The Working Waterfront - November 2022

Fishing for a solution

Portland Fish Exchange faces financial pressure

By Clarke Canfield // Photos by Michele Stapleton

Scores

of hard-plastic crates filled with icecovered fresh fish sit on the floor of the Portland Fish Exchange, ready for inspection before the bounty is auctioned in lots to the highest bidders. The fish comes from eight boats that brought their catches of cod, haddock, monkfish, grey sole, and other groundfish here on this late September day.

Days like this, with more than 16,000 pounds of fish, have been too few and far between as of late at the Fish Exchange, a landmark on the Portland Fish Pier for 36 years. Hurt by a declining number of boats bringing their harvests to Portland and recurring financial losses, the exchange is bracing for operational changes to come, possibly by the end of the year.

At the request of the Portland Fish Pier Authority, the exchange board of directors solicited requests of interest from private firms interested in providing management services. The two interested compa nies, Vessel Services Inc. and Bristol Seafood, both located on the Fish Pier and well-known in the fishing industry, will soon submit proposals on how they would manage the exchange and what changes they might recommend. The board has also hired

a temporary business manager—Mike Foster, the general manager of Vessel Services—to oversee the exchange in the interim.

Bill Needelman, Portland’s waterfront coordinator, said changes are needed because the exchange has been going through a long period of uncertainty with a revolving door of managers and dissatisfaction

Deer Isle causeway worries officials

Storm damage could bring economy to standstill

By Tom Groening

Oneway in, one way out. That’s how community offi cials often describe Deer Isle and Stonington, and it’s a worry when that one way includes a sometime

deteriorating Route 15, a circa-1939 bridge spanning Eggemoggin Reach, and a causeway linking Little Deer Isle and Deer Isle.

The causeway was the subject of a Sept. 20 meeting with concerns focused on a warming climate’s impact on the

among many seafood sellers and buyers with certain facets of how it is run.

The biggest issue, however, is the exchange’s ongoing financial troubles. In the past year alone, the Fish Pier Authority has provided the exchange $300,000 to cover revenue shortfalls and capital

roadway. Splash-overs and seaweed on the road coinciding with high tides are becoming more common, officials said, prompting concerns over a storm that might tear a breach in the causeway.

“It’s a huge vulner ability,” said Jim Fisher, Deer Isle’s town manager, and the rising seas could become a monthly, or even daily problem.

Andy Sankey, director of Hancock County’s Emergency Management Agency, explained to those attending the meeting in person and online that some 30 regional public safety officials—including those representing public works, fire departments, ambulance services, and law enforcement—had undertaken

a “tabletop” exercise simulating the response to a breach of the causeway which carries Route 15 and is the only road link from Deer Isle and Stonington to the mainland.

Sankey said the premise of the exercise had “a 30-foot by 30-foot by 3-foot deep hole” cut into the two-lane causeway, presumably by a storm, which “absolutely, very much so” could happen.

Currently, seaweed and rocks must be cleared from the road a couple times a month, he added.

The planning exer cise considered a breach that might cut off traffic for 48 to 72 hours. Such an event would disrupt mainland medical

A worker at the Portland Fish Exchange weighs a fish fresh off a boat. See more photos on pages 2-3.

PHOTO: MICHELE STAPLETON

“The fact that we’re the biggest risk factor in Hancock County will also mean we’re at the top of the list for some of those infrastructure funds…”

—LINDA NELSON

FISH EXCHANGE

continued from page 1

repairs while also deferring rent payments through February. The continuing financial woes have served as a wake-up call that the time has come for a new strategic direction, said Needelman, who is vice president on the Fish Exchange board and also staffs the Fish Pier Authority.

“The Fish Exchange has had some rough financial times for a number of years, and the last two years has had unstable management through a succession of general managers,” he said. “This is a process to discover greater stability for the facility financially and from a staffing standpoint so services can continue and hopefully expand.”

Many members of the Fish Exchange board oppose changing the management regime, said Rob Odlin, a fish erman who serves as president of the Fish Exchange board. Instead, he said, the focus should be on providing incentives and looking at other ways to attract boats that might otherwise take their catches to Gloucester or New Bedford in Massachusetts.

Odlin, who owns two boats that currently fish for scallops, lobster, and squid, said most board members support having a “neutral party,” not an outside firm, run the exchange. The final decision comes down to the exchange board, but the board is backed into a corner because it receives funding from the Fish Pier Authority.

“We think it’s being managed correctly,” Odlin said. “The reason there have been no landings is because the boats have left Maine.”

When the exchange opened in 1986, it was said to be the first wholesale fresh fish display auction in the U.S. In its heyday in the early 1990s, the auction handled more than 30 million pounds of product a year. But as the fishing industry struggled under the weight of fewer fish and more regulations, the numbers went down—to 10 million pounds, 5 million, and finally under 1 million.

The situation became particularly dire this year when volumes dropped to unprecedented levels well below projections, bottoming out in May when only 5,000 pounds of fish were landed at the auction for the entire month.

Although landings picked up in July, August, and September, the uptick is attributed to rebates that fishermen receive for exchange fees, fuel, and ice, as well as Fishermen Feeding Families, a Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association program that buys fish at the exchange and ensures that fishermen have a market for their catch. The rebates and the Fishermen Feeding Families program are made possible from funds from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act economic stimulus bill, also known as the CARES Act.

But that money is scheduled to come to an end next spring, leaving the question: “What then?”

Furthermore, the exchange is at a disadvantage because Maine law doesn’t let fishermen sell lobsters that are inadvertently caught in their nets; they have to toss the lobsters overboard or go to Massachusetts

where they can be sold—which could amount to thousands of dollars per fishing trip.

Some board members suggest the city and/or the state should continue providing incentives to fish ermen in the form of fuel, ice, and exchange fee rebates, giving them added reason to come to Portland. They also favor changing state law that prohibits lobsters caught in nets from being landed in Maine.

Meredith Mendelson, deputy commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources who serves as president of the Fish Pier Authority, said it’s impor tant to explore all options, something she hopes a new management administration will bring to the table. Money is limited, she said, so it’s crucial that a sustainable business model be developed.

She agrees that bringing in an outside management team would be a big change.

“But I would also say it’d be very unfortunate— and a big change—if there were no place to land groundfish in Portland because of inadequate funding,” she said.

It’s not clear exactly what changes an outside entity might bring to the exchange; that will be part of the process of reviewing the proposals from Vessel Services and Bristol Seafood. But what is clear to Nick Alfiero, co-owner of Harbor Fish Markets in Portland and Scarborough, is that the auction is crit ical for fishermen, fish buyers, consumers, and the city’s reputation for quality seafood.

Alfiero, who also serves on the Portland Fish Exchange board, has been buying seafood here since day one of the auction.

“It allows me open access to fish that are landed,” he said inside the exchange. “It also allows me to inspect fish for quality. It’s also local, I don’t have to truck it. I can buy fish here in the morning and have it on display at our stores that same day.”

“It’d be very unfortunate—and a big change—if there were no place to land groundfish in Portland…”

DEER ISLE

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appointments for residents, as well as school and business affairs, including the delivery of fuel.

“It was a lot of ‘what ifs’ to find out what the public safety response was,” Sankey explained. “It would get fixed in a couple of days,” he said, and emergency plans have been drafted for such a scenario.

“Those plans exist. Will they work? I guess we’re not really sure,” he said. “We want to make sure we have a very realistic view. The causeway is at the top of our list here in Hancock County.”

Sankey referred to road washouts in Prospect Harbor and Roque Bluffs in June 2021 from a heavy rain storm.

“It took weeks and weeks to get it repaired.”

Linda Nelson, economic and community develop ment director for Stonington, presented information on what is at stake if road access is lost.

“We know we have two single points of failure—the

Stonington by boat across the water. Without a bridge, the island was becoming more and more isolated.”

It took two years to build the bridge, Nelson noted, but about ten years to secure construction funding.

Nelson urged the communities to act while federal funding is available through the recently passed infrastructure bill.

“The fact that we’re the biggest risk factor in Hancock County will also mean we’re at the top of the list for some of those infrastructure funds so we can do the mitigation that climate change in requiring,” she said.

“We’ve had problems with the causeway for years, and now it’s much more vulnerable. What’s also more vulnerable is our economy.”

Communication and power lines are strung across the causeway, she said, and an average of $55 million in lobster is landed each year in Stonington, Nelson said.

“These are live creatures that are dying the minute they come out of the water,” she said, “so the timely transportation of lobster from Stonington is hugely, hugely important.”

In addition to the lobster industry, construction and tradespeople use the causeway, as well as tourists. Lumber and fuel trucks also regularly travel the road.

“That point of failure is a two-way street,” she said.

The Isle au Haut boat service also relies on the

causeway, with the company reporting it carried 10,000 non-resident passengers in 2021, Nelson said.

Dale Doughty, head of planning for the state Department of Transportation, told the gathering that a causeway failure “would garner a lot of state wide attention.”

DOT has begun evaluating the causeway, he said, with any work coming with funding in the summer of 2024. Drill crews will soon be on the causeway to gather data.

“We’re doing the engineering studies right now,” he said.

On the matter of medical transport, Julie Eaton, a local lobsterwoman, promised that she and others in the business would use their boats to carry patients to Brooklin Boatyard, if the need arose.

In a related matter, residents of Islesboro at a special town meeting on Sept. 22 approved borrowing $1.75 million to build and renovate town buildings, including a new “up-island” fire station. That northerly part of the island is linked by a single road that passes over a section called the Narrows. Town officials have said if the road were to wash out in a storm at the Narrows, fire trucks could not reach the homes in that part of the island.

Linda Nelson, Stonington’s director of economic and community development, presented this graphic to show what was at stake if the Deer Isle causeway failed.

A winter storm coinciding with high tide shows ocean water splashing over the causeway.

PHOTO: COURTESY TOWN OF DEER ISLE

An aerial view of the causeway that links Little Deer Isle with Deer Isle. The bridge connecting the islands to the mainland

with…

Alexa Dayton of the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries New director brings experience in fisheries policy

By Laurie Schreiber

AlexaDayton took the reins as executive director for the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries in Stonington on Oct. 3.

She has over 25 years of leadership experience with L.L. Bean, Maine Huts & Trails, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and, most recently, the University of Maine System. That includes 15 years of direct experience in fisheries science and policy, working with fishermen around the U.S. as a leader of the Marine Resource Education Program.

“The vision of vibrant fisheries and sustainable coastal Maine communities forever really resonates with me, empowering the next generation with hope for a bright future and sustainable economic outlook is everything,” Dayton said. “It takes a mix of science, education, and getting out into the community for a lot of listening, to bring this vision to reality.”

MCCF’s 10-person staff works with commu nity and fishery partners to develop collaborative programs addressing topics including climate change, gentrification, and ecosystem management.

We asked Dayton to expand on her ideas for MCCF. Here’s an edited transcript.

Working Waterfront: Where were you born and raised?

Alexa Dayton: I was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., and raised largely in Europe.

WW: What brought you to Maine?

Dayton: I finished my engineering degree at the University of Michigan, went west to explore, became homesick, and returned east. Portland, Maine, spoke to me.

WW: How did you career unfold?

Dayton: I was at L.L.Bean almost 10 years, moving through the ranks and doing direct marketing and catalogue circulation planning in the outdoor business space product areas.

I was with Maine Huts & Trails three years as director of communication and development. At GMRI, I did

MALLOY FOR MACHIAS—

Abrahm Malloy of Bar Harbor was recently sworn in as a marine patrol officer. He will serve in the Machias patrol. Malloy lives in Bar Harbor and is studying for a degree in Criminal Justice from Husson University. He has worked as a sternman on commercial and recreational fishing vessels in Seal Harbor and Northeast Harbor. From left are Capt. Colin MacDonald, Deputy Marine Resources Commissioner Meredith Mendelson, Malloy, Col. Matthew Talbot, Major Rob Beal, and pilot Steve Ingram.

marine resource education programming for the federal fisheries around the country. That was the source of my interest in fisheries and the marine space. With the University of Maine System, I was COO for a unit called Maine Center Ventures.

WW: What attracted you to MCCF?

Dayton: During my time at GMRI, I had the pleasure of working with the founders and staff of MCCF in the fisheries convening and education space. MCCF was a collegial, collaborative, neutral arbiter of science, education, outreach, and convening. That was similar to the mission and vision I pursued at GMRI.

WW: How do you view MCCF’s mission unfolding?

Dayton: I want to be sure that what I do is grounded in what the organization believes about itself. Sustainable fisheries and sustainable communities in the Gulf of Maine forever—that vision still holds true and still resonates for everyone. What may have changed is the portfolio of programs.

WW: In what way?

Dayton: The three pillars of collaborative science, collaborative education, and collaborative outreach still hold true. And there are long-term projects and partnerships that carry forward and will remain core to the portfolio. But I think we need to look at how fisheries need to adapt and what we need to provide for education support, adaptation support, business planning support, data and science support. There are a variety of pressures on the use of the ocean environment. We need to do a lot of listening and convening of our industry. I think we can play a role in enabling dialogues.

WW: What are a few specific projects MCCF will pursue?

Dayton: We have a couple of vessels we’ve been working with that have been testing ropeless gear. We’ll continue to do that and to look at how the economics and management might change. It’s complicated and costly and it takes time to adapt.

There’s a wind energy consortium just beginning in the Gulf of Maine and a roadmap proposal that a number of institutions signed onto. MCCF and insti tutions like ours can potentially generate data to help understand the ecosystem and provide a baseline before wind companies start to implement programs.

The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than many other places on the globe. The connection between the watershed and ocean have been underestimated. We’ve had an exciting project underway, working with partners to look at watershed issues across the Downeast fisheries. That kind of approach is important for maintaining our ecosystem on a holistic level.

WW: Other projects?

Dayton: MCCF will work toward diversification of marine businesses and helping the industry understand how they can be more efficient.

Yesterday, we had a wonderful kick-off of our Eastern Maine Skippers program, with 45 high school students participating. They have a lot of future ahead of them. We need to help them see that future so they will stay in the community and continue to keep those fishing traditions alive. It’s about that next generation.

B ook R eviews

A radio reporter’s bad static Journalist, islander lives revealed

Soft Features

By Gillian Burnes; Littoral Books (2022)

Review by Dana Wilde

WHERE GILLIAN Burnes got the name “Coralie Threlfell” for the narrator of her novel, Soft Features, I don’t know. But it rings exactly true for a public radio reporter.

Coralie works for the local NPR affil iate based in fictional Winston, Maine, in the mid-1990s. She lives on a farm with her two young daughters and her husband, Lonny. Burly, lionhearted Lonny runs the farm, works the local barter-and-trade network, and writes bad young-adult science fiction stories in his spare time.

Coralie’s newsroom is exactly like newsrooms I’ve known, except they’re

making stories for radio, not print. Her colleagues are fairly typical reporters and editors, dedicated to their craft and, not surprisingly, lacking in everyday life the snottiness that often characterizes the on-air voices of public radio personalities. Coralie herself is recognizable to any news room journalist. She’s the experienced, highly skilled reporter who never stops making phone calls and follow-ups; who’s in a perpetual state of fret over whether she’s covered all the bases; who’s constantly chasing weird leads that some times go down rabbit holes but sometimes turn into home runs; and who quietly, sardonically sees through the bean counters who think they know more about news than newspeople.

to report or requires her to withhold. The whole episode provides a startlingly authentic look at islanders’ lives and an outside journalist’s inner struggles.

Coralie ushers us around her hectic day-to-day with clever, highly literate, tongue-in-cheek good humor, and pretty much every page of the book is buoyed by her more or less light hearted banter with herself, her family and her colleagues. But something is not quite right, and she knows it.

One of her stories— a “soft feature”— is about a medical boat that serves the more remote islands…

The story takes us inside Coralie’s farm and on her reporting trips. One of her stories—a “soft feature”— is about a medical boat that serves the more remote islands on the coast. She ends up making several outings, and when her reporting leads her into the middle of a feud between families that results in sunken boats, Coralie has to decide what her journalistic integrity allows her

At one point she leaves an animal rescue clinic emotionally shat tered by the suffering of the animals, not to mention a jaded veterinarian. Later in the story when she can’t bring herself to make phone calls to families grieving the deaths of chil dren—probably the most depressing task in any newsroom—we understand that Coralie is stricken with journal ism’s version of compassion fatigue.

In one of many fascinating asides, she argues with herself about the meaning of the word “tragic.” It’s complicated. Relentless bad news grinds down many reporters and editors similar to

the ways teaching grinds down many teachers—both professions are moral callings, and both grapple endlessly with seriously affecting human prob lems. Coralie, in “Soft Features,” reports her own extreme case of it.

Things fall apart when, following a hysterical meltdown at an Augusta news conference, Coralie sets off without authorization to investigate weird rumors she’s been hearing about a house-burgling ghost, the “Ptarmigan Pond Goblin.” (The goblin, we gather from Burnes’s acknowledg ments note, is modeled on the North Pond Hermit, a national news story broken by Kennebec Journal reporters.)

The whole story and all the charac ters in Soft Features ring exactly true. It tells a wholly accurate story about the complications and obstacles most jour nalists face as they struggle to live up to their own and their professional ethics. And it provides an authentic evoca tion of the good humor most reporters are blessed—or cursed—with, even at the worst of times. People who are cynical about journalists whose lives and work they know nothing about, should read this book.

Dana Wilde is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.  He lives in Troy.

Meanwhile, down on the gentleman’s farm…

a bad strategy, few have reached that lofty success.

I don’t believe Roy Barrette was trying to fill White’s large shoes, but as I learned from reading A Countryman’s Journal, a collection of Barrette’s columns for the Ellsworth American and Berkshire Eagle, he actually lived just down the road from White in Brooklin. In fact, the two men were friends.

A Countryman’s Journal: Views of Life and Nature from a Maine Coastal Farm

By Roy Barrette (Islandport Press 1981, 2022)

Review by Tom Groening

FOR MY MONEY, no one can top E.B. White in the short essay genre. White’s work, especially that written from his farm in Brooklin and collected under the title One Man’s Meat, hits the mark on being reflective, insightful, colorful, and as easy and companionable as a chat with an old friend.

I think a couple of generations of newspaper columnists have tried to emulate White, and though that’s not

The Countryman’s Journal seems to pull from columns published in the period from 1958 to 1981, when the collection was first published. The content in One’s Man Meat came from the late 1930s and into the 1940s, so A Countryman’s Journal can be seen as the next generation of the genre and an artifact of a Maine era in which outside forces wrought changes still visible today.

Islandport Press reissued the collec tion this year, and I’m glad they have.

While newspaper columns often, necessarily, address issues of the day, the selections of Barrette’s work are timeless, or at least they lead one to contemplate the timeless and universal qualities of life on the Maine coast.

The columns lean heavily on the natural world, and particularly on his and his wife’s gardening and animal husbandry at their farm on the road

that leads from Brooklin center to Naskeag Point. The property is wellknown to locals and people like me, who have driven by on their way to the point and harbor. Several years ago, the farm was purchased by two-time inde pendent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler. Cutler was in the news earlier this year for an arrest on child pornog raphy charges, an association that shouldn’t mar enjoyment of reading this collection.

Barrette’s knowledge of garden vege tables, fruits, and flowers is not that of recently retired hobbyist. Though born in the U.S. in 1897, he was raised in England, and much of his under standing of farm life seems to have come from that upbringing.

In fact, he makes a point of reminding readers that while he and his wife are financially comfortable, their refrig erator, freezer, and pantry are wellstocked with critters and produce raised there.

The one criticism I have of A Countryman’s Journal is that there are no dates associated with the selections. When Barrette expresses regret about the way the world is “today,” I wonder if he responding to the social and polit ical upheaval of 1968 or 1979.

Still, I suppose the universality of his ponderings supersedes dates, like this:

“I believe, too, as I believe nothing else, that man’s greatest need today is for occasional solitude, time for contemplation… Fog has hung over Naskeag Point every day now for more than two weeks. I could bemoan it and complain that it is mildewing my roses and spoiling my view…

“But I have noticed that the robins are swooping low over the pasture gathering insects (blackflies, I hope), and that the wet leaves of my lilacs look varnished in the light from the kitchen windows. Who am I to quarrel with the shape of life?”

Barrette died in 1995 at the age of 98.

Though different in style and subject, A Countryman’s Journal reminds me of another pleasurable read that evokes a recent Maine past. Salt Water Town— Tales from Castine, Maine, by Donald A. Small (Penobscot Press, 2016) is a collection of vignettes, some literal, some fictionalized, of that lovely Hancock County harbor town in the 1950s.

As autumn creeps toward winter, I think you could do worse than settle in with these two books.

Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront.

The full Nelson

B ook R eviews

Cold Spell: The View from the End of a Peninsula

By Todd Nelson (Down East Books 2022)

Review by Carl Little

WHEN ASKED what they love about New England—or miss, if they’ve moved away—more often than not folks will say the seasons. Todd Nelson underscores this notion in his new collection of 50 or so short essays, Cold Spell: The View from the End of a Peninsula.

From his home in Penobscot, the writer studies his surround ings through the lens of Carole King: “Winter, spring, summer or fall / All you got to do is call….”

Another cliché is the recurring question seasonal visitors ask of yearrounders: “What’s it like in Maine in winter?” As if in response to this annoying query, Nelson begins his collection in the off season, acknowl edging that “everything in Maine life is sequelae of cold.”

While winter is “a source of pride and complaint, pleasure and pain, hibernation and exuberant embrace,” it also has a Stephen King quality, “always out there, watching and waiting for its chance to return.”

To such time-honored New England subjects as picking out the Christmas tree, monitoring the wood pile, surveying rock walls, picking blue berries, and maple syruping, Nelson brings fresh perspective and prose, personal and universal.

He also adds out-of-the-ordinary items to the list. His tribute to a winter clothesline, for example, is just plain gorgeous, an accumulation of ways in which this humble cord enhances our lives, including aesthetically:

“The clothesline has a graphic allure. Our favorite paintings in any medium are clotheslines. Perhaps even in their static, two-dimensional state, they inevitably suggest motion, wind power, and the alchemy of evaporation.”

Nelson’s riff on the Cape Racer sled is equally memorable. The sound of it sliding prompts him to consider “a hidden extinction,” namely, “the lost sounds familiar in former times.”

The piece sent me to Daniel Hoffman’s poem, “The Cape Racer,” in which he immortalizes the sled, “so sleek it seems prepared for flight / over the clouds as well as the frozen hills.”

In “My Next Bear,” Nelson describes a “persistence of vision” that compels him to look at the same spot in the landscape where he last saw a bear. Again, his becoming prose led me to a poem: Philip Booth’s “How to See Deer” with its advice, “Expect nothing always; / find your luck slowly.”

Booth, Thoreau, Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, E. B. White, John McPhee, e. e. cummings, E. O. Wilson—these writers and others are Nelson’s gods. Like them—and Rob McCall, Cherie Mason, Susan Hand Shetterly, Don Small, and other area writers—he is a great appreciator, of life, nature, family.

“On some mornings,” he writes of his son Spencer, “his fishing stance was more reminiscent of playing air guitar than fishing, as he strode the dock with the rod perched over his shoulder and twirled around as he reeled and plucked the line.”

Lucy at sea in pandemic times

Latest Barton novel comes back to Maine

the father of their two grown daughters. It is March of 2020. People are getting sick with “that virus,” as she refers to it.

William, a scientist, grimly and quickly recognizes the threat and forms a plan before Lucy even realizes the pandemic’s scope and impact. He tells her they’ll drive to Maine, live on the coast for a while.

And she wants to know what’s going on elsewhere.

With humor and fine word-smithing, Nelson brings insight to our shared wonder and, sometimes, despair. Describing his sadness when an exca vator begins to dig the hole for the basement of his future home—“This land will never be the same again,” he thinks—brought back my own memo ries of feeling guilty at the clearing we made for our house.

“I must be satisfied that our dwelling will eventually harmonize with the landscape,” Nelson writes. “After all, the house is a stationary object. The forest is dynamic.”

All but one essay—“Time, Tide, and Tuscany”—take place in and around Castine. Nelson loves his adopted town, be it the elms that live on despite disease and age or his students at the Adams School where he was principal for six years (2004-2010).

Cold Spell opens with a beloved observation from E. B. White: “I would really rather feel bad in Maine than feel good anywhere else.” Nelson adds his own bon mot to the canon: “Maine doesn’t leave you as it found you.” No, it doesn’t.

Carl Little’s latest book is Mary Alice Treworgy: A Maine Painter.

Lucy By the Sea

By Elizabeth Strout (Random House, 2022)

Review by Tina Cohen

IN REVIEWS of Elizabeth Strout’s earlier Lucy Barton novels, I have not only pointed out but complained about the main character’s hesitant, unsure, anxious attitude. In her latest work, Lucy by the Sea, it now makes complete sense. Since the novel is set at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, it’s a reason able response to the times.

Not only is this the second book in a row to primarily focus on Lucy Barton, but it picks up where Oh William! left off. Lucy is back in New York City after several trips with William, her ex- and

Whereas previously Lucy might have seemed paranoid, her fears are now valid. People in Maine are treating the couple not just as outsiders, but as a danger. There is no mistaking the overt hostility.

Bob Burgess, an old friend of William and someone Lucy also knows (as do readers from his previous appearances in Strout books, including one about his family, The Burgess Boys), has arranged for them to stay in a recently vacated home in “Crosby,” the fictional coastal town we also know from other Strout books. (Would anyone be surprised Olive Kitteridge is also mentioned? And Isabelle?)

Despite the conditions and measures in response—wearing masks, main taining social distancing, many busi nesses closed—Lucy is not reclusive, but instead curious to see more of Maine with day trips, and to get to know some of the locals.

She is aware of the politicization of the virus, with questions about how real it was or how much protection could be mandated. She watches on TV the demonstrations and protests in support of Black Lives Matter and defunding the police. Her daughters, living tempo rarily in the Connecticut home of the married one’s in-laws, are themselves out marching in the streets in New Haven.

William and Lucy take the dangers of the virus seriously, and see their children only briefly and infrequently.

But William, once relocated to Maine, rebuilds his family to include members he’d been cut off from.

Lucy, after having initiated his possible reconciliation in Oh William!, is now uninvolved with that process; supportive but not included. Her focus on family is on their two girls, missing their regular contact. She worries there are things she is not being told and suffers the limits to her involvement. It is hard for her to accept. On the other hand, there is an improved, easier inti macy with William, and a growing friendship with Bob Burgess.

This book holds many pleasures. For Strout’s regular readers, Lucy is now

an old friend. We know about her childhood, its abuse and neglect; her divorce, her widowhood after another marriage. We can under stand her insecurity.

But even with loss, all kinds of loss—a constant reality of the pandemic—Lucy rises to the chal lenges. Many of us will recognize ourselves in the pandemic experi ence Lucy has, especially those of us who wanted to be in Maine in 2020.

When Lucy tells Bob they will not return to New York yet, he ques tions her tone of uncertainty. Lucy responds, “I mean I don’t know what will happen when all this is over.”

Leave the coast? Maine? Some dramatic and positive changes to their lives occurred that otherwise might not have. She and William are a reconciled couple, they have a home there now, he is interacting with family and heading into a new professional role, and she is finally writing again.

What has helped Lucy through the pandemic? Was it Maine? By the sea?

Tina Cohen is a therapist who is a seasonal resident of Vinalhaven.

Voters to consider passenger limits

Bar Harbor is state’s top cruise ship port

By Laurie Schreiber

Masses of cruise ship passengers coming into Bar Harbor from April through November bring a pretty good chunk of change for owners of local shops.

Although no one really knows how many folks come off the ships in any given day, it could theoretically be 5,500, since that’s been the town’s passenger cap.

“The ships account for 25%-30% of my revenue in the average year,” Robin Wright, owner of three downtown shops, wrote in comments reviewed by the town council this summer.

Ron Wrobel, owner of a small coffee shop called Acadia Perk, wrote that this year, with the return of cruise ships, the business was up nearly 40 percent year-to-date.

So why is Bar Harbor getting set to restrict ship arrivals with lower daily caps along with monthly caps and a shorter season? It’s an effort to relieve what many residents say is simply too many people coming all at once.

Like ports the world over in 2020, Bar Harbor experienced its first season in decades without the presence of cruise ships.

In subsequent months, as residents contemplated the industry’s inevitable resumption, a groundswell of comment rolled out from residents interested in cutting back ship traffic, at least to some degree.

Now the town has two initiatives underway to address those interests.

At a special town meeting on Nov. 8, voters will decide whether to adopt an amendment to the land use ordinance, brought to the town via a citizen petition, that would limit the number of people disembarking from cruise ships to an aggregate of 1,000 per day. A public hearing is scheduled for Oct. 18, after this issue of Waterfront is printed.

In July, petition organizer Charles Sidman told the council the proposal was driven by the sense among signatories that the town has been “overrun” by cruise ship traffic.

Separately, the town council recently passed a plan to remove April and November from the season, cut the daily cap to 3,800 in four of the remaining months and to 3,500 in the other two months, and impose monthly caps of 30,000 in May and June, 40,000 in July and August, and 65,000 in September and October.

The plan was worked out through negotiations with the cruise ship industry after consulting with a maritime attorney, said Town Manager Kevin Sutherland.

The plan will become effective in 2023 but will honor bookings made under the 5,500-passenger cap. Ships under 200 passengers are exempted. The proposal calls for developing memoranda of agreement with each shipping line that visits Bar Harbor, reviewing the caps each season, and working with state and federal governments to increase the number of ports of entry in Maine to spread demand.

Bar Harbor has been booking over 150 ships in recent years, many carrying several thousand passengers.

At one time, the community was looking to promote Bar Harbor as a port of call. Today, it’s Maine’s largest cruise ship port, tying in with Acadia National Park as a marquee destination. It’s also a logical customs check and port of entry for ships coming from Canada, according to a report by the group that developed the town plan.

Although cruise ships have grown larger in recent years, their absolute size isn’t the only factor in determining the industry’s impact, the report noted. For example, packages for a 500-passenger ship included a bus tour of Acadia, requiring 10 buses. But a recent visit by a 2,300-passenger ship made the park tour an add-on—ultimately calling for only two buses.

Residents come at the topic from various angles. Some say the industry causes congestion on the waterfront, impedes the waterfront viewshed, and pollutes the water and air with sewage and smoke.

Others say passengers are a small segment of overall tourism, yet provide significant revenue.

If the citizen amendment passes in November, it would supersede the town plan.

But questions have been raised about the amendment’s legality.

The citizen initiative “is a guaranteed lawsuit tying us up in litigation for years” Gary Friedmann, a town councilor, said in August.

If that happens, he continued, the town’s plan would at least go ahead with a level of reduction.

“The best thing is it has us in real communication and constructive dialogue with the cruise lines themselves,” Friedmann said. “And if we can continue to have a downward trajectory, that’s Bar Harbor’s goal.”

A cruise ship looms over West Street in Bar Harbor several summers ago.

Report: Lobster remains a responsibly harvested species

By Tom Groening

Theharvesting of lobster in Maine and beyond “continue[s] to meet the criteria of our Gulf of Maine Responsibly Harvested program,” the Portland-based nonprofit Gulf of Maine Research Institute asserts in a report issued in September.

The report aims for a science-based approach in analyzing the clash between federal protection of North Atlantic right whales and the lobster fishery, whose harvesters maintain they pose little threat to the marine mammals.

The whales, which are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act and whose popu lation numbers fewer than 350, “face extinction unless human-caused mortalities, including ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear, are considerably reduced,” the report states.

The context, though, is that a warming climate is “changing the habitat where whales normally feed, causing the whales to migrate through different areas seeking food,” which increases the likelihood of ship strikes and entanglement. Food also is less readily available due to a changing climate.

Fixed-gear fisheries, like lobster traps left on the bottom with vertical surface lines, “pose the greatest entanglement risk to right whales.” In the Northeast, the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries account for 93% of fixed-gear buoy lines in right whale habitats, the report notes.

On the other side of the conflict is the substantial economic sector that is lobstering, estimated at $1 billion in Maine, if ancillary businesses are included.

The fishery, “stretching from the Canadian border to Cape Cod, supports thousands of families and communities,” the report states, and in the past five years, whale deaths mostly have been confined to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and south of Cape Cod.

But it is difficult to determine where a whale first was entangled by rope and gear.

Right whales have been seen within three miles of the Maine coast, the report states, though those incidents are rare. Still, “with so

many traps in inshore waters, it leads to elevated entanglement risk…”

Given this confluence of factors threatening the whales, NOAA, which regulates fishing, published an updated biological opinion in May 2021. That resulted in rules for lobster and Jonah crab harvesting which were put in place early this year and were expected to reduce the risk to right whales by 60%. Those rules include closing a portion of the Gulf of Maine to lobstering, adding additional traps for each vertical line, and adding weaker rope or links designed to break if a whale become entangled. Gear also must be marked to indicate its origin.

Lawsuits from both lobstering advocates and whale protection advocates followed, with no changes coming from the courts—yet. In response to a suit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, a judge ruled NOAA’s regulations “do not go far enough or fast enough,” the report notes, but a prescription for NOAA to address that failure has not yet come.

“Regardless, it is likely that more regulations are coming and will have to be implemented on a faster timeline,” the report concludes, and it “will present an existential challenge for the fishing industry.”

Switching to “ropeless” fishing gear is a possible solution, but GMRI’s report asserts that this tech nology is not yet commercially viable.

“Fishermen have abided by regulations for many years to ensure they are responsibly harvesting lobster and other species in the Gulf of Maine,” the report concludes, “but their livelihoods are being impacted by regulators doing everything possible to prevent [right whales] from going extinct.”

Lobster, along with monkfish, pollock, white hake, and winter skate harvested in the Gulf of Maine meet GMRI’s responsibly harvested criteria “because they are abundant and the existing rules are sufficient to maintain healthy populations of these species,” the report states. The health of another, mammalian species, though, may eclipse that good news.

Rock B ound

Will innovation save lobstering?

Bleak outlook on right whale rules are a driver

By Tom Groening

THE CONCEPT OF innovation tends to inspire images of bio-geneticists tinkering with DNA to create cancerresistant cells. But sometimes, innovation comes in decidedly low-tech form.

I attended the every-other-year Beaches Conference in June, and one of the presenters showed slides of how the town of York dealt with peren nial ocean splash-over on a beach front road. The road—which probably shouldn’t have been built along the shore to begin with—was protected by large boulders configured at about a 30-degree angle.

In big storms, the waves sloshed up the ramp-like structure, flooding the road, and then slid back down to wash out parts of the beach.

Recently, the town built what amounted to large granite steps, about 2-feet high and maybe 3-feet deep.

The waves now hit the first vertical block, splash up onto the flat area, and, having lost most of their energy, fall back down, doing little damage.

A photo showed how well this worked—after a snowfall, the road that still featured the rocks was clear from the saltwater melting the snow, while

the snow was still visible along the section with the granite steps. Innovation.

Another low-tech innovation that comes to mind was conceived and adopted by the lobster fishery. Vents in traps, configured to allow under-sized lobster to escape, have kept the popu lation healthy.

I was reminded of this history recently after two conversations, one with someone very close to the industry, and the other with a scientist somewhat removed from the fishery.

The first conversation left me with a sense of dread. The fishery might very well face regulations to protect North Atlantic right whales that could effectively shut down lobstering, my source said. Scary stuff.

the Endangered Species Act or embrace new ways of fishing.

You can make the case that federal law is too reactive for threatened species. While standing by to watch a species die out is not good for the long-term health of our world, you have to wonder if the law could be eased to correspond with severe economic impacts.

If lobstering is choked out of existence, the Maine coast will be unrecognizable.

If lobstering is choked out of existence, the Maine coast will be unrecogniz able. Not a good outcome.

But my new scientist friend suggested that tech nology is available to elim inate vertical lines, the gear regulators say puts whales at risk. He conceded that yes, it will be expensive to outfit boats with one of several ways buoys and ropes might be deployed from the bottom.

possible, he said. And certainly scien tific measuring devices could be affixed to traps, and that, too, would come with funding.

But his most compelling argument was that with Sen. Susan Collins the ranking member of the powerful appropriations committee, and with Sen. Angus King holding a vote essen tial to Democrats, Maine might land federal funding for the fishery to make the transition to ropeless fishing. Just as federal money supports corn growers in Iowa, helping the iconic Maine lobsterman might be an easy sell.

And here is where we return to the idea of innovation. It must be embraced.

The second conversation was more of a listening session, during lunch at an Island Institute conference in Portland. A scientist with a back ground at a Massachusetts nonprofit made the case that if lobstering does indeed face crippling regulations, there are only two ways out—amend

R eflections

He also asserted that federal defense funding might be directed toward Gulf of Maine lobster trap upgrades. Why?

Because along with the wireless commu nication between boat and trap, there might be opportunities to include elec tronic surveillance equipment, he said.

Lobster traps monitoring the Russian submarine fleet? Hmmm. Well, it’s

Imagine the meeting at which an engineer first suggested that kinetic energy from slowing a car might be harnessed to charge a battery, another low-tech concept. Crazy talk! Or is it what made Prius a household name?

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

Island balances character with change

Comprehensive plan crucial step in moving forward

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 Melanie Nash

I

BEGAN MY fellowship on Long Island a little over a year ago, at the beginning of September 2021. I have spent the past year watching the community here prepare for its future, largely due to my involvement in the Long Island Comprehensive Plan.

When I arrived on the island, my first task was to decipher the responses of the community survey and lead hot-topic forums for residents. Out of the feedback from the forums and the community survey, I worked on devel oping a data report that would shed light on islander priorities and help shape the content of the next plan.

The overall feeling from the survey data and community engagement was that people have a resounding desire to keep the island the unique and special

place that attracted them here and keeps them coming back. Interestingly, this did not translate to “no change.” The overwhelming sentiment was that sustaining the character of the island that everyone knows and loves will require it to grow responsibly.

There was acknowledgement that town government and residents have work to do. Sustaining the island way of life will take a tremendous amount of work and will require some carefully managed and thoughtful change.

After being on Long Island for the past year, the spirit of volunteerism stands out to me. People step up to work for the changes that they want to see in their community. Long Island relies on volunteers, some of whom receive small stipends from the town government, to do everything from governing the town to running committees like finance, planning, and the school board.

The town’s emergency services and wellness council and all community organizations that we depend upon for social engagement like the library, historical society, and civic associa tion are all volunteer-run. This spirit

of engagement and responsibility to the community you live in strikes me every time I set out on another fellow ship work goal, and every time I attend a community event or am able to take advantage of town resources.

Over the past year, my work has shifted. The comprehensive plan passed unanimously at town meeting in May, and was officially submitted to the state at the end of the summer. The next step is to figure out the best ways to imple ment its recommendations and goals, many of which are already begun. A groundwater quality committee was started last fall as the concerns about our water supply rose to the top of discussions in public forums. Long Island participated in the first steps of the resilience training program with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and the Island Institute, starting to plan for climate impacts such as sea level rise. Broadband internet, the top strategic concern according to the 2021 community survey results, was installed on the island in spring and summer 2022.

There is so much good work happening and so much good work

to come. One question in the commu nity survey was “What is your greatest hope for the future of Long Island?” But responses also included “work,” “change,” and “build.”

The community is determined to have the island keep its character and its way of life while still allowing for planned growth, and I am grateful to be involved at such a transformative time. Last year, I got to work with the community to plan for its future. This year, I will be able to support and work with those who are already making change and planning for the future.

Melanie Nash works with the town of Long Island on a new 10-year comprehensive plan. She grew up splitting her time between Connecticut and the Pemaquid Peninsula. After graduating from Clark University with a degree in human environmental geography, she earned a master’s degree in marine affairs at the University of Rhode Island.

WALKING THE WATERFRONT—

This iconic image is well-known around Belfast. It shows the Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad just northwest of the station and freight yard, as well as the many waterfrontrelated businesses housed along the waterfront. It probably dates from the late 19th or early 20th century. Note that the man on the right is carrying a lunch pail, and is probably on his way to work. Today, workers at the Front Street Shipyard might be seen on that stretch of waterfront.

oped

Offshore wind blows across Searsport

State considering four staging options

By Rolf Olsen

HAVE YOU heard there’s another plan to develop Sears Island in Searsport?

The state is considering using 100 acres or so on the western shore as a site where enormous floating wind turbines will be built and then deployed to the Gulf of Maine as part of Maine’s renewable energy plan.

I agree with the urgent need to develop new sources of renewable energy, but not with the sacrifice of an ecological and recreational treasure on the Maine coast, whose forests and marine systems already store carbon.

Over more than 50 years, several plans to industrialize Sears Island have been proposed and ultimately rejected, for environmental and other reasons, but only after first stirring up consider able discord.

The entire 941-acre island is owned by the people of Maine. The state acquired it in pieces, over time, from Bangor Investment Company, part of Bangor and Aroostook Railroad, which had hoped to develop a resort there in the early 20th century.

The state took the first 50 acres in 1985 by eminent domain for a possible

Island Institute Board of Trustees

Kr istin Howard, Chair

Douglas Henderson, Vice Chair

Charles Owen Verrill, Jr. Secretary

Kate Vogt, Treasurer, Finance Chair

Carol White, Programs Chair

Megan McGi nnis Dayton, Philanthropy & Communications Chair

Shey Conover, Governance Chair

Michael P. Boyd, Clerk

Sebastian Belle

David Cousens

Michael Felton

Nathan Johnson Emily Lane

Bryan Lewis Michael Sant Barbara Kinney Sweet

Donna Wiegle

John Bird (honorary)

cargo port, built the causeway, and started a jetty, but the project fizzled by 1996. In 1997, the state purchased the rest of the island (except for the fiveacre parcel with the cell tower at the south end of the island).

In 1995, permitting for a proposed cargo port met resistance because it would degrade or destroy important terrestrial and marine habitats. In 2003, opposition to an LNG terminal led Gov. John Baldacci, in January 2006, to convene stakeholders in the Sears Island Planning Initiative. About 45 stakeholders discussed their ideas for the future of Sears Island, and 38 signed a consensus agreement dated April 12, 2007.

The agreement states several uses and activities that are not appropriate for Sears Island, including nuclear or coal power, for example. It also states that “Mack Point shall be given pref erence as an alternative to port devel opment on Sears Island.” Today, 601 acres on the east side are protected by a conservation easement, with 330 acres reserved for possible future use as a “cargo/container port.”

To advance discussion of the current development plan, the state

Department of Transportation has convened the Offshore Wind Port Advisory Group, a 19-member stake holder group charged with “advising” the state on siting the proposed marshalling port. A marshalling port is where all components for the floating wind turbines would be gath ered—blades, nacelles, turbines, tower sections, and more—and the floating foundations would be constructed of concrete and steel.

From there the floating turbines, with bases about 750-feet across, would be constructed and launched into Penobscot Bay, then towed to the deployment area in the Gulf of Maine.

At the Sept. 29 advisory group meeting we learned there are three possible marshalling port loca tions under consideration. Two are in Searsport—Sears Island, and the existing Sprague Terminal at Mack Point. The third is the Port of Eastport.

We also learned about four configu ration options. Three are to place the entire marshalling port on about 100 acres at Mack Point, or Sears Island, or Eastport. The fourth configuration would use both Mack Point and Sears Island, with each location fulfilling

THE WORKING WATERFRONT

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different functions and materials being barged across Long Cove, as needed.

There are many factors to consider in each location. Is suitable land currently available? Is dredging required? What might be the impact on water, fisheries, wildlife, plants, and other habitat? How about impact on adjacent recreational land, residential areas, businesses? Are there archaeological, historic, or cultural considerations? What will be the impact on the host community, in terms of noise, lighting, visual, or aesthetic factors? Where will the work force come from, be trained, live?

Based on what I know now, the better site for the proposed development is Mack Point, an industrial site for more than a century, so a considerably “greener” option. It is also the site that I believe would draw the fewest challenges, thus the option that would move forward most expeditiously toward helping Maine achieve its climate goals.

Rolf Olsen lives in Searsport and is vice president of Friends of Sears Island and is a member of DOT’s Offshore Wind Port Advisory Group. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the position of Friends of Sears Island.

Editor: Tom Groening

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

David and Judy’s excellent electric adventure

By Tom Groening

You

can trace the evolution of cleaner energy solutions over the last 45 years through the lives of Belfast-area couple David Foley and Judy Berk.

Deep-seated values and interests in their profes sional and personal lives have led to cautious, thoughtful steps toward efficiency and environmental responsibility over those decades. And as Foley says a few times during our conversation on their deck on a late summer day, each step didn’t bring hardship or a sacrifice in quality of life.

That journey began in the late 1980s with what was considered the best way to insulate a new house through today, with the couple now proud owners of two electric vehicles.

Foley is an architect designer, working with his professional partner, Sarah Holland, out of a small office at the homestead in Northport that Berk dubs “Ocean Glimpse Farm.” Berk retired in 2019 after 28 years as communications director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

Their move toward energy independence—which has included adding photovoltaic panels to their buildings and, most recently, those electric vehi cles—is, as Berk explains it, a matter of their values influencing their work, and their work influencing their values.

“It’s going to percolate up and it’s going to percolate down,” Foley says of the steps they and others have taken to power their lives with electricity.

It’s a move that would have been costly and foolish a few decades ago, but the couple is banking on elec tricity being the power of choice in a carbon emis sions-free world in the coming years.

Berk moved to Maine in 1975, moved into an old cannery building in Brooks, west of Belfast, with no insulation, running water, electricity, or phone.

The following year, she landed a job at a small busi ness in Belfast called Alternative Resources, which

offered such products as woodstoves, solar power components, and composting toilets. With many young “back-to-the-landers” arriving in Belfast just as the Arab oil embargo drove up energy costs, the time was right.

“I got indoctrinated there,” she says. “All those big old houses in Belfast didn’t have insulation and were

heated with oil,” she remembers.

She ended up managing the store and began writing a related column for the Bar Harbor Times, (Belfast) Republican Journal, and Waldoboro Weekly newspapers, called “Power Play.”

That work was followed by a stint with the state, working on energy issues for Waldo and Knox

LAUNCH

STORAGE

John

Bud Staples, and Elsie Gillespie chat around the woodstove

annual town meeting.

Gerald “Punkin” Lemoine Bud Staples

David

counties. In 1979, Berk managed a $300,000 energy grant through the cooperative extension service using five offices, and Foley was hired the following year to work in the Bangor location, which is how they met.

Foley was raised in Bangor and later Dixmont, and remembers his father, drawing on his Yankee frugality, putting him to work caulking, weather stripping, and insulating the house in Dixmont. The resources in plain sight just need to be tapped, as Mainers have been doing for centuries, he believes.

“We have sun, we have wind, we have falling water, we have biomass,” Foley says. “There’s no reason we can’t do this.”

While attending Dartmouth College, he worked with Vermont’s energy office, and one project included helping dairy farmers find more effi cient ways to cool their milk. Foley later earned a master’s degree at the University of California at Berkley.

The couple put down roots in Northport, building their modest but cozy house in 1989, later expanding it so it now includes about 1,650 square feet of living space.

They used rigid polyiso cyanurate foam, stuffed into the stud and rafter bays, for insulation in the first construction phase.

For the addition—after learning about new, better practices—they chose dense-packed cellulose.

It heats with a cord and a half of firewood in the woodstove.

Foley echoes what energy experts often say, that the best investment a homeowner can make is fixes that stop energy waste.

“You start with the efficiency stuff. You don’t unplug one inefficient tech nology and install another one,” Foley says. “If your refrigerator is harvest gold or avocado, it’s time to get rid of it,” he says with a laugh.

In 2009, they built the architecture office, which is about half the size of the house.

In 2012, they installed 12 photo voltaic panels (PVs) on the roof of the office—which runs computers, printers, copiers, and plotters—then

added another 16 in 2015-2016 on an outbuilding.

“There’s zero risk,” Foley says of solar energy.

In 2016 they installed air-source heat pumps.

“The one part of our energy systems we can ‘green up’ is electric,” Foley explains, meaning that relying on elec tricity to power much of the house and office is to move away from fossil fuels.

In 1996, Foley won a grant to visit Europe for two months to see how Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany addressed energy needs.

Some 40% to 60% of energy used in Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Italy comes from renewable sources, he says.

“And life’s good there!” he says with a laugh.

On Facebook, Berk usually posts the couple’s electricity story at the end of the calendar year. Every year since 2012 except one, they essentially had no electric bill, thanks to the PVs on the roof. Net metering allows residents to sell the electricity they produce to the utility company for credit.

That virtually free electricity prompted the couple to consider switching to electric vehicles, and earlier this year, they took the plunge, purchasing a Kia Niro and a Hyundai IONIQ 5. The Kia is a hybrid, so it includes a gasoline engine and a plug-in chargeable battery. The Hyundai is a straight electric, charged by plugging it in.

The Kia gets 50 miles to the gallon of gas, and has a 512-mile range. The Hyundai is rated at 265 miles on a full charge, but they are finding that it can go 330 miles on a charge. The Hyundai also features all-wheel drive.

Berk is proud to report that the all-electric car has passed a Humvee going up a hill, while Foley points out “We can drive 100 miles for $6.40.” But for Berk, the real test is that she can fit three trash cans and her small kayak in one of the cars, testifying to the lack of sacrifice that comes with this new technology.

“We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot for our values,” Foley says.

SEEING RED, WEARING RED—

the back roads,

If

In response to the recent “red listing” of Maine lobster by the organization Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, which urged consumers and retailers to avoid the shellfish because it concluded harvesting it threatened

“We have sun, we have wind, we have falling water, we have biomass,” Foley says. “There’s no reason we can’t do this.”

A different kind of Downeast launch University of Maine at Machias students prepare for next steps

PHOTO ESSAY BY LESLIE BOWMAN

Anna Johnson, 22, is from Alexander. She is majoring in wildlife biology with a minor in GIS (Geographic Information Systems). She serves with the Air National Guard and was on duty during COVID. Her plans are to find employment with local state or federal agencies.

David Glidden, 30, is a minister and former lobsterman. From Lubec, he is student teaching as the grade 6-8 science teacher at Elm Street School in East Machias. He hopes to stay in the area as a teacher. Here he poses in his classroom during a break.

Lindsey Karwaski, 22, is from Lake Ariel, Penn. She is a marine biology major. This summer she grew and cultured moon jellyfish at Downeast Institute on Great Wass Island. Her plans are to stay in Maine and work in the field.

finishing a degree in psychology and is focusing on coaching and sports. She is considering pursuing an advanced degree in physical education and Kinesiology. At UMM, she works in the student records office and as a RA.

Jana McDonald, 22, is from Calais and is majoring in fine arts. She has been doing freelance graphic work and concept art for clients and plans to continue and build on this work after graduation.

Tristin Hubisz, 21, is from Peabody, Mass. He is majoring in creative arts with a focus on creative writing. He has various jobs on campus including being a resident assistant. Currently working on a graphic novel, and he plans to pursue a a graduate degree and teach at the college level.

Lauren Wallace, 21, is from Jonesboro. She has been working on a duck banding project at the Moosehorn Wildlife refuge and is a wildlife biology major. She hopes to find employment that takes her to the West Coast.

Morgan Leighton, 36, from Milbridge has been working as a licensed veterinarian technician since 2009 at the Milbridge Veterinarian Clinic. Her plans are to go to graduate school to become a veterinarian.

SHEEP AT SEA—

Maine Seacoast Mission’s vessel Sunbeam has served a lot of purposes in its many years on the water—floating community center, health care clinic, and, yes, sheep ferry! In 1976, these fuzzy friends hitched a ride on the Sunbeam IV from Manana Island, the small island next to Monhegan Island. The 22 sheep were owned by Ray Phillips, the “hermit shepherd” of Manana Island. He had died and the sheep needed new homes.

If you’re turning into a fair-weather sailor with enough years behind you of down pours and battling a weather helm, this cottage is the place for you. With a view of the harbor where you can see your boat on the mooring, this 1907 cottage, on half an acre, is charming with a wood-burning fireplace with two ingle nooks either side, dining room, cottage kitchen with original beaded spruce cabinets, 4 bedrooms which include a bunk room, one full bath and a half bath and a large porch facing Frenchman Bay. You can be reading by the fire until the weather breaks and calm seas beckon. When it clears and the breeze blows just right for an easy run, you could enter a weekend regatta with no pressure except a little jostling around the start but a great time for an afternoon. Incredible views from the house with Schoodic Mt. to the north, islands and mts. around MDI to the east and south with bay frontage across the road. Steps to the dock and moorings, tennis courts, summer library, and a long-standing inn with great food. Time to enjoy the summer and have it all right here on Hancock Point. $850,000

Fishbone Metalworks

Helene Farrar

Basil Cake

LePage: ‘Look to the free market and work’ Pledges to fight lobster regulations

The Working Waterfront submitted identical questions to the two major party candidates for governor via email and each responded with written answers.

PaulLePage, a Republican, served as Maine governor from 2011 to 2019. Before that, he served as mayor of Waterville and general manager of Marden’s stores. Earlier in his business career, he worked in the paper and wood products industries.

LePage was born in Lewiston, the eldest of 18 children, who ran away from home at age 11 to “escape severe domestic violence,” according to his campaign website.

LePage holds business degrees from Husson and the University of Maine.

THE WORKING WATERFRONT: Both you and your opponent have spent most of your personal and professional lives away from the eight coastal counties we cover in our newspaper. Explain what qualities, in your view, characterize life on the coast.

LEPAGE: Following my tenure as governor, Ann and I spent significant time on the coast working in the service industry. We have the most beautiful working coast in the nation. Through my time serving our state, I have been fortunate to meet, learn from, and help Mainers who call our coast home. These are hard-working people who care about maintaining our state’s abundant resources, value their communities, and hope to pass their quality of life and traditions on to their children and grandchildren.

Unfortunately, whether you are in Lewiston or Islesboro, the increased cost of food, oil, and housing jeop ardizes every Mainer’s future. I have heard from lobstermen and women who, between increasingly restrictive federal regulations on fishing and the high costs of diesel, don’t know how much longer they can continue to turn a profit. I’ve spoken to single mothers, and seniors living on fixed incomes, who are worried about making it through the winter.

For too many, it’s a choice between heating or eating. There is also an increasingly dire shortage of housing. As costs of lodging, building supplies, and raw materials go up, many coastal Mainers struggle to find affordable housing. I can’t begin to tell you how often I am approached by Mainers who desperately need affordable housing. These issues put a pit in my stomach. As a homeless child, I knew what it was like to be cold, hungry, and without a place to call home, and as governor, I’m going to work to make sure no other Mainer ever has to experience what I did growing up.

WW: The lobster fishery continues to face challenges from right whale regulation, offshore wind turbines, and

warming waters. Realistically, what can state government do to support this important coastal economic sector?

LEPAGE: It’s no secret that Maine’s lobster industry is one of the most sustainable fisheries on Earth. Our commercial lobstermen and women care for marine life and are outstanding stewards of our environment.

As governor, I exempted the sales tax on fuel used in agriculture to help provide some relief to our hard-working lobstermen and women.

As your governor again, I will push back on organizations falsely attacking our lobster industry, as well as the Biden administration’s destructive regula tory policies aimed at destroying the liveli hoods of our fishermen over the false notion they are harming whales.

Our lobster-fishing industry leaders have worked diligently for years to protect these whales and the environment.

Janet Mills says she will fight for our lobster industry, but time and time again, she panders to radical extrem ists. Now more than ever, our lobster industry needs a steady, proven ally, not someone who says one thing but then does another.

If Mills were serious, she would examine the financial harm being done to the state of Maine and seek any legal remedy to halt this false attack. As your next governor, on day one, I will fight to protect our vital Maine fishing industry. You can expect to see a lawsuit: LePage v. Biden and the federal government.

WW: Climate change consequences like rising sea levels and storm surge will impact coastal areas in the coming

years. What will state government do under your leadership to mitigate or reverse these threats?

LEPAGE: It’s no secret—Mainers treasure our outdoors. Whether you are a hunter, hiker, or just enjoying a picnic in the park, we care about preserving our God-given natural resources for future generations.

As governor, I made simple, common-sense changes to promote energy efficiency. I installed heat pumps in the People’s House, cutting our energy bill of $40,000 by 70%.

China and India are the world’s largest polluters. We need to push the federal govern ment to hold those countries accountable.

Maine people are doing their fair share to combat climate change. China and India should be held to the same standard.

It is clear that our nation needs to look toward the future, but we can’t do that through regula tion and restriction. We have to look to the free market and work to provide incentives for energy innovation so that there is competition in the market and consumers can pick what works for them.

As a state, we can’t combat a changing climate alone, but we can embrace Dirigo’s spirit and lead by example to sustain our natural resources.

WW: Tourism is a major economic driver in the eight coastal counties. What is our tourism strategy doing well and what might be improved?

LEPAGE: Who doesn’t want to come to Maine? Our state is a worldrenowned natural beauty and, as such, we have an excellent tourism-based

industry, but that’s not to say there isn’t room for improvement.

Small businesses are the bread and butter of our economy, and right now, they are hurting. As governor, I’m ready to get to work and cut taxes like the income tax, reduce wasteful government spending, and slash unnecessary regulations.

Janet Mills’ policies created severe work force shortages. Removing work require ments from public assistance has been a disaster for Maine’s small businesses. There is no reason why able-bodied people should not go back to work.

As governor, I would implement policies that would bring our work force participation levels back to where it was before I left office. Tourism depends on a strong, vibrant work force. My administration would priori tize getting Mainers back to work.

WW: The lack of affordable housing along the coast is worsening worker shortages, hampering businesses from growing. What will you do to ease the pressure on workforce housing?

LEPAGE: Maine has a housing shortage but an abundance of old school buildings and mills. We should look to our existing empty structures for quick, simple, affordable housing.

Another critical aspect of affordable housing is an affordable cost of living. How are Mainers supposed to afford housing when they can barely afford to put gas in their tank, heat their home, and buy food?

We have to take action to provide relief. Instead of paying people to stay home, while driving up inflation, we need to focus on strengthening Maine’s economy. We must phase out the state income tax, starting with retiree and pension income. We must also address Maine’s skyrocketing heating and electricity costs. A strong economy produces higher paychecks, and better options for housing.

Paul LePage

“For too many, it’s a choice between heating or eating.”

Mills: ‘Clean, renewable sources of energy’ Programs addressed workforce, housing, tourism

The Working Waterfront submitted identical questions to the two major party candidates for governor via email and each responded with written answers.

lobstermen this year, putting money back in their pockets.

Janet

Mills, a Democrat, was elected governor in 2018 and is seeking a second term. Mills hails from Farmington. Her siblings include former Republican state senator Peter Mills and former Maine CDC director Dora Ann Mills.

She previously served as a legis lator, district attorney, and the state’s attorney general.

She holds degrees from the University of Massachusetts at Boston and the University of Maine School of Law.

THE WORKING WATERFRONT: Both you and your opponent have spent most of your personal and professional lives away from the eight coastal counties we cover in our newspaper. Explain what qualities, in your view, characterize life on the coast.

MILLS: Our coast is more than pretty scenery and stately lighthouses. It is home to hardworking people, and it sustains the lives and livelihoods of Maine families. That’s why I have worked hard to preserve our working waterfronts.

In the legislature I fought for the amendment to the constitu tion that now provides a lower tax rate to working waterfronts, and I have always supported the Land For Maine’s Future program that protects traditional working waterfronts from development.

I have lived in Farmington, Gorham, and Portland. On my father’s side, the Mills were from Stonington going back several generations. The coast of Maine is in my blood and in my heart. As governor, I’ve spent a lot of time in coastal and island communities, and I know that the good people who call the coast home are tough, kind-hearted, and independent-minded, with a strong moral compass that leads them to fiercely defend what is right.

Our coast is also fragile, with communities under increased devel opment pressures, which makes it hard for young people and workers to find affordable housing.

WW: The lobster fishery continues to face challenges from right whale regulation, offshore wind turbines, and warming waters. Realistically, what can state government do to support this important coastal economic sector?

MILLS: I will always fight to protect the lobster industry, a cornerstone of our economy. Fishermen are going through tough times, especially with high costs; that’s why I’ve directed federal COVID relief funds to the lobster industry and reimbursed all license fees for commercial

On right whales, the federal govern ment and the federal court are dead wrong. I joined the lawsuit against the federal government and I have fought the Trump and Biden administra tions on this issue. They have refused to consider sound science and are not acknowledging the many conserva tion measures lobstermen have taken, at great expense to themselves. There’s never been a right whale death attrib uted to Maine lobster gear and there’s been no entanglement in Maine lobster gear in nearly two decades.

On offshore wind, I proposed and signed a law prohibiting offshore wind turbines in state waters because it’s such an important fishing ground for lobstermen. In federal waters, I am pushing the federal govern ment to allow Maine to test a small floating research array pioneered by the University of Maine to understand how offshore wind interacts with the marine environment and with existing maritime industries.

I believe that offshore wind can be a source of clean energy to lower elec tricity costs and create jobs, but what’s most important is that it’s done right, and I want the federal government to follow Maine’s lead and listen to those who rely on the ocean for their lives and livelihoods.

WW: Climate change consequences like rising sea levels and storm surge will impact coastal areas in the coming years. What will state government do under your leadership to mitigate or reverse these threats?

MILLS: My administration recognizes the serious threat climate change presents to Maine, our people, our economy, and our environment—and we are taking action. One of the first actions I took as governor was to remove Maine from the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, which Paul LePage joined, that had Maine participating in the exploration of offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Maine.

Since then, we have adopted bipar tisan climate goals and are on a path to achieve them; we have embraced clean, renewable sources of energy; we are incen tivizing home weather ization and high efficiency heat pumps; and, importantly, we have launched the Community Resilience Partnership. This program supports communi ties, both along the coast and inland, to prepare for the impacts of climate change.

We have also provided signifi cant funding to upgrade stormwater

infrastructure, to help coastal commu nities deal with rising waters, and we have significantly increased funding for efficiency and energy programs for homeowners, towns, schools, and small businesses to reduce energy bills.

Municipalities are on the front lines of climate change, and we will continue to work with them.

WW: Tourism is a major economic driver in the eight coastal counties. What is our tourism strategy doing well and what might be improved?

MILLS: Tourism is a major part of our economy, which is why my admin istration delivered economic recovery grants to help hospitality businesses recover. Our tourism industry saw the strongest comeback of any other in the nation, according to initial data.

But the tourism industry has faced serious challenges this past year, from inflation to a serious workforce shortage. Throughout all of this, they continued to offer the high quality experience that Maine is known for. In fact, the number of visitors is compa rable to before the pandemic, but now visitors are staying longer and spending more time here — which is key to long term sustainability.

It is crucial that we continue to tackle the workforce shortage and press the feds to increase the number of worker visas available to businesses. The visas were sharply cut under the Trump admin istration, creating a real hardship for the businesses that relied on them, and I have partnered with the Maine congressional delegation to push for an increase.

I am expecting a report from the Maine Office of Tourism soon that focuses on tourism sustainability and how Maine can balance the right number of tourists that help us meet economic expectations without

overburdening communities. It is crucial to me that communities are involved as we look at what work can be done to balance tourism and its economic contributions with the needs of people who live in coastal and island communities.

WW: The lack of affordable housing along the coast is worsening worker shortages, hampering businesses from growing. What will you do to ease the pressure on workforce housing?

MILLS: One of the first things I did as governor was to sign the $15 million senior housing bond which had sat on the previous governor’s desk for several years. The lack of affordable housing is an acute problem—one we are working hard to address. I signed into law the Maine affordable housing tax credit— the single largest investment in housing in Maine’s history, and I dedicated $50 million through my jobs plan to build more housing. This includes a program to expand rental housing in rural Maine that is expected to create more than 160 new units for working families in Rockland, Rockport, Bath, and elsewhere.

Another program—the Affordable Homeownership Program—is expected to create more than 150 homes in Searsport, Ellsworth, and other Maine towns. I’ve also dedicated $4 million to build more housing in island communities.

I signed into law a bill that allows accessory dwelling units in all zoning districts, provides support for commu nities to increase affordable housing, and reduces regulatory barriers to multi-family housing units.

This work in just three years is more action to tackle the housing crisis than was taken during the previous eight years, and I did it because I know our businesses need workers and our workers need housing. If reelected, I will continue to work to expand afford able housing for Maine people, because a house is more than just a roof over your head, it is a home where you can raise your family.

Gov. Janet Mills

“Our coast is also fragile, with communities under increased development pressures…”

Planning for climate impacts on tourism

UMaine MDI study shows benefits of collaboration

A STUDY FROM the University of Maine shows that bringing together academics and tourism developers on Mount Desert Island is an effective way to identify climate change impacts and determine what can be done to address them given a community’s strengths, limitations, and resources.

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

By Barbara Fernald

Now, thanks to the work of a trans disciplinary group of UMaine graduate researchers and community stake holders, MDI might have further infor mation on a path forward to keeping the destination sustainable.

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

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

Nature-based tourism destinations, like many in Maine, face challenges from the impacts of climate change. Climate and weather determine the timing, length, and quality of tourism seasons, as well as the risks associated with recreational activities.

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

Participatory planning—bringing together a variety of stakeholders to analyze complex issues by applying local knowledge—is an approach communities can use to anticipate climate change impacts and prepare suitable solutions. For nature-based tourism destinations, this could mean diversifying recreational opportunities, for example, or developing sustainable transportation plans focused on tourist movements.

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

alongside climate change planners, natural resource managers, and other academic researchers.

As winter winds down, islanders mix prep work and gatherings

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

The participatory planning approach to addressing climate change impacts has been successful in several inter national case studies. For example, a 2014 participatory planning study that engaged municipal officials, tourism developers, business owners, and researchers was able to identify climate change impacts and adaptation measures for two tourism-centric areas of Northern Finland.

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

“MDI tourism professionals are very aware of climate change impacts to their businesses and the resources they manage. A participatory approach allows researchers to center that exper tise and experience to help develop locally relevant solutions that consider existing resources, including existing partnerships and ongoing adaptation and mitigation projects,” says Lydia Horne, lead author of the study who completed the research as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maine.

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

In a study published in the journal Tourism and Hospitality Research, UMaine researchers worked with tourism partners on MDI to iden tify climate change impacts in the area’s tourism system and develop planning priorities. The approach brought together diverse tourism suppliers who do not often collaborate,

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

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

The study involved a series of plan ning workshops conducted over Zoom in spring 2021 that allowed partici pants to share their observations and experiences related to climate change. Tourism stakeholders identified impacts like the increasing heat and temperature, decrease in snowpack, changes to flora and fauna, increase in ticks, and the unpredictability of extreme weather events on MDI. While providers recognized that, in the short term, the coastal Maine tourist desti nation might benefit from increased temperatures, it may reach a “tipping point” where the climate becomes too warm and less attractive to visitors seeking a cooler destination.

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

The participants then worked in groups to create planning priori ties based on the impacts they observed. Based on the existing strengths, barriers and resources in the community, two items rose to the top: addressing increased visitation and making MDI a more sustainable tourist destination by reducing green house gas emissions through more sustainable energy systems and trans portation strategies. The participants

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

Some fishermen will add a 3-foot

then identified actions they could take to work toward these goals, such as shifting the timing of activities and product offerings to adapt to shifting visitation patterns as well as improving winter safety messaging and tourism infrastructure in response to increased winter visitation.

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

“These findings highlight the value of bringing people with different back grounds and investments together to discuss the impacts climate change is having on a nature-based tourism community,” said Asha DiMatteoLePape, co-author of the study.

“It was an incredibly valuable expe rience as students to be able to have important and meaningful conver sations with local communities in regards to climate change and tourism, and that is a connection often lacking in academia,” added Valeria Briones, a study co-author.

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

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

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

“These conversations with coastal communities need to happen more regularly to find both short and long term feasible solutions. Many climate projections are on a 50- to 100-year time scale, which are important for longterm planning, but may not necessarily address the immediate concerns and rapid changes that impact the tourism industry face from year to year.

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

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Landscape amnesia on a changing coast Downeast storm in 2021 was a warning shot

By Charlie Foster

Therain came quickly to Roque Bluffs on that day in June 2021.

I checked the rain gauge on my home weather station and did a double take when I saw the reading: 5.3 inches of rain had fallen before most people had even roused for work.

In a typical year, June would bring an average of 2.3 inches of rain to this area of coastal Maine—for the entire month. What happens when you receive nearly twice the monthly rainfall amount in a matter of hours? Well, in this case the flood waters blew out nearly every single culvert in our town.

Amid the deluge, the two main roads that lead into town were both impassable, their underlying culverts were gone and the streams that once flowed through them were now torrents of water that bisected the pavement. Being a restoration ecolo gist, I took the opportunity to do a little impromptu surveying.

I stopped by the first culvert in my neighborhood: a black, plastic tube that ferries water back and forth from the tides each day under a dirt road

that leads to a few houses perched on a picturesque cove. To my surprise, this one was intact.

The tannin-soaked water from the salt marsh was rushing through to the bay and the dirt road was holding its own. The intact culvert owed its continued existence to the adjacent salt marsh, whose floodplain gave the water a place to spread out before exiting the estuary.

This would not be the case at the next several crossings. At each one, where small tributaries of the Englishman River typically flow like babbling brooks, I found a washed-out roadway and the roadbed strewn hundreds of feet downstream.

At the second one, I stopped and got out of the truck to inspect the damage. At that time, a helicopter flew low and slow overhead. It continued down the road at such a pace you could make out the individual rotor blades as they spun. I would later learn that the chopper was surveying for stranded residents to make sure no one needed to be rescued.

Eventually, the road crews were assembled and did a fantastic job

of restoring access to the town. Thankfully, no one was injured or required emergency services during the event. Shortly after that, we all continued about our business.

The roads were fixed, and the sun was out. It ended as a banner June day for our beautiful community. As the sun set, the dark evergreen fir and spruce trees were backlit by a spectrum of pastels. Everyone will remember that day, but I’m afraid few are aware of its context.

Our climate is changing and that has consequences for those of us on the coast. It’s virtually impossible to attribute one rain event to the greater alarm bell of climate change, but the proof could lie in the anecdotal pudding.

We have an aging population in our part of the country. Many of the folks here make their living off the land or water and have done so for decades. All the people I spoke with about this event said the same thing: “That’s never happened here before.” And it’s not just our town’s flooding event that evokes that state ment. Across the region, other events that may never have happened before are now occurring with regularity.

would now say, “This is the second or third time it’s happened this year.”

Sea level rise isn’t just a nebulous idea; it has direct consequences on human life. Last year, the East Side Road at Knowles Brook flooded out during a high tide. At that same time, a resident on the other side of the washout had a medical emergency and required an ambulance. Instead of receiving crit ical care within 15 minutes (a normal response time), the ambulance had to take a detour around the peninsula which took an additional 45 minutes. The outcome was tragic and was felt by the entire community.

A resident on the other side of the washout had a medical emergency and required an ambulance.

We refer to these events, where areas along the coast are inundated even on sunny days, as “nuisance flooding.” This is typical human behavior, to downplay the slow destruction of critical infrastructure as a “nuisance.”

Under current projec tions, these nuisances will be occurring ten times more frequently than they had even a decade ago. I’m afraid the transition from nuisance to unavoidable catastrophe isn’t going to be a smooth one.

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In Addison, there is a culvert that carries water underneath the East Side Road at a place called Knowles Brook. There, a sign has been erected to indi cate to a passing motorist the poten tial for up to six feet of water on the roadway. On the day I visited, it was a normal tide, and the water was gently lapping up against the pavement.

You can delineate the floodplain of Knowles Brook (a beautiful coastal stream home to sea-run brook trout and rainbow smelt) by noting the change in topography as you traverse the East Side Road. The road slopes down from a hill and continues for about 1,000 feet, until it meanders up the next hill. In the center of that dip is the culvert. It was installed in 1993, just three years after evidence of climate change and accelerated sea level rise were mentioned in the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

Back in the 1990s, the state hydrologist would design a culvert using a calcula tion of the estimated volume of water that would flow through the structure. Today, we know that isn’t sufficient for most places along the coast.

Since the culvert at Knowles Brook was installed, the long-term average sea level at that location has risen about seven inches. While an old-timer from Addison may have once said, “That’s never happened here before,” they

In this corner of New England, people are witnessing the beginning of a sea change. Not an abrupt one, but a slow trickle, as the water gently rises over more and more roads.

In human psychology, there is a process called creeping normality, also known as landscape amnesia. Landscape amnesia is “a process by which a major change can be accepted as normal and acceptable if it happens slowly through small, often unnotice able, increments of change.”

You might know the process of land scape amnesia better as “death by a thousand cuts.” In many parts of our region, the cuts have already begun. Low-lying roads are being bisected and entire towns are being temporarily cut off. The synergistic effect of unpredict able rain events and sea level rise is a one-two punch to the gut of budgetstrapped towns and their residents.

We must act now by upgrading our infrastructure to withstand the next hundred years of tiny cuts before they add up to gaping wounds. We must fortify what we can and retreat from what we’ve already so arrogantly lost.

We need to create more resilient communities, built to be as durable as the old-timer who once watched as the trickles of water came in over the road for the first time ever, and then for the third time this year.

Charlie Foster is the associate director for the Downeast Salmon Federation and lives in Washington County.

Owning a home or business on the coast of Maine has many rewards.

Ticked off at a nasty arthropod Proliferation of ticks leads to serious illness

By Courtney Naliboff

IN THE STORY of Passover, my favorite Jewish holiday, the Egyptians are tormented by ten plagues. Many of them entail an excess of some sort of unpleasant critter, like lice, or frogs (which I find very pleasant but maybe not in biblical quantities).

Lately, I find myself wondering what wrong North Haven might be facing divine retribution for, as the island seems to be crawling with an excess of our most unpleasant critter—ticks.

And not just any ticks! Not these, the large, annoying-yet-benign, easy-tospot-and-remove dog ticks. These are deer ticks in their most microscopic nymph form. Smaller than a punctuation mark and laden with all sorts of nasty bacteria, the odds of finding one on you before it has a chance to bite are slim.

I’m feeling particularly vindica tive towards an arthropod I already despised because Penrose and I were both recently infected with anaplas mosis, a tick-borne bacterial illness.

Like Lyme, its better-known counter part, anaplasmosis can cause general ickiness, fever, and body aches. Unlike Lyme, it’s rarely heralded by a tell-tale

rash, and can be harder to spot. Left untreated, it can lead to sepsis.

My infection came in the form of 24-hour bouts of low fever and severe joint pain that left me barely able to walk. I slept the day away, wrapped in a blanket, with ice packs wedged under my hips in an attempt to alleviate the deep ache. The bones in my arms throbbed, my stomach roiled, and all plans were postponed.

The next day I awoke, seemingly cured, but when the pain and fever recurred ten days later, I figured I’d better get some blood work done. I got a posi tive hit for anaplasmosis within a day and was able to start a two-week course of doxycycline.

since she always seemed to pop up out of her malaise if she got an invitation for a bike ride from her neighborhood friends, I continued to chalk her fluctu ating wellness up to her new schedule.

My infection

came in the form of 24hour bouts of low fever and severe joint pain that left me barely able to walk.

Pen started complaining of nausea, headaches, and fatigue within a few days of school starting, so I wrote it off to the read justment to waking up early and spending most of the day indoors. Her recurring leg pain could easily have been the result of kickball and PE, and

I couldn’t ignore it anymore when, hours before we were supposed to get on the boat to visit my parents and go to the Common Ground Fair, her temperature jumped from 100.8 to 102 in an hour, and she started sobbing that her arm hurt too much to move.

The locum nurse prac titioner kindly agreed to a house call, and, given the lack of upper respiratory symptoms or a rash, deter mined that it was most likely also anaplasmosis.

Within a few days of our doxycycline courses, Penrose and I were fever free, though still tired and achy, and continued to improve quickly. Soon, we were both up and around, with added sun protection and regular probiotics to counter the less pleasant side effects of the antibiotic.

Jou R nal of an island k itchen

Recipes or not Freestylin’ with leftovers

By Sandy Oliver

ROUGHLY three-and-a-half servings of gazpacho remained in the fridge, beginning to get just a wee bit fizzy (you know, fermenting) and perfectly fine after a boil-up. Since I used commercial tomato-based vegetable juice as a kind of stock for it, about a third of that containerful lurked on the top shelf of the fridge, suitable for adding.

A couple of very ripe tomatoes trying to juice themselves on the window sill, luring fruit flies, obviously needed to be eaten, all chopped up and added to the gazpacho.

As luck would have it, a half-pint of homemade canned salsa offered itself, so I added that to the mix. Plus one cob of cooked corn, kernels easily sliced off and stirred in. I jazzed the mix with a little additional cumin and chili, the leading spice in the gazpacho and heated it up for lunch.

I cleaned out three containers and one plastic bag of food, freeing up space in the fridge, and making a wholesome soup. No food wasted.

No recipe.

I expect that lots of home cooks use this recipe-free method to concoct

meals. We’d have to or go broke feeding our families, wasting bucket loads of food, and spending way too much time shopping for groceries. To be sure, I used a quasi-recipe to make the gazpacho; having made it before, I knew the basics of assembling it, but it was pretty free-form. Same with the canned salsa, which, had I grown up eating, I would probably make without a written recipe the way I now put together the Old-Family Spaghetti Sauce without one.

Plenty of our common fare is made with non-recipes. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for instance, though you can find recipes for them in cookbooks and on the internet, apparently written for newcomers to our culture or newly minted cooks who grew up without benefit of a home cook to initiate them.

One internet recipe called for the “secret ingredient” of butter, and said to spread the peanut butter on one slice of bread and “swirl” the jam into it, then top with the other slice of bread.

The first reader comment said, “This is stupid—slap peanut butter on a piece of bread and jelly on the other and BAM you got your freaking sandwich.”

Still, recipes are coin of the realm. Those of us who have to write them,

are constantly reminded that specifics are required, and never, ever say, “add salt to taste,” despite the fact that most people who eat, add salt to their food unless their doctors have said not to.

Specifics are pretty ephemeral and highly subject to local conditions. For example, stove temperatures vary from stove to stove: a couple nights at a friend’s house using her electric stove reminded me that specifying “medium hot” would get her a different result on her stove than what I get for medium hot on my gas stove. Not all ovens are calibrated the same, and in fact, if I need to hustle a baked good along, I jack the temperature ten degrees and nothing awful happens.

Ingredients, too, vary. Newly dug potatoes take longer to cook than old ones. But we don’t buy our potatoes from the store according to their age, and if you buy potatoes in May in Maine you can be assured that they probably weren’t dug that week, unless they were imported from a different hemisphere.

Then what about measuring chopped vegetables in cups? A halfcup of chopped bell pepper or onion or carrot leaves a portion of vegetable on the counter, to be tossed into a

The tick that I’m reasonably certain infected me hid inside a bump on the side of my knee for four days. I checked it regularly, but figured it was a mosquito bite, until it emerged, a tiny black speck almost too small to grab with tweezers. I never saw one on Penrose. I’ve heard of three other people and at least four dogs with anaplasmosis right now, and according to a report on Maine Public Radio, Lyme cases are up from last year as well.

Ticks are only going to get worse as our winters trend milder, our deer population overflows, and conditions remain too dry to attempt controlled field burns. I can only hope that some sort of mitigation measures—a vaccine, a deer cull, something—are eventually put in place. We could do without this particular plague.

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

fridge to rot unless the cook feels brave enough to round up or down to the nearest whole vegetable.

In this case, recipes promote waste unless cooks pry their fingers off recipe cards long enough to use them, or is a vigilante about part-vegetables or fruits. “Here, darlings, is your crudite platter.”

I don’t see recipes very often calling for leftovers, though many are wonderful helps in getting through a week of meals. Meatloaf, roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, extra pasta, cooked rice, cooked fish, and baked beans all have a great life past Meal #1. Leftover lasagna? Well, another lasagna dinner. Leftover potato salad? Great home fries. Leftover stew? Add broth and barley or small pasta for soup.

No recipe needed.

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

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Island autumn and birds on the wing

Counting the migrators, savoring the season

By Barbara Fernald

JUST WHEN YOU think the islands would start to quiet down there is actually a fair amount of new movement all around us. It’s migration time. I recently read about how helpful it is to turn off outdoor lights during this season to assist the birds that migrate at night.

It never occurred to me that birds fly at night! In big groups, no less!

I looked it up on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website which led me to BirdCast, which has several migration tools for learning about who’s traveling overhead while we sleep. Nocturnal bird migrations are “detected by the U.S. weather surveillance network between local sunset to sunrise” and shown on live bird migration maps.

If you want to know how many birds flew over your area last night, there is a spot on the dashboard to type in your county and state. I think it’s pretty cool to learn that over Hancock County last night, the peak migration traffic

occurred at 2:30 a.m., with a speed of 9 mph and an altitude of 1,300 feet. Birds in flight numbered about 152,200. The buoyancy of fall activity lifts my spirits. I’m fortu nate that the energy of it keeps me from projecting dread on the shorter days ahead. But I know fall can be a hard time for others.

I love this time of year on the island with its dramatic changes. Getting to witness the migrations of birds and the colors changing on the trees across the water on Mount Desert Island is pretty special.

In early October, when I’m out for walks and see a great blue heron or an osprey fly overhead, I wonder if it will be the last one I see until next spring. (Now I’ll wonder if they fly at night, too.)

I love to see the migrators that stop by our yard and feeders. There is a red bellied woodpecker who only shows

up for a week in the spring and fall, and flickers come through either alone or in small groups. One or two hermit thrushes come out of hiding to fill up for a few days before heading off.

A few years ago I counted no less than 16 evening grosbeaks around my feeder one fall afternoon. They stayed for an hour. There’s always a possibility I’ll see a group like that again.  My sister-in-law Karen and I saw our first yellow-bellied sap sucker while out apple picking. She recently spent some time on Matinicus Island where she reported seeing a black and white warbler and was able to identify a black throated green warbler from its call by using the Merlin app on her phone.

She told me Matinicus was loaded with flickers on through September.  The birds aren’t the only thing migrating these days. From shallower

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water the lobster traps start to either come ashore or get moved out to deeper water as lobsters migrate and stormier weather starts to arrive.

After a storm, seaweed will travel inland from the beach as people gather crates of brown nutrition to put on their gardens for the winter. My lighterweight clothing is relocated to another closet and warmer clothes and heavier bedding come out for a lengthy visit.

Leaves on the trees will drift to the ground and more of my favorite autumn light will move right into the house. It’s the time of year my friend Mary refers to as “the sweet decline to cozy time.” The migration from summer to winter on a Maine island can be very sweet indeed.

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

Navigating my search for marine science work

Advice from a recent college grad on starting career

By Erica Roche

IN THE SPRING semester of my senior year as an ecology and environmental science major at the University of Maine, I heard exciting news about my peers’ careers and new educational pursuits. I didn’t know what I wanted to do or how I was supposed to figure it all out before graduation. Should I continue to graduate school or jump right into a job?

I am still navigating the field of ecology but if my experiences and advice can help another graduate I am glad to share it and hopefully take my own advice. Here are my suggestions:

RECOGNIZE YOU ARE NOT ALONE. “Imposter syndrome” affected me in applying for programs and jobs throughout college and into my life, post-graduation. Was I smart enough for graduate school? Was I qualified for an amazing job? There is no way to cancel this feeling, but my advice is to talk about it. More often than not, people around you feel the same way.

KEEP AN OPEN MIND. When I started looking into graduate school programs and possible careers I was trying to figure out what topic

I would be interested in within the field of marine science. I read published articles, watched question-andanswer videos of career professionals, and thought about my own experience in college and field research.

Eventually, I focused on marine plastic pollu tion in the Northeast. The research was new and it seemed there were gaps that needed to be filled. No matter the topic you are interested in, it’s OK to change your mind. Sometimes you might have to broaden or narrow your field of vision to find what you are looking for.

BE PERSISTENT.

involved studying microplastics. My thought was to gain as much experi ence as I could regard less of the specific topic in ecology because I knew any experience was good experience.

It’s OK to not know what you want to do for work for the rest of your life.

Applying for jobs can be discouraging—all the rejections, or worse, not hearing any response at all. My advice is to send follow up emails a week or two after submitting your application. It also helps to have a question about the position to include in your email to show that you have been continuing to think about it. If you put in the work people will notice.

NETWORK.

After deciding I wanted to focus on water quality with the topic of ocean pollution, I continued my job search (via LinkedIn, Conservation Job Board, Texas A&M, Society for Conservation Biology, and USA Jobs).

Even though I had found a research topic I was happy with, it was still difficult to find the right fit. Of some 20 jobs I applied for, only two actually

I reached out to current and former professors, potential graduate school advisors, and career professionals who studied something I would like to study. Email, but don’t get upset if you do not receive the response you were looking for. The goal is to make a new contact who could potentially provide you with advice or send an interesting job posting your way.

TRUST YOUR GUT.

It’s OK to not know what you want to do for work for the rest of your life. It is also OK to change your mind and try different professions out. No one graduate has the same experience or takes the same path when joining the workforce.

After I turned down my first job offer, I took my own advice and remained positive, and soon received an email about an opening for the summer at Schoodic Institute and immediately applied when it mentioned working in the intertidal zone at Acadia National Park. As my season at Schoodic comes to an end I’m glad I trusted my gut and let the other position go. Now I am one step closer to achieving my goal and I got to learn more about myself along the way.

ASK FOR HELP.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Reach out to anyone and everyone with questions or introductions. I wish you, the reader, the best of luck in all your future endeavors! You got this!

Erica Roche was a summer intern at the Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park.

I counted no less than 16 evening grosbeaks around my feeder one fall afternoon.

field notes

Waterfront jobs: ‘Traditions and transitions’ New approaches needed to grow workforce

By Lia Morris

HARD WORKING people are the lifeblood of Maine’s marine economy. When I reflect back on my childhood, I can see now that the boatyard my father founded and operated played an important role in my hometown’s workforce and in turn the working waterfront.

Boats built in that yard are all over the world, but were crafted by highly skilled and knowledgeable workers right here on the coast of Maine.

While the makeup of the businesses and people reliant on Maine’s coast have shifted since my youth, one thing remains the same—Maine has talented people. We just need to make the entry points for training and career pathways visible and approachable for a more diverse workforce.

With this in mind, I jumped at the opportunity to attend the 6th biannual National Working Waterfront Conference in Boston in July, where a significant portion of the agenda was dedicated to conversations around working water front workforce development.

The theme of this year’s conference was “traditions and transitions,” a way

to both acknowledge the culture and history of working waterfronts as well as the many changes these areas are facing. As one of the sponsors of the event, the Island Institute was proud to attend and share the work we are doing to support Maine’s island and coastal communities

The opening panel discussion, “Developing and Diversifying the Workforce of Working Waterfronts,” shed light on the current challenges and barriers to marine economy work force development. No matter the coast—East, West, Gulf, and yes the Great Lakes, too—we heard common themes including: the aging fleet; access and transportation to the water front; education on evolving and new career pathways in developing sectors like offshore wind and aquaculture; affordable housing; and countering the culture of Tik-Tok career aspirations, which suggest that everyone can get rich quick.

From Seattle we heard about the “silver tsunami,” or what we here in Maine call the “graying of the fleet.” With a high percentage of Seattle’s fishing fleet workers being over the age of 45, many constituents are

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realizing that to maintain the mari time economy, they need to attract a younger and more diverse workforce.

The Youth Maritime Collaborative is addressing this trend by providing marine-focused career exploration, paid internships within the marine economy, and adventures that get young participants from underserved communities to spend time on and near the water.

Ben Conniff, co-founder of Mainebased Luke’s Lobster, was also a member of the panel and advocated for change. He spoke about helping black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) students obtain a student lobster license in this predominantly white, male fishery. Luke’s is working with these students to help them gain the knowledge, skills, and boat hours necessary to eventually have a commercial license.

As we confront the reality that about two-thirds of the more than 4,500 Maine lobstermen with commercial licenses are age 40 or older and only a small fraction are women or BIPOC, it will be important to scale up this work. Scale it up within the lobster fishery, but also within the growing

Study: lobster has small carbon footprint

Results will help inform climate action

By Emma Wendt

IN THE SPRING of 2021, the Island Institute undertook a carbon footprint study with Maine-based seafood company and Island Institute partner Luke’s Lobster. It was the first time greenhouse gas emissions were measured along one company’s supply chain of Gulf of Maine lobster.

Both the Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront, and Luke’s care deeply about the long-term sustainability of Maine’s fisheries and responding to climate change. The consulting firm Council Fire was chosen to do the work.

This inquiry not only helps Luke’s Lobster, a sustainable seafood industry leader, get closer to its net zero carbon goals, but also benefits the working waterfront by pinpointing carbon hotspots and identifying opportunities for sustainable solutions.

The study showed that lobster has a relatively low carbon foot print compared with other animal proteins—2.89 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions for every pound of lobster sourced by Luke’s Lobster. Its crab prod ucts come from Massachusetts, which was also included in the study, and have

a slightly lower carbon footprint, at 2.11 pounds of emissions per pound.

These foods compare favorably with other animal proteins, including beef (60 pounds of emissions per pound of protein), lamb (24 pounds), farmed prawns (12 pounds), pork (7 pounds), and chicken (6 pounds).

Specifically, we measured the emis sions from harvesting lobster and crab, wharf operations, processing, restaurants, and most of transportation. In this initial study, we did not include emissions related to employee commuting, transpor tation from grocery distributors to consumer homes, or home prepa ration or disposal of Luke’s products.

This inquiry … benefits the working waterfront by pinpointing carbon hotspots and identifying opportunities for sustainable solutions.

The biggest chunk of emissions for lobster along its supply chain, 75%, comes from fishing, both from the fuel used by boats (62%) and bait used in traps (13%). This aligns with other types of animal-based food—emissions from harvesting or farming typically overshadow other areas like pack aging and transportation.

Knowing the scale and source of emissions from lobster will help us understand and prioritize our options for reducing carbon pollution associ ated with this fishery.

So what does climate action look like for the lobster industry in Maine?

aquaculture sector, so that all under represented populations can find pathways to participate in a more representative blue economy.

As I reflect back on the conference, I take heart knowing there are many bright and committed minds across the country trying to address working waterfront workforce issues.

With many of Maine’s citizens reliant on the marine economy for a living, it will take many organiza tions, educational institutions, agen cies, and private sector businesses to build the skilled workforce and to address the skills gap needed to work in and around a rapidly evolving Gulf of Maine. We must all work together to bridge the gaps and help Maine thrive in the coming years.

Lia Morris is a community development officer focusing on marine economies and workforce issues with the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. She may be reached at lmorris@islandinstitute.org

We recognize that this carbon foot print may be lower than other Gulf of Maine lobster purchased from and sold elsewhere, given that Luke’s Lobster has already undertaken many emis sions-savings efforts like purchasing renewable energy.

Shifting boats away from fossil fuels must be a big part of our solu tions. Electric engines are significantly more efficient options. Companies like Glas Ocean in Nova Scotia are developing retrofit kits to transition lobster boats to electric hybrid. I was excited to see the first boat it converted when I visited Halifax this past summer. For smaller vessels

as a nearer-term starting point, we are working with partners like Flux Marine and Maine Electric Boat Company to get fully electric boats on the water for commercial use, ideally next summer.

There are plenty of other options for near- and medium-term action to move the lobster industry away from volatile and expensive fossil fuels—including solar, switching to bait made from byproducts of other uses, and electric trucks as they become available.

While some of these efforts have high up-front price tags, they stabilize costs and save money in the long run. Funding support is available today for many of these options. We’re here to work alongside folks in the lobster industry and the seafood sector more broadly to navigate these transitions.

Emma Wendt is a community development officer focusing on clean energy and community data for the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. She may be reached at ewendt@islandinstitute.org.

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A future in boats and photos

Rockland boat yard image includes named shadows

By Kevin Johnson

THIS MONTH’S PHOTO shows the view down upon the Snow Marine Basin, circa 1948, with Lermond’s Cove and the city of Rockland behind it. A lobster boat owned by Russell Stewart is being dragged to her winter location while yard workers clear a path for her.

After World War II, Bert Snow and Maurice McKusick partnered with Alfred Storer and Ralph Cowan to develop the Snow Marine Basin at the site of an old lime kiln in Lermond’s Cove across from where the island ferries now are based. The marine services business did everything— hauling vessels for repairs and re-launching, boat and marine carpentry, restora tion and painting, building and setting moorings.

It also became the play ground of two 14-year-old boys, Maynard Bray and Don Merchant. Born two days apart, they shared a mutual love of boats, an interest in photography, and a disdain for school and sports. Bert Snow and the other men at the yard not only tolerated their presence but even gave them odd jobs and free range.

In this photograph taken by Bray with his mother’s Kodak Jiffy camera, the boys survey their kingdom from the deck of a large boat. Their shadows, though probably accidentally included, allow them to mark their own presence in the scene that had such an impact on their lives.

Both went on to have careers in the marine world and both of their photog raphy archives are now with the collec tions of the Penobscot Marine Museum.

Born two days apart, they shared a mutual love of boats, an interest in photography…

The Penobscot Marine Museum on Route 1 in Searsport has 500,000plus historic images in its photography archive. Composed of scores of individual collections, it’s the largest photo reposi tory in Maine.

The photos make connec tions: logging camps to lumber schooners on the coast; Maine shipyards to views of a crowded Hong Kong harbor; farming to the ice shipping industry that required hay for insulation; and fishing nets teeming with herring to the 2010 closing of the last sardine cannery in the U.S. The power of the images is enormous. They teach,

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inspire, infuriate, and amuse. The Penobscot Marine Museum is open every day through Oct. 16.

The foyer of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Library at the museum offers an overview of the major photography collections and photog raphers with biographies, examples of

work, and related ephemera. A large digital display features a rotating slideshow showing highlights from the archive. On weekdays, visitors are welcomed into the photo archives where there are additional displays, and they can observe and interact with staff and volunteers.

‘Bunglaries,’ island criminal misadventures

Planning didn’t help trio of thieves

By Phil Crossman

EVERY TOWN has a Bubba. A few years ago some of our own undertook to rob a couple of island businesses. Typical of cyclical off-season capers, every few years for as long as I can remember, this one provided enough fodder to get us all through the winter.

During the planning stage, a brief period earlier in the day coinciding with the time it takes three guys to consume a pack of Bud, they settled on hitting the Fishermen’s Friend, a convenience store, and the Tidewater Motel, each on the north shore of Carver’s Harbor, and they seized on an imaginative means of gaining entry. They would bust out some windows.

I confess, I’m being a little sarcastic; in fact some thought had gone into plan ning. Earlier in the day, for example, the trio had unobtrusively reviewed the parade of punts occupying the nearby float and returning to a conference in the pickup, agreed on one in particular which would suit their needs—a vessel in which they could vanish into the black night with their booty.

For some reason the skiff seemed

preferable to simply throwing the goods in the truck and driving off. Accordingly, the first order of busi ness later that night was for one of them to retrieve said punt, row it over to Fishermen’s Friend and position it directly beneath the wharf.

Approaching the window with a few rocks, they took off their T-shirts, wrapped them around some rocks and smashed out the window. For a moment the sound of an apparent answering gunshot startled them nearly to sobriety until they realized that a residual rock they’d tossed over board had struck the blade of one of the improperly shipped oars. What they hadn’t noticed was that it caused that particular oar to catapult itself out of the rowboat and make for the oppo site shore.

Inside, they made first for the beer cooler and executed the efficient removal of its contents to the punt. Planning and its product priorities uppermost, Bubba number one ran all the Budweiser to the window; Bubba number two to the wharf’s edge where number three, lying on his stomach, lowered each six pack

gently—to avoid aggravating its effervescence—but quickly to the punt bobbing below just at arm’s length in the quickening breeze.

Done with phase one, they concen trated their meager resources on the removal of less fragile commodities. Cartons of cigarettes went flying— along with the finesse they’d employed in delicately removing the beer—out the window and over the side in the direction of the empty space where the punt had been docked, until the gathering northerly relaxed its tenuous tether on the piling. Now, though, unbeknownst to them and with a decided list due to the excess Bud stowed to port, it was chasing its prod igal oar across the harbor.

Cash and lottery tickets stuffed into their shirts and pants and spirits buoyed, they made good their getaway and headed up town.

At the motel, eager to make up their losses, they busted out an awning window that was much too small for any one of them to have squeezed through before trying the door and finding it open. Bubba ripped the cash register from its mooring, carried it

several fishermen heading down to the shore, and, cradling it like a newborn, marched to the truck, mysteriously parked nearly a hundred yards away. There they discovered that the register too was already open and accordingly, they relieved it of its contents, a couple hundred dollars.

As a result of this experience we, not surprisingly, began retrieving the money and locking the lobby door each night—until many fans encouraged us to resume our old practice of leaving the money in the register and the lobby door open. They even provided a surveillance camera and said they’d chip in and compensate us if we were hit again. They thought it would be worth it just to view the film.

Phil Crossman lives on Vinalhaven where he owns the Tidewater Motel and monitors crime and other waves. He may be reached at philcrossman. vh@gmail.com.

The shadows of two boys whose futures lay in the marine industry are visible in this photo, circa 1948, along with a lobster boat being dragged to its winter home at Snow Marine Basin. PHOTO: PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM COLLECTION

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Malcom Morley’s Port Clyde collage

By Carl Little

SOMETIME IN the late 1980s, the British-American painter Malcolm Morley (1931-2018) and his Dutchborn wife, Lida (Kruisheer) Morley, arrived in Port Clyde to take a watercolor class with local artist Gary Akers. While they only stayed for the first session, they loved the village and ended up renting a small cottage and then, in 1989, buying the former Chet Davis house on Cold Storage Road.

Feeling as if they were in a fishbowl, the couple moved to a house on Ballfield Road, on a hill over looking the harbor. For a decade they summered there nearly every year, driving up from Long Island, New York, in May accompanied by a Ryder truck filled with painting supplies.

“Sometimes Malcolm would come with an already planned painting and do it there,” Lida Morley recalls. “That way he wasn’t necessarily locked into Maine imagery.”

Morley created several works inspired by his coastal surroundings, including oil paintings, water colors, and sculpture. The most directly related to his seasonal home is Port Clyde (1993). Rendered with expressive brushwork, this collage-like view of the working harbor with Raspberry Island as backdrop features various boats, buildings, and a tilting shed.

Steven Davis, who lobstered out of Port Clyde from 1960 to 2009 and whose family’s home Morley

bought, helped identify some of the imagery. The “little brown church” is the Advent Christian Church, which he attended as a child and where his mother played the piano. The red-trimmed shed was the office for a cousin’s lobster-buying business.

Other Port Clyde residents offered IDs and shared memories of Morley after the painting appeared on Facebook. Glen Libby, owner of Fresh Catch Port Clyde, identified the boat rigged for seining in the upper left as Pride and Joy owned by Fred Stimpson.

Several people noted that the “mint-green” house belongs to retired fisherman Carl Schwab. Dick Nixon, who did all the construction on the Morley house and studio, recalled taking the painter out in the harbor “so he could sketch some of the lobster boats from different angles.”

Lida Morley explained her husband’s approach visà-vis Port Clyde.

“What Malcolm did with that painting he often did throughout his life: take a little bit of here and a little of there and put it together in a fictional landscape that looks coherent, but when you go and look at it, you won’t be able to find it—except for the bits and pieces.”

The Morleys befriended a number of Port Clyde residents, including Norman Tate, a retired cartoonist for Disney (he worked on Pinocchio and Fantasia, among other films). Peter Spectre called Tate “the most famous—and joyous—sailor in Port Clyde” when he died in 2007.

They also dined with Andrew Wyeth. “They got along well,” recalls Lida, “they were quirky.”

Their neighbors, the Olivieri family, became friends.

“Malcolm and Olivieri senior were very close because he was a musician and Malcolm was a painter,” Lida recalls. Morley did the cover and illus trations for Carol Olivieri Schulte’s book 600 Crises or Growing Up Italian.

A granddaughter, Oceania Olivieri, worked as an assistant, cleaning brushes and sanding airplane wings. At the time Morley often affixed model planes to his canvases. One of them was based on the Fokker DR-1 flown by Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, in World War I. Morley had seen a replica of it at an airshow at the Owls Head Transportation Museum and incorporated it in several paintings.

An artist with a checkered past—he served time in a U.K. reform school and prison before finding his way to art school and subsequent fame as a painter in New York City—Morley became a U.S. citizen in 1991 at age 60.

At the time he painted Port Clyde, he was at the top of the art world. He had won the first-ever Turner Prize in 1984 and received the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture’s prestigious medal in painting in 1992. A show of his watercolors, including a couple of Port Clyde pieces, circulated around the world in 1991-1992.

Linkel Construction,

BROOKS

Port Clyde, 1993, by Malcolm Morley (oil on canvas, 38 by 52 inches, private collection, Maine). Copyright the estate of Malcolm Morley.

In 2001, the Morleys sold their Port Clyde home to another painter, Kenneth Noland (1924-2010), and his wife, writer and editor Paige Rense (1929-2021). They never returned to Maine.

Lida thought about it, “but it was painful in a way because it was so idyllic,” she says, “and we had such a wonderful time.” Her husband was “so

inspired, especially by the light on that peninsula,” she remembers, “and he loved boats and lobster boats and clunky metal rickety things, so it was like an ice cream store for a kid—there were so many flavors.”

Many thanks to Lida Morley for filling in some of the details of her and her husband’s Maine forays

and to the members of I Love Port Clyde America on Facebook who responded to my queries. It takes a village to appreciate a painting.

Carl Little’s latest book is Mary Alice Treworgy: A Maine Painter.