The Working Waterfront - July 2022

News from Maine’s Island and Coastal Communities volume 36, № 5

published by the island institute

Future, past collide at Beaches Conference

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n july 2022 n free circulation: 50,000

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MENDING TIME—

Archaeology reveals how colonies shaped coast By Tom Groening

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ore than 400 years after the Plymouth colony was established, historians are still unraveling what the New England coast looked like, before and after. One fresh understanding of that history, which came from examining the colonial impact on New Hampshire’s Great Bay, shed light on the region’s ecosystems today. The presentation was one of several in which the past and present collided at the Beaches Conference on June 10 at Berwick Academy in Berwick, an everyother-year symposium jointly hosted by Maine and New Hampshire Sea Grant. Some 180 attended. Paul and Denise Pouliot, members of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook native people, along with the University of New Hampshire’s Meghan Howey, described their study of the English settlement of Great Bay, which lies several miles upriver from the mouth of the Piscataqua. The settler colonial period of 1600-1750, they said, “ushered in radical societal and ecological transformation that continues to shape the landscape today.”

Fishermen repair nets on a pier in Portland on June 4. The public was welcomed onto the city’s piers during an annual “Walk the Working Waterfront” event aimed at promoting awareness of the activity there. PHOTO: MICHELE STAPLETON

They began by working to understand how the native people lived and supported themselves in the estuary before the English arrived. Rather than concluding that settlers chose the locations where the first European houses were built, the research suggests the English evicted the native people from those prime locations. They even seized native garden plots.

“Colonists came to this place because they saw the indigenous settlements and knew they could live there,” Howey said. Among the findings archaeological digs have revealed is a buried rock they described as marked by an “oil slick.” Some of the material there was dated to 1300. Howey said speculation is that the rock, still continued on page 6

Reviving Portland’s unsung historical heroes Walking tour highlights the stories others miss By Stephanie Bouchard

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n the morning of Oct. 18, 1775, a British naval fleet anchored in Portland Harbor began bombarding what was then known as Falmouth, Mass. The bludgeoning

of Portland lasted all day followed by more insult to injury when the British sailors swarmed the ruined community of about 2,000 residents to set fire to any buildings still standing. One of the buildings miraculously not in splinters was Old Jerusalem,

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the wood-built (1740) predecessor of black and women’s history, was part of the granite-built (1825) First Parish Maine Conservation Voters’ (MCV) church on Congress Street. Guarding Lunch and Learn series. the church/meeting house Murphy, who refers was an enslaved black to himself as a “public man from Gorham named historian” because his Mayberry. When he saw academic training is not Because of a British sailor getting in history but in commuMayberry’s ready to burn the building, nity planning, fell in love actions, Old Mayberry seized the sailor with history when he was and turned him over to Jerusalem was in elementary school in local leaders in Portland. Scarborough. Two teachers Because of Mayberry’s one of the few in particular—Sylvia actions, Old Jerusalem Tapley in middle school structures in was one of the few strucand John Lewis in high Portland not tures in Portland not school—inspired him to obliterated by the time the look “beyond the narrative” obliterated… British naval fleet left the presented in textbooks for city. Unfortunately, not the people who often do much else is known about not get their due, he said in Mayberry, said Dugan Murphy, owner a phone interview after the webinar. and tour guide of Portland by the Foot. Telling the stories of those who are Murphy shared this story and several unacknowledged even though their others during a webinar in May. The contributions were significant is the webinar, about exploring Portland’s continued on page 2

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

HISTORY TOURS

continued from page 1

core of the history tours Murphy offers. When he decided to create his own walking tour company— he had worked for several years as a guide for a Portland-based tour company—he “needed something different from what others were offering and something he could be excited about and feel good about,” he said. His walking history tours are two hours long and focused on routes mostly in the center of Portland, which means there are many stories he can’t fit into his tours. He shared some of those stories of unsung heroes during the MCV webinar, such as: Florence “Flossie” Eastman Williams Born in Portland in 1892, Williams was the granddaughter of Charles Frederick Eastman, a black man who helped fugitive slaves through the Underground Railroad and was an active member and financial supporter of the Abyssinian Meeting House. Continuing her family’s heritage of supporting the community, Williams was respected as a generous neighbor to the mostly white immigrant families on Anderson Street and for her work supporting nonwhite servicemembers at the community center that later became the Marian Anderson USO Center. She was also well known and respected as a clairvoyant, Murphy said. Ted “Tiger” Lawry Born out of state in 1919, Lawry grew up in Portland, where he began a 20-year boxing career on a dare from some friends. He was best known as the only boxer to fight all ten rounds of a match—on two separate occasions—with future world heavyweight title holder Rocky Marciano. The wins for the fights, which went to Marciano, were determined by the decision of the match judges, said Murphy, who noted there was some controversy over the outcome. The judges, he said, were not going to give the win to a black man over the favored white boxer.

Dugan Murphy leads a tour. PHOTO: COURTESY DUGAN MURPHY

Ellen Gould Harmon White Born in 1827 in Gorham, White, who was white, attended the Brackett Street School in Portland. The building, at 155 Brackett Street, is now home to the Fresh Approach store and is known to many Portlanders as the People’s Building. It was there at the age of nine, Murphy said, that a classmate threw a rock that struck her in the face and knocked her out. She remained unconscious for a number of weeks. In the years following her recovery, she became deeply religious and claimed to see visions and attributed both her visions and religiosity to her childhood injury. As an adult, she cofounded the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, became a well-known advocate of vegetarianism, and a prolific writer. Want to learn more fascinating stories about Maine people who aren’t so well known but were instrumental in our history? Check out these resources:

Murphy in front of the First Parish Church in Portland during one of his walking tours. PHOTO: COURTESY DUGAN MURPHY

• Watch a recording of Maine Conservation Voters’ Lunch and Learn webinar, Exploring Black History and Women’s History with Dugan Murphy, at https://www.maineconservation.org. • Take a walking history tour offered by Portland by the Foot. Tours last two hours. Tickets are $35. A portion of ticket sales is donated to the restoration of the Abyssinian Meeting House. Reserve online at https://www.portlandbythefoot.com. • Dugan Murphy recommends reading Maine’s Visible Black History by authors/editors Gerald Talbot and H. H. Price, and Voting Down the Rose, a book about Florence Brooks Whitehouse, a Portland-based women’s suffragist/peace activist and author. The book was written by Florence’s great-granddaughter (and Maine resident) Anne Gass. Murphy holds a photograph of one Portland’s unsung historical figures. PHOTO: COURTESY DUGAN MURPHY

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Nicolle Littrell operates Dory Woman Rowing in Belfast Harbor year-round. Here, she rows with a client on the harbor in September. PHOTO: COURTESY NICOLLE LITTRELL

On the record with…

Nicolle Littrell of DoryWoman Rowing Business offers year-round rowing on Belfast Harbor By Tom Groening

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ith the pandemic, many of us moved our jobs to our homes, and within that space chose a room that is comfortable and maybe comforting, too. Nicolle Littrell put a twist on that idea, opening a business in Belfast based in her happy place—a 19 ½ foot wooden Swampscott dory, Sorciere. Though she is from “land-locked upstate New York,” on the Mohawk River near Albany, her DoryWoman Rowing business has made her a fixture on the water of this river port city at the top of Penobscot Bay. Littrell, 52, has had a varied career. “I moved here from New York City, where I was an actress and a voice-over actor,” she said. Other jobs included being an advocate in the domestic violence field, a lecturer in gender studies at the University of Maine, and a position at Maine Media Workshops. She also works as a photographer and filmmaker. Invited to visit by a friend, she “immediately fell in love with Maine,” she says. Our conversation was recorded as Littrell rowed out of Belfast Harbor on a sunny but brisk early May day. And though she clearly is enamored of rowing, she was all business about safety and preparation for the excursion. The interview was edited for clarity and length. Working Waterfront: When did you start this business? Littrell: I started this business in August of last year. WW: How did you conceive of this business, of rowing with people? Littrell: I conceived of it because I love to row. It was the pandemic that set me on this path. I was rowing with Come Boating! [Belfast’s community rowing program]. They have a winter rowing program. I rowed all winter and then the pandemic happened. I’ll never forget the last time we rowed. It was Sunday, March 15, 2020. Rowing has been this incredible, important outlet for me as a single parent and as a middle-aged woman. I started rowing in 2012 with Come Boating!, rowed for a couple of years, took a break, came back to it in 2018, in the lead-up to turning 50. It’s been an incredible form of wellness for me, and fitness, and community, and connection. And so when the pandemic hit, I thought I was going to go out of my mind. This crazy idea came to me, “What if I get my own boat?” WW: And the idea of making money doing this? Littrell: I had invited folks I had rowed with in Come Boating! to row with me in the summer. With COVID, I don’t think people felt safe sharing space in the boat that first summer. But in the fall, they started coming out of the woodwork. That companionable aspect was very satisfying, having someone else in the boat with me and teaching them how to row this boat, what I’ve learned. And I used to joke with my friends, I used to say, “Gosh, I wish I could be paid to row. I wish I could turn this into a business!” But it was also that idea of offering wellness to people. I get so much out of rowing this boat, and I saw that my friends got so much out of it with me. And the next thing that happened was that I lost my job. And I thought, “OK! That’s the sign I needed to go for it.” I started talking to the Coast Guard, the state, and finding out what I needed to do to make this a reality. WW: And let’s talk about that. What sort of license do you need? Littrell: They didn’t really know what to do with me at first. No one is doing anything like this, offering tours and lessons in a traditional wooden boat on the ocean. According to the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, I am the only person that is doing something like this. I had to learn how to sea kayak. I took an immersive guide preparation course with Castine Kayak. I took my test on June 23 last year, and I passed!

WW: Tell me about the boat. Littrell: She is a 19 ½ foot Swampscott dory. It’s a work boat, designed for fishing, carrying around a payload of cod. And she’s designed to carry a lot of weight. She gains more stability the more weight she has in her. WW: And you can have up to how many passengers? Littrell: I can have up to three other people in the boat. I take out all kinds of configurations. I do lessons and workout rows, occasionally someone will want a solo guided tour. But I often take out pairs, which is really fun. Two people can learn to row together. WW: How far out do you go for the tours? Littrell: I go maybe down to the City Park [about 1.25 miles] or up the river. On a tour, we’re looking for wildlife and talking about wildlife that live here. We’re talking about the working waterfront, we’re talking about the history and heritage of this area, the Wabanaki peoples, Penobscot Bay. WW: What sorts of people book the tours and the work-out rows? Littrell: My first clients were brothers. And you don’t have to be a woman. I’ll get that question every now and then. “Can men row with you?” And I’m like, “Yup!” I’ve had people as young as seven years old, up to 70-something. I’d say the majority of my clients, especially the regulars, are middle-aged women. But I’ve taken out families. I took out a group of 17-year-old boys last fall through [a Belfast-based youth program]. WW: And you went right through the winter? Littrell: Yes. WW: What’s the coldest day you were out here? Littrell: Fifteen degrees. I won’t take someone out on a windy, stormy day. It has to be very calm and it has to be warming up. WW: Can I ask what you charge? Littrell: Sure! My pricing ranges from $80 to $95 per person. WW: What do people say when they get on the boat, like, “I really want to do this because…” and what do they say when they get out? Littrell: What I hear a lot is, “I want to try something new.” I think the pandemic has inspired people to get out of their comfort zones and get back into their bodies. WW: What is the break-down between people who live around here and visitors? Littrell: The majority of clients this winter were my core group of regulars, local people, and people who would try a lesson for the first time. I offer these plans, these packages of four lessons. That’s really going to give you a good experience of what it’s like to row this boat. WW: Is there a female empowerment component to what you do? Littrell: I believe so. I know that it’s been empowering for me. WW: What has surprised you about the business? Littrell: That people have wanted to row with me in the winter. I used to joke, “Who are these people?!” knowing that I am one of those people. For more information see www.dorywomanrowing.com or follow Littrell on Instagram @dorywomanrowing.

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

Book Review

Chris Van Dusen does it again

Trio of young readers appraises latest children book

Big Truck, Little Island By Chris Van Dusen (Candlewick Press, 2022)

Review by Carl Little

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randchildren Maria, 9, Serita, 8, and James, 5, are children’s book author/illustrator Chris Van Dusen aficionados. Allow Gahbi (their nickname for this grampa) to boast a bit: they’ve memorized The Circus Ship, made up music to go with Hattie’s song in Hattie and Hudson, and read Down to the Sea with Mr.

Magee a hundred or so times. And then there’s Van Dusen’s “If I Built” series—don’t get me started. Over the years the arrival of a new Van Dusen book in the Little-Barzun household has created a major buzz. Big Truck, Little Island (Candlewick Press, $17.99) was no exception: they welcomed it with open arms, which were necessary to hold the large-size picture book. Maria and Serita are avid chapter book readers, but they did not hesitate to sit down with their brother to peruse Van Dusen’s latest. All three agreed on a favorite illustration: a bird’s-eye view of the island that shows the twisted route the truck must take to get from one end to the other. They liked the premise, too: how four island kids on their way to appointments—ballet class, swimming practice, a volcano experiment, and a dog wash—on either side of the stuck truck manage to figure out a workaround while their parents fume. Trained on the hide-and-seek illustrations in The Circus Ship, these sharp-eyed readers found details in Big Truck, Little Island that an older book lover might miss: a Christmas tree air

freshener dangling from the truck’s that the story is based on a real-life rearview mirror, swimming goggles event. At book’s end, Van Dusen shares around a girl’s neck, or the clothespin its origin, an incident on Vinalhaven on the nose of the mother in the car where a truck hauling part of a wind turbine blocked an island road. with the skunkified dog, Bunk. Maria and Serita love animals so while Founding Island Institute director they enjoyed the dogs in Big Truck, Philip Conkling filled him in on the Little Island, they missed the creatures details and co-founder Peter Ralston contributed a photo of in Circus Ship and the a truck hauling a ginorlake dinosaur in Hattie mous turbine blade onto and Hudson. James, James, on the the island. on the other hand, has The Portland-born, always admired large other hand, has Maine-based Van vehicles so Van Dusen always admired Dusen dedicates Big had him at “big truck” Truck, Little Island to (the author inscribed large vehicles so Jan Coates, founder the book to him with Van Dusen had him and director of Island the famous Grateful at “big truck.” Readers & Writers, Dead line, “Keep on calling her “a friend to truckin’”). me and every island kid While enjoying Van in Maine.” Dusen’s rhyming text, Speak for yourself, Mr. Van Dusen, our young critics questioned one piece of language: the word “thud” my grandkids might say: through to describe a truck wheel landing in your books you have befriended—and mud. Possible replacements: “smoosh,” delighted—a whole world of readers. Van Dusen’s illustrations are “squish,” “glug,” “glop,” and “plop.” The trio loved the surprise ending, featured in the exhibition “Imagine when the contents of the truck’s extra- That! The Power of Picture Books” large cargo are revealed (no spoiling at the Portsmouth Historical Society here). They also appreciated the fact (through Sept. 25).

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Book Review

Trail death probed with obsessive detail Unity College student’s murder re-examined Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders By Kathryn Miles; Algonquin Books Chapel Hill 2022; $28.95.

Review by Dana Wilde

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ate Miles arrived at Unity College in 2001 as a writing instructor and a backpacking enthusiast at a school devoted to backpacking. She’d heard that a Unity student and companion had been murdered on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia in May 1996, and the firsthand stories she heard about the student, Lollie Winans, captured her interest. The interest became a fascination and then what can probably be described with accuracy as an obsession. After Miles left her teaching job, she pitched a story to an editor which would review and update the Shenandoah murders,

as they had come to be called. No one, including the FBI and the National Park Service, had been able to compile enough evidence to try anyone for the murders of Lollie and her friend Julie Williams. As Miles began her research, she noticed a lot of holes in the story, as we say in the news world. Among many glaring questions, one stood out: Why had the man who was eventually arrested in the murders—as announced with media fanfare by the U.S. attorney general himself—been quietly turned loose? Miles began to think the story was more complicated than a magazine article could cover thoroughly. She had a whole book to write, which became Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders. She started contacting as many people as she could who were directly involved—including Unity College employees and students who told unsettling stories about the FBI’s highpressure probe of the Unity community after the murders. Miles soon found herself combing through the statistics of violent crime, including unsolved murders committed on public lands, and the stories of similar, possibly related crimes. She sorted

through the minutest details of Lollie and Julie’s slaying at their secluded campsite off the beaten paths of the Skyland area of the trail. She gathered and analyzed the theories of investigators, family members, friends, and lawyers about what happened and how. She gives special attention to the dissonances and problems faced by female hikers. My own experience with truecrime books is I stop reading them partway through because I can’t stand the suffering anymore. Not only the suffering of the victims—and the hour-by-hour reconstruction of Lollie and Julie’s final weeks and days can be grueling reading—but also the emotional inflictions on so many others, including families, friends, investigators, bystanders. You get all that in Trailed, plus one more critical, fascinating component: the story of the author’s own research, developing theories, reflections, and indeed her emotional journey as she peels back layer after puzzling, heart-rending layer. The entire story is unbelievably painful. How she kept on with the project without spiraling into a psychic abyss is beyond me. There might be a clue in the prose, which is clear,

precise, and evocative throughout; and in passages where she reveals her own dark feelings about her findings and her attachment to victims whom she never knew personally, the tone becomes almost clinical. Surely this reflects the objectivity you’d need to approach such a topic without losing your mind. Late in the project during a camping trip on an uninhabited island in Casco Bay with her rugged partner, Ray, she finds herself lying in their tent “haunted by the images of Lollie’s body in her blue and yellow tent. I thought about how the other victims must have felt, jolted awake and, in some cases, trapped inside their own tents, not knowing who or what awaited them outside. And then I began to hyperventilate. I spent the night sitting upright, nervously cataloging every tiny noise, certain someone was about to arrive by boat and murder us both.” The whole book builds toward such madness, while the clinically precise prose holds it at bay. Trailed is one of the most gripping nonfiction books I’ve read this year. Dana Wilde lives in Troy. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

UMaine Machias grads to serve community BEFORE SHE ARRIVED at the University of Maine Machias, Yani Nganzobo admits she wasn’t an exceptional student. “I was never an ‘A’ student. There were moments I cried because things weren’t going well,” Nganzobo says. “My perspective of life completely changed in 2019 when I arrived in Maine.” When she arrived at UMaine Machias, she saw opportunities open up to her—and it motivated her. Nganzobo not only made it on the Dean’s List every semester she’s been at UMaine and earned numerous honors and scholarships for her studies, but she also was valedictorian of her class this spring. Nganzobo was born in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. She wanted to study in the U.S. and applied to UMaine after hearing about it from a friend of her sister, Jeni (who also attends UMaine Machias). “The school helped me with paying my tuition fees, I had friends who would help me in every way possible, and the community was very helpful,”

Nganzobo says. She graduated with a degree in business with a concentration in entrepreneurship with a certificate in HR management, which she started at the University of Johannesburg before she made her way to UMaine Machias. She plans to continue her studies after graduation and pursue an MBA at Maine Business School. Last summer, she interned at Avesta Housing in Portland and, based on that experience, she hopes to someday start her own business to invest in properties. She also has volunteered for groups like Maine Environment Education Association and Gateway Community Services Maine. She sings in the church choir at Machias Fellowship, where she attends service every Sunday. “Community work has made me a different person,” Nganzobo says. “It has made me an independent young lady.”

BEACHES

of Southern Maine, discussing work begun in 1996 on Malaga Island in the New Meadows River in Phippsburg. Salmon and swordfish remains were found around half a dozen house sites on the island, suggesting both were readily available in the river in the 18701912 period when the mostly AfricanAmerican population lived there. A slide was shown of a postcard from the early 20th century with a photograph of an elderly woman and a young boy, labeled “Duce [sic] of spades,” an appalling reminder of how AfricanAmericans were treated a century ago. State officials forcibly removed the residents of the 41-acre island, which lies within “shouting distance” to the mainland, in 1911. The artist Daniel Minter created a series of paintings honoring the residents, and for a show at the Maine State Museum, persuaded the curator to let him build a tarpaper shack in the space to invoke how the islanders lived. Today, there are 300 descendants of the islanders living in the area. The state recently created a fund to offer them scholarships. Among the conference’s exhibitors was Buzz Scott of OceansWide, an organization that undertakes a removal more welcomed than that on Malaga. Scott’s organization works to retrieve so-called ghost lobster traps. In the fall of 2021, 1,177 were removed from the bottom in Boothbay Harbor. This

continued from page 1 slimy to the touch, was used to clean fish or even a whale carcass that may have washed ashore. Paul Pouliot said the English settlers survived because native people taught them how to render moose, deer, turtle, and other animals. Perhaps surprisingly, natives did not favor cod, he said. One cod skeleton was unearthed which was determined to have been eight years old when caught, suggesting it lived most of its life in the inland estuary. “Talk about a healthy ecosystem,” Howey quipped. But English infrastructure remade that ecosystem. By the early 1700s, she said, 90 dams had been built in the Great Bay region. Ironically, in England, such dams had been banned because the damage they did to fish populations was known. The dams were “a shock to the system,” Howey said. And the worst settler impact, of course, was a 1694 massacre of native people in the region, she said. As sea levels rise, many of the village sites are eroding and washing away. “Sometimes, I feel like we came to this site 20 years too late,” she said. Also presenting archaeological research were Robert Sanford and Nathan Hamilton of the University

NICHOLAS SANBORN of Standish was salutatorian, graduating with a degree in recreation and tourism management, with a focus on conservation law enforcement and natural resources.

“It was the small campus feel and the efforts of those on campus to make me feel welcome that made me decide to go to UMM,” Sanborn said. He served as both the Outing Club president and a member of the Student Security Team. He also served on the Student Senate, Nicholas Sanborn and held positions as a Yani Nganzobo resident assistant and a campus lifeguard. During his time at UMaine Machias, kiosk. As his senior project, he drafted Sanborn was awarded the Penobscot a stewardship plan to guide mainteCounty Conservation Association Award, nance decisions on the property. the Nathan C. & Dorothy W. Burbank “I will spend much of my time this Scholarship, and the Edna Higgins summer preparing for the application Scholarship. He was also certified as a process for the Maine Warden Service,” wilderness first responder in January 2021. Sanborn said. “This includes the physSince 2020, Sanborn has helped ical fitness test, general knowledge test, improve the Outback Trail on campus, and the oral board.” when he started developing the new Sanborn says that current and trail with an outdoor leadership class incoming UMaine Machias students and worked on an interpretive master looking to succeed should always attend plan for the property, which included class, take good notes, and complete the designs for waysides, trail signs, and a reading that professors assign.

Zach Lacasse of E.J. Prescott holds a bag made from coconut fiber and filled with oyster shells that is used for dune stabilization. The bags are anchored to the dune and tied to each other, he explained. The product can also have seeds embedded in it. Lacasse was an exhibitor at the June 10 Beaches Conference in Berwick. PHOTO: TOM GROENING

spring, another 2,027 were removed, all in 60-feet or less of water. Based on their tags, some of the gear has been on the bottom for years. “We’ve hauled them up from 1999,” based on the tag information. “That’s the farthest back we’ve gone,” he said. Trap vertical lines are cut often by recreational boat propellors, Scott said. The organization has to haul the

traps to a landfill in the Boothbay area, but in Gouldsboro, where it is based, traps are crushed with a reconfigured log splitter and sold to a recycler. “We’ve processed maybe 4,000 traps,” he said. “There’s another 4,000 sitting in the yard right now.” Next up is a trip to Matinicus Isle, Scott said, where 10,000 “retired” traps are stored.

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Teen climate activist wins White House recognition

Body Focused

MDI High School’s Sirohi Kumar named Presidential Scholar

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or Sirohi Kumar, a senior at Mount Desert Island High School, seemingly overwhelming challenges become less daunting once identified. “Once you know that a problem exists, then you can start crafting solutions,” she says. Her words—and work—on climate and racial justice activism have gained attention at the national level. Kumar was one of two Maine students recently named a U.S. Presidential Scholar. “Our 2022 Presidential Scholars represent the best of America, and remind us that when empowered by education, there are no limits to what our young people can achieve,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. This year’s awards “celebrate a class of scholars whose pursuit of knowledge, generosity of spirit, and exceptional talents bring our nation tremendous pride,” he said. Also named a Presidential Scholar was Brett Palmer, a senior at Gardiner Area High School. The White House Commission on Presidential Scholars selects students annually based on academic success, artistic and technical excellence, essays, school evaluations and transcripts, and a demonstrated commitment to community service and leadership. Kumar is a facilitator of Girls Who Code Bar Harbor—a Mount Desert Island group interested in learning programming to decrease the gender gap in computer science and create a supportive network for women in the field on the island. In 2020, she was one of six winners of The Brookie Awards, an honor given by the Natural Resources Council of Maine, recognizing the state’s young environmental leaders aged 15-30. Kumar interned with A Climate to Thrive, an MDI group seeking to achieve energy independence for the island by 2030—an experience that sparked a passion for climate activism. As a founding member of the Mount Desert Island Climate Emergency Action Coalition, she’s taken leadership positions in forming and serving as the youth representative to the Bar Harbor Task Force on Climate. She was one of a group of MDI High School students who helped guide the town of Bar Harbor to declaring a climate emergency in 2019. Following the declaration, she has been leading a group from the neighboring town of Mount Desert to build support for its emergency declaration. Her work with the Mount Desert Island High School ECOteam helped established solar panels that now provide the school with 100% of its electricity. Seeking to spread the movement, she wrote a guide on how to declare a climate emergency in any Maine town and co-authored a white paper on the role of youth activism in installing solar panels at schools. The goal of her climate activism is to reduce carbon emissions, raise public awareness, and guide policy.

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Sirohi Kumar at a September 2019 climate strike, attended by over 300 people, in Bar Harbor. PHOTO: COURTESY THE KUMAR FAMILY

“It’s like a car crash in slow motion,” Kumar said of the climate emergency. Kumar began her activism steeped in pessimism, given the global impact and systemic nature of the problem. That changed when she realized that societies most impacted by climate change didn’t have the option of giving up—and nor should she. “The idea that climate change is inevitable and we should just give up now comes from a position of privilege,” she said. “You can’t be pessimistic.” As the youth representative on the Bar Harbor Task Force on Climate, she helped create recommendations for municipal government to carry out in sectors including transportation and housing to decrease carbon emissions. The town is now focusing on public education initiatives and incentives for members of the public to reduce emissions. Other towns are emulating the work, she said. Her work in racial justice since 2020 has included helping organize several rallies in Bar Harbor and helping create an anti-racism task force for her school district. The goal is to ensure concerns are heard. Enrolled at Smith College for the fall term, she has a particular interest in the intersection of data science and statistics with law, policy, and ethics, all aimed at making change. “One of the things I’ve taken away from my last four years is that these problems are everywhere,” she said. “The climate crisis isn’t something that’s going to go away in a couple of years.” The Presidential Scholars Class of 2022 will be recognized this summer with an online recognition program.

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

Rock Bound At graduation time, thinking and re-thinking Public education may be overdue for review By Tom Groening IMAGINE THAT WHEN you were 25, everyone you worked with was also in their mid-20s. At 45, it’s the same— all your colleagues at work are in their mid-40s. It probably wouldn’t be an environment conducive for growing and learning, right? Yet in our public education system, that’s just the way we arrange things for our kids. In fact, we cram same-aged children by the dozens into rooms and make them sit in desks to be instructed. They eat lunch, play soccer during gym, and hang out on the playground with those same peers. I bring this up because when we homeschooled our children—just for a few years, mostly to spare them the horrors of the middle school years—the most common question we heard about our decision was, “What about socialization?” The idea that our children would be scarred by interacting only with their parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, our adult friends, and yes, peers when they played with friends, struck us as absurd. In fact, it’s only since the demise of the one-room school in the early 20th century that children have been segregated this way.

It’s not the worst sin of public education, but it’s one worth rethinking. In their early elementary school years, our children were in threeyear-long multi-age classrooms. As “youngers” they would be read to by the “olders,” and then assumed that mentoring role themselves later. Another anachronism of public education is the summer vacation, which arose when the country was mostly agrarian. What if we had six weeks of school, followed by a week off, and continued that pattern year-round? Subjects, or at least topics, could start fresh with every six-week block. I want to stop short of saying we need to “blow up” public education—for one thing, I don’t like that violent image, especially given recent events—but I do believe it needs a fresh, comprehensive reconsideration. Yet another entrenched assumption is that public schools aim to get as many students as possible into four-year colleges. Some high schools proudly post photos of seniors in the lobby with the name of the college they will attend. The seemingly harsh tracking that some countries use to determine who goes to liberal arts schools and who goes to vocational-based training doesn’t sit

well with our egalitarian self-image. But maybe some application of this principle would serve us well. On a recent visit to Islesboro, I learned that its magnet school—which allows mainland students to attend— offers climate change studies as part of its curriculum. And in the early 2000s while working for the Bangor Daily News, I traveled with Searsport-area students to Brooklyn, N.Y., for a weekend visit to a school there, part of a sister school arrangement. Within the Brooklyn school—which served students from nearby housing projects, and which had armed guards using metal detectors at the door—was a core of classes built around a criminal justice curriculum. Not every student would find a career in that field, but it lent a realworld credibility to learning. I’m no education expert, but public school teachers make up a big part of my family. My father taught in the largest junior high in the country on Long Island, N.Y. My wife is an educator working in special ed. Our daughter was a high school teacher until she had children. I have two brothers and a sister-in-law who are teachers. And I taught high school,

briefly—long enough to know it wasn’t my calling (apologies to my students). If I were given the proverbial magic wand, I think I would build a system that aimed at establishing a common set of knowledge and skills (critical thinking, writing, mathematics, financial literacy, etc.) by age 16, then open up a dozen of lanes focused on student interest. And I would throw-in a mandatory year of public service. I loved my time in college, studying literature and the ideas it offered. My fellow English majors and I would sometimes spill out the door into the hallway when class ended, and later over coffee in the student union, still batting around our budding thoughts on what we’d read. But I leave those who soon will toss their mortarboards into the air with this—I learned far more in the four years after college than I did during the four in school. Cue the Alice Cooper. Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront. He may be reached at tgroening@islandinstitute.org

Reflections

Teacher turns the tables on herself Island Fellow completes her own survey 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 Hannah Greene OVER THE PAST FEW months I’ve collected stories from students, past and present, who participated in Downeast Institute’s education program. The goal is to better understand which experiences students liked and disliked and to learn what was most memorable for them. As a second-year Island Fellow focused on envisioning and preparing for the future of Downeast Institute’s education program, I want to ensure the program is tailored, at its core, to the interests and needs of local youth. Most students fondly recalled themselves or their classmates getting soaked at the touch tank or on the rocky shore. They found they focused, engaged, and retained information more effectively under our hands-on, outdoor-centered educational approach. Perhaps most importantly, students recognized their privilege in having the opportunity to see and experience real-world marine science organisms,

research, and technology at Downeast Institute (DEI) in ways they wouldn’t be able to elsewhere. Their insights have been illuminating, humorous, and utterly invaluable. In the spirit of my fellowship rapidly ending with each new warm, sunny spring day, I thought it would be fun and introspective to ask myself some of the same questions I asked our students. Share your DEI story: I’ve planned and executed educational lessons at local schools, at DEI, and over Zoom. I’ve assembled teacher kits and student bags filled with learning resources and distributed education program newsletters to parents. I’ve assisted with fieldwork, sample processing, data collection, and writing technical reports for the Clam Recruitment Monitoring Network. I’ve helped with ocean acidification projects in the lab and scrubbed tanks and overwintered clams in the hatchery. I worked with summer interns, managed guest visits to DEI’s facilities, gave public tours, and coordinated and attended public outreach events and information sessions. I created videos on shellfish management techniques, staff profiles, and education lessons. My favorite part of being at DEI: Tod the Cod, stunning island sunsets, jumping off DEI’s pier, fieldwork on

mudflats with Dr. Beal, attending local summer festivals, absorbing the knowledge and skills of my talented coworkers, and eating the desserts Colleen and Lynn bring for after-lunch snacks. A favorite lesson/activity: I loved growing algae in the classroom because I learned alongside the students how to attach seawater jugs to lights and aeration and add the correct amounts of bleach, chemicals, algae, and nutrients. I observed the jugs turning darker shades of green as the algae multiplied and heard students exclaim, “We’re real scientists!” I also enjoyed taking students to DEI’s rocky shore, conquering my initial anxiety hunting for large crabs, and collecting data on the plentiful rockweed Ascophyllum nodosum. DEI programming’s impact on plans/ career interests: Prior to my fellowship I had no idea what my future held. I was envious of peers with specific passions and concrete goals. I only knew that I cared about the environment and felt an affinity for Maine’s coast. My time at DEI confirmed that I want to continue working at the local level, helping to create environmentally and socially equitable communities. I’m committed to utilizing my science background, strengthened by

my recently developed public engagement and education experiences, to heighten the quality of life for all. I’m attuned to understanding the intersectionality of the natural world with human sociocultural, economic, and physical ways of being. Recommendations for the future of the education program: The program should define success not in terms of numbers/ statistics, but in the quality of the relationships created, and should expand its definitions of reach and impact to include not only groups visiting DEI for in-person lessons, but also student internships, teacher trainings, collaborations with colleges/universities, and schools involved with field projects. Hannah Greene graduated from Wheaton College in 2020 with a B.A. in environmental science and minors in public policy and public health studies. She is based on Beals Island and supports the Downeast Institute with educational programming, marine science research projects, and community outreach and engagement initiatives.

www.workingwaterfront.com . july 2022

9

GRANNY’S WHARF— What’s known locally in Kennebunkport as “Granny Hardin’s Wharf ” on the east side of the river was purchased by the government in 1831. Government Wharf was built around Granny Harding’s wharf. It is now an active commercial fishing wharf. Shown here is Government Wharf as it looked in the 1880s. PHOTO: COURTESY KENNEBUNKPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Op-Ed

Fishermen at risk without health insurance ‘Maine AllCare’ is a way to extend coverage By Daniel C. Bryant

nonprofit organization that advocates for publicly funded, privately and publicly provided universal ON JULY 1, 1966, I arrived “from away” to begin health care at the national and state level. In my work with MAC, I’ve learned, among other my medical residency at the Maine Medical Center in Portland. One of the first patients I was called things, that in 2014 34.6% of farming, fishing, and down to see in the ER was a fisherman complaining forestry workers had no health insurance (CDC), and that in 2018 38.3% of fishing and of depression. This didn’t jibe well hunting workers had none (Zippia). with the idyllic view of Maine I had This is not right. It should be at the time, but I counseled him the noted, though, that government best I could, gave him a prescription for an antidepressant, and advised President John Adams has tried to make it right ever since 1798 when President John Adams him to contact his physician within signed An Act for signed An Act for the Relief of Sick the next 24 hours. the Relief of Sick and and Disabled Seamen. When he said he had no physiIn 1870 the federally funded cian, I gave him several names and Disabled Seamen. marine hospital system created by sent him on his way. I’ve thought the act became the Marine Hospital of that fisherman periodically ever Service, which in 1912 became the since, especially when I’ve stopped Public Health Service. However, as into Harbor Fish down at Portland’s described in the March, 2008 issue of Fisherman’s Custom House Wharf for some haddock. Thanks to the health care system I worked in, News, in 1981 President Reagan eliminated fisherI knew I could easily afford the haddock, not to men’s eligibility for care by the USPHS hospitals mention lobster as well if I wanted; thanks to that and contract physicians. Sen. Ted Kennedy tried to same system, I knew the fisherman who caught my make up for that loss with the Commercial Fishing haddock might have been unable to afford a visit to Industry Health Care Coverage Act of 2008, but that failed to pass. my office. Fishermen, never covered by workers’ compenPartly because of this and similar experiences in my practice, since retirement I’ve become a supporter sation, were thus still on their own to pay for their of Maine AllCare (https://maineallcare.org/), a health insurance, try to get on a spouse’s plan, or go

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

without. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 threw a lifeline, but it perpetuates the cost and waste of the commercial health insurance system; eligibility is dependent on fluctuations in income; and, up until now, at least, family coverage has been questionable (“family glitch”). MaineCare expansion in 2017 gave another option for coverage, but a limited number of physicians participate because of low remuneration, eligibility is again restricted, and there is the stigma of “being on the dole,” something no one, especially a hardworking fisherman, should have to deal with. If readers would like more information about publicly funded universal health care or would like to get involved in the movement to bring health care to all Mainers, including fishermen, they should contact Maine AllCare. That will make me feel a lot better when I stop in for my haddock.

After his residency at Maine Medical Center in Portland and serving as ward medical officer at Naval Hospital Jacksonville for two years, Dr. Bryant practiced office and hospital medicine with a fivedoctor medical practice and then with the large independent medical group Intermed in Portland. He lives in Cape Elizabeth.

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: Join the Island Institute by calling our office at (207) 594-9209 E-mail us: membership@islandinstitute.org • Visit us online: giving.islandinstitute.org

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

Letters to the Editor ‘Terribly misplaced’

No oil here

To the editor: I’ve been reading The Working Waterfront much more closely over the past year or two. There is so much great content now, well-reported from a variety of viewpoints. Still, some published pieces seem mismatched with the newspaper’s current purpose, editorial direction, and its other contributors. The creepy, cringy poolside Observer column by Phil Crossman (February/March issue) about ogling the young women, their bathing suits, and suntan oil was terribly misplaced in today’s The Working Waterfront. That the column was a rerun from some years earlier compounds the error. It sounds like readers weighed in with negative comments this time. Mr. Crossman—by all accounts a good and community-minded man—did write “An apology and an explanation” with meaningful opening paragraphs from an unpublished essay that show he values appropriate behavior and language, and I buy that. But still, someone resubmitted and someone reran a column that today is so far off the mark, and also counter to Mr. Crossman’s written values. Finally, the review that he wrote about a female/male relationship book smacked of a make-up assignment from the penalty box, and I found no sense and no craft in the “review.” I enjoy well-written Maine humor. And I especially look to The Working Waterfront for purposeful writing that goes somewhere, is relevant, and has a “so what?” for our current day. I expect you receive proposals and pitches from new writers and journalists and hope to see more fresh contributions along the above lines in your newspaper.

To the editor: To the editor: For more than 30 years I have taught classes at the Your Rock Bound column in the June issue of The University of Maine in the geology of Maine beaches Working Waterfront brought a memory back. I and coasts and the coastal geology of New England certainly remember the condos on Central Wharf. to thousands of students. It appears that the author of They both destroyed my plans and saved my butt. the op-ed in the June issue, Carolyn Lambert, never After service in Vietnam and graduate school took a geology class. immediately after, I took a job with the Portland Her argument, railing against drilling for petro- planning department in 1973. It became a city leum off Maine’s coast, is so scientifically naïve it planner’s dream. The things we did and the private borders on a conspiracy hypothesis. things we supported were dynamic, successful, Petroleum is produced from thick deposits of and rewarding. In 1979, I stepped in as director, Johnand Martin, Budand Staples, and Elsie Gillespie thecity woodstove at the meeting. sediment (sand mud) sedimentary rocks chat but around the new manager hadannual othertown ideas. As it derived from sand and mud. In Louisiana, where I turned out, we both left service to Portland the once taught, oil companies produce petroleum from same day in 1980 but with him under a gray cloud. carbon-rich sediment delivered by the Mississippi By the mid 1980s, I worked with a development River for millions of years. There is a great deal of company, mostly repurposing former industrial fertile organic carbon in the tens of thousands of feet buildings. We formed some alliances and of mud there. proposed a major development east of the Maine’s coast has granites and metamorphic rocks Maine State Pier that included some worn out that formed above 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit hundreds industrial buildings, a Grand Trunk rail yard, of millions of years ago when Europe collided with and withered pilings where piers once stood. North America. There was organic matter in some We didn’t have a chance. The Central Wharf of the rocks, but when extreme high temperatures condominiums were the red flag for waterfront and pressures were reached, as the rocks melted development and people were against any other and were altered, the carbon was changed into the similar development. We tried to describe our project mineral graphite, the material that we use to write as different and far from the working waterfront. Deaf with pencils. ears. Project was scrapped, with one silver lining. Our offshore areas have only thin glacial and I had already been concerned about the principals younger sediment deposits, along with exposed of my company giving in to the various concessions bedrock like granite. This material does not host requested by the many regulating agencies. The petroleum. There is methane in many of our mud project’s financial outlook didn’t look healthy deposits, but not enough to consider production. before the financial collapse of 1988. After 1988, While I share Rev. Lambert’s disdain for oil produc- it would have been impossible. Butt saved. tion off coastal Maine, it is not going to happen here Interesting how 40 years can change things. because we have no petroleum. Currently, plans are underway for a development on the East End remarkably similar to our 1986 plans. Joseph T. Kelley Orono Brian Nickerson Levi Moulden South Portland

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Letters to the Editor Don’t forget the French

Sandy’s ruminations

Smart is silly

To the editor: Without taking away the thrust of your “Maine’s not-so-clean history on race” story (May issue) I’d make two points. One is that while Maine is still very white, it might be more appropriate to say it’s 94.3% white, rather than having only 3.3% of minority populations here. I see that the 3.3% figure pops up on a Google search, but that appears to ignore over 2% of multi-racial people. The distinction is a minor quibble because the overall picture is what you say. Somewhat more serious, just to flesh out the record, is the omission of the fact that the huge Ku Klux Klan numbers in Maine in the 1920s was driven largely by anti-Catholic feelings, caused by the huge influx of French-Canadian mill workers, with some Irish thrown in as well. Without the fear of a Catholic onslaught on the Protestant majority, I don’t think the anti-Black, -Indian, and -Jew principles of the Klan would have been as much of a factor in the Klan fervor. I’m no skilled historian, but maybe these two observations add a touch of context to the unassailable main points of your article.

To the editor: I forget from time to time how good it feels to read Sandy Oliver’s “Journal of an Island Kitchen” column in The Working Waterfront in these questionably evolved times. Thus “My Dumb Kitchen” in the June issue sparks a little fear (How could she say that? Is she done with cooking?) and completely and thoroughly refreshes. The only electronic device I really, really would like is one that shuts off the cell phone (landlines only), powers down the laptop and television (battery operated radio only), and relies on a wood stove. I think it’s called a power outage and it happens for about four or five hours and then all that stuff comes back on. But at least we got a break. Keep your pens, pencils, paper, stamps, and envelopes in good supply and The Working Waterfront’s readers will get their dose of SSRI (Sandy’s Selected Rumination Inspirations) free. No prescription required.

To the editor: My husband and I always look forward to Sandy Oliver’s “Journal of an Island Kitchen” column in The Working Waterfront and the one in the June issue, “My dumb kitchen,” really rang a bell. We are both in our 70s so it is easy to ignore the “smart” technologies here at home. Those varied devices just seem silly, although they also are accompanied by a sense of surveillance that is equally unwelcome in our private space. Like you, we prefer to be the smart entities in our uncomplicated kitchen.

Richard Merserau Brunswick

Pat and David Webster Lyndonville, Vermont

Susan Cook Bath

The Working Waterfront welcomes letters to the editor. Please send them to editor Tom Groening at tgroening@islandinstitute.org with LTE in the subject line. Letters should be about 300 words and address issues that the newspaper covers. We also print longer opinion pieces, but please clear them first with the editor.

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

Guest Column

Mushrooms to the rescue

Fungi-based buoys could reduce microplastics By Sue Van Hook

Y

ou may not be old enough to remember when buoys were carved from wood and lobster traps were hand-built using wood lathe and cloth nets. In the 1970s, wooden buoys were replaced with expanded polystyrene (EPS) plastic foam buoys. From here two issues arise in terms of plastic pollution in the oceans and shoreline soils. The first is that once severed, Maine law states no one except the owner of the derelict gear can touch it. This situation makes coastal cleanups difficult. The second issue is that EPS buoys degrade in sunlight over time and fragment into tiny particles that eventually become nanoparticles in the water column. Filter feeders such as the clams, mussels, and oysters, and fish were found to contain polystyrene nanoplastics according to a 2021 study. So, while plastic buoys have made life easier for fishermen and fisherwomen, the ecological impacts of using them have not been accounted for until recently. How long do we wait for plastic microfibers to bioaccumulate in the marine food web? The need for new alternatives to plastic fishing and aquaculture gear is now. Serving as the mycologist—someone who works with fungi—for Ecovative Design, a mycotech company near Troy, New York from 2007 to 2016, I learned what fungi have to teach us about their properties. One of them is buoyancy.

My strong ties to Maine led me to grow the first buoys in April led to deploying nine newly designed mushroom buoys using agricultural crop waste MycoBuoys to float oyster trays for the season. The and fungal mycelium in 2011 to offer a biologically experiment will test an uncoated control MycoBuoy compatible alternative to EPS buoys. I shared this against three buoys coated with a new 100% bioprototype with Maine’s Lobster Advisory Council and based non-toxic sealant, a mixture of pine tar and linseed oil and a commercial waterthe Department of Marine Resources proof sealant. commissioner at meetings in Hallowell Our hopes for the near future are and Stonington in 2012. How long do we modifications of buoy shapes and sizes After receiving feedback from wait for plastic to meet the needs of stationary kelp lobstermen, I tested dozens of agriculand oyster seasonal aquaculture. With tural byproducts with a few different microfibers to success, we plan to equip a facility to fungal species between 2011 and 2016. bioaccumulate in use locally sourced hemp fiber as a Hemp, a marine-resistant fiber traditionally used to make the sails, sheet lines, the marine food feedstock for a locally sourced fungal strain as a regional business to produce and caulk for schooners, performed the web? flotation devices that last a season in the best in ocean trials completed in 2015 water and subsequently return to the by students at the East Boothbay Nature land as compost. Center, the Hurricane Island Outward Such an endeavor brings algae and fungi back to Bound School, and North Haven Community School. The longevity of untreated mushroom buoys ranged the sea where they evolved together. The seasonal from three to five months in the ocean trials. The addi- exchange of algae, fungi, and plants between farming tion of one of a half dozen sealants tested prolonged the sea and farming the land makes for a seaworthy the life of the buoys to five to eight months. Unable to yarn to explain a new circular economy. meet these criteria with only 40% bio-based sealants, I paused the research until a time when an environmentally compatible product was developed. Sue Van Hook has studied the taxonomy and Such a time has arrived. ecology of fungi for the past 45 years. She completed An invitation from Seaweed Commons and undergraduate and graduate degrees in botany and Greenhorns in Pembroke in Washington County mycology at Humboldt State University. For 18 years to lead two workshops for growing mushroom she taught at Skidmore College.

One of the loveliest of the village houses in the iconic town of Corea, this house has been beautifully and tastefully restored to include a great room, kitchen, dining room, living room with built-ins, glassed in sun porch with panels to change to screens for summer, full bath on the first floor and three bedrooms on the second floor with views of the harbor from the front bedroom, two-car garage w/heated workshop and lovely guest space above with full bath. The gardens are simple and lovely with perennials surrounding a patio overlooking the back yard and shade gardens nestled among granite outcroppings on a double lot with 1.5 acres. A short walk to the beach, harbor, or Lunch on the Wharf overlooking one of Maine’s most beautiful working harbors. As inspiration for writers and artists, this area is steeped in history while always attracting hard working men and women who have made a living from the sea for generations $700,000.

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Ferry service studied, users surveyed Island Institute working with state on planning By Tom Groening MAINE PLANS TO spend $1.8 billion on its state roads and bridges over the next three years, and so the Maine State Ferry Service’s annual operating budget of $12.5 million might be seen as a pittance. But for people living on the six islands served by the state ferry, that spending is of great interest. Especially since half of it should come from ferry fares and fees. Should come from fares and fees, but the mandated 50/50 funding split between fares and the state highway fund had not been achieved in some recent years, and the highway fund picked up the slack. The state Department of Transportation, which includes the ferry service, was responsive to complaints from islanders four years ago following a dramatic reconfiguration of fares. A revised fare schedule has mostly been accepted by islanders. But staff at the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, believe a comprehensive reconsideration of the service, with an eye to its long-term plans for boats and operational costs, is needed. The Institute

hosted a May 25 webinar titled, “The passenger elevators will be installed, Future of the Maine State Ferry Service.” the service should instead think about Lisa Millette, a community develop- how to best serve islanders, he said. “It’s got to work for you guys,” Battista ment officer with the Institute, said the legislature’s transportation committee said, addressing islanders attending the in March of last year directed DOT to Zoom meeting, “and it’s got to meet your needs now and into the future.” review its operating costs. As part of that effort, the Institute Nick Battista, the Institute’s policy has created a survey on officer, said the outlook ferry needs for islands, for costs was not good. available at: www. “There’s only one way surveymonkey.com/r/ fares can go, and that’s up,” he said. “There’s only one maineferries. Tony Chatwin, The service, which runs way fares can go, Island Institute presiferries to Frenchboro, dent, said he and staff Swan’s Island, Islesboro, and that’s up.” have met with DOT North Haven, Vinalhaven, —Nick Battista Commissioner Bruce and Matinicus has favored Van Note to express the building larger boats to organization’s desire to replace aging vessels, work with the departwhich in turn need larger crews and consume more diesel fuel, ment and islanders “to find lasting solutions.” Battista said. As part of its effort, the Institute had “Our goal is not only to look at operating costs,” he said, “but what the users contracted with the consulting engineed. It’s the right moment in DOT,” neering firm KPFF. The firm’s Kelly he concluded, arguing that the depart- Lesoing said the project was in its early ment is willing to take a fresh look at phases, and still gathering information. “It’s a complicated piece of information how it provides service. Rather than asking how many cars gathering,” she said, because each island a new vessel can carry and where the has its own characteristics and needs.

Among the next steps are reviewing different service scenarios and estimating costs for each. Lesoing noted that her firm had done work in the Puget Sound on ferry service there. “We’re hoping to look for things that enhance the service,” she said. In recent years, islanders have had conflicts with ferry service managers over the rate hike, but also other issues such as restrictions on sending medical blood samples to the mainland for testing, Coast Guard rules that mandate people not run their car engines during transport, and restrictions when propane trucks are aboard the vessels. The service seems to have tried to solve one problem at a time. “Seeing issue after issue come up and impact islanders,” Battista said, “it’s been fire drill after fire drill. This is an opportunity to look at this system as a whole.” For islanders, there’s a lot at stake, said Swan’s Island’s Donna Wiegle, who works at the medical center there (and who serves on the Institute’s board of trustees). “Without transportation to and from the islands, we can’t support a yearround community,” she said.

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

Walking the walk

‘Walk the Working Waterfront’ returns to Portland PHOTO ESSAY BY MICHELE STAPLETON The annual “Walk the Working Waterfront” interactive event along Commercial Street in Portland returned June 4 after a COVID break. The event aims to celebrate the city’s maritime culture and history and allows participants to explore several working wharfs and enjoy some of the freshest seafood New England has to offer.

www.workingwaterfront.com . july 2022

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

Our Island Communities Music sounds the alarm

String quartet imparts sea level crescendo

The Halcyon Quartet performs on North Haven as part of multi-media presentation on rising sea levels. PHOTO: JASON MANN

By Alice Cornwell

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he seven North Haven students in combined grades 4, 5, and 6 carried in cushions and arranged them on the floor while older students doubled up on sofas at the back of the highceilinged study area. On the walls hung a painting of a lobster boat and the articulated skeleton of a white beaked dolphin. Strains of violins, cello, and viola floated down corridors as Midcoast Maine’s Halcyon Quartet tuned up to play for Maine’s smallest K-12 public school. Projected onto the slanted ceiling above the musicians was a satellite view of home—downtown North Haven and its working waterfront. But along the shorefront, a wash of lurid green overlay familiar places— the ferry terminal, Brown’s Boatyard, the Casino, Hopkins Wharf, and seafront houses. Above that, a darker shade of green lapped across Main Street. Sophie Davis, lead violinist and artistic manager of Halcyon, scribbled projected sea-levels on a whiteboard—dividing students into groups to prepare for rises of 1, 4, and 9 feet—that will mark their future “The 4-foot, sea level rise by 2100 is the most likely scenario for us in Maine,” Davis explained. “A worstcase scenario is 9 feet. Even if we do everything we can to limit sea level rise to 1 foot, it’s going to affect our way of life.” If students looked at a projected 4-foot sea level rise for the entire island, they’d see they will eventually “need a bridge to get to Iron Point,” on the eastern tip of the island, Davis said. Pollution, warming temperatures, and melting glaciers are to blame, but once set in motion, sea level rise accelerates from thermal expansion—water molecules expanding as sea temperatures rise, Davis explained. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 90% of of the world’s seas and oceans. North Haven, Rockland, and all the Penobscot Bay islands are particularly at risk. “Our living and our culture is defined by the ocean, by fishing, aquaculture and recreation,” she said. “It’s heavy, a lot to think about,” said Sophie’s sister Josie Davis, also a violinist. The Davis sisters

and cellist Nora Willauer grew up in Waldoboro and Union, playing music together since the age of five. Willauer’s grandfather helped found Outward Bound on nearby Hurricane Island. Viola player Colin Wheatley, who grew up in Seattle, is director of the orchestra for Waterville schools. Behind a projector sat video artist and violinist Luke Fatora, from Colorado, who had bicycled around Vinalhaven and Rockland in December, taking drone footage of winter high tides. “As young people we spend a lot of time thinking about [climate change], how to be involved. How to make the scenarios most scary not happen—to protect those places we don’t want to be underwater,” Josie Davis said. But what difference can a small group of young classical musicians make? This is the challenge Halcyon Quartet set for itself in designing its concert “Rise Up!” which it premiered at Waterman’s Community Center on May 13 before playing for audiences in Rockland and Vinalhaven. “What we hope to do is to create something that grapples with complex information and hopefully makes you feel something, maybe different than you did before,” Sophie Davis said. “So much music is inspired by the environment and conveying a landscape.” Her commitment to making a difference dates back to Oberlin Conservatory where she took on an unusual double major in music and environmental studies. She then won a Fulbright grant to study the interplay of art and politics on the Pacific island of Samoa. At a performance at the island’s Waterman’s Community Center, the quartet’s program included selections from Bach, traditional Danish tunes, Tchaikovsky, Phillip Glass, and ending with Pete Seeger’s “Tomorrow is a Highway.” In the light booth, Fatora wove in video footage of king tides washing over the Rockland Breakwater, cars and trucks splashing across flooded roads on Vinalhaven, and high seas washing up against the North Haven waterfront. Title slides for each piece included the composer, date of composition, and atmospheric CO2 concentrations—doubling from the crisp, pure oxygenated 277 parts per million in Bach’s time to 404 ppm in

2017. Another fact, which hit close to home, was that with 4 feet of sea level rise, Waterman’s will be flooded at each high tide. At the concert’s heart was Samuel Barber’s deeply emotional Adagio for Strings, composed in 1935 with CO2 levels at 305 ppm, set to imagery showing the present waterfronts of North Haven and Vinalhaven slowly sinking beneath NOAA’s medium and high sea level rise projections. The audience watched as water overtook over docks and shorefront until Brown’s, Hopkins Wharf, and Waterman were only rooftops poking above the sea. “It was sad,” said Pat Curtis, 86, who has lived on North Haven all but two years of her life. “Sad and very powerful.” At North Haven Community School, students were busy with action plans. Proposals for combatting and managing sea level rise included putting up signs to note where high tides would reach, building seawalls, relocating wharfs, raising roads, and damming the Thorofare and using tidal power for energy. “Sometimes Brown’s Boatyard is already underwater,” 4th-grader Odin observed, suggesting that more people might take to houseboats. There are already two houseboats moored in Pulpit Harbor. “What about seaweed and oysters, clams?” asked 10th-grader Bryn, whose family owns the North Haven Oyster Company. “Growing all this stuff takes CO2 out of the air with carbon sequestration.” The students gave enthusiastic thumbs-up to the effectiveness of Halcyon’s project. “The music touches a different part of your brain,” said 11th-grader Sophie. “Not a lot of people see it,” Bryn said. “This makes it clear what it’s going to look like.” “The music they played made you feel everything was serious and you needed to do something about it,” agreed 9th-grader Ezra. Heading off to tend to the school’s organic garden, 4th-grader Sig summed up the concert most succinctly. “It was lovely and absolutely terrifying. Lovely because of the music and terrifying because my family’s business will be underwater and my grandmother’s house will be underwater.”

www.workingwaterfront.com . july 2022

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Islesboro event offers energy stories Speakers share at Energy Jamboree By Tom Groening

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here’s a vibe on Islesboro which, subjective though that term may be, is confirmed by conversations with residents. They’re proud of their strides toward energy independence and away from fossil fuels. The motivation is something more than bragging rights, since all islanders typically pay more for energy—everything from propane and heating oil to electricity and gasoline. Solar power is emerging in various places on the island and there’s even talk of developing an electric ferry. Islesboro’s active energy committee hosted an energy jamboree on May 21 at the community center, and in a series of three-minute-long comments from a range of speakers, the work and the commitment emerged. Hope Kohtala, a program assistant at Efficiency Maine, explained how the quasi-state agency works to nudge adoption of new technology by providing rebates for electric vehicle charging stations, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and heat pump hot water heaters. “Everything to stay cozy in a cold Maine winter, and cool in a hot Maine summer,” she said. Efficiency Maine, which is funded through surcharges on electric bills, also finances the purchase of this technology and lines up contractors. Bill Thomas, a retired biological researcher and professor, now serves on the island energy committee. In 2010, he and his wife inherited a house on the island built in 1840. It was uninsulated and its wiring dated to the 1950s. “It was clear we couldn’t live here full time and afford to heat it,” he said. The work began in the basement, which had standing water and rotting beams, and continued upward. When a contractor did an energy evaluation, using the common “blower door” test by which air is sucked out of the building to reveal leaks, “the doors and windows were shuddering and shaking,” Thomas said, an indication of how poorly it was sealed. Among the improvements made were switching to LED bulbs, installing an air-to-water heat pump that provided radiant and radiator heat, a heat pump hot water heater, and photovoltaic panels. “The bottom line is that our electric bill was $150 last year and $160 this year,” he said.

From left, Tom Stevens, Natasha Stevens, and Anne McKee, who sometimes perform as the Dark Harbor Trio. They played during the Islesboro Energy Jamboree on Saturday, May 21.

One company that does energy audits like that completed at Thomas’ house is Evergreen Home Performance. “We work to reduce the energy waste in the building,” said the company’s Brian Robinson, mostly by addressing air-sealing. “It’s really hard, unsexy work, but it’s meaningful because it’s forever.” Experts say the most cost-effective way to reduce energy bills is to retain the heat that is being produced, so weather stripping and caulking can make a difference. Robinson said his Evergreen has been helped with a $350,000 investment from Efficiency Maine. Earl McKenzie, a mariner with 40 years of experience as a captain, was an early adopter. In the 1980s, he built an electric-powered launch. Today, he and his wife own a 2017 Chevy Volt, an electric plug-in car which they charge through their photovoltaics. He also owns an electric lawnmower and currently is working on another electric launch. Tony Napolitano of Maine Community Solar explained how customers using utilities like Central Maine Power can subscribe, thanks to state law, to a community solar project and have the electricity produced there be applied to the consumer’s bill. “I always joke that I save about a beer a month, but

I’m happy to support community solar,” he said. Emily Roscoe of the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, said Islesboro is a national leader on the energy independence front. She recounted work she had done in Shelburne, N.H. where a town-owned solar project was defeated by voters. By sharing facts about the project in oneon-one settings, public opinion changed. “I watched these two gentlemen talk to every single person in town,” building support, she said. They would be on hand at the town dump on its busy day to chat up skeptical residents. The project eventually won unanimous approval. Emma Wendt, also with the Island Institute, highlighted the lessons that might be drawn from Roscoe’s experience: find the right messenger and use the right words, she said. When she speaks to fishermen about considering electric power on boats, she said, performance and cost are emphasized, not climate change. Andrea Mengual, representing the federal Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project, said the program has funded 12 communities to assist in energy independence, including Islesboro and Eastport. The focus on making awards is “something achievable,” she said.

North Haven library plans upgrades Community support is sought for building repairs By Courtney Naliboff

sill, and upgrading the bathroom, including making it wheelchair acccessible. Wilson said there are also plans in the works to he North Haven town library nestles into the build a bigger and more comfortable children’s room corner of Main Street and Mullins Lane. It within the existing configuration of the space. Adding features 2,500 titles, an excellent children’s and a porch to the side of the building, also on the table, young adult collection, an airy reading room, and an would allow for outdoor reading and event space. The upgrades will be conducted with energy effiexciting series of summer events highlighting authors ciency in mind, as Wilson said with a North Haven connection. they hope to update the heating The library also is used as the system and add a solar element. meeting space for the editoAdding a porch to the Wilson said this year is the “soft rial staff of What’s Going On?, a monthly newsletter written by side of the building would ask” for the fundraising appeal, while 2023 will see the efforts move island kids, and it provides free allow for outdoor reading “full steam ahead.” A prospectus WiFi to most of Main Street. sharing the outline of the plans will As often happens with venerand event space. be published this summer. Wilson able institutions, it’s time for the said he has already seen an uptick library to get a little restoration in local donations, and that the and renovation, according to library has always enjoyed fundraising support from David Wilson, president of the board of trustees. “The building is quite shabby and needs repair,” he the summer and yearround communities. To kick off the campaign, the library will host a said, explaining that it will retain its unique structure as created by architect Dylan Chandler. The plans particularly exciting summer event schedule, with include re-siding, fixing the windows and a rotting talks and readings from board member Rebecca

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David Wilson, president off the North Haven Library’s board of trustees. PHOTO: WILLIAM TREVASKIS

Silverman, who will discuss rare book restoration; Abdi Nor Iftin, author of Call Me American; New York Magazine food critic Adam Platt; and children’s author/illustrator Chris van Dusen, among others. As the library board refines its restoration and renovation plan, one thing remains certain: that the North Haven Library will continue to be a free and welcoming resource for the community.

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

Electric vehicles an option for Acadia visitors Low-speed ‘GEM’ cars offered for rent By Laurie Schreiber

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new rental fleet of small electric vehicles is winding its way around the streets of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park—and it’s an option being pitched as having great advantages over gas-guzzler cars and taxis. “Instead of driving their Suburban from their hotel to the park, they can drive an electric vehicle,” said Eben Salvatore, co-owner of Acadia GEM, a new EV rental business in Bar Harbor. This is no small endeavor, with a fleet of 45 vehicles, each costing between $20,000 and $50,000, depending on size, for a base investment of about $1.6 million. “GEM” stands for Global Electric Motorcars. They’re low-speed, battery-powered vehicles developed in the 1990s to fill a space in the market between a golf cart and a full-size automobile, according to its website. They’re allowed to be driven on roads with up to 35 mph speed limits. The brand was owned for about a decade by Polaris Industries, perhaps best known for its snowmobiles. It was acquired this year by Waev Inc., an electric mobility provider founded in 2021. The vehicles come in various sizes, carry two to six passengers, and resemble large, fancy golf carts. Easy to operate, they start with a press of a button. Acadia GEM is the brainchild of its other co-owner, Jeff Young. Young and his wife own multiple hospitality businesses around Bar Harbor. Salvatore is Mount Desert Island operations chief for Ocean Properties, which owns a number of local hotels and Bar Harbor Whale Watch.

The GEMs are low-speed electric vehicles. PHOTO: LAURIE SCHREIBER

With Young’s restaurants and Ocean Properties’ endeavors usually stuffed to the gills with customers— through the summer and increasingly in the spring and autumn—the two were ideally suited to sussing out alternative ways for folks to get around town and into Acadia.

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Young had been thinking about vehicle congestion in Bar Harbor for years and began looking into lowspeed, street-legal vehicles as an alternative form of transportation. After considerable research, the GEM seemed ideal for its standard automobile features such as heating systems, windshield wipers, and

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Eben Salvatore, left, and Jeff Young, who are introducing the electric vehicles to Acadia and Bar Harbor. PHOTO: LAURIE SCHREIBER

seatbelts, plus amenities that included comfortable seats, leg room, and removable doors which provide an open-air cab. He bought one second-hand last year to test in Acadia. “I spent a month or so driving that around and immediately knew it was a great alternative for seeing the park,” he said. He approached Salvatore as a long-time connection with similar engagement in the local scene. “I knew he was the right guy,” Young said.

He recalled taking Salvatore on a test drive. “We were driving around,” he said. “I said, ‘What do you think of this idea?’ He was really quiet and, after a few minutes, he said, ‘Wow, I think you’re really onto something!’” “It was a combination of both of us being involved in Bar Harbor, understanding customer needs and the way people visit,” Salvatore said, “and recognizing there was an opportunity to see the park in a clean and green fashion.”

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Salvatore said that in this increasingly carbonconscious age, Acadia’s visitors—four million in 2021—might appreciate the chance to swap out their larger fossil-fuel vehicles for easier-tomaneuver electric, able to fit into smaller parking spots, and navigate through busy summer streets. The vehicles are about 4 feet wide and range from 6 to 16 feet long. “They’re nimble,” noted Salvatore. “We’ve been up Cadillac, on Ocean Drive, over to Seal Harbor. You can cover quite a territory—any paved road that’s under 35 miles per hour.” According to its website, GEM was the first commercially produced brand in the U.S. low-speed EV market. For over 20 years, the vehicles have been shuttling across “micro-environments” such as college campuses and residential communities. The partners have installed charging stations at a garage Young owns near the rental office’s downtown location. A single charge offers a range of 50-70 miles. Several area hotels also provide fast-charging for guests. Katie Liming, a public affairs specialist with the National Park Service, said Acadia appreciates seeing more electric vehicles. Since low-speed vehicles licensed by the state are new to the park, the NPS is monitoring how they are used and interact with other vehicles to assess if there are any safety or traffic issues. Liming noted there are many examples of national parks installing EV charging stations and offering alternative transportation options. In Acadia, plans are in the works to install charging stations at restrooms in Blackwood Campground this year, said Liming, who cited the Island Explorer as another alternative transportation. The GEM? “It’s a really comfortable and fun way to see both Bar Harbor and Acadia,” said Salvatore.

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cssay RanBeRRy R epoRt E

Town meeting, painting lines, eating Coastal Maine: A sense of place and throwing rocks It was home for nearlydoughnuts, 20 years—until last year.

As winter winds down, islanders mix prep work and gatherings

By Tom Walsh BEFORE MAINE, the Midwest was By Barbara home for 30 Fernald years. It is again, now overlooking Minnesota farmland, not ACTIVITY on the islands, at thevista, end the Maine coast’s dark skies. Each of February and into March, is like Midwest and Downeast, stunning in itsa mirror image of the action at the end own way. ofThroughout August intothose September. Just as the 20 years, seventhsummer residents of the Cranberry generation Downeast neighbors would Isles end their vacations right People before inevitably ask why in the world fall, many year-round residents end From Away move from corn country their winter breaks just before the to coastal Maine. The answer? A love spring equinox. affair. With a sailboat. It seems there It’s any timeovernight to get back toopportuniwork and aren’t sailing reconnect. ties and no lobster pots to dodge west annual town meeting takes of Our the Mississippi. place on theno second Saturday in March. There are nautical destinations in For Midwest selectmen townprovisioning employees, the thatand require been anything but a vacaawinter sturdyhas27-foot pocket cruiser for tion. They have been working week-long jaunts to ports ofsteadily, call as gathering information to write the distant from coastal Maine as those warrant for town meeting. It’s the time along coastal Nova Scotia. There is no of year we comeMidwest togetherofasanchoring a town to chance in the decide on projects and spending and overnight in the utter darkness of a how much money is to be raised by heavily wooded island near Halifax, property only to betaxes. awakened by the assorted Discussion of onshore the school budget sounds of bears fighting. Or alone can take well over an hour. The more likely mating. islands take turns hosting the meeting and the luncheon. This year, town

There was no chance in the Midwest meeting take place on Canadian Islesford. of sailing will below a hovering What’s for lunch? Homemade military helicopter, and sendingpizzas, word salads, and desserts. Life gets busier by radio that, being under sail, she had as right we volunteer to help prepare the to of way. Word came, too, that first community meal of the season. directly below was a massive nuclear Town meeting is asurface. great opportusubmarine eager to We can nity to hear about winter from friends wait, they said. and neighbors. “How was There your trip to Great fun while it lasted. are no ...?” “Who knew grand-parenting was more right whales, no doe-eyed seals, so exhausting that therenor were so no ever-curiousordolphins, tasty many cold germs involved?” “You did mackerel grilled on deck for breakfast. all that painting?” Not in the Midwest. These same questions could be askedisinall September at Maine’s coastline about the a school board meeting in a large subweather, sometimes very angry urb. (Preferablytonot the meetweather—akin theduring Midwest’s killer ing while someone else has the tornadoes. In winter, Maine nor’efloor!) asters In January and February, Bruce and arrive snowing sideways in hurricaneIforce got squalls. to spend a lot of time our The timeless and with dynamic grandchildren in Southern Maine. scent of the sea is a three-day drive Visiting was and the that mainfound goal on of from the them Midwest, most of our winter travel. We consida remote northern Canadian shoreline. ered trying to paint ourGulf kitchen, but Every sunrise over the of Maine we kept catching odd coughing virusis dramatic. No two are alike. As es andcoastal experienced down time iconic Maine more painter Winslow than we wanted, so we never got to it. Homer once said: “The life I have Maybe I’ll paint it in May, when I can chosen gives me hours of enjoyment. havesun the will windows open.or set, without The not rise, saw more than enough paint, myBruce notice, and thanks.” anyway, this winter. During his “time off” he painted 600 buoys (white and

Maine’s coastline is an archive the family by rail or by ferry or both bright red with black stripe) purple to the of the from of New York,rope Boston, or end Philly. Off embracing manya thousands ofand, yearslike of piece every other lobsterhistory, fisherman Maine buoy line summer or toggle,weekends but all attachments for long of lobster dynamic regional bothincultural mademartinis, with a splice tuck. this winter, he read talked about, bakes,be dry andor aromping and geologic. Real about, and imagined, its must I know it’s a stretch to compare foland experimented with purple paint. history runs rich and runs deep, at with kids and grandkids on the rocky lowing Maine whale rope requireThe latest whale regulations require least as deep as the mud caked on a Downeast shoreline. plein air workshop, but all Maine lobster fishermen to use new ments with aToday’s Maine is America’s blood wormer’s markings on the ropes they attach to a person could return home from whitest state. Downeastei-is boots. Coastal lobster traps. Depending on how close ther and say that they’d been paintmore than 95 percent white. characters are sparelittle time. If Bruce were to shore fish, they will have to add ing in theirWhat diversity persists to be they found essay on how he spent his each buoy line. writing an largely involves small Native e2-4 v e rpurple y w h emarks r e , on Real and imagined, winter vacation, painting would be a On warps that are 100-feet or less there American communities, many with more part of it. Another part would be the must be one 12-inch purple mark withits history runs rich whose cultures and tradistories than I heardwere him tell his brother in a few himself. fathoms of the trap and a 36- descriptiontions systematically Aesop and runs deep, at about walking Mark to get doughnuts, inch purple mark within 2 fathoms of dismantled by FrenchNo extra charge. the buoy. If theofwarp is longer 100 asinthe February, with our son Robin, and least asthat deep English territorial warfare. The history our grandchildren Henry and Cora. I feet, the requirement is for a 12-inch geo-political coastal Maine mud caked on a blood Colonial purple mark near the trap, a second 12- was away with friends in Portland, and tactics quickly reduced entombs many wormer’s boots. Stephanie native was away with to friends in inch purpleSome mark halfway to the buoy, tribes battlecultures. and a 36-inch mark near the buoy. Florida. Father and son were in charge. field fodder and expendstories are “Yeah, we doughnuts Bruce figures ablegot political pawns atonThe the prehistoric, longhe will be putting 1,500 Cookie Jar and then walked to the to 1,800 markings on his rope in all; two heavily forested economic embraced by picnicpolitical and to throw rocks.” to three weeks of extra work if he does beach for aand chessboard Maine’s indigeEating homemade donuts and it without hiring help. A number of fishnous cultures that today are few and far that was then Maine. ermen are applying paint to their ropes throwing rocks at the beach—if that Maine is America’s oldest state in between, for reasons their stories help mirror of many childby restingOther them stories in 3-foot long gutters termsa of folks image over 70. Not Florida. explain. involve ever- isn’t made frommodern-day lengthwise-halved PVC pipe. hood summers This on Islesford, don’t Not Arizona. unique I demothinning, remembrances know what is. Bruce’s first attempt was with spray paint q of the travels and travails of wealthy graphic would seem to obligate Maine but heStreet soonwhite movedguys on to effi- to provide a quality health care system Wall inthe ties,more in with cient brush and latex paint. Barbara Fernald lives on Islesford (Little Some fishermen will add a 3-foot Cranberry Island) with her husband Bruce.

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www.workingwaterfront.com . july 2022 designed to anticipate, assess, and slowly warming waters are now center address the needs of aging patients and stage in the dynamics of North Atlantic their families, all close to dealing with climate change. Dreams of floating offshore wind turbines and reviving debilitating illness and death. Such a system does not exist the coastal fishery are just that, wishful in Maine. Nor will it. At least not thinking. Where the sustained offshore winds Downeast. Not in places like coastal Washington County, among Maine’s are now doesn’t mean that’s where poorest counties. It’s also one of the they will remain. As for warming poorest counties in America. Nor will seas, that phenom is not going away reliable, accessible, and affordable anytime soon. Remember Maine health care happen in Portland even as shrimp? Twenty years ago, before they it devolves into a suburb of Boston, the migrated north into Nova Scotia’s self-proclaimed Mecca of medical care colder waters, the little buggers were a dollar a pound, alive and kicking, in New England. Meanwhile, up I-95 from Boston in sold along the side of the road. Never Vacationland, the number of universi- again. Scallops may be next. Coastal Maine is ties in Maine that train blessed with a cluster of medical doctors remains artists. Painters, writers, zero. Where the musicians, sculptors, Coastal Maine by defisustained offshore photographers, chefs, nition inevitably is on basket makers, and the front lines of climate winds are now more. Artists thrive on change. It has been and doesn’t mean seascapes and apparit will be forever. Recent climate change aside, that’s where they ently breed like rats. Maine’s coastal islands Maine was downwind will remain. attract painters of all for decades of the oncesorts, drawn to its thriving Great Lakes offshore archipelago like steel mills, their pollutants deposited in Maine through years moths to a flame. Think Winslow Homer at Prout’s of acid rain. Mercury it seems is not only a planet Neck, John Marin at Small Point, Andrew but a highly toxic heavy metal. Bottom Wyeth at Cushing and son Jamie Wyeth line: Enjoy the catch, but best not eat on Monhegan Island. There are countthe fish to be had throughout Maine’s less less-famous painters, too, among endless wilderness expanse of rivers, them actor Zero Mostel. When not on a Broadway stage headlining Fiddler on lakes, streams, and estuaries. Gulf of Maine offshore winds and the Roof, Mostel for years went hermit to

Owning a home or business on the coast of Maine has many rewards. A close working relationship with your insurance agent is worth a lot, too. We’re talking about the long-term value that comes from a personalized approach to insurance coverage offering strategic risk reduction and potential premium savings. Generations of Maine families have looked to Allen Insurance and Financial for a personal approach that brings peace of mind and the very best fit for their unique needs. We do our best to take care of everything, including staying in touch and being there for you, no matter what. That’s the Allen Advantage.

Corea Harbor. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

paint while holed up near Jamie Wyeth’s studio on Monhegan Island. Apparently not a fan of tourists, Mostel was known to locals as prone to “occasional lapses of propriety.” In one theatrical outburst, Mostel stood ranting on a crowded Monhegan public dock, waving off an arriving tourist ferry, shouting “Plague! Plague! Cholera! Go back!” For better or for worse, coastal Maine embraces an endless supply of tourists. Such is the lure of the sea. Between Memorial Day and Columbus Day countless Downeast businesses rely on a seasonal tsunami of tourists bearing credit cards. It’s the 16 weeks required to break even. Some iconic destinations remain fixtures: Monica’s Chocolates in Lubec, Raye’s Mustard in Eastport, whale watch cruises out of Bar Harbor, Red’s Eats in Wiscasset, the smoked seafood at Winter Harbor’s Grindstone Neck of Maine, The Fore Street Grill in Portland, and the nostalgic amusement park rides at Old Orchard Beach. Meanwhile, during those four chaotic months, Acadia National Park is swallowed whole by tourists. From dawn to dusk, millions of visitors swarm over Mount Desert Island’s galleries, jewelry

stores, restaurants, watering holes, bike rental shops, kitsch/gift shops, and ice cream emporiums. Among them are thousands of passengers and crew being ferried ashore by tenders, to and from an endless parade of 100-plus behemoth cruise ships that anchor in Bar Harbor, polluting both the harbor and community. As for tourists, it’s apparent that Maine’s fragile coastal economy can’t live with them and can’t live without them. “Honey, let’s get up early and take the kids to see the first glimpse of the sunrise from Cadillac Island.” Not a problem. “I’ll just get online to the overwhelmed National Park Service website for Acadia National Park and book a pre-dawn parking spot.” Tourist to Bar Harbor cab driver: “Why is the water in Frenchman Bay so low today? Is there drought here?” Cabdriver to tourist: “No, sir, it’s not drought. It’s what we call the tide.”

Retired Downeast journalist Tom Walsh recently moved from a seaside home overlooking West Bay in Gouldsboro to farmland in southeast Minnesota.

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Learn more at: www.coastalfisheries.org

22

The Working Waterfront . july 2022

Saltwater Cure

Caught by COVID, help in escaping Accepting favors from friends isn’t easy By Courtney Naliboff

isolate from him, it made it much harder to isolate from Penrose. Monday morning, when I tested AFTER TWO YEARS, two months, and some number of days that I’m too positive, I had been on my way out the tired to count, I finally caught COVID. door to play Taps for Memorial Day. I Or maybe it caught me. Either way, I’m was feeling dizzy and generally weird, and I’m very glad I writing this from bed. tested rather than I had identified a blow particulates at a ten-day window in town gathering. That my schedule where it necessitated an immewould be somewhat I sent a few emails, diate pivot from the less inconvenient to be day—and week—I had laid up and quaranalerting basically planned. tining, but although I I put on a black may be a task-oriented, everyone I knew and schedule-driven had seen in the last KN95 mask, opened all the windows, and Taurus, Virgo rising, 72 hours… set up camp on our this virus doesn’t bench. I sent a few seem to have any such emails, alerting basipredilictions. cally everyone I knew It caught me in a and had seen in the week where I had both a school concert and a school trip to last 72 hours as to my situation, and New York scheduled. It also caught me then drifted off to sleep against the solo parenting, since Bill was on his soundtrack of Penrose’s cartoon. When I eventually woke up, I found own school trip to New York. While that made it much easier for me to an influx of kindness in my emails and

DMs. Offers of food, grocery drop-offs, and help getting Penrose home from her afterschool activities. I felt warm and loved reading the notes but assured myself that I would probably be just fine until Bill was back on Wednesday. The first crack in my resolve came when I forgot that Tuesday was… Tuesday. And not Monday. And that Pen had an afterschool activity that necessitated a ride home. Suddenly, between episodes of Watch Out For the Big Girls, I was asking for the help that had been offered, and before long, it was straightened out. Later that day, I ran out of ibuprofen, Benadryl, and bananas, three items I had deemed necessary to my survival. I called in the offer of grocery drop off, wincing a little as I did so, but then was cheered enormously by the sight of my friend’s face through the window. I made dinner that night, but on the following day, found that I was in worse shape. I called in a second favor for a ride for Penrose, and then a third to have some dinner dropped off. I did

a little writing, but was mostly a lump under the covers, working my way through Our Flag Means Death. Bill returned that evening, and I fully released myself to just isolate and lie down (and binge watch Heartstopper; seriously, we live in a golden age of streaming television). Asking for help isn’t always easy, but in communities like ours, the help is abundantly available. I’ve been on the giving and receiving ends of meal trains, carpools, emergency childcare, and more. The more difficult thing is to accept the help that’s offered and be OK with resting. Courtney Naliboff teaches, writes, and plays music on North Haven. She may be contacted at Courtney.Naliboff@ gmail.com.

Journal of an Island Kitchen

Prepping like it’s 1885

Setting food aside for bad times isn’t new By Sandy Oliver REMEMBER 1999 and the big worry about the Y2K bug? Everything civilization rested on would collapse in a heap when the clocks all ticked over to 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2000. The world’s computers would all crash and we’d be enveloped in darkness as the grid went down and mayhem ensued. Lots of people were prepared with bugout bags and five-gallon containers of various sorts of dehydrated vegetables and other survival food. Nothing happened, and we suspect a lot of survival food migrated to the back of various closets and garages because who would want to eat that unless they absolutely had to? Since some survival food is guaranteed to last for 25 years, the owners have another three on their last investment. Or you can pick up a fresh one-year’s supply from a vendor who says it will provide 2,752 total servings at the rate of 7.6 per day for only $2,787. Just add water. Some of it doesn’t sound half-bad: chili, mac and cheese, soups, pancake mix. If I lived in a city, I might be tempted to acquire some. So for millennia when war, fire, flood, pestilence, and drought afflicted humankind, whatever did we do without MREs? (Meals Ready to Eat). As far as I can tell, most of humankind were preppers. We had to prep for when

we couldn’t grow food, especially those A lot of us know how to take care of of us who lived wherever winter or gardens and cook from scratch and can some other seasonal scarcity happened. vegetables and make pickles just as lots Humans were awfully good at of rural Mainers do. We are preppers preserving food for use some other time. by nature, custom, and habit. A hundred plus years ago, say 1885, Think back to 100 or 200 years ago, when putting food by was a housewifely skill Adrianna Bunker and her husband needing vinegar, sugar, salt, and alcohol Capt. Emery who lived in this house and employing cellaring, dehydration, could grow potatoes, store them down fermentation, and for at least 150 years, cellar just as I do. I expect they saved canning and seasonal, natural freezing some to plant the next year. When you do this for a couple of years, you find until artificial freezing roared into view. It isn’t so much that our household of out just how many potatoes you need the mid-1800s wouldn’t consider that and learn to grow the right amount. In a bad potato year, you any survival food they find something else to could buy was desirable eat or find a neighbor as much as they might We suspect a lot who had a better crop to wonder who needed of survival food trade with or buy from. it—armies, navies, They could pick explorers to unknown migrated to the apples, dry some, store territories, pioneers, back of various some, make applesauce, maybe. Otherwise all of which I can do. stored and preserved closets and Maybe they fermented food was a fact of ordigarages… cider which I haven’t nary home life. mastered though my Then, too, consider great-grandad did. islanders. Though most of us can drop into an island market to Adrianna might have made her own pick up a loaf of bread or some milk, vinegar like one of my neighbors does I’ll wager there isn’t a one who doesn’t which is on my list of skills to acquire. Is all this prepping? Or simply living plan ahead to acquire and put by the kinds of things we need all the time. I’ll sustainably using common sense pracbet our pantries have more staples. I bet tice from the past? Prepping has a semiwe almost always buy larger quantities desperate sound and creates visions of when we shop or send for stuff online. vigilant people crawling through woods

somewhere with a backpack full of survival food, looking for a mud puddle from which they can drink with their special water purifying straw. Or maybe someone with an automatic firearm protecting his canned sardine supply. How about prepping a solid community of smart and able people who can save seeds and grow and preserve food, fix broken equipment, administer medical help, and look out for one another? I’ll knit socks for firewood, or trade dilly beans for home-made vinegar. Then I won’t have to eat dehydrated chili dinners because I’ll have a supply of home-grown dried beans cooked in home-canned tomato sauce with onions, garlic, and oregano from the garden. Bring some ground venison with you, and let’s have some supper together while you recharge your electric drill with my solar power. That prospect would leave me feeling prepared. Sandy Oliver is a food historian who gardens, cooks, and writes on Islesboro. She can be reached at sandyolive47@gmail.com

www.workingwaterfront.com . july 2022

23

Cranberry Report

Looking for balm in wake of violence Island gratitude list provides beauty, balance By Barbara Fernald OH HOW I WISH our country would do what New Zealand did after its last mass shooting, in Christchurch, in 2019. What if our government would reinstate its ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons and install an immediate program to buy them back? Funds that are already earmarked to buy weapons for Ukraine could be used for these purchases. We would buy the rapid-fire killing machines off our streets and send them to Ukraine to be used, as they were meant to be, for weapons of war. I have nothing against most gun ownership but who needs to own an automatic or semi-automatic weapon? What is one good reason to keep a rapidfire killing machine if you’re not in the military? Why are there so many people in America, and serving in our government, who are dead set against making our country a safer place to live? I’m trying to figure out how to deal with the anger I feel because I know it’s not healthy. I’m reminded of a line from a book I read years ago, White

The ocean: any day, any time, any tide. Dog Fell from the Sky, by Eleanor Moty: “The bitter heart eats its owner.” I need The sound of hermit thrushes to find a balance to my outrage before singing in the woods at dusk. Spring peepers. The little patch of blueit consumes me. I’ve written to Sens. King and Collins eyed grass that showed up between and to Rep. Golden. I’ve joined Every raised beds in my veggie garden after I had made plans to buy Town for Gun Safety some to plant in that and Moms Demand exact spot. Watching a Action. My emotional cardinal, a goldfinch, and pendulum is still stutI’m scared. I need an indigo bunting share tering in the part of its more than a space under the feeder. arc that swings between Apple blossoms and lilacs fury and depression. gratitude list. blooming simultaneously I know that the quickest with beach peas, lupine, path out of self-pity is and daisies. The straight to make a gratitude list, line of pink granite but today’s outrage and bitterness are different. I’m scared. I dividing the space between trees and need more than a gratitude list. I need water all the way around Baker Island. Lady slippers in the woods, undisto make an evidence list. I need to look around and take in turbed. Looking at stars on a clear night. the details of all that is still good and Watching a great blue heron fly special right in front of me. I can overhead. My evidence list speaks of the kind of take time to survey the beauty and the magical coincidences over which wonder and beauty in the world that no I have no control. It’s June in the human power created, and yet there it is. Cranberry Isles, so all I need to do to When I’ve veered too far toward bittermake such a list is to step outside my ness it reminds me there is still available stability, right here where I live. door and pay attention.

The list changes with the seasons. These days my garden provides the balance. To benefit the pollinators I avoided it until June. “No mow May” and all that. Talk about being powerless. I’ve never seen so many weeds, but I bet Tom’s bees were happy. The gratification is pretty swift when it comes to weeding the garden so I’ve been enjoying it. Thanks to Elliot’s plant sale and Cindy’s library sale I have plants to install in newly turned dirt. More instant gratification. Nothing feels bitter here. My spirit takes a rest in a little pocket of peace. Go out and notice something good and take extra time to soak it in when you find it. It’s still there. Especially if you’re spending spring in the Cranberry Isles.

Barbara Fernald lives on Islesford (Little Cranberry Island). She may be reached at fernald244@gmail.com.

Book Review

Island doctor reflects on personal costs Second memoir details commitment to care

Island Medicine: Life, Healing, and Community on a Maine Island By Dr. Chuck Radis (Down East Books, 2022)

Review by Tina Cohen DR. CHUCK RADIS’S first book, Go By Boat: Stories of a Maine Island Doctor, was published in 2021. Now his second is out, Island Medicine: Life, Healing, and Community on

a Maine Island. Both cover the earliest years of his practice, based primarily on Peaks Island in Casco Bay. Both include descriptions of some adrenaline-charged responses to medical emergencies as well as more intellectual, clinical considerations of diagnoses and treatments. Both books contain entertaining and empathetic portraits of island characters and small-town community life. So why, one might wonder, write a second book so similar to the first? Radis is, it occurs to me, a teacher as well as a practitioner, and he seems to have some lessons he wants to be sure get drilled home. I think he wanted to convey in this second book the difficult but important balancing of time and energy that needs to occur between serving one’s profession and one’s involvement in the other relationships in life—with one’s partner, family, friends, and neighbors. Radis writes, “The strain of my Peaks Island and Chebeague Island clinics, caring for hospitalized patients, office hours in my Portland office, not to mention an occasional house call to the outer islands, was taking a toll. It wasn’t unusual for me to leave home

before the children were awake and to That is what the book closes with: return long after their bedtime. Sandi preparing to move to Pittsburgh for a [his equally talented and hardworking two-year university fellowship in rheuspouse], sometimes for matology and clinical weeks at a time, was immunology, planning to more like a single parent then bring his expanded than a partner in an expertise back to Peaks equitable marriage.” and Portland. Without sharing But that wasn’t the only Radis describes a lot of detail but gain he expected. There with an honest and would be the opportutheir time in open approach, Radis nity for the children to couples therapy describes their time in experience a school and couples therapy sessions community bound to sessions… to address the aches and be different from theirs pains in their relationin Maine. And it would ship. He also emphasizes allow him several critical the importance of mainyears of more family taining old friendships, time with his wife and which for Radis is an daughters. annual weekend camping with male The book ends with that cliffhanger buddies in bitter winter weather. of sorts, readers left wondering how Radis would include his daughters in the dramatic change will go. There is his work life when possible, as certain one thing we know will occur—the patients, seen at home after hours, family’s return to Peaks. Like a lightwelcomed the bonus. He saw Peaks as house in their foggy future, the island a wonderful environment for children is their beacon of “home.” to grow up in. Yet, as he assessed what would be best for the family in trying to loosen the incessant demands of his Tina Cohen is a therapist who spends work, he had a decision to make. time on Vinalhaven.

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

Field Notes Nuances of the working waterfront As owners and users change, threats loom By Molly Miller MOST MAINERS understand and appreciate the need to protect the working waterfront, those access points and infrastructure necessary to make a living on the water. But how, exactly, does it get threatened and how does it disappear? Imagine you’re a clam harvester who has an agreement with a local person or long-time summer resident to cross their land to get to a mudflat. When that person sells their home, it might be purchased by someone from out of town who does not understand the economic and cultural importance of clam harvesting. Maybe they simply are uncomfortable with strangers regularly crossing their property, as many of us might be. Either way, you are no longer able to access that mudflat by land and must instead purchase a boat, find a public launch, and wait for the tides to get to this productive mudflat. As someone who examined challenges facing the soft-shell clam industry in Maine as a part of my doctoral dissertation, this story was told to me many times by harvesters along the coast. Despite Maine’s thousands of

miles of coastline, there are only about 20 miles of working waterfront and it is shrinking. As locals move away from the coast due to rising costs, water access and infrastructure go with it, as can the culture and inherent value of the working waterfront itself. For other fisheries and marinedependent businesses, such as lobstering and aquaculture, wharfs may be converted for private uses. Though not always zoned commercial, many fishers have private wharfs in front of their homes. Sales of these desirable waterfront properties are particularly appealing to people who move to or summer in Maine for the lifestyle amenities they offer. In Cape Elizabeth, a commercialonly access is being turned into a public one. Because wild harvesters, ocean farmers, and emergency service responders must trailer and launch their skiffs each time they go out, making a commercial access public in a highly congested area could prevent them getting in the water, particularly in summer. In other places, waterfront properties are transformed into hotels or restaurants. Small owner-operator businesses, such as fishing, aquaculture, and

boat tours, typically lack the funding to purchase these properties and must scramble to find other options. One way to protect access is to establish a working waterfront covenant that ensures access to a property in perpetuity, regardless of sale or change in ownership. The Land for Maine’s Future and Maine Coastal Program fund projects to protect and preserve working waterfront properties through an annual grant program. This program pays landowners for the right of access and restricts development to keep the property as working waterfront. A covenant is held by the state and gives it the right of first refusal to the property when it eventually sells and ensures that the property cannot sell above the appraisal value, keeping it more affordable to those who need access to the water. Despite these funding opportunities, there is no single entity charged with the preservation of this critical asset, such as a land trust would do. My time in Maine has taught me that the people and businesses who depend on this access are incredibly resilient. But the fact remains that while they may find alternatives, the more working

waterfront that is lost, the harder it will be to find alternatives. The Island Institute is dedicating time and resources to help preserve and maintain this critical resource. Through this work we hope to keep Maine’s marine economy productive and resilient to inevitable change so that future generations may come to know the same iconic images that I hold dear. To learn more about working waterfront challenges, seek our 2021 report produced by Merritt Carey at: www.islandinstitute.org/wp-content/ uploads/2021/11/WWF-Report_web. pdf. Molly Miller is a community development officer with the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, focusing on strategies for the long-term, sustainable protection of Maine’s critical working waterfronts. She may be reached at mmiller@ islandinstitute.org.

Fathoming

Regulators look at growing lobster stock Larger minimum size considered for Gulf of Maine By Susie Arnold THERE IS A GREAT deal of uncertainty facing the lobster fishery. One constant for the last 33 years has been the minimum legal size. Changes to that size are now being discussed. Addendum 27 (dubbed the “resiliency addendum”) to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Interstate Lobster Fishery Management plan considers the future resiliency of the fishery. Although the industry had a record year for value in 2021, all four of the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ monitoring surveys to track the fishery are trending down. One management measure that could kick in if the fishery were to decline below a predetermined threshold is an increase in the minimum legal size in Lobster Management Area 1 (Gulf of Maine to the Canadian border and out about 50 miles). The current minimum size there is 3-1/4 inches (82.6 mm) carapace length (CL), and the maximum size is 5 inches (127 mm) CL. Also under consideration for the addendum include changes to the maximum size. Minimum and maximum sizes and V-notch definitions and requirements also are being

considered in other management areas. These measures are aimed at increasing reproduction as climate change may depress the lobster stock. With all the challenges facing the industry it is difficult to entertain the idea of yet another change, and even more difficult for most to dig into the details behind a proposal. I decided to dig a bit into the minimum size. For simplicity, I’ll stick to coastal Maine, or the National Marine Fisheries statistical areas 511 (Downeast), 512 (Midcoast), and 513 (Southern Maine). For years, I’ve heard fishermen talk about seeing smaller and smaller lobsters bearing eggs, and numerous studies have demonstrated that warmer water temperature decreases the size of maturity for female lobsters. So just when are lobsters reproducing along the coast, and what proportion reproduce before they are caught? DMR Senior Lobster Biologist Jesica Waller analyzed size at maturity of female lobsters over three decades and published those results in 2021. For area 511, the size at which 50% of females are mature was 88.6 mm CL, 86.7 mm for area 512, and 83.4 mm for area 513. These sizes are approximately 6 mm shorter than what was observed in the 1990s.

In contemplating changes to the minimum size, it’s important to consider the current size make-up of legal-size lobsters and the extent to which the smallest legal lobsters are making up the vast majority of the catch. According to DMR commercial sea sampling data from 2016-2021, 97% of legal-size lobsters are between 83-100 mm. Over 100 mm is considered a select lobster by the industry. In fact, 10.6% of the legal catch are lobsters right at the minimum size, 83 mm, with lobsters 83-88 mm making up 53% of the current legal catch. What is interesting about this is that raising the minimum size only one millimeter could give just over 10% of the current legal catch another year to reproduce. If they don’t reproduce, those lobsters have the potential of growing an average of 9 mm in the next molt so they would be significantly larger when caught as legal lobsters. We typically think of preserving the largest (because larger lobsters produce exponentially more eggs) as the most important way to protect broodstock, but given that lobsters over 100 mm have made up less than 3% of the catch over the last five years, protecting the smallest females could

actually have the highest impact on spawning stock biomass. There is a lot we still don’t know about how lobsters behave in a warming world. It seems in this way, climate change has pushed more lobsters to reproduce before they are caught. But is it enough? Are the eggs of these youngsters as viable as those released from larger lobsters? Are the eggs released inshore or offshore finding their way to suitable nursery habitat? Harvesters have been essential participants in answering these questions, and continued cooperative research between industry, scientists, and managers is the only way to move through these challenging, changing times. Susie Arnold is a marine scientist with the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, working on the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on marine resources and fisheries-dependent communities. She may be reached at sarnold@ islandinstitute.org.

www.workingwaterfront.com . july 2022

25

In Plain Sight

An outsider’s sharp eye on Maine Museum features Ruohomaa work this summer By Kevin Johnson A HERRING FISHERMAN or “herringer” of Hugo Lehtinen’s crew pulls on a line from a purse seine while standing in a wooden skiff in Penobscot Bay in the photo featured in this month’s column. A line of seine floats leads the viewer’s eye from the lower right corner up to the boat and then snakes up to the top of the frame where it meets a straight line of floats and heads left. This stunning photo was taken by Kosti Ruohomaa of Rockland while working on a story for Maine Coast Fisherman in 1958. Photography was as much an artistic expression for Ruohomaa as a documentary tool. It’s no surprise that Ruohomaa was drawn to the state’s herring fishery as a subject for photography and storytelling. The work was carried out by a cast of rugged characters using multiple boats of various types, small aircraft, and other heavy equipment. The task of landing sardines, as they are called when they are harvested for food, was vigorous, dynamic, and required orchestration of these many elements. For a photographer, there was a lot to see. Ruohomaa documented the herring fishery from every angle over a number of years, including 1953, 1957, 1958, and 1960. He photographed the boats, fishermen, and nets. He photographed the weirs and seines from the open cockpit of an airplane. He drew detailed diagrams of the nets and weirs and wrote down folk phrases spoken by the fishermen. The Penobscot Marine Museum’s 2022 exhibit, “Kosti Ruohomaa: The

Maine Assignments,” will showcase his work featuring Maine scenes. The exhibit opened May 27 and will run through Oct. 16. Ruohomaa was a first-generation Finnish American immigrant and a gifted artist who died young. Though his professional work spanned just over two decades, he documented a critical time in American culture by photographing around the World War II years. During his career, his photos found their way into some of the era’s more visible publications, notably Life, Look, and National Geographic. The affinity he felt with people and places shows in his photographs, and it helped him capture the varied folkways of an America that was changing rapidly, particularly the fading world of rural old New England. With a focus on his Maine-based photographic assignments, the exhibit explores the ways Mainers lived, celebrated, made their livings, recreated, and communicated. While many of Ruohomaa’s most iconic images stand on their own, he approached his assignments with a photo essay in mind—telling the story through a series of photographs. This exhibit embraces that approach and presents his assignments through the eye of a magazine editor. It allows a deeper look at Ruohomaa’s work and technique and helps viewers gain more insight into the man and his photographs. “Kosti Ruohomaa: The Maine Assignments” has been funded in part by generous support from lead sponsor L.L Bean and by Camden National Wealth Management, Allen Insurance and Financial, and Innova Art.

Kosti Ruohomaa photo from the Penobscot Marine Museum’s collection shows a herring fisherman.

Observer

A dog life remembered Island town was a perfect match By Phil Crossman I WAS BORN READY, ready to love without condition. So simple were my needs that to be adopted 13 years ago by a human family represented complete fulfillment. Over the years I found a real home on this island. This is a real Dog Town. From the beginning I went to work with someone almost every day, carpentering with her dad, gardening with Libby, or in the woods with her brothers. I lived for the moment and the moments always came, running down a dirt road following the van, peeing on everything, catching balls, playing rough, welcoming company, retrieving sticks. That was where I had my closest call. A felled tree struck me on the head and

only the efforts of Libby and Rachel saved me. I flew in a plane from the island to the hospital. Not many dogs get a chance to fly. I had a great spot in my own front yard from which I could see all who approached from either direction. I had kind of a funny spell there for a while and couldn’t get entirely clear just what my responsibilities were when strangers came to the house. I tried to bite Ed Beaumont one day and I did manage to get ahold of Mary Webster, actually got her twice. Thank goodness she had a sense of humor. For years I was my most ferocious when other dogs went by. Those on leashes like Dixie or Kobe or Betsy just got a warning shot barked across their bow but those unaccompanied got the

full force of my fury and kept a respectable distance. Except, that is, for Jeff and Donna’s dogs who were a little too much for me—charging down the road, unleashed, and jumping right over my head as I lay napping. Embarrassing! By the time I got to my feet they’d be all the way to the library. Lucky for them. Galling young squirts. Early this year I began feeling a little poorly, had a lot of discomfort in my mouth, couldn’t eat easily, lost weight and strength. My people had to feed me by hand. I was anesthetized for an examination that revealed an inoperable tumor surrounding my jaws and moving down my throat. At the time my family was driving to Massachusetts to take

her to school. And so her dad asked the vet to administer a fatal dose and on the same day they let her go, they let me go. Although he made the decision quickly and without coming back to say goodbye I don’t have to forgive him. I’m a dog and don’t have to deal with all that baggage. There is no room in my heart for anything but devotion. Phil Crossman lives on Vinalhaven where he serves on the town’s select board. He may be reached at philcrossman.uh@gmail.com

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

Art of the Waterfront

James Fitzgerald paints Fish Beach

Observing the bloody work of fishermen on Monhegan By Carl Little DURING HIS LIFE as a painter, James Fitzgerald (1899-1971) knew firsthand a number of working waterfronts. After completing his art studies in his home city of Boston, he took to the sea, shipping out of Gloucester, ostensibly to sketch and paint. On later trips to the Grand Banks aboard the schooner Elizabeth Howard, he paid his first visit to Monhegan Island in 1924. Around 1930 he relocated to Monterey, Calif., where he resumed his painting, finding some of his subjects on the docks: net menders, sardine fishermen, fishing vessels tied up. Fitzgerald’s move to Monhegan in 1943 confirmed his passion for waterfront subjects. Working in oil and watercolor, he portrayed the fishermen, often in their yellow rain gear, hauling nets, pulling traps, rowing. As Robert Stahl writes in James Fitzgerald: The Watercolors, Volume II of his brilliant catalogue raisonné of the artist’s oeuvre, the island provided him with “an immersive experience in the forces of nature and the activities of the men who made their livelihood on its surrounding waters.” The working waterfront on Monhegan Island consists, more or less, of a wharf

and Fish Beach, which together have inspired thousands of paintings over the past century and a half or so. While the dynamics of that waterfront have changed over the years—Trap Day, for example, shifted from Dec. 1 to Oct. 1 in 2006—in James Fitzgerald’s time the shoreline facing Manana Island was a bustling place. Stahl surmises that one of the “old weather-beaten structures” along the beach may have provided Fitzgerald with a venue “to observe undisturbed while also furnishing a vantage to catch the activities from above.” Interesting to note that he was not a plein air painter despite the immediacy of his work. He was known to observe his subjects outdoors, then return to the studio to “recreate images from a mental template.” Among Fitzgerald’s waterfront images is a stunning overhead view of fishermen engaged in salting mackerel, one of the stars of “The Odyssey of James Fitzgerald” at the Monhegan Museum of Art and History. It’s a sevenperson operation, each man playing a role: hauling, cutting, dressing, salting. Stahl explains the blood-red barrels. “In those days,” he writes, “so many fish were caught in the Monhegan waters that

James Fitzgerald, “Saltin’ Mackerel” ca. 1960, oil on canvas, 30 by 40 inches. Monhegan Museum of Art and History, promised gift of Stephen S. Fuller and Susan D. Bateson

when they were cleaned and rinsed before being salted, the large barrel tubs (called ‘butts’) would turn red with blood.” The enterprise drew seagulls; Fitzgerald painted them hovering over the fishermen’s heads, their beaks pointed downwards, ready to snag some mackerel.

Painted in brusque strokes, “Saltin’ Mackerel” is a flurry of activity, top to bottom, edge to edge. The way Fitzgerald manages to catch the action is astonishing. “The Odyssey of James Fitzgerald” is on view July 1-Sept. 30. Visit www.monheganmuseum.org for information.

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www.workingwaterfront.com . july 2022

Ashley Bryan’s ‘Beauty in Return’ at Farnsworth Rockland museum features work through Dec. 31

T

he exhibition “Ashley Bryan: Beauty in Return” is now on display in the Farnsworth Art Museum’s Rothschild Gallery in Rockland through Dec. 31. The show recognizes the work of the Farnsworth’s 2022 Maine in America Award honoree: painter, printmaker, illustrator, author, puppet maker, poet, and storyteller Ashley Bryan. Bringing together examples of the artist’s work from throughout his long career, including paintings, illustrations, puppets, and stained glass, the exhibition is a joyful celebration of the enduring power of art, and of the human spirit over adversity. In conjunction with this exhibition, and in recognition and celebration of Ashley Bryan’s selection as the Maine in America Award recipient, multiple programs are scheduled throughout the summer. On Wednesday, July 13, the Farnsworth will mark Bryan’s remarkable life on what would have been his 99th birthday with art-making activities for children under a tent on the museum grounds. Then, on Sunday, July 17, the museum will honor the artist with free admission and special programs all day long for members and the community. Visit the Farnsworth website for additional information about events or to join. The museum is grateful to the collection of Oakland University School of Education and Human Services and curators Linda Pavonetti and Jim Cipielewski for their generous loan of works to the exhibition, and to the Ashley Bryan Center and its executive director, H. Nichols B. Clark, for their support, guidance, and assistance. For more information visit www.farnsworthmuseum.org.

“Grape Pickers Sing to the Sun” (1992) 48 x 36 inches, oil on canvas, gift of the Ashley Bryan Center.

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The Working Waterfront . july 2022

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