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A friend of mine had recently taken a job on a tiny Island, 24 miles off the coast of Maine. Matinicus Isle is the most remote year-round island in Maine, located 20 miles off Owls Head in the Midcoast. Well, it has happened: after two decades of writing about this place, and seeing people still react as though life on an unbridged, offshore island is indeed peculiar, and that full-time island residents are some sort of oddball societal enigma, some psychological aberration or cute anachronisminsert heavy use by other journalists of the inaccurate term unique lifestyle hereand after endless lame comments from mainland friends about how they couldnt live without this or that convenience or comfort, the muck boot, as it were, is on the other foot. How could they possibly, with all their troubles? But islanders know that no matter how important you are, how rich you are, how loud you are, how much you stomp around the flying service office yelling, Do you know who I am? there is nothing anybody can do about the delay. But it wasnt yet in season. Five years ago, a member of the Ames clan, whod left Matinicus years before but never stopped lobstering its waters, began hiring someone else to work his traps. Some men began to do well. P.O. While we work hard to keep you informed about the Midcoast community, how citizens cope and thrive, we need your help, too. The rest of the country is discovering what weve always known. Well some islanders still burn their trash, but there's a small recycling center generously managed by several conscientious volunteers. Medals followed, and media stories, a standing ovation on the floor of the Maine State House, a citation in the Congressional Record. Its also the biggest reason why, whenever theres an event at the schooljust about any event at any time of day that involves the five or six kids there30 people are apt to show up. We set out at 10 am in hopes that by noon we would be there. Europeans first established a permanent settlement on the island in 1750, despite objections from the Penobscot. Congress appropriated $4,000 on May 18, 1826 for the project, and the island was purchased for $20 from George W. Coffin and George Irish. One couple, in addition to having an amazing vegetable garden, has the only cows on the island (4), as well as chickens, ducks, and turkeys. When an islander needs groceries, they fax (not email) an order to Shaws on the mainland and a small plane will deliver them to the airstrip at the north end of the island, for pickup (fax machine is at the post office which is in the basement of the parsonage). They also provide sporting events, cultural enrichment such as concerts, island schooling for kids, scholarships, a food pantry and other vital services to these places. Never has he had a drivers license and hes never driven a car. In the end, though, it is the islands willfulness, more than anything elsemore even than its isolationthat sets this place apart. The wind gusted to 70 mph on Sunday near Matinicus Island, about 20. Danger and illness aside, one might argue that wintertime island life is something like 2020 with a scenic view. Donna Rogers is 71; she lives with her husband, Charlie, a lobsterman, in a home overlooking the harbor. I got sick when they told me. The walk to the airstrip was a bit farther than what we had managed already (more than double), being at the other end of the island. Hes hard of hearing and walks arthritically. So most notably we took some really deep afternoon naps. Yep, we know. Robins, crows, sparrows, cardinals and jays were everywhere as well as a few hummingbirds. It used to be, you had to work for every dollar you got. Our vague impression had been that Matinicus was an island suited to those who think perhaps that Monhegan may be a bit too crowded. Both of us had always wanted to go, so we resolved to find a time in the next year to head out there. Of those, Matinicus is the most seaward, and the most indigenous. What a glorious natural classroom! Three families have been fractured. Matinicus Rock. Which was around 15 minutes. Forget about ambling around with a little basket over your arm, scrutinizing the obscure tropical delicacies in the produce section and picking out the very plumpest tomato. But we did get out for some walks as well, though we did not try and canvass the whole island. A friend of mine had recently taken a job on a tiny Island, 24 miles off the coast of Maine. Does that make any sense? Thirteen years ago, he bought his own. If you need to flag this entry as abusive. There was nothing legally binding in anything they decided; a licensed lobsterman, as far as the law is concerned, can set his traps anywhere he chooses. Things had been the same a long time. Rockland, ME 04841, SITE DESIGNED & DEVELOPED BY NORTHEAST MEDIA COLLECTIVE. But now with this She tilted her head back, hard, almost violently, toward the open window behind us and the dock and harbor beyond. Her devotion to the place seems almost ingrown. Working his way around Saris occasional outbursts (Yes, Im bitterI dont expect my closest friends to go against my family, and do it publicly Easy now, youre getting yourself worked up ), hed told me his story of how it had all come to pass: how his son-in-law had played by the rulesHe married my daughter, they bought a house thereand had still been run off the island; how hed gone to see Chris Youngs stepfather, futilely, to try to settle the dispute; how hed feared for his life, and later for his daughters (The man threatened to kill me); how Youngs and Amess civil suits, (the former settled this year, the latter still making its way through the courts) could take most of what he and Sari had; and, finally, how the island was no longer home to him, and his friends were no longer his friends. Maybe they could make it out tomorrow. Organized, continuous and full time missionary work has gone way out of style. Hes not a part of the community; he never has been, Philbrook said to me. It was a while before either of us mentioned Alan Miller. There [on the mainland], when you want your car fixed, you go to the garage. We would hope for the best. If you had something heavy to pick up and transfer, then just wait for high tide. No more. Though even some of those may take extended winter vacations in places like Florida. Out past Isle au Haut, past Monhegan, past Metinic, approximately 22 miles out in the middle of the Gulf of Maine, sits Matinicus Island, a 750-acre granite tooth covered with black spruce. Matinicus Island, 22 miles out to sea from Rockland, is Maine's most remote offshore community. Maybe not. It's only a 15-minute flight so we never got very high, resulting in amazing views. There was some shouting. Some traded up to 600-horsepower diesels that could make it to Rockland in an hour or less. The little one-room K-8 schoolhouse, viewed by just about everyone as the islands truest pulse, has rarely had more than 10 or 12 students; in recent years the average has been more like half that. The Good Table has everything you need to prepare your next delicious meal. The station was known for its isolation and its punishing weather. [Vance Bunkers wife, Sari] dont see that, I dont think. New Hope Midcoasts Community of Hope Matching Challenge: NEW GOAL AND UPDATE! Old wounds have deepened. And the old gasoline engines got traded in for diesels; the boats were faster now, so you could set your traps twice as far out. Hes in his late fifties, a big man with thick arms, a droopy, graying mustache, and a warm but very certain way of saying things. They preferred the path they had always used before. Should one miss that, next stop is Antarctica. Most of this is pretty certain. In 2005, for three days, he signed on as a third man in a lobster boat, and, he says, a gene flipped on in my head. He left his job; she left hers. I feel for him, I really do. We were nestled in a small clearing with fresh breezes blowing through the house. This was roughly contemporary. Even the few who defend him, including parents who recall what he did for their children, are too fearful of their neighbors to say so publicly. Your spouse, the kid next door, more or less any random citizen can cut your hair; you just park on a kitchen chair in the dooryard. Refreshments can found at a coffee shop and seafood is available at an outdoors beach shack and even in a very fine restaurant. It seems that most people out there already know where they are going. Two hundred traps, maybe 250, were the most a man could manage. Hussey is a lawyer in his forties, a slight man with thin features and tousled, receding brown hair. The harbor itself was unmistakably a working place. Then at the next meeting, they go and change the rules.. Matinicus boat owners began wintering in Florida, or buying second homes on the mainland. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. But he was one of us.) The money raised from Prom Night would go to Whitakers family. Its hard times for everyone, he said. And in the end, your reputation is all you have. The most popular property types are House (49 listings) and Apartment (38 listings). Were used to waiting for the oil boat, for the fog to clear, for the mud to freeze up, for the groceries to get here. I rang the state ferry in Rockland and indeed it was already canceled. The speck of earthnearly 22 miles from the mainlandis reachable by charter boat or plane or a short row from the nearby fishing community of Matinicus Island. They might have been a bit bigger. Theres a sense of history here like nowhere else, a lobstermans wife, Lisa Twombley-Hussey, had said to me weeks before. This is not a place fixed up to fit into someone elses idea of what an island off the coast of Maine should be like. Weve got no use for police out here; were just fine policing ourselves, one local told me. Its needed, no one else is doing it and it works. As the ferry cautiously made its way into the picturesque Matinicus Harbor, there was simple beauty all around. Join our email list to stay updated on all things Maine; food & drink, events & festivals, home & garden and much more. We circled the island and headed across the water toward Owl's Head. Without a grid tie to the mainland, the Matinicus Plantation Electric Company generates all the islands electricity with diesel fuel. Gets a lot of rides in trucks, especially on icy winter days. Literally, physically sick.. They float at their moorings comfortably apart, not much more than a dozen of them, gentle neighbors under an early-evening sky. Theres a name among islanders for people like that: fuel savers. It isnt a good way to be known. A few families raised potatoes; almost everyone had a garden. Weve had problems ever since.. But you need to find ways to help back. Indeed, many old battered traps can be found on the beach, apparently washed up in storms. Shortly, I arrived at the white school house and was enthusiastically greeted by the teacher and entire student body (grades 1 through 8) -- two brothers and their cousin! Though there are two sandy beaches out there which we did not get to. The dates begin in the early 1800s, though most are later, between 1850 and 1910, growing fewer with each decade after that. Id heard by now the story of his familys early years: how his grandfather had been a rumrunner on the island during Prohibition, hiding the bottles in deepwater puddles; of his father, a lobsterman, and how hed met Vances mother, whod come there to work as a nurse; how hed started pulling traps as a teenager and never stopped; how it used to be that when you had an argument with a neighbor, you got over it real quick, cause you needed each other more than you needed to stay mad.. He would survive: his hands mostly paralyzed, his left arm no longer of much use, his lifetime earning power reduced by $2.4 million, according to the lawsuit he would file. One day life was good: full, straight-ahead, uncomplicated. A two-man boat would come in with a three-day haul of 4,500 pounds, worth $14,000 or more. Lots of stuff like that, stuff they lost 50 years ago on the mainland, its still the same way here., It was a long while before any of us mentioned the shooting. But it seemed as though the main reason to have a ferry to Matinicus was to permit the sizable number of pick up trucks to transport their sizable payloads of gear, food, hardware, building supplies and whatever may have been loaded in that U-Haul that was on board. Its just too far out there and the seas and skies can be unfriendly. It sits on a private 40 acre, ocean front lot of rugged Maine land. The Island Institute works to sustain Maines island and coastal communities, and exchanges ideas and experiences to further the sustainability of communities here and elsewhere. Its larger than youd expect, and more formal: probably two or three acres, a fenced-off square of grass and old granite, with its tiers of headstonesseveral hundredgiving way to a small, shaded bench in the rear. The room where we ate meals and sat most of our time in comfy chairs had been built by him. There is a year round population of maybe around 40,making a living lobstering mostly. A century ago, 200 or more of them were fishermens communities; today, only 14 are inhabited year-round. school that is overseen by a part-time superintendent and a three-person school board. He dont slow down, he wakes up one morning, looks out his window, and sees hes got four flat tires. What an amazingly beautiful flight, accented by Autumn's fiery leaves. Hes the last guy on the island I would have expected this from. In season there is a gift shop, a bakery and an island resident runs a taxi service. Then it didnt matter if it was your worst enemy; you were there for thembecause you knew youd need the same if it was you. Nowhere shall we be judged for lack of sartorial splendor. Its their legacy; theyve been working it for generations, says Marty Malloy, the lobster buyer, who lives on the island with his wife and twin boys. As a school project, the three students had helped make "stone soup" to share with their visiting guest. The inn doesnt have a sea view but I think the ocean couldnt have been more than 20 or so yards away from the trees that lined the property. But he passed on the news that the ferry was broken, they were waiting for a part and there was a 50/50 chance it wouldnt run that day. Granite shorelines mostly. You can watch it on YouTube: Starry, Starry Night: Matinicus Prom 2008.. Matinicus is officially a plantation, a Maine-specific, organized form of municipal self-government, similar to but with some differences from a town or city. Harold had bested me in bringing less, simply a large beach towel draped over his shoulders (Douglas Adams would be pleased) and some peanut butter crackers. When Lisa finally didshed been talking about neighborliness and the response to the post-office fireit was so unexpected, and came in such a half-whispered seethe, it felt almost like an eruption: Its such a fragile system we have here. Those still left, their lobstering grounds now within range of any mainlander with a diesel engine, began drawing the lines tighter around the islandprotecting your bottom, it was called. If you cant do that, or you wont, then theres no place for you. He collapsed in a pool of blood at his stepbrothers feet. Well, it was grounded Friday and Saturday due to heavy fog and again on Sunday because of very strong winds. (Some people talk about family trees; what we have here is a wreath.) Their son, Nick, now 30 years old and a captain himself, has been lobstering since he was 8. Then, in October of the same year, just two months after the prom, a young lobsterman, Chris Whitaker, went missing in the waters off Matinicus; only a boot, a lunch pail, and an oil can would ever be found.
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