland’s comeback, evident over the past three decades, has been powered by ideas, creativity, and services driven by the arts, entrepreneurialism, and tourism to a much greater extent than in the past,” Bird said. “And the community’s resurgence has been aided by an invaluable natural resource: its sublime location at the mouth of the expansive, breathtakingly beautiful Penobscot Bay.” Bird credits the Rockland Historical Society for publishing the book, and especially Brian Harden and Ann Morris. He also thanked Jane Karker for map work, its designer Wendy Higgins, and local artists Debby Atwell and Richard Iammarino for illustrations. q For more information about Rockland, Maine: Rise and Renewal, see: http://rocklandhistorical.com/calendar/ john-bird-launches-his-new-history-of-rockland/
A 19th century view of downtown Rockland.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
Offshore wind is back in motion
Regulators, developer explain process to fishermen
By Tom Groening
T
he perception that Maine’s forays into offshore wind power have been on hold aren’t quite accurate, said Jake Ward of the University of Maine. Under the name New England Aqua Ventus I, the university is pursuing siting a floating wind turbine off Monhegan Island as a test for possible further development. “Someone this morning said this is coming fast,” Ward said of the university’s bid, speaking at a session of the Maine Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport on March 5. In fact, he has been involved in the pursuit of offshore wind power since 2007. “This is not coming fast,” he deadpanned. “I had kids when this started. Now I have grandkids.” Several years ago, UMaine had pursued—as Maine Aqua Ventus—siting two floating wind turbines off Monhegan to learn more about the floating technology and the potential to produce electricity. To that end, a one-eighth sized floating turbine was deployed off Castine in 2013, and has since been retrieved. Ward said the project is now operating as New England Aqua Ventus, and is seeking to site a single, 6-megawatt floating turbine. Late last year, the federal Department of Energy awarded the project $1.4 million for design, and the Maine Public Utilities Commission voted to approve a 20-year agreement for Central Maine Power to purchase electricity generated by the turbine. Offshore wind is the largest untapped energy resource “by far,” Ward said. He explained how the floating turbine structure will use pre-cast concrete segments. “We’re very confident it will survive” in the marine environment, he said. “Anything happening in the Gulf of Maine is going to be floating.” Still, permitting remains to be secured. Fishing interests will be included in weighing proposals, regulators said, but fishing advocates urged those present to be vigilant. Nick Livesay of the state Department of Environmental Protection said the project off Monhegan will fall under state jurisdiction. The site location law would hold sway, he said, which ensures there will be no adverse effect on existing uses,
scenic character, air and water quality, or other natural resources in the area of the turbine. A project also must conform to the federal Natural Resources Protection Act, Livesay said, and not “unreasonably interfere” with recreation or navigation, or harm estuarine or marine fisheries. A developer also must provide a navigation plan, a fish and wildlife plan, and a removal plan. Brian Hooker of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) outlined the federal role in offshore wind. BOEM’s jurisdiction lies in the waters that are three to 200 miles off state land. The multiphased, multi-year approval process includes planning and analysis, assessments of waters and wind potential, and construction and operation. BOEM is reviewing the Vineyard Wind project in Massachusetts, and Hooker said a final decision is expected by the end of the year. The National Marine Fisheries Service is part of the review process and is represented on a task force that includes representatives from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Annie Hawkins of Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group formed to protect fishery interests in offshore wind development, said her group includes 170 members. Regulators must consider fishing interests, she said, and “We don’t feel that’s been done very well to date.” Developers use a “divide and conquer” approach, separating states and projects to weaken opposition. “We’re trying to take the dialogue back,” Hawkins said. Fred Mattera, who has fished for 40 years from Port Judith, R.I., urged fishermen to document where they work now to make the case for mitigation if they are displaced by wind turbines. “You must stay engaged,” he said. Beth Casoni, director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, echoed that view, saying “comments matter” during public review, citing a project area off the Bay State that was reduced by 65 percent because of articulated concerns. This spring, UMaine’s Ward said, the project will hire a fisheries liaison. q
Fishermen’s group wants to raise mental health awareness Changing climate, resources, danger produce stress
By Wanda Curtis
T
he Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has won a $5,000 grant to promote mental health awareness in the commercial fishing industry. Monique Coombs, director of marine programs for the nonprofit, said the funds will be used to develop informational materials to assist commercial fishermen in managing stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as materials showing how to stay mentally fit. A website with phone numbers for fishermen to reach out for help may also be in the works. The grant was awarded by the Fisher Charitable Trust. Coombs said fishermen may be experiencing stress due to changes in the industry over which they have no control. The ever-present danger in the work also adds stress. “It’s not fishing that produces stress for fishermen,” she said. “Many of them love being out on the water. It’s dealing with a lot of uncertainty due to things like climate and regulation changes, and how those things are going to impact their business and income.”
According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous occupations in the U.S. Its data shows that commercial fishermen experienced a fatality rate of 114 deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers between 2000 and 2017. That compares to an average of four deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalents among all U.S. workers. Common hazards include vessel disasters, falls overboard, and a variety of onboard gear and equipment. Coombs said fishing is a very isolating industry, with some fishermen out on the water and away from families for days at a time, which adds to stress. “Depression, anxiety, and thoughts of suicide are not uncommon in any fishing community, no matter which coast you are on,” said Coombs. “It is an isolating, dangerous occupation, full of uncertainty and expense.” The grant is just a beginning, she said, but it’s a step toward bringing issues into the open to be addressed. The hope is to humanize the fishing industry and make the public aware of stressors fishermen face every day. Alex Todd, a 10th generation fisherman from
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Chebeague Island, said changing regulations, such as those concerning right whale protections, are among the biggest stressors for him. “There’s also a lot less mobility between fisheries today due to licensing issues, which makes things more stressful, too,” he added. “I know some fishermen have gotten therapy and it’s helped them, but many are reluctant to admit they need help. “I get relief from stress by going to the gym or playing my guitar, but everybody is different,” Todd said. “I appreciate what the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association is trying to do by drawing attention to these issues.” q
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
Rock Bound
Will Portland choke on its success?
Considering how Maine’s largest city became what it is in February, city hall staff and Robert Witkowski of the Greater Portland Visitors Bureau helped me gather some numbers, such as:
By Tom Groening WHAT IF PORTLAND wasn’t in Maine? What if the state’s border with New Hampshire fell along the shore of the Royal River in Yarmouth, instead of along the Piscataqua? Or what if Portland were somehow transported to the area near Newburyport, Mass.? What would be lost? It’s not an entirely hypothetical question. A dozen or so years ago, a legislator from Northern Maine proposed cutting the state in half, sort of like the Dakotas. His argument was that the northern, more rural part of the state had little in common with the culture and economy of the Portland area. Reading between the lines, it wasn’t hard to see the disdain embedded in the proposal; who needs those fancy restaurants, pubs, galleries, hotels, and hipsters? Well, as it turns out, state coffers need those businesses. The Greater Portland area—that is, including several of the surrounding towns—produces something close to 40 percent of state tax revenue. While preparing for the Island Institute’s Waypoints Forum held in Portland
• The number of hotel rooms in the city: 2,830 • Annual taxable lodging (Greater Portland): $158.8 million • The number of restaurant licenses (to prep and sell food): 377 • Liquor licenses: 370 • Annual taxable food sales: $184.2 million
rants beg the question: how many is too many? I’m reminded of the quote attributed to Yogi Berra: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” A proposal to build yet another hotel and restaurant on one of the piers a few years ago drew sharp opposition from fishermen who feared being squeezed out. A working waterfront alliance emerged from the conflict, and fishermen and city planners are now talking to each other. It’s gratifying to see this collaboration develop, but it won’t be long before another big project is proposed.
All those hotel rooms and restaurants beg the question: how many is too many? • Cruise ship visits, 2019: 104 ships with 152,801 passengers and 62,204 crew Portland is indeed “Maine’s largest city,” as it is often described, but by some measures, it’s barely a city. With a population of 66,000, if Portland were in Massachusetts, it would be that state’s 15th largest, between Haverhill and Framingham. It also bucks the state’s oldest-inthe-nation status, with a median age of 36.1, compared with the state’s 45.1. All those hotel rooms and restau-
I think it’s worth considering how a place like Portland becomes what it is today. By most accounts, the city waterfront was a rough, unattractive place in the mid-1970s. In 1977, 14 million gallons of raw sewage a day flowed into harbor. In 1978, a National Science Foundation study described Portland’s waterfront as one of most dilapidated on East Coast. As industry declined and vacated the waterfront, building space became available, and it could be rented cheaply. Artists and artisans moved in, where they
could set up shop and store materials. Street-level storefronts also were cheaply rented, so they began opening galleries. Art draws audiences, and it didn’t take long for entrepreneurial types to realize that if people were coming to the Old Port for the art, they might just buy a drink or a meal while they were there. Pubs and restaurants began to open. Then, the restaurant scene gets competitive, and they become the draw, as much or more so than the arts. And who wants to drive back to, say, Belfast (where I live) after a great meal? So hotels are built. And built. At the other end of the Maine coast in Eastport, community leaders are trying to replicate this pattern, and it’s working (see Leslie Bowman’s photo essay on pages 14-15). If the art, theater, and live music are good and reliably available, people from Calais and Machias may make the drive to Eastport, and the drink, food, and lodging trade will follow. But one last important question remains. My wife and I first saw the Old Port in 1983, and we were charmed by it. If we could have hit the pause button then, would we? So how much is too much? And can anyone stop it? Let me know what you think. I’m at tgroening@islandinstitute.org. q Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront.
Reflections
Making Washington County bicycle friendly Fellowship focuses on helping youth find fun in biking 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 Dylan McBride A YEAR AGO, I was a college senior majoring in medieval studies with little idea of what I wanted to do after graduating—and with too many papers to write to give it much thought! I loved the range of topics I was engaged
Dylan McBride
in, but it seemed like time to get outside of the classroom and step beyond my comfort zone. One thing led to another, and a few months later I arrived in Milbridge as a newly minted Island Fellow to transform the dream of a “bike bus”—a mobile youth-centered bike repair shop—into reality. I’d gotten my wish for something totally new. I didn’t even have a driver’s license when I accepted the fellowship! I was determined to dive in, be serious, and do good work. My job involves helping teach kids bike repair, getting them riding safely and happily, and improving bike resources in a county with a scenic bikeway but no bike shops. It requires a lot of computer and paperwork, but the most important component is the hands-on part working with students and bikes. These past few months, I’ve watched kids bomb down a snowy hill on bikes, wipe out spectacularly into a snowbank, and then hop back up with a grin to ride again. Watching them change a tire for the first time and think about what their dream bike could look like, the kids have taught me a lot about priorities. Kids are good at having fun. They’re good at trying hard, falling down and going right back at it. They’re good at
seeing “maybe” where adults can only see “can’t.” For a short time, adults encourage this. We laugh good-naturedly over their fearlessness, tell them to pedal faster, ride harder, and not look down. Then, all too soon, we start telling them to slow down, put the fun on hold, get serious and learn. We tell them to forget the “maybes”—there is one right answer and having “too much fun” learning won’t get you there. Since the start of my fellowship in September, I’ve been reminded to take my cues from the kids I work with. The keyword for the work I do has rapidly become “fun.” Bikes are fun. Even when they are a means of transportation, they are still fun. A bike program should also be fun. If it isn’t, there’s something wrong and nobody is likely to learn anything. And if that’s the case, then what’s the point? The bike bus program is about new opportunities and creating something different for the students. Bike repair is hands-on technical learning, but it’s also something people do for fun. My position allows me the freedom to create something responsive to the kids themselves. We get to try, fall down, and try again with better results. Early in the process I found that the
more I encourage the students in their curiosity (the more I embrace their maybes), the more fun they have and the more they remember out of what we teach them. The more I dive into my own drive to be curious and have fun, the more possibilities we get to explore together. These kids have reminded me that having fun is not the opposite of being serious, that good work and fun can go together, and that the time for celebrating curiosity didn’t end when I got my diploma. The students, my advisors and I have much more bicycle fun ahead of us. We have new adventures to try, and a lot more falls to learn from. Let’s pedal fast, not look down, and enjoy the ride ahead. I’ll bring a repair kit if anyone gets a flat. q Dylan McBride is working with the Washington County Council of Governments to develop and implement the Bike Bus, a mobile bicycle repair and riding program for youth to improve physical and emotional health, build social and mechanical skills, introduce children to outdoor recreation assets in their community, and build interest in environmental stewardship. McBride majored in Medieval Studies at Smith College.
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
9
GETTING GOOFY IN STONINGTON —
W
ho says those Victorians didn’t have fun? This photograph, from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company Collection of more than 50,000 glass plate negatives, shows one of the company’s photographers and a lady friend in a comical pose in Stonington. Kevin Johnson, the Penobscot Marine Museum’s photo archivist, is raising money to acquire more of the negatives that escaped in the decades before the collection came to the museum. If you can help, contact him at: Kjohnson@pmm-maine.org or (207) 548-2529 ext. 210. And the museum is again filling the H. Allen and Sally Fernald Art Gallery hallway at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center in Belfast with images. “From the Cradle to the Grave: Mining the Ed Coffin Collection” and “Lincoln County Through Eastern’s Eye” will be on display through April. The exhibits are free and open to the public Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Op-Ed
Maine Islands Coalition—a much-needed network Inter-island group meets to address shared problems By Roger Berle THE MAINE ISLANDS COALITION, or MIC, was formed in 2003 when residents of some year-round Maine Coast islands felt insecure as individual communities dealing with a series of external threats. In Casco Bay at the time, proposals to build liquid natural gas terminals loomed as a major and frightening concern. In the middle of the chaotic activity and desperate fund-raising to counteract the LNG proposals, Eldon Mayer of Chebeague Island and I, from neighboring Cliff Island, put our heads together to jointly ask the Island Institute for assistance. The hastily prepared request was for the Institute to put out a call to all 15 year-round islands to come to Rockland to talk about responding together to not only LNG but also to other challenging issues. When Philip Conkling and Peter Ralston founded the Island Institute in 1983, the general goal was for Maine islands to move from being separate “islands unto themselves”’ and to grow into more of an archipelago. Well, 20 years later, the Institute helped islands develop as communities, but the need for simple, inter-island communication initially envisioned in 1983 remained. The Institute responded by convening a meeting for islanders to share and discuss concerns. A staff member, Nate Michaud, invited representatives, elected or appointed within their communities, to meet on a regular basis. The resulting Maine Islands Coalition became a Island Institute Board of Trustees
Emily B. Lane, Chair Tom Tinsley Vice Chair Charles Owen Verrill, Jr. Secretary Douglas Henderson, Treasurer, Finance Chair Donna Wiegle, Programs Chair Kristin Howard, Development Chair Bryan Lewis, Governance Chair Michael P. Boyd, Clerk Natalie Ames Sebastian Belle Shey Conover David Cousens Megan McGinnis Dayton Michael Felton Luke Holden Nathan Johnson Michael Sant Barbara Kinney Sweet Kate Vogt Carol White John Bird (honorary) Louis W. Cabot (honorary)
formal structure with a regular schedule of quarterly meetings. Each meeting has a keynote topic for which knowledgeable panelists are invited from within and without island communities. Among the topics addressed are: property taxes, land conservation, insurance, ferry and air service, sea level rise, broadband, leadership succession, healthcare/eldercare, affordable/workforce housing, substance abuse, emergency services, historical societies
Each meeting has a keynote topic for which knowledgeable panelists are invited from within and without island communities. and museums, solid waste management, and Airbnb. The topics may apply to one island community or to several. Solutions and suggestions often come from islands that have successfully addressed a particular matter. As needed or appropriate, some of these topics are repeated. For instance, tourism came up last year as a contrast between Peaks Island, which reported being under siege in so many ways, and Isle au Haut, which could have used more tourists to support its
store and gift shop. For other metrics, we ask for counts of students in island schools and number of islanders actually in residence on roughly Feb. 1. In addition, Institute staff and legislators representing islands provide updates, and island representatives share news. There has been a consistent level of enthusiasm and energy, with the “island check-ins” regularly cited as favorites. One of the four meetings is held at the State House in Augusta so legislators can more easily attend and report on legislative activity which could affect islands. An annual report is published, recounting the keynote topics and the results of those discussions. These reports are distributed within each island community by the MIC representatives who are also charged with soliciting suggestions of concerns needing to be addressed. Forty years ago, there was little knowledge of local issues being shared between islands that were anywhere from one mile to 100 miles apart. Each community felt as if it alone had problems unique to itself and had to reinvent the wheel on its own. With help from some Island Institute staff and resources, the Maine Islands Coalition has met this knowledge shortfall by creating a network of connectivity through face-to-face regular meetings. The results have been invaluable for the sustainability of these 15 islands, both individually and as a whole. q Roger Berle is a seasonal resident of Cliff Island and co-chairman of the Maine Islands Coalition.
THE WORKING WATERFRONT
Published by the Island Institute, a non-profit organization that works to sustain Maine's island and coastal communities, and exchanges ideas and experiences to further the sustainability of communities here and elsewhere. All members of the Island Institute and residents of Maine island communities receive monthly mail delivery of The Working Waterfront. For home delivery:
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
Book Reviews
The wrath that follows environmental sin McKibben offers bleak view, but optimism remains
Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Bill McKibben
Review by Dana Wilde RECENTLY, a lobsterman from Swan’s Island told a reporter that, despite scientists’ finding that climate change has driven lobster populations north from Rhode Island and crashed the lobster fishery there, he believed other factors probably account for the recent lobstering boom in Maine. “I’m a Christian,” the news story quotes him as saying, “and … in this, I have faith that someone else is in control that has more control over it than I do and has our best interests in mind.” I don’t know how the Christian lob-
stermen in Rhode Island and Connecticut view the assumption that God would never visit a climate-related disaster on them. But while reading Bill McKibben’s new book Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?, I have been thinking about the biblical word “dominion.” Specifically, as it’s used in Genesis 1:26-28 (King James translation): “And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” “Dominion” is the translation of the Hebrew word radah, whose literal meaning is to tread down, or dominate, with the strong connotation of a ruler’s covenantal responsibilities. Dominion, as one scholar puts it, does not mean to exploit or destroy, but to exercise care and responsibility for God’s domain. In other words, the Bible explicitly directs humans to take care of the Earth. McKibben, a professor at Middlebury College, wrote the first wide-circulation book about the threat of climate change, The End of Nature (1989), and subsequently helped create the 350.org environmental organization. In Falter, he explains how shirking our responsibilities, especially over the past 40 years or so, has finally brought before us what you might metaphorically call the resulting wrath. In his reading, two kinds of human
irresponsibility have spawned conditions for apocalyptic catastrophe: disregard for our impact on the environment, and the hubris of developing artificial intelligence. McKibben’s early chapters rehearse some of the alarming scientific facts of climate change, including the destruction, now inevitable, of world shorelines and fisheries from rising, warming seas and of forests from increased drought, all directly due to the 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide we pour into the atmosphere every year. Outlining the virulent influence of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of egocentric greed, McKibben summarizes the history of oil companies in particular, perhaps the most egregiously irresponsible single group of human beings in the history of civilization. Their own scientists warned them in the 1970s that the CO2 emitted through fossil fuel burning threatened the environment. After studying the problem, the companies launched a full-scale disinformation campaign to gull the public and buy its politicians into believing there was no problem. Now we face the results of taking dominion without taking responsibility. Artificial intelligence and genetic engineering also pose existential threats. They are, in McKibben’s view, edging toward robbing humanity of its humanity, from the dangers of gene modification (whose precursor was Nazi
eugenics) to the massive uncertainty involved in creating self-motivated machines—whose personalities are based, after all, on humans and the inscrutable flaws that have already led us to the brink of environmental disaster. To be fair, the alarming pessimism of the first roughly two-thirds of Falter is balanced by an almost bubbling hopefulness in the last one-third. The technology—primarily solar—already exists to virtually eliminate the CO2 buildup, the most egregious problem of all, before it’s too late. But will we do it? “We can destroy,” McKibben says, “but also … we can decide not to destroy.” We live in the profoundest moral crisis in the history of civilization. And moral choices are and always have been precisely religion’s domain. The Bible itself invites us to consider: Does our dominion over the Earth mean we have license to destroy it for our own purposes, or does it mean we have the responsibility to tend and take care of it? Strange to say, despite the Swan’s Island lobsterman’s troubling innocence, it’s our decision. q Dana Wilde, a former editor and college professor, lives in Troy and writes the Backyard Naturalist and Off Radar columns for the centralmaine.com newspapers. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
Olive ages, and faces regret
New novel in series follows character to end of life Olive, Again
Elizabeth Strout
Review by Tina Cohen YOU’D NEED a good memory or having both books (in hardbound) to realize this: Elizabeth Strout’s collection of stories, Olive Kitteridge, published in 2008, featured a single green leaf. And on the cover of her newest, Olive, Again, falling leaves of red and orange bring us through time to the next season. It’s easy to imagine some symbolism: We met Olive Kitteridge in the “summer” of her years, and now we’ve come to “fall,” when days grow shorter and life slowly drains from the landscape. The Olive we catch up with here has entered her 80s. She still lives in Crosby, Maine, a fictional small town on the coast about an hour above Portland (like “Shirley Falls”) that Strout has made feel real. (Strout knows the area well; born in Portland, a home in Brunswick now.) This book picks up where the other ended, with a chapter describing Jack Kennison, a Crosby resident since retiring from teaching at Harvard. (Not only Jack, but many of Strout’s characters return, and while a familiarity with her books provides more con-
tinuity, Olive, Again can stand on its own.) We find Jack in a melancholy mood, drinking too much as a way to stave off troublesome memories. For Strout, that’s a paradox worth exploring: memories that provoke negative feelings could ultimately lead to something positive, if insight follows. Memories also dog Olive, of loss and regret. She is a widow living alone now; her son has moved away, putting emotional distance as well as miles between them. Her father had, much earlier in her life, killed himself and her mother was never close. Intimate relationships would seem to be a minefield, certain to hold danger and damage. Yet despite that, Olive moves forward, tentatively open to new connections. She retains her rough edges, her defenses—she can be blunt and disagreeable—but we see tenderness and empathy too. An earlier book is titled Anything Is Possible, and Olive herself could have said it. Calling a character “Olive” suggests something sour, salty. In Strout’s writing, names can hold great meaning. A character in this book, who grew up in Crosby and became the U.S. poet laureate, is named Andrea L’Rieux. In that last name, we hear “rue,” and one definition of “rue” is to regret, to feel remorse. As
well, rue is a perennial woody herb with bitter leaves, used medicinally. Remorse can leave us bitter, but Strout might add that it could also serve as catalyst to achieving something healthier. And we see how Olive evolves, better able to handle a wider range of feelings, ones previously avoided or denied, including regret, sorrow, anger, envy, and uncertainty. By the book’s end, Olive is living in a facility for the elderly. She ruminates on approaching death; she has a constant awareness of the effects of aging. Strout pictures her there: “Olive stood up slowly, leaning on her cane, and moved to her table. She sat down in her chair, put her glasses on, and put a new sheet of paper into the typewriter... she typed one sentence. Then she typed more. She pulled the sheet of paper out and placed it carefully on top of her pile of memories; the words she had just written reverberated in her head. I do not have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing.” Olive’s “pile of memories” may feel inconsequential to her, as if they don’t add up to any insight or meaning. Of course, there will be unexamined or unresolved realities that follow her to death, as for all of us. But despite Olive’s disavowal, ad-
dressing experience and putting it into words creates more than just a pile of memories. It can be therapeutic. This is a theme throughout Strout’s writing. In another of her books, when Lucy Barton was able to claim her selfidentity (hence the title My Name is Lucy Barton), it was a sign she had begun to heal. In Olive, Again, the book’s next to last sentence follows the excerpt above: “Olive stuck her cane to the ground and hoisted herself up.” Olive is heading out to supper with a friend. It’s an ending that could be seen as uplifting, and Olive might even agree. q Tina Cohen is a seasonal resident of Vinalhaven.
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
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A fully engaging read on half-modeling
The whys, hows, and more on this historic craft Half-Hull Modeling: Step-bystep companion, from plans to finished model Greg Rossel
Review by David D. Platt
WE’VE ALL ADMIRED half-hull models of ships and small boats. Some of us have wondered why and for whom they were made. Still fewer of us have asked how this seemingly arcane craft is practiced—how to transform a flat image, a set of plans, into a threedimensional scale model. Greg Rossel, an experienced boatbuilder, WoodenBoat School instructor, author, and half-model maker, has now written a book answering all of these questions and more: why boatbuilders traditionally relied on halfmodels, how to make them, and why a half-model is relevant even in the age of computer-assisted design. He tackles the simplest question first: why a half- instead of a whole- hull model? “Because the vessel (in most cases) is intended to be symmetrical (i.e. the port side is a mirror image of the starboard), one side would be all the builder would need,” Rossel states in his introduction, adding, “…not only would the model provide the yard loftsman all the information necessary to develop the patterns for the backbone and frames, but it also gave clients their
first look at their new vessel.” It’s the latter thought that gets to the heart of the matter. While a good set of paper plans may represent a design pretty well, it can miss what a boat will actually look like in three dimensions. The differences between flat and three-dimensional representations are a recurring theme here. At one point, in fact, Rossel notes that naval architects sometimes distort a boat’s sheer to make it look “right” even if not quite accurate. “So what’s the deal,” he asks. “Why would a designer intentionally do this? Probably for sales … building a model that is built accurately to the lines is probably the easiest way (for the customer) to see what you are getting for a sheer.” But if calling attention to distortion and possible designer hype is a role for a half-model, it isn’t the only one. Before computers, half-models were the natural way to transform flat representations into actual hull shapes. Conversely, a builder taking lines off an already-built boat can—using a system Rossel describes in detail—create a model, flat plans, or full-sized sections for building a reproduction. As a how-to book, Half-Hull Modeling doesn’t disappoint. Early on, Rossel dives into tools, woods, glues, and other aspects of creating a half-hull. There are plenty of photos and drawings to help those of us who can’t picture things. Rossel really shines as a writer at
such points, as for instance cutting the model’s sheerline: “Approach with caution—especially as you’ll be cutting through the thickest part of the model. Also remember those screws … that should be short enough that the saw won’t cut through them? I always treat them as though they are an inch longer.” From bandsaw work we move on to sculpture: using yet another jig to secure what can be an unwieldy object to the workbench, plus templates glued to card stock, the model-maker works the glued-up shape into something increasingly resembling a hull. It’s a process of planing, spokeshaving, rasping, and occasionally gouging until the templates fit their stations accurately. Finally, Rossel writes in his usual engaging fashion, “it’s time to break out the fingernail emery (salon) boards … these boards can be purchased in cosmetic stores and finer drugstores. The purchasing experience is somewhat different from going to the hardware store, but the sandpaper grades are the same. And they are often colorfully decorated.” There are discussions of decks, rudders, finishes, the use of contrasting woods, and even backboards for mounting half-hulls for display. Speaking of display, Rossel is candid about one modern-day reason to admire, carve or own a half-model: “For many, the best reason for building a half model is simply to have an ac-
curate, well-crafted rendition of their boat or one that they have admired… to hang on the living room wall.” Rossel ends with a chapter on reverseengineering: taking the lines from halfmodels and converting them into flat drawings, using a system devised in the 1930s by Bertram S. Booth. “For today’s home builder, designer, modelmaker or historian, Mr. Booth’s straightforward measuring machine is hard to beat,” Rossel asserts. “It employs no micro-chips, costs little, is cordless, and works every time. Further details on half-model building, Booth’s machine, and the many other topics associated with this craft? Read the book—there’s plenty of good humor as well as good writing. q David D. Platt is former editor of The Working Waterfront. This review originally appeared in the November/December 2019 issue of WoodenBoat magazine.
Giving voice to climate change emotions Collection gathers personal responses from Maine writers
A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis
Meghan Sterling, Kathleen Sullivan, eds.
Review by Dana Wilde “NO ONE wants to see disaster coming, but those who look, do,” David Wallace-Wells says in his chilling book about climate change, The Uninhabitable Earth. Wallace-Wells, a self-described climate “alarmist,” offers a journalist’s literately assembled facts and harrowing, all-too-accurateseeming analyses about our worldwide disaster in the making. But what do our artists and poets make of it? A Dangerous New World offers some responses from Maine, and elsewhere. The idea for the book was born, editor Meghan Sterling tells us, when she
attended a poetry reading where “the timbre of (Kathleen Sullivan’s) voice matched the timbre in my heart,” concerning climate change. So she suggested the two collaborate on an anthology. The product is a large-format book containing personal statements, including a foreword by Maine Gov. Janet Mills, about the experience of living on the edge of the dizzying cliff that our technological culture is poised to fall off. Where science and journalism like Wallace-Wells’s provide facts and analysis for the rational brain, art and poetry should open access to the emotional, moral, and spiritual effects of those outer realities. The entries in A Dangerous New World are, if not always evocations of feeling, at least statements about the feelings that go with seeing a climate disaster coming. Grief, indignation, anger, nostalgia, hope, and (the editors emphasize) love are some of the principal emotions mentioned, implied, and invoked here. Among quite a number of personal prose statements written predominantly by women, Caitlin Shetterly’s “Finding Grace in Dark Times” and Hannah Carver’s “Beals Island” seem particularly well-grounded and wellinformed on their topics. Shetterly seamlessly connects her personal experience of gardening and parenting with her sense of how to cope with the horrifying facts of climate change: “It is in the human desire ‘to make the
world more beautiful’ … that a truly transcendent beauty comes,” she says, altogether authentically and affectively. Similarly for Carver’s firsthand account of what’s being lost from Maine fishing communities. She weaves together her own story of growing up Downeast with facts about alarming changes already happening along the shore. The future, she says, “terrifies me and other fishermen. Fishing is not a hobby or just a job in our communities. It is a way of life, a heritage. … If we don’t act we are going to lose that heritage.” Heartfelt, urgent, evocative prose. Some of the poetry in the anthology is blunt to even obtuse, but gems include Marcia F. Brown’s “News of the World,” a deft rendition of the ominous ways events in the outer world infuse and infect the inner psyche, and Jacqueline Moore’s “Last Day in Eden,” about the flight of a hummingbird who takes its “last long sip of soul … / before the slash-burn-slash/turns everythig living/into wasteland.” The book’s middle section comprises color reproductions of visual artworks. As with some of the poems, some of the pieces are clearly targeted to the theme of climate change, while others are not, but instead attach the topic to each work through artists’ statements. Jean Pollard of Winslow offers (in addition to a short poem) “Gaia #14,” an image of a bright blue Earth floating in a cos-
mos of ghostly bugs, birds, and other creatures, clearly a call to recognize the fragility and diversity of planet Earth. “Ilex laevigata (male and female)” by Rebecca Goodale of Freeport is a 3Dpanels drawing of smooth winterberry bushes whose connection to climate change is not obvious, but the image is sweetly, strikingly presented. You can connect it rationally to climate change if you choose to, but its simple beauty is the real point. Similarly for “The Burn,” by Robin Gleason, now of the West Coast, a blacklines drawing of a burn scape in British Columbia, and Betty Schopmeyer’s “Forest Pool,” a haunting image of bare winter trees recognizable to anyone, from Thoreau forward, who feels kinships with the Maine woods. Both struck my heart rather than my thoughts about climate change. One connection you might attach, I suppose, is that you would feel lost if these universal images were lost to global warming. If you are looking, and can see the disaster that’s coming—either somewhat disruptively or catastrophically—then climate change is somewhere between a concern and the brink of panic for you. “By supporting this literary endeavor,” editor Sterling says, “we hope you feel less separate from what’s happening and find power and voice in this truth: there is great love at work in the world.” Good luck to us all. q
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
Our Island Communities Swan’s Island memories
Photographer Tom Hindman shares work from late 1970s, 1980s
Christmas Day, 1980.
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om Hindman lived on Swan’s Island from the late 1970s through the 1980s. He and his wife Diann owned and operated the Hindman’s Harborside Cash store on the island, beginning in 1978, while Tom continued to shoot for local newspapers and magazines. He later became photo editor for the Bar Harbor Times, then joined the Bangor Daily News as a staff photographer. He left Maine in 1992 to join the Charleston Daily Mail in Charleston, West Virginia, his home state, and spent the next 25 years there. These photographs represent recent editing work on his archives from his work on Swan’s Island. These and other photographs will be exhibited this summer by the Swan’s Island Historical Society, August 2-4 at the Odd Fellows Hall, with the prints donated to the organization.
Storm-driven waves crash into the shore below Burnt Coat Lighthouse.
Lenora Wheaton records voter information at town meeting.
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
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John Martin, Bud Staples, and Elsie Gillespie chat around the woodstove at the annual town meeting.
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
A play about poets
PHOTO ESSAY BY LESLIE BOWMAN
Dear Elizabeth staged in Eastport
The play’s opening scene, with Brian Schuth as Robert Lowell and Jenie M. Smith playing Elizabeth Bishop.
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tage East and the Magnificent Liars staged Sarah Ruhl’s the play Dear Elizabeth Feb. 14, 16, 21, 22, and 23 at the Eastport Arts Center, starring Brian Schuth and Jenie M. Smith as the poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. The production was directed by Mark Macey, an Island Fellow through the Island Institute (publisher of The Working Waterfront) who is working with Stage East and the Eastport Arts Center. The play chronicles their friendship between 1947 and 1977, and is composed entirely of excerpts from their published letters. The pair corresponded from various places in the U.S. and South America, including from North Haven, where Bishop (1911-1979) lived for a time. Bishop won the Pulitzer prize for poetry in 1956. Lowell (1917-1977) wrote and dedicated his poem “Skunk Hour” to Bishop, which was drafted during a stay in Castine in the summer of 1957. Bishop wrote an elegy on Lowell’s unexpected death in 1977, “North Haven: In memoriam: Robert Lowell.”
A tense moment between Lowell and Bishop.
The audience begins to arrive.
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
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The production’s lighting crew, Kim Vogel and Don Bailey.
Buying tickets.
Mark Macey, the director (and an Island Institute Island Fellow), works on lighting.
Elizabeth Bishop prepares to leave for Brazil, as Robert Lowell looks on.
Joan Lowden provides musical accompaniment.
The actors enjoy their curtain call.
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
Stranded: Alaskan islanders see sharp cuts to ferry service
Maintenance problems, funding decreases contribute to reduction
The Matanuska is designed to carry 450 passengers and has a vehicle capacity of approximately 83, 20-foot vehicles. There are 21 three-berth, 5 four-berth, and 79 two-berth cabins, as well as 1 wheelchair-accessible cabin
Story and photo by Ari Snider
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ven under normal circumstances, getting to and from Tenakee Springs, a small island town in Southeast Alaska, is no cakewalk. Alaska Seaplanes flies twice daily to Juneau, the capital city, but that’ll run you upwards of $300 roundtrip, and storms can ground planes for days or even weeks. You could make the run to Juneau in your own boat if it’s sturdy enough and the seas aren’t too high, but that’s a crapshoot, especially in the winter. That’s why residents rely almost exclusively on the ferry as the most affordable and dependable way of moving people and freight. That is, until the ferries stopped running. Tenakee Springs, like dozens of isolated towns sprinkled along Alaska’s sprawling coastline, is bearing the brunt of budget cuts and mechanical failures that effectively shut down winter ferry service. Tenakee hasn’t seen a ferry since October, and some residents are wondering how long they can hold on without a crucial link to the outside world. “The discussion as a family is that we will stay as long as we can stay,” said Nikita Chase, a Tenakee resident. Like many islanders, she wears a lot of hats: city councilor, EMS team member, school groundskeeper, domestic violence prevention advocate. She’s also a single mother of nine children, four of whom are still at home, and so has a lot of mouths to feed. Buying all her groceries at the small store in town is too expensive, so, like many residents, she used to take the ferry—five or more hours each way and an overnight stay in Juneau—to stock up on bulk goods. Since October, though, she’s had to charter floatplanes to bring in enough food to feed her family. That pushes the price of a shopping trip well over $1,000, before accounting for the price of groceries. “We have to cut back on some of the things that the kids would like to have,” she said. “We’ve had to cut back on buying more clothing, buying more shoes, everything has to be budgeted down to the bare minimum.” The Alaska Marine Highway System is not your average water taxi service. Like so many things in the 49th state, the network is remarkable for its immense scale—a jaw-dropping 3,500 miles end-toend, from Bellingham, Wash., to Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. That’s the equivalent distance of sailing from New York to London. No single boat runs the full length at once; rath-
er, the coast is divided up into service regions, with some of the larger ships running longer routes between them. The ferries serve more than 30 towns, most of which have no overland access to the rest of the state. The vessels themselves vary in size, from the 180-foot open-deck shuttle Lituya to the 400-foot mainliner Columbia, capable of transporting 500 passengers and more than 130 vehicles. The ferry system has been around since 1963, and many of its ships are just as old, leading to frequent maintenance issues. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, when it comes to the current challenges—state funding has been declining for the last few years, and poor management decisions led to some costly blunders, like ships configured to only work with certain docks. The knockout blow, however, came last spring when the legislature slashed the ferry budget by 46 percent, the price of avoiding a system-wide shutdown proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. The “blue canoe,” as the ferries are sometimes called, sailed into the winter with a barebones schedule, leaving some communities fully cutoff until the spring.
ONE BOAT OF TWELVE Things got worse from there. Unexpected mechanical failures sidelined one vessel after another, stranding more and more communities. By February, only one of 12 ships was still operational, serving just two towns. One Tenakee Springs resident captured the mood of many coastal and island communities in an email to KCAW public radio in Sitka, where I’m a reporter, writing: “Up the proverbial shit creek without a proverbial paddle we are.” The ferry stoppage has hit predominantly Native communities with particular force. The Southeast towns of Angoon and Hoonah, for example, saw food supplies dwindle and grocery store shelves run bare as the stoppage dragged on. Things got so bad that by February larger towns started organizing food drives—running emergency relief into the towns on fishing boats. Eventually, the state chartered a private tour company to make limited passenger runs as a stopgap measure. There is some relief on the horizon for Angoon and Hoonah, with intermittent ferry service expected to resume in March, but that has done little to quell fears over the long term reliability for this critical link to the outside world.
The cuts to the ferry system came along with a range of budget reductions, as Dunleavy sought to curtail spending on state services. Department of Transportation Commissioner John MacKinnon said that while the administration is not happy about the breakdown in service, he stands by what he calls the original purpose of the cuts. “The purpose of those cuts was to start a conversation among policymakers and the public of how much we can afford, what is the right amount to subsidize, what is the right amount to invest in the system,” MacKinnon said. MacKinnon said DOT has to consider the transport needs of the entire state—not just coastal communities—and determine how much support the ferry system should receive. “The ferry system we were operating was collecting 35 percent of the cost of a ticket through the farebox— heavily subsidized,” MacKinnon said. “These 35 communities were getting a benefit that hundreds of other communities throughout the state were not getting.” DOT is providing alternative transportation options in certain cases, including two passenger runs in late February and early March connecting Tenakee Springs and a few other towns back to Juneau, though as of this writing it’s unclear whether chartered trips will become a regular thing. Meanwhile, both the governor and the legislature have moved to boost ferry funding to restore basic service and cover unanticipated repair costs. The governor also appointed a nine-person advisory board, tasked with coming up with a set of recommendations by late September. Tenakee Springs, however, will likely have to wait even longer. The town was left off the summer schedule, and its aging dock is being replaced starting in July, a project that won’t be complete until December at the earliest. Faced with this uncertainty, some residents have already moved away. Nikita Chase, the single mother who has resorted to chartering floatplanes for groceries, hopes it doesn’t come to that. “We have looked into moving to other areas,” she said. “But really this is our home and we will fight to stay here till we can’t.” q Ari Snider is a native of Belfast, but has been working in Alaska since graduating from college.
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
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Lobster marketing in the age of coronavirus
Collaborative continues to push awareness for industry
Marianne LaCroix is executive director of the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative.
Story and photo by Laurie Schreiber
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he Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative has been developing public relations strategies that relay the Maine lobster industry’s commitment to protecting the endangered North Atlantic right whale. Now it’s monitoring potential impacts of the coronavirus on the industry. “It’s affecting industries across the board,” said Marianne LaCroix, the collaborative’s executive di-
rector, at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum on March 6. “In the U.S., people are still going out to eat. Most of our marketing is in the U.S. We’re trying to wait and see how the situation unfolds.” Annie Tselikis, executive director of the Maine Lobster DealersAssociation, echoed the wait-andsee view: “Everyone in the seafood industry is talking about this right now.” Tselikis predicted the coronavirus would impact overseas lobster markets, given cancellations and reductions of flights to China, South Korea, and northern Italy. “It’s having a dire impact, from shrimp to salmon to lobster,” she said. “People are feeling sensitivity to this issue and we’ll see an effect on the market for sure. What that’s going to look like is yet to be determined. But we all should be thinking about this.” Public relations around right whales is also paramount, LaCroix said. “We want to make sure people know that the industry is interested in protecting right whales,” she said. A media audit found that the words “Maine” and “lobster” are getting a small share of exposure in the overall conversation about right whales, she said. “It’s not getting much national attention,” she said. In order to promote Maine’s perspective, the collaborative in 2019 put together an overview of measures the industry has taken over the past 20 years to protect right whales, including the latest measures to require Maine-specific gear-marking. Plans are in the works to produce an op-ed on the fishery perspective and working with national influencers to make sure Maine’s lobster industry is getting its message out, she said. “We want to make sure we assert Maine’s leadership position and make sure people know we’re being collaborative,” LaCroix said.
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In general, the collaborative is building on chef and media partnerships to broadcast the message of Maine lobster as a premium and sustainable product. New initiatives are in the works in 2020 to build on existing strategies targeting the U.S. as a potential growth market. Messaging campaigns initially targeted to chefs and consumers have expanded over the past year to others in the supply chain, including distributors and wholesalers, she said. The collaborative’s promotional initiatives were disrupted in March: It was scheduled to have a live panel at Seafood Expo North America in Boston, which was postponed due to concerns around coronavirus. Instead, the collaborative will develop digital handouts and is considering doing a panelist webinar for the industry, she said. One key marketing strategy is a new buyers guide to share information on how lobster is caught, processed, packaged, and cooked. New video content and webinars are in the works, along with partnerships with trade outlets such as SeafoodSource and Nation’s Restaurant News, to reach chefs and other buyers. In the coming month, the collaborative will launch a digital newsletter and education program for its growing list of potential buyers. Partnerships with retail groceries will provide consumer education, and the collaborative has reached out to food groups such as Chicago-based restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, Midwest seafood and specialty foods distributor Fortune Fish & Gourmet, and Florida-based supermarket chain Publix. The initiatives build on the collaborative’s ongoing social media and public relations programs that are active year-round, said LaCroix. q
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
Bass Harbor Light will be transferred to NPS Property and buildings will be studied for possible new uses
Bass Harbor Light as seen from the water.
PHOTO: TOM GROENING
By Laurie Schreiber
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lans are in the works to transfer jurisdiction of the Bass Harbor Light Station from the U.S. Coast Guard to the National Park Service. The plan would include a provision that allows the Coast Guard to continue to access the light and maintain the mechanical connections for it to continue as an aid to navigation, said Acadia National Park Management Assistant John Kelly. The proposed transfer was initiated by the Coast Guard. “They make a determination whether they want to retain property or not,” Kelly said.
“It’s the fifth most visited destination in the park…” The two agencies began conversing in 2017. The transfer process is guided by the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. The Coast Guard has been working toward divesting lighthouses for many years, said Kelly. The property, which is already within Acadia National Park’s boundary, consists of 2.5 acres of land and six buildings—the light tower, keeper’s house, bell house, oil house, barn, and generator building. There’s also a 130-foot lattice communications tower. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988, the 26-foot-high light tower and keeper’s house were built in 1858. The bell house was built in 1876, the oil house in 1902, and the barn in 1905. According to the National Register listing, the light station was established during a period of increased effort by the federal government to provide aids to navigation along the coast. Its location was designed to aid vessels coming in to Bass Harbor. The station was automated in 1974.
Preserving the historic buildings is NPS’s highest priority, Kelly said. “Our first steps would be doing a comprehensive conditions assessment toward documenting the history of the building and the condition of the historic fabric,” he said. That would be followed by a process called a value analysis that looks at the cost/benefit of investment options while staying aligned with the goal to preserve the station for public enjoyment. However, an NPS study of the condition of the structures can’t be performed until the transfer is complete. The NPS will also look at options for reusing the buildings. “We have not gone through the process of deciding what those uses will be,” he said. However, he added the goal is to improve visitor access and understanding of the light station. Some ideas include exhibits or a retail shop. There might be some interim uses that involve using the house for short-term or vacation rentals or, at least temporarily, as park housing. The communications tower and the generator building are not historic and the NPS plans to remove them once the transfer is complete, said Kelly. Acadia has two other lighthouses under its jurisdiction, on Baker Island and Bear Island off Mount Desert Island. “Baker Island is under a lease without public access, and it’s remote and not easily accessed,” Kelly noted. “Bass Harbor Head Light is already a hugely popular destination. It’s the fifth most visited destination in the park, in fact, after Sieur de Monts, Jordan Pond, Cadillac Mountain, and Sand Beach.”
The Coast Guard doesn’t actually own the property, and neither will NPS. Properties under the jurisdiction of federal agencies are owned by the U.S. government. The agencies will transfer administrative jurisdiction. The transfer, which has been three years in the works, also involves the U.S. General Services Administration, which supports basic functions of federal agencies. It’s uncertain when the transfer will be completed. “We’re cautiously waiting for the Coast Guard to finish its work,” he said. “The one thing the National Park Service needed to do was an environmental site assessment to ensure we’re not inheriting any hazardous contamination. We’ve completed that study. The property is clean and acceptable for us to take that jurisdiction when the Coast Guard is ready to sign it over. We’re hoping that will happen this spring.” q
Bass Harbor Light.
PHOTO: LAURIE SCHREIBER
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
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Salmon listing didn’t cause sky to fall, but species still struggling Atlantic salmon face threats in warming oceans By Catherine Schmitt
T
wenty years have passed since Atlantic salmon became certified as an endangered species, according to federal law. Ed Baum was a salmon biologist with the state at the time— and is now retired—and he remembers the moment well. He remembers other moments, too, like the power of a 28-pound male Machias River salmon undulating in his hands, and the fly-fishing anglers who provided data on salmon, and the pomp and circumstance of delivering the first-caught salmon to the President of the United States. He can also recall the chaos of the process that culminated with Atlantic salmon’s placement on the Endangered Species List. Two decades later, salmon are still here, as is every industry that feared economic impact from an endangered status. “Washington County did not dry up and fall into the sea as the state proposed it would with the listing,” said Baum, speaking at the biennial Atlantic Salmon and Their Ecosystems Forum, held in January at the University of Maine. “The sky did not fall,” agreed Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation. In fact, Shaw said, he believes “the clouds parted and the sun began to shine again.” Maine’s salmon rivers are in the best condition in more than a century, and salmon populations were up in 2019 over recent years, though still near historic lows. Shaw’s group counted 61 salmon redds (nests) in the Machias River in 2019, the most in decades, which Shaw credited to his organization’s hatchery methods that more closely resemble conditions salmon experience in the wild. Supplementing wild populations with hatcheryraised fish has prevented abrupt extinction, but not the slow degradation of Maine salmon populations, said Joseph Zydlewski, a fish biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and UMaine. Federal hatcheries (at Craig Brook and Green Lake) emphasize conservation, not production, and are dedicated to maintaining genetic diversity. Through tagging and monitoring fish, and sophisticated “mate matcher” computer programs, biologists attempt to optimize diversity when spawning and raising fish. They’ve also changed their techniques. “We’ve gone from stocking more fish in more places to stocking better fish in better places,” said Ernie Atkinson of the Maine Department of Marine Resources. This includes stocking more fish as eggs, based on data that show the more time young salmon spend in the natural environment, the stronger and healthier they become. Salmon are doing better in freshwater but worse in salt water. Their life strategy, evolved over eons, of spending their early years in predator-free rivers and then growing to adults in the food-rich ocean, has become more and more risky. Atlantic salmon from all North American and European rivers spend their adult lives in the North Atlantic, in the Labrador Sea and off the coast of Greenland, and nearly all populations are in decline. “A bad year at sea is going to wash out any tangible results we might see in freshwater,” said John Kocik of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center. “The North Atlantic is unable to support Atlantic salmon at historic levels,” said Tim Sheehan, also of NOAA. Sheehan reviewed research that links declines in salmon to changing temperature and ocean food webs. “It’s not rosy,” he admitted. The part of the ocean that salmon rely on is one of the fastest warming regions in the world. As waters
have warmed, salmon have shifted north, and now inhabit rivers that used to be home only to Arctic char. But there’s only so far north they can go. “We’ll never make up for the habitat we’re losing,” said Martha Jean Robertson of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. According to Kathy Mills of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, as winter ends earlier in the ocean, salmon are returning to rivers sooner (on average about 2.5 days), which means, maybe, they are not going through a last burst of marine growth before making the journey, and so are less prepared. Making their return to Maine rivers as easy as possible is a major focus for many agencies and organizations. With so little control over what happens in the ocean, salmon scientists seem to be doubling down, fervently, on restoring river habitat. “We know what they need in freshwater, we know how to manage them,” said Sheehan. A rough estimate by Erik Martin of The Nature Conservancy confirmed that the majority of Maine rivers still have barriers that block fish migration. “There’s been a dramatic loss of connectivity,” he said. The Penobscot Nation and conservation partners removed two major dams on the Penobscot River, but remaining dams continue to delay adult salmon attempting to get upstream to spawn, said Joseph Zydlewski. “Nowhere in the world will you find a self-sustaining salmon run above three dams,” said Andy Goode of the Atlantic Salmon Federation. “Stocking fish into unsuitable habitat and hoping marine survival improves is not a proactive recovery strategy,” Steven Koenig. Through Project SHARE, and working with private landowners, Koenig has worked for decades to make Downeast rivers more suitable. In the Narraguagus River, for example, 99 percent of the upper watershed is now free-flowing, and 55 salmon redds were documented in 2019, another record high number. At the forum, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service announced a $30 million project with the Passamaquoddy Tribe and state fish and wildlife agencies to improve connectivity in Bay of Fundy watersheds including the St. Croix, Pennamaquan, and Dennys rivers. Despite all the good news, an undercurrent of climate anxiety flowed through the meeting, along with a recognition that status quo management will not bring salmon back from the brink of extinction. Hence the project announced last year to restore 5,000 native salmon, raised to adults in ocean net pens, to the East Branch Penobscot River. And the tentative discussion of “genetic rescue,” combining populations for hybrid vigor. And questions about how to broaden the community to include more landowners taking restoration action, and more advocates. “Fish need voices,” said Goode. The Native Fish Coalition distributed postcards at the forum asking the question, “Why are Atlantic salmon not listed as endangered by the State of Maine?” No one present seemed to have an answer. “Atlantic salmon aren’t just federally endangered, they’re critically endangered. To imply anything else is misleading and not in anyone’s best interest, especially the salmon,” said NFC vicchairman Bob Mallard. “The Endangered Species Act determined that when species need us, we shall go to their aid,” wrote Carl Safina in a recent article. “It says that we, the people, don’t let species go extinct, that this is who we are.” According to Safina, we should stop claiming that people need nature to survive, when the truth is the opposite. What was clear at the January forum is that endangered Atlantic salmon need people, more than ever, for their future survival. q
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
Observer
Lost in translation: an international incident There’s a reason people don’t woo women in German
By Phil Crossman IN AUGUST OF 1964 I was stationed on the carrier USS Saratoga in the Mediterranean. A buddy and I took a few days leave and hitchhiked up the coast of Italy from Naples to the Riviera. We started out with a jug of Chardonnay, a big jug—the kind you balance on your shoulder to drink from, several baguettes in a backpacklike device as if they were a quiver of arrows, and lots of brie, all of which we refreshed as opportunities presented themselves, which they did regularly, along the way. We were in uniform and got rides readily enough from all sorts of friendly Italians, most of whom spoke at least a little English. In La Spezia we opted for greater luxury and hopped a train to the Riviera. We disembarked on the coast in France, walked all the way across Monaco, just so we could say we walked all the way across an
entire country, continued by train to Nice and Cannes, spent a couple of days in the area and returned to Italy. We stopped in Sanremo, taking a room in a hotel there on the beach. It was littered with lovely brown bodies; the sun was shining; it was warm and comfortable, and we still had several days of leave left. We lay on the sand, in shorts we purchased in town, but
dermis to the Mediterranean sun than any of my fellow sun-bathers had certainly ever seen. One of those was a young woman who, I having overheard her conversation with friends, I knew to be German. I’d taken German in high school from Ray Sennett and decided I could cobble enough together to constitute an invitation to dinner, perhaps with someone who could help
One afternoon, I was reclined and exposing more pale Vinalhaven epidermis to the Mediterranean sun… kept our Navy caps on so everyone would know we were Americans. On the first night we went to town, we took a table at an upscale restaurant and I ordered the only steak dish I saw: Tartare. When a plate of raw beef with a soft poached egg on top arrived, I was at a loss. One afternoon, I was reclined and exposing more pale Vinalhaven epi-
me with a menu selection. After discussing it with a comrade who also spoke a little German, I composed and memorized what I thought was a sweet proposition, an invitation to join me for dinner at a place in town. I was not initially confident that I could make myself and my intentions perfectly clear and so went out of my way to compose a few lines that I thought
accomplished that. I wrapped my towel around my shoulders and sauntered over to where she and her scantily clad girlfriends lay enjoying the sun. “Excusez-moi,” I interrupted inexplicably in French. “Kommen Sie mit einen auf das badezimmer, bitte, und stehen Sie auf uber der mit ein papierbogen. Habe Sie nicht zu klug?” The degree to which she found my invitation more appalling than appealing was manifest in the speed with which she and her friends fled the beach and me for, presumably, safer ground. It seems that instead of inviting her to dinner, I’d—not very well, but clear to her—suggested she accompany me to the bathroom. And rather than trying to make it clear that I intended to pay for our evening together, I asked her to stand up against the wall and hold a piece of paper. Finally, instead of asking if she did not find my proposal appealing I instead asked if she was stupid, which she clearly wasn’t, given the speed with which she abandoned me. q Phil Crossman lives on Vinalhaven and is daily grateful for his marriage to Elaine.
Journal of an Island Kitchen
Good reasons to eat (and live) on an island Take out, eat out options are few and far between
By Sandy Oliver RECENTLY, three days spent on the mainland prompted ponderings about what it would be like to live and eat there. For 30-something years now, I’ve eaten three meals a day on-island, the vast majority of them home-cooked by myself, or friends and neighbors. The exceptions are a handful of restaurant meals, some at a place no longer in existence; the occasional one at a local café; or a catered meal once in a blue moon at a wedding or reception; and take-out pizza. Even bean suppers at the Mason’s Hall count as homecooked food. So on my mainland trip, I had a couple of meals out and prowled grocery stores hunting down provisions, realizing how easy it is to find food there. Food is ubiquitous: not just restaurants and donut shops, but in drug stores, gas stations, and even Reny’s. Closed now until summer, snack shacks, hot dog or lobster roll stands and their ilk appear, scattered across the landscape like glacier-dropped boulders. In settled areas, one passes an opportunity to eat every few seconds. Not so on island. This time of year, two grocery stores and the Community Center café are
all we have offering grub. In summer, add a sandwich and ice cream shop, and a take-out stand at the ferry. Weekly, year-round on Thursday, the local church offers lunch to all comers. Aside from pop-up chances like bean suppers, potlucks, or the Sporting Club’s burger nights, or their famous steak and fried clam dinners, fundraising dinners for class trips, and the Community Center’s offerings— all occasional, we are on our own for breakfast, lunch, and supper. It’s probably a good thing, at least
ery one, in a sitting and half. But since they come with the sandwich, well, you know, you can’t let food go to waste. (It went to waist instead.) So you can just imagine what it would be like if this happened more than six or seven times a year. In fact, my practice when eating out is to order only things I would never go to the trouble to make for myself at home. The exception is exotic salads. On this trip, I had a really wonderful spinach, shaved brussels sprouts, dried cranberries, and blue-cheese salad
My practice when eating out is to order only things I would never go to the trouble to make for myself… for me. See, I love calamari and fried clams, and would never make them for myself at home, so when I eat out, sure enough, there’s a pile of fried food before me. During my mainland stay fish tacos sounded awfully good, and three fat chunks of fried haddock nestled into flour tortillas appeared. A turkey, cheese, avocado, and bacon sandwich really appealed, and came with a pile of potato chips. Now I’ve never met a potato chip that I didn’t love, but I don’t buy a bag full very often because I’d eat them, ev-
which fortunately inspired me to assemble a grand salad of my own when I got home. Overall, I pondered what it would be like to bail on meal prep and eat out instead. Sure, there are nights when I don’t feel like cooking. That’s when leftovers are handy, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If I have an evening alone, a rarity, I indulge in a Single Woman’s Dinner: a glass of wine and a bowl of popcorn. On the mainland though, there are all these wonderful opportunities:
imagine being able to take out top notch Thai food almost any time? Or a lobster roll without the mess from boiling and picking out lobster? I’d be broke, so island-eating is a money saver. Or what if you could dash to the store until late in an evening if you lacked an ingredient or felt bored? Out here we have to make that calculation before closing time, and don’t think for a minute you can make a last-minute decision about pizza either. We live in plan-ahead land. So islanders are magnificently well organized or else (well, maybe some of us aren’t). It is an excellent discipline. Lacking ingredients and possibly disinclined to dash to the store means we are adept at ingredient substitutions and flexible in cookery, wonderful strategies for sustainable living. So you can certainly eat take out on Islesboro and indulge urges. At the Island Market there are all of Looney’s Luscious this and that’s, but I have to get in my car and drive “all-the-waydown-island” and blow the best part of a half hour. Durkee’s has ice cream (and liquor.) But I don’t get the ice cream urge usually until about 8 p.m., two hours after Richard closes. Those are the saving graces of island limits. q Sandy Oliver is a food historian who writes, gardens, and cooks on Islesboro.
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
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COA grad leads expedition to find Amelia Earhart Allison Fundis: from College of the Atlantic to student of all seas
Allison Fundis is a 2003 College of the Atlantic graduate who has gone on to lead deep-sea expeditions around the world. PHOTO: LAURIE SCHREIBER
By Laurie Schreiber
O
cean explorer Allison Fundis has seen many amazing things on her journeys to the depths of the sea. Thousands of octopuses brooding along the warm-water vents of submarine volcanic systems. Rare Deepstaria jellyfish billowing like translucent ghosts, and weird gulper eels with mouths larger than their bodies. Giant tubeworms growing in clusters along hydrothermal vents off the Galapagos. Small bobtail squids with giant eyes, seeming to stare into nothingness. Then there are the archeological finds, like the rusting hulk of the USS Independence, used after World War II as a target during atomic bomb tests and then scuttled off California. “But there was no record of exactly where,” Fundis told a packed house during a talk in February at her alma mater, College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. “So we went to look for it. Now it’s a remarkable sponge habitat.”
ROV Hercules deployed off Nikumaroro Island. PHOTO: COURTESY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Fundis, a 2003 COA graduate, is chief operating signals picked up at the time of the plane’s disappearance officer for Ocean Exploration Trust, a nonprofit triangulated to Nikumaroro. A jar of freckle cream was founded by famed oceanographer Robert Ballard, found on the island; Earhart was known to use the cream. who discovered the Titanic. Fundis leads teams of The expedition had two primary search areas, focused scientists, engineers, educators, and communica- on the landing gear image and the jar discovery. tors to conduct annual missions aboard the 211“We looked at theories about the plane sinking there,” foot exploration vessel Nautilus. she said. “We created a map, mounted GoPros on the Since 2006, she has led or participated in over ROV, and mapped the perimeter. We also sent up drones 50 expeditions utilizing deep-sea technologies and for visual surveys. With the water clarity, we would have submersibles in the Eastern, North, and South seen the sunken plane.” Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of California, In the end, she said, the team failed to find further evidence. Caribbean Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. She “We have a very good idea now of where she is not,” leads the development and management of the or- Fundis said. ganization’s ocean exploration and outreach activiUpcoming projects, she said, include mapping seafloor ties, conducted both on board the ship and through proposed as mining locations, in order to inform manlive video, audio, and data feeds from the field. agement decisions. Since 2013 it has mapped over half a million Expeditions involve being at sea for five to eight months. square kilometers of the sea floor, using high“We run 24/7,” she said. “It’s nonstop.” frequency, high-resolution sonar that generates Although sleep might be in short supply, the ship is comfinely detailed images. Remotely operated robotic fortable and the food is good. Most of all, the people are great. vehicles equipped with high-definition cameras “It’s a small community,” she said. “You get to know provide sampling capabilities. each other and you’re there on this island in the middle The organization works with numerous re- of the ocean.” q search partners. For example, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory used the ship to test a new tool on the sea floor, as a proxy for planetary exploration. One of her most intriguing expeditions, Fundis said, was the month-long search in 2019 for Amelia Earhart’s plane. Conducted in partnership with National Geographic Partners and National Geographic Society and the subject of a National Geographic documentary released in October 2019, “Expedition Amelia” followed clues unearthed by The International Group for Historic AirE/V Nautilus off Nikumaroro Island. PHOTO: COURTESY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC craft Recovery (TIGHAR), a Pennsylvania nonprofit that has been exploring the disappearance of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, during their 1937 attempt to circumnavJonesport Shipyard provides meticulous, experienced maintenance igate the globe. and repair. Storage is convenient, affordable and secure. On one of the last legs, Earhart and Noonan • Expert Repair were due to land on tiny Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean, where an airstrip had been built for • Wood & Fiberglass her plane and a U.S. Coast Guard ship was stand• Haulout/Storage ing by with fuel. • Moorings “This was hardest leg,” said Fundis. “One minor • DIY Space error would kick them off course.” • Showers/Laundry SV Pisces, one of very few 1928 Atlantic 30s The Coast Guard heard Earhart broadcasting but never saw the plane. • Coveside Cottage still sailing, is undergoing repairs. TIGHAR’s theory, she said, is that they landed on a remote Pacific atoll called Nikumaroro in the Shipyard Brokerage Republic of Kiribati. www.jonesportshipyard.com “TIGHAR has spent 30 years exploring this the17' Herreshoff Buzzards Bay 14 Sloop, 1977 $12,500 ory and found compelling evidence, enough for us 23' San Francisco Super Pelican, 2010 $7,500 and Nat Geo to check it out,” she said. Evidence includes a photo taken three months (207) 497-2701 info@jonesportshipyard.com after the plane went missing. The photo shows a JonesportShipyard.com vague object in the water that’s conjectured by 285 Main St., PO Box 214, Jonesport, ME 04649 some to be the plane’s landing gear, she said. Radio
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
Field Notes
Which is accurate—a mirror or a painting? Island Institute’s Waypoints: Connect explores coast, islands
By Meghan Grabill
W
hen I moved here over a year ago, people asked me what connection I had to Maine. What brought me here? My response: I had visited once as a teenager on a family trip and when a job opportunity presented itself on the coast of Maine I jumped in, dragging along my husband and two dogs from the Midwest. I always feel a little juvenile sharing this with people, and the quizzical looks on their faces enforces my discomfort with relating the truth. Who makes a major life decision based on impressions formed during a weeklong vacation? Common sense tells us that the more time one spends experiencing a place, the better one would understand its character, but impressions can be distorted by the types of experiences one is exposed to and flawed by all manner of unknowable limitations. Therefore, the length of time one spends forming impressions about a place may have very little to do with the accuracy of
the representation of that place. As I started my job at the Island Institute doing data analysis and translation, someone explained to me it was like trying to hold a mirror up to the coast and islands of Maine to allow them to look at themselves. Sometimes the impressions we have about ourselves turn out to be exactly right and other times they are a little flawed; but a mirror never lies. While I like this mirror analogy, I am enough of a realist about data analysis to know it has its limitations. Instead, I think of my job as a variation on art. People may capture their truth in abstract or realist paintings. I come in with a tool, like a camera, apply different filters and lenses and end up with a different presentation of truth. Is my method superior? Well, that depends on what the end goal is. Was it to describe exactly what the tangible objects and measurable facts are? Then yes. Or was it to describe a feeling or ethereal thought? Then probably not. In our Waypoints publications, a timely topic relevant to the coast and islands is explored through publicly available data. The data is cleaned, analyzed, and presented in what we hope is a visually appealing format. Out of this analysis
comes not only the publication but also many other resources related to the topic that is made available on the web (see IslandInstitute.org/Waypoints). In the most recent Waypoints: Connect publication, physical, economic, and civic infrastructure were explored. The protection of working waterfront through state and federal programs was one topic covered, and our analysis showed that many communities are not taking advantage of programs used to protect these access points. As of the printing of the publication, only 17 percent of communities had a property in the Working Waterfront Access Protection Program administered by the Land for Maine’s Future program. Infrastructure is integral to the patterns and connections in Maine’s island and coastal communities. If it is threatened, it can ruin the entire fabric of how we live. The vulnerability of our road infrastructure to sea level rise is also covered. Given Maine’s peninsulas and bridged islands, 2 feet of sea level rise could hamper emergency accessibility in some communities. Low spots in the Sagadahoc County towns of Arrowsic and Georgetown could mean roads would be inundated
and impassable, cutting off 97 percent of road surfaces to emergency services. This vulnerability not only points to deficiencies related to safety, but also the costs associated with upgrading or repairing infrastructure. As the coast faces change and the need to be resilient becomes more pressing, it is important that facts are known and can be agreed upon. Experience and first-hand knowledge are how we form opinions and decide on a course of action. Data can reveal things not before known, reinforce what was known, or give a new lens to view what was assumed known. Sometimes impressions turn out to be spot on. As I have learned more about the coast of Maine, I find my impressions from nearly two decades ago were pretty close to accurate. Lobster fresh from the ocean is much better than lobster by mail order. Sunrises on the coast are spectacular. The people in Maine are friendly and helpful. The new facts and experiences I gather have only increased my appreciation for my new, adopted home. q Meghan Grabill is a community development officer with the Island Institute, responsible for data analysis and translation.
Fathoming
Lobster science—last year was indeed strange
Some encouraging signs, but fall temperature hike was unusual
Susie Arnold
I
t was a strange year for the lobster fishery. In 2019, the scarcity of bait was a concern, and lobster landings were incredibly slow through the summer months. The July catch was the lowest recorded since at least 2008, the year the Department of Marine Resources began logging verifiable landings data. In July of last year, landings by pounds were down 60 percent from July 2018. Fishermen reported the lobsters were around all summer, but just weren’t trapping. DMR’s lead lobster scientist Kathleen Reardon described how the Eastern Maine Shelf buoy (off Mount Desert Island) at 162 feet was a full 2-4 degrees Fahrenheit cooler all summer than in recent warm years like 2012 and 2016. It wasn’t until September of last year that landings started to be comparable to recent years; October through December landings matched or exceeded last year. Reardon noted—and EMOLT (Environmental Monitors on Lobster Traps) temperature data confirmed—the jump in landings corresponded with a couple of October storms, which mixed
warmer surface water with colder bottom water, causing water temperatures to jump. The Central Maine Shelf buoy (off Pemaquid) recorded a rise of nearly 2.5 degrees in October at 165 feet deep, with a total jump from 50.8 degrees on Oct. 1 to 53.2 degrees on Nov. 1. Landings then increased and continued to be above average. While landings were down from 2018 across all zones, Zone A (the easternmost zone) had the highest landings of all zones. After the slowest start in nearly a decade, the fishery still broke 100 million pounds total for the ninth year in a row. Concerns around bait availability and price were high early in the season. It’s likely that the decline in the number of trips taken (lowest total trips in May, June, and July since data collection started in 2008) alleviated some of the pressure on herring availability. Fishermen took advantage of local menhaden (known as pogies), which ended up equaling the total herring fishery. Going into the 2020 lobster season, there will be another assessment of herring stocks, and unless there is an improvement in juvenile abundance, there will be the same low, or even lower catch levels, allowed for herring. Fishermen reported seeing a lot of herring juveniles in 2019, which if caught in the review, could push up catch limits. Dr. Rick Wahle of the University of
Maine and the Lobster Institute had good news to report for the first time in years from the monitoring project ALSI (the American Lobster Settlement Index). Numbers of baby lobsters on the sea floor were up across the coast. For the first time since this nearshore survey recorded a surge in 2005 to 2008, there was good news all the way from New Hampshire to Beaver Harbor in New Brunswick. A deeper look into lobster settlement also revealed promising signs for fishery. With the expansion of warming water in the Gulf of Maine, Wahle and industry partners, including Ready Seafood, are surveying deeper waters for settling lobsters, a habitat formerly inhospitable for the temperature sensitive babies. By just sampling in shallow waters, it was thought scientists and managers might be missing or underrepresenting lobster settlement as a whole. Sure enough, they found settlers in deeper waters (up to 215 feet) in both the southern and eastern Maine coast, with depth having more of an impact in southern Maine because of a sharp thermocline (the transition layer between warmer mixed surface water and cooler deep water). Other updates from DMR’s suite of historic monitoring surveys and new research endeavors match what fishermen are reporting on the water. DMR’s
ventless trap survey, targeting sublegal sized lobsters that could escape from a normal trap, continues to catch high numbers of small lobsters. New data on female lobster size at maturity, from DMR scientist Jes Waller, also aligns with what fishermen are seeing on the water. As water temperatures are rising, size at maturity is decreasing. For example, in the Boothbay Harbor area, size at maturity has declined from a 3.5-inch carapace length during the 1990s to 3.3 inches today. This has implications for the growth of female lobsters and the quantity and quality of eggs produced. Once a female reaches maturity, her overall growth rate slows because she alternates between egging out and molting. Smaller females may produce lower quality eggs that may be less likely to successfully turn into lobster larvae. While fishermen warily await further direction on a Maine whale plan, which could determine the fishery’s immediate fate, there is plenty of data from fishermen, managers, and scientists to contemplate to try to better understand the causes of an unusual 2019. q Susie Arnold is a marine scientist at the Island Institute working on the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on fisheries-dependent communities.
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
23
Cranberry Report
Town meeting, painting lines, eating doughnuts, and throwing rocks
As winter winds down, islanders mix prep work and gatherings
By Barbara Fernald ACTIVITY on the islands, at the end of February and into March, is like a mirror image of the action at the end of August into September. Just as the summer residents of the Cranberry Isles end their vacations right before fall, many year-round residents end their winter breaks just before the spring equinox. It’s time to get back to work and reconnect. Our annual town meeting takes place on the second Saturday in March. For selectmen and town employees, winter has been anything but a vacation. They have been working steadily, gathering information to write the warrant for town meeting. It’s the time of year we come together as a town to decide on projects and spending and how much money is to be raised by property taxes. Discussion of the school budget alone can take well over an hour. The islands take turns hosting the meeting and the luncheon. This year, town
meeting will take place on Islesford. What’s for lunch? Homemade pizzas, salads, and desserts. Life gets busier as we volunteer to help prepare the first community meal of the season. Town meeting is a great opportunity to hear about winter from friends and neighbors. “How was your trip to ...?” “Who knew grand-parenting was so exhausting or that there were so many cold germs involved?” “You did all that painting?” These same questions could be asked in September at a school board meeting in a large suburb. (Preferably not during the meeting while someone else has the floor!) In January and February, Bruce and I got to spend a lot of time with our grandchildren in Southern Maine. Visiting them was the main goal of most of our winter travel. We considered trying to paint our kitchen, but we kept catching odd coughing viruses and experienced more down time than we wanted, so we never got to it. Maybe I’ll paint it in May, when I can have the windows open. Bruce saw more than enough paint, anyway, this winter. During his “time off” he painted 600 buoys (white and
bright red with a black stripe) and, like every other lobster fisherman in Maine this winter, he read about, talked about, and experimented with purple paint. The latest whale regulations require all Maine lobster fishermen to use new markings on the ropes they attach to lobster traps. Depending on how close to shore they fish, they will have to add 2-4 purple marks on each buoy line. On warps that are 100-feet or less there must be one 12-inch purple mark within a few fathoms of the trap and a 36inch purple mark within 2 fathoms of the buoy. If the warp is longer that 100 feet, the requirement is for a 12-inch purple mark near the trap, a second 12inch purple mark halfway to the buoy, and a 36-inch mark near the buoy. Bruce figures he will be putting 1,500 to 1,800 markings on his rope in all; two to three weeks of extra work if he does it without hiring help. A number of fishermen are applying paint to their ropes by resting them in 3-foot long gutters made from lengthwise-halved PVC pipe. Bruce’s first attempt was with spray paint but he soon moved on to the more efficient brush and latex paint. Some fishermen will add a 3-foot
piece of purple rope to the end of the buoy line or toggle, but all attachments must be made with a splice or a tuck. I know it’s a stretch to compare following Maine whale rope requirements with a plein air workshop, but a person could return home from either and say that they’d been painting in their spare time. If Bruce were writing an essay on how he spent his winter vacation, painting would be a part of it. Another part would be the description I heard him tell his brother Mark about walking to get doughnuts, in February, with our son Robin, and our grandchildren Henry and Cora. I was away with friends in Portland, and Stephanie was away with friends in Florida. Father and son were in charge. “Yeah, we got doughnuts at The Cookie Jar and then walked to the beach for a picnic and to throw rocks.” Eating homemade donuts and throwing rocks at the beach—if that isn’t a mirror image of many childhood summers on Islesford, I don’t know what is. q Barbara Fernald lives on Islesford (Little Cranberry Island) with her husband Bruce.
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
Saltwater Cure
The joys of a ‘staycation’
Taking time for simple pleasures during February break
By Courtney Naliboff AH, STAYCATION. That portmanteau word might seem like a consolation prize—a vacation born of a lack of funds or time, but it actually speaks to a period of relaxation and an opportunity to get to know your community as a person of leisure. My family and I took a staycation, our first in years, this February. We have travel plans for April and spent Christmas and Chanukah in San Diego, and so didn’t feel the need to make any real effort for February break, other than a weekend off at the end visiting friends. So, while many were jetting to Puerto Rico or Florida, or heading to Augusta to cheer on our North Haven Hawks basketball team in the tournament, we relaxed at home. The conventional wisdom is that there’s nothing to do on North Haven in the winter. How would we occupy our time? It turns out that there are plenty of lovely, quiet ways to spend a week at home, even if home is an unbridged island in the off season. I will confess
that we spent the first weekend largely binge-watching Next in Fashion while Bill worked late on Vinalhaven, made particularly enjoyable by my daughter Penrose’s interpretations of the fashion challenges through her five-yearold eyes. Highlights included her take on streetwear, transcribed here for your enjoyment: “My streetwear look would be like cool, fashionable, cool, fashionable, cool kid.
But after a few days of reading and binge watching, it was time to get out and see what North Haven had to offer. On Monday we headed to the projects building at the school for a few hours to help Dylan Jackson carve the timber frame that will eventually house our school’s Minke whale skeleton. I learned how to use a sander and a chisel, Penrose learned how to use a hand planer (and that a hand planer
Thursday we made a trip to Turner Farm to buy vegetables from their self-serve fridge and visit the pigs… Maybe a skull necklace or something? Maybe black high heels or something, or like a black shiny smooth leather something. Feel this table! It should feel like the table! And black tights or something. And a pony tail. That’s what streetwear looks like to me!” Once we finished that project, there was the stack of books I had on my bedside table and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which I finished reading all 735 pages of aloud to Pen during break.
blade is in fact very sharp; she’s fine), and Bill got to use a chainsaw mortiser. Two hours passed quickly in the meditative practice of peeling thin shavings of wood away to reveal the desired perfectly smooth surface. As the sun set, we went down the street to see a friend’s sap boiling operation, sampling frozen sap and the delicious warm liquid caught halfway between sap and syrup. On Tuesday morning we ate Kate’s
donuts, accompanied by black tea and slices of cheddar cheese, at the church, followed by a long meeting while Penrose made origami with a friend. That evening, Bill went to a film screening hosted by North Haven Brewery as part of their Pub Theology programming. Penrose and I both got haircuts on island on Wednesday and went for a short walk in the relative warmth. Thursday we made a trip to Turner Farm to buy vegetables from their self-serve fridge and visit the pigs, who obligingly came right up to the wire fence to snort hello. We headed up North Shore road to buy a dozen eggs from another farm and started packing for our brief off-island foray the next day. During the work week, I don’t always have time to buy my vegetables from the farm and say hello to the pigs. A haircut might feel too luxurious to try to sneak in around meetings and rehearsals. We’re often too tired and busy with making dinner, homework and practicing to go out again after work. Until recently, the sun set too early for an afternoon walk. Our little staycation gave us the space to enjoy North Haven’s quiet joys. q Courtney Naliboff is a teacher and musician on North Haven.
Guest Column
Telling Vinalhaven student stories a worthy exercise
Portland’s The Telling Room brought its program to island By Nancy Lloyd
T
he joy of teaching lies in seeing the whole class come alive, with everyone on target and enjoying the work. Working with The Telling Room process makes that happen more often than not. The Telling Room is a Portland-based educational nonprofit that works with students from 6-17 to allow them to tell their stories in their own voices (see: TellingRoom.org). In October, Telling Room lead teacher Caitlin Schick began a began a twoday-a-week, ten-week residency at the Vinalhaven School with Robb Warren’s fourth and fifth grade class. Wilhemina Ulbrich and I were support teachers, arriving for one day each. The promise that we strangers brought was that every student would become a writer of a very short story—a process called flash fiction—and then become a published author in a book. With 20 students who are all island neighbors, Robb and his co teacher, Pat Paquet, keep a happy, disciplined classroom, relaxed, and respectful. This made
it easy for we strangers “from away” to settle down into focused creativity. We were peppered with questions. What is a story? What is flash fiction? How long is it? How do you make a book? What is an author? What do we do? Schick is a superior teacher, warm and firm. As well as assuring each student that their ideas could and would
watching creativity unfold. From brainstorming, writing a first draft, self-editing, reading to your neighbor, more editing… what’s missing? Thinking again, final draft, then titles and reading to everyone. And so the stories progressed—slowly, but surely. Like the clapping rhyme, “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack…” they went over
We were peppered with questions. What is a story? What is flash fiction? make a good story, she is a lively story teller herself who makes new ideas fun. Mr. Warren and Ms. Paquet quickly caught on to The Telling Room style. Their classroom reflected insistence on respect and calm behavior. The curricula of alternating games, think time, and writing, reading, and listening helped everyone along the path of
and over their ideas. “It was an abandoned house… There was an alien. We went into the woods and saw a… The tree was alive with a thing. What kind of thing? It was purple. It was an alien, it burst into flames, it came at night…” And, “I was walking home the same way I always did. The wind blew through the window. Did it smash the window?”
Those days were joyous, but stressful. Would they finish their stories? Would they be stories? Publications Director Molly McGrath came up from Portland to take their pictures for the book and explain how a book is made. The tedium of thinking and editing was beginning to pass. “You mean my story will be in a book?” Yes. “What’s it called?” Wait! You need to give the book a title. Hmmm. Let’s write ideas on the board and take a vote. And so it became known as Planet Vinalhaven. The launch party for this anthology of student writing will take place at Vinalhaven School on Thursday, March 26, from 5-8 pm Please join us! q Nancy Lloyd taught as a Peace Corps volunteer at the University of Sousse, in Tunisia, then for 16 years taught First Year Composition at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire. Now retired, she lives in Camden.
www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2020
25
Fishermen report changes they’re seeing on the water Sample observations gathered at the Maine’s Fishermen’s Forum
Herman Coombs of Orr’s Island (seen here with his son Riley, who fishes 100 lobster traps in summer) hasn’t seen definitive evidence of climate change as he lobsters in Casco Bay. “I haven’t really seen a whole lot. What is climate change and what is the normal cycles?” When he has fished for tuna, he noticed fewer bait fish on the surface, perhaps because of warmer waters. And he has observed a lull in the lobster catch in August and September as waters warm.
Terry Alexander of Cundy’s Harbor fishes for groundfish and squid out of Boston. “Stuff’s shifting, for sure,” he said. “We’re catching stuff in deeper waters than ever before,” including cod at depths of 140 fathoms (840 feet) and yellowtail flounder at 100 fathoms (600 feet). “That was unheard of.”
Eben Nieuwkerk and his father Knope chase groundfish and monkfish from Kennebunkport. One change Eben is benefitting from is that “The monkfish are moving farther north,” as are pogies. The men also lobster, and they say that fishery is turning into a fall season.
Jarrett Drake fishes from New Bedford, Mass., and said he believes he’s on the crest of the wave of changes. “I’m actually really exposed to it,” he said. Sea bass are now being caught just south of Cape Cod, a species that would be expected off the Carolinas, not New England. Are sea bass chasing juvenile lobster, “Or is it climate change?”
Kailed Hawkes of Cundy’s Harbor is quick to note that as a younger man in the lobster fishery, he hasn’t seen enough time on the water to note significant changes. Last year, the waters stayed cool, but this year, with a mild winter, they may be a lot warmer, he said. He has seen cod and other fish not known to be in northern waters, and he notes that those with decades in the fishery do accept climate change as a fact. “My grandfather thinks it’s a real thing.”
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Ben Doliber of Swan’s Island lobsters from that island. “I’m seeing a little more shell disease,” and “a ton of sunfish,” also known as mola mola, as many as 15 a day. “There’s different stuff growing on ropes,” he said, but wonders if that is climate-related. “The ocean’s always changing, anyway,” though this past season, lobster were caught in deeper water than usual.
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Monhegan recognized with Community Champion award Leadership on wind, grid, water, and broadband work cited
• The Community Benefits Advisory Committee found a partner internet service provider, engaged businesses and voters, and successfully secured substantial federal funding and support from the offshore wind project to buildout broadband to the whole community. • The Monhegan Water Company involved assessors and community members on the Monhegan Island Harbor and Water Supply Protection Project which is assessing the risks, gathering information from elsewhere, inviting in experts, and investigating options to ensure resilience to sea level rise.
Dan DeBord, Island Fellow on Monhegan Island through the Island Institute, accepts the Institute’s Community Champion Award on behalf of the island at the Institute’s Waypoints forum event in Portland on Feb. 7. Emily Lane, center, is chairwoman of the Institute’s board of trustees. Suzanne MacDonald, right, is chief community development officer for the Institute. PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN
F
or a small island, Monhegan has faced some big challenges in recent years: The prospect of floating wind turbines just off its shore. A freshwater aquifer threatened by saltwater incursion. An aging diesel-generator powered electric grid. The lack of high-speed internet. But that small island—whose yearround population numbers under 50— has responded in a big way. The community’s leaders, who work collaboratively in the face of these challenges, were honored with the Island Institute’s Community Champion award at the Institute’s Waypoints Forum in Portland on Feb. 7. Emily Lane, chairwoman of the Institute’s board of trustees, cited Monhegan’s leaders for the way in which they worked. “These community leaders on Monhegan embody exemplary leadership, not only by what they have accomplished, but also by how they have accomplished it,” she said. “While the passion and commitment of individuals cannot be underestimated, it is often the case that striking the balance between preserving what we currently love about our communities and obtaining what we need for our future requires multiple perspectives and sectors to work together,” Lane said.
Monhegan’s collaborative approach has inspired and served as model for other small coastal and island communities, she added. “As island residents, people are asked to wear many hats and to step up and lead,” said Lane, who lives on Vinalhaven and has served in multiple leadership roles. “In this tiny community, residents have formed numerous committees and practiced shared leadership to tackle issues that challenge even the largest and most resourced communities.” Among the highlights are: • The Monhegan Plantation Power District spent years researching alternatives to its diesel power system and engaging the community about the island’s energy future, which resulted in attracting national expertise and funding to replace its power plant, incorporating solar power generation and heat-recovery technology. • When a controversial offshore wind project was proposed, the Monhegan Board of Assessors and community leaders worked to amplify island concerns and priorities and used community process to create its own vision, communicating across differences, and through conflict and high emotion.
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“The Island Institute has been an amazing partner as we found our unified voice and our confidence to go after solutions that we believe will keep us viable in a rapidly changing world,” she added. “On behalf of Monhegan, thank you for recognizing our effort and hard work with this Community Champion award as we struggle to preserve our community.” Tara Hire is a former first assessor on the island. “We have a very active and involved community,” she noted, “filling the roles of leadership in nonprofits, the municipality, and our utility entities. Although there always seems to be more work to get done than people to do it, it’s not for lack of involvement.” She said she was honored by the award. “I am very proud of my community and all of the people who donate their time and energy to keeping things running.” q
“Through all of these accomplishments, and the many hiccups along the way,” Lane said, “the community leaders on Monhegan were committed to learn from other communities, and to share their learning with other places.” The Community Champion award recognizes Monhegan Island’s leaders for pivoting from tackling problems reactively to meeting challenges proactively. In comments responding to the award, Marian Chioffi, one of the island’s leaders, noted that when she moved to Monhegan 30-plus years ago, it was a very different place. “There were over 100 people living there yearround. There were 75 household generators. Not everyone had running water in the winter months. Now we number less than 50,” she observed. With fewer people to do the work, she concludes that “it comes down to belief in community and love of place. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve come to see that it’s about each of us and all of us. We’re in this together for the long haul.” Andrew Dalrymple, left, Monhegan Plantation’s Needs like affordable second assessor, as well as president of the housing, reliable power, Monhegan Water Company and project manager for fresh water, and better inMonhegan sea level rise planning efforts, and Tara ternet remain, but islandHire, former Monhegan Plantation first assessor and ers are working on those current Community Benefits Advisory Committee cochairwoman, pose with the plaque. PHOTO: DAN DEBORD matters, Chioffi said.
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Four coastal communities land federal broadband funding Arrowsic, Monhegan, Roque Bluffs, and Biddeford awarded $9.8 million from USDA also will enhance learning opportunities for students, provide access to telehealth services and build prosperity for Maine’s iconic towns,” he said. USDA’s Maine director Timothy P. Hobbs added that the funding, “is the result of the efforts of Maine’s strong and resilient communities and people who stepped up to the plate. This critical funding will ensure that people living in these towns are connected to the opportunity, promise, and potential that having reliable internet provides.” The funded projects are: • Arrowsic, which will use a $604,254 ReConnect Program grant and a $604,254 in ReConnect Program loan to construct a fiber-optic broadband network with speeds up to 100 megabytes per second (Mbps) to connect 237 households, 20 pre-subscribed businesses, and Arrowsic’s Sukey Heard greets the Island Institute’s Nick Battista at the four pre-subscribed farms. Jan. 30 event. PHOTO: SHARON PIENIAK • Monhegan Plantation will use a he U.S. Department of Agriculture an- $626,298 ReConnect Program grant to connect the nounced a $9.87 million investment in four entire island community, which includes a school, infrastructure projects that will create or im- power district, municipal office, museum, post office, prove rural e-connectivity for 4,527 households and library, and several inns and small businesses. The 215 businesses in rural Maine, part of the first round project’s service area includes 40 households, 11 presubscribed farms, and 15 pre-subscribed businesses. of USDA’s Reconnect Pilot Program. • Roque Bluffs will use an $893,170 ReConnect The announcement was made at the Arrowsic fire Program grant to construct a fiber-optic network to station on Jan. 30. The USDA’s D.J. Lavoy said the investment ”will connect 166 households, 22 pre-subscribed farms, help ensure that these rural, coastal, and island com- and 16 pre-subscribed businesses. The network will munities can connect to the vital internet services that connect to the Downeast Ring of Maine’s “three-ring they depend on. Upgrading and installing essential binder” network backbone in Machias, 4.5 miles broadband infrastructure will improve connectivity from the town line on Roque Bluffs Road. The Biddeford Internet Corporation will use a for critical first responders and rural businesses. It
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Built in the 1890’s, this classic shingle-style cottage sits on 2.71 acres a few steps from the library, chapel, tennis courts, dock, harbor and beaches. With first and second floor wrap around porches, 5 bedrooms, 2 guest rooms, 3 full baths and one half, this cottage has a double parlor, formal dining room, butler’s pantry and large kitchen that seats 10—all charming spaces to make your summers on Hancock Point memorable. With a lovely expanse of lawn, both front and back yards, there is also a little barn for boat storage or studio space. Enjoy spring, summer, and fall in a beautiful setting. As an added bonus, the cottage has a tried and true rental history with returning guests who appreciate all this classic property has to offer. $695,000.
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The Working Waterfront . April 2020
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Thank you for your dedication to the Island Institute!
2019 2019IN INREVIEW: REVIEW: BY BYTHE THENUMBERS NUMBERS
2019 INREVIEW: REVIEW 2019 IN
BY THE NUMBERS 2019 2019 INREVIEW: REVIEW: BY IN THE NUMBERS $70,000 $70,000 BY BYTHE THENUMBERS NUMBERS ININ SHOREUP SHOREUP GRANTS GRANTS distributed distributed toto
77 $70,000 $70,000 $70,000 IN SHOREUP GRANTS COMMUNITIES COMMUNITIES
preparing preparing forfor sea sea level level rise rise
ININ SHOREUP SHOREUP GRANTS GRANTS distributed to
7 7 28 287
distributed distributed toto
COMMUNITIES COMMUNITIES COMMUNITIES
INDIVIDUALS INDIVIDUALS preparing for sea level rise preparing preparing for for sea sea level level rise rise received received training training in in aquaculture aquaculture business business development development and and
99 28 2828 INDIVIDUALS BUSINESSES BUSINESSES CREATED CREATED INDIVIDUALS INDIVIDUALS
received received training training in in aquaculture aquaculture received training business business development development and and in aquaculture
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business development and
9
BUSINESSES BUSINESSES CREATED CREATED
We are beyond thrilled to share our program impacts from 2019 with you.
BUSINESSES CREATED
10/8/19 1:03 PM
$15,500 $15,500
ININ SMALL SMALL BUSINESS BUSINESS GRANTS GRANTS distributed distributed toto support support
15 15 $15,500 $15,500 $15,500
ISLAND ISLAND AND AND COASTAL COASTAL BUSINESSES BUSINESSES IN SMALL BUSINESS GRANTS
distributed to support ININ SMALL SMALL BUSINESS BUSINESS GRANTS GRANTS
15 ISLAND AND 15 15 COASTAL BUSINESSES $3,500,000 $3,500,000 distributed distributed toto support support
ISLAND ISLAND AND AND COASTAL COASTAL BUSINESSES BUSINESSES
ININ STATE STATE AND AND FEDERAL FEDERAL FUNDING FUNDING leveraged leveraged from from our our planning planning grants grants forfor rural rural broadband broadband infrastructure infrastructure
$3,500,000 $3,500,000 $3,500,000
ININ STATE STATE AND AND FEDERAL FEDERAL FUNDING FUNDING IN STATE AND FEDERAL FUNDING
$43,300 $43,300
leveraged leveraged from from our our planning planning grants grants leveraged from our planning grants forfor rural rural broadband broadband infrastructure infrastructure
for rural broadband infrastructure
ININ SCHOLARSHIPS SCHOLARSHIPS distributed distributed to to support support
46 46 $43,300 $43,300
MAINE MAINE ISLAND ISLAND STUDENTS STUDENTS
$43,300
ININ SCHOLARSHIPS SCHOLARSHIPS distributed distributed to to support support
46 46
IN SCHOLARSHIPS
distributed to support MAINE MAINE ISLAND ISLAND STUDENTS STUDENTS
46 MAINE ISLAND STUDENT On behalf of our staff and all our coastal partners,
THANK YOU!
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