Last Saturday, we climbed into the truck and made the drive north to tekakapimek -- the new contact station at Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument -- to be transported into the magic of this place we live and its thousands of years of stewardship by Maine's indigenous nations.

The word tekakapimek is from the Penobscot language and means "as far as one can see."

This is a "contact station," and not a traditional "visitors center," because it is "designed to foster contact and connection with the land, its Wabanaki stewards, and the wider community, facilitating a collaborative approach to understanding and caring for the monument." The station represents a collaboration between Maine's four sovereign tribes who together make up the Wabanaki Alliance: the Penobscot, on whose current and traditional lands the Monument exists, and the Passamaquoddy, Mi 'k maq, and Maliseet nations.

Accessible by dirt logging roads, the station opened to the public this summer.

Please go.

The Monument encompasses some of the great canoe trails in Maine, which Wabanaki peoples once used to transport themselves across the state. All in the shadow of the great mountain, Katahdin, herself.

The space is a treasure of indigenous art that helps bring one into the spirit of these cultures, which successfully stewarded this beautiful place as part of themselves for thousands of years before white colonization.

And there lies the giant difference between white western culture and indigenous cultures here and throughout the world: this land's tribal peoples belonged to the place. Our white European cultural heritage has and continues to see ourselves as separate from and above these places, with the "right" to extract from the land whatever we feel we need to increase our wealth.

Standing within or outside of the contact station, you will, hopefully, want to cry.

To cry for our beloved places. To cry for the fact that we as peoples are "saddled with an addiction to disposability so deep that tackling it will require a wholesale rewriting of the rules that have governed business and consumption for the past 70 years." (Saabira Chaudhuri, writing in the September 6, 2025 NYTimes).

To cry for how difficult it is to remove ourselves from the stream of daily toxicity and destruction.

One small step, one starting or building place, might be to visit places such as tekakapimek, to immerse oneself with respect and awe in the knowledge and ways of being that treat this place differently.

Also: get in your canoe.

#newblogpost

#indigenouswaysofknowing

The Importance of the Raspberry Patch

I spent a couple of hours in our garden yesterday, picking raspberries, digging potatoes, re-homing milkweed...

My mother, Mae, always said she found God nearest in her raspberry patch. When she tired of the faux-knowing ways of men and their man-made institution of the church, she still had faith that this planet and these lives are gifts to us for which to be grateful and to be treasured. She found and practiced her faith in her raspberry patch.

Now I do, too.

Today is September 1, and Labor Day. I've always been energized by September. It's my birth month. The New England weather is perfect, with bluebird sky days and warm ocean waters and crisp dry air.

Plus, I was a kid who loved school. I loved the bigger world, apart from my family -- the different people. The teachers, even those who were mean and unskilled as educators. And the learning! So much to learn about this world. New books. New challenges. New frameworks, from geometry and physics to history and biology.

I was one of the lucky ones, for whom my curiosity and hunger for this world was not squelched by school but rather deepened by it.

I was loved and supported in a stable home. This made keeping this curiosity alive possible as well.

Today, all around us and especially in leadership, we have people who think they know things yet who exhibit no curiosity, no questioning, no desire for collaboration and learning.

They make pronouncements and executive orders on things about which they clearly know very little -- yet feel entitled to damage others' lives willy-nilly with their lack of understanding, empathy, and compassion.

I so very much wish for leaders who act from gratitude and grace in their privilege. That humility, of serving others and not only yourself, is to me a primary characteristic of leadership.

Yet we are now a culture that votes for individuals who display the opposites.

We believe the acquisition of wealth is due to intelligence, when more often it is due to exploitation of others.

We need so many things to be a great nation again.

On my list:

An education president, who believes that we are all learners and not knowers and that everyone deserves equal access to education.

The values that take us and our children back into our raspberry patches, in gratitude and generosity and thanksgiving, in respect for and care of this beautiful world and lives each have been given.

Today, let us give thanks to the workers and to the unions that have fought against exploitation of selves and planet for a humane, compassionate environment in which to work: the 8-hour day. Health care. Disability. Retirement.

Let's lean into and protect our many blessings, and offer our kindness and privilege and excesses to those who do not have as many.

#newblogpost

Mansions and Mobile Homes: the Fate of Our Communities?

The Pell, or Newport, Bridge under construction
in 1968 with aircraft carrier U.S.S. Wasp
passing beneath.

The Claiborne Pell Bridge, named for the Senator who founded Pell grants to make college affordable for more students and rising above the mouth of might Narragansett Bay, opened in 1969.

It is by far the tallest bridge in southern New England and by the time I got my driver's license a mere 44 miles away in 1977 the bridge represented a big temptation for thrilling teenage escape.

In the summer twilight of late evenings, we'd cruise Route 1 in our rattletrap pickups and motorcycles and Beetles through the gathering fog past the broad ocean beaches we loved: Misquamicut, Quonnie, Matunuk. Poetic remnants of the indigenous past slaughtered and chased from ancestral fishing grounds, about which we learned nothing in our local schools.

Up into the sky we would soar across the bridge, having saved our pennies to pay the toll.

On the other side, we imagined ourselves to be in a Planet of the Apes where we wandered freely what is now the Cliff Walk and across the grounds of the famed but then-abandoned and deteriorating Newport mansions, "summer cottages"of the robber barons. Many of the mansions were demolished in the 1960's and 1970's due to the combination of declining fortunes and high maintenance costs.

The 70-room Breakers mansion of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Our personal favorite was The Breakers, built by a grandson of railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt in the late 19th century. I have ghostly memories of peering in the windows at the black and white checked entry floors, smoking weed on an embattled veranda.

Newport is a grander version of Maine's Bar Harbor, also a site of gigantic "summer cottages" built by and for wealthy summer residents. Unlike Bar Harbor, Newport, founded in 1639, was at one time one of the most important port cities in North America through the 1700's, trading in whale oil, rum, and yes -- enslaved persons. With the decline of this commerce during the Revolutionary War, Newport -- also a site for religious freedom, home to one of the first synagogues in North America -- became a fashionable summer resort.

The transitions of communities to summer resorts when commerce fades -- from money-making machines to playgrounds for the wealthy, with the majority of United States' workers in service to one or the other -- has been or is becoming the fate of many U.S. communities. It is painful to observe and even more so to experience.

So many have so much, and so many more have so little.

The U.S. has been great at the creation of wealth but far less than great in the equity of its distribution, a trend continuing all-too-obviously today.

From the very beginning, during which southern planters enslaved and traded in human beings to create wealth from the land they stole from the continent's indigenous peoples, North American colonists have been on a quest for wealth. The "Christian nationalism" we are again experiencing is built into the foundation of this nation, on Calvinist doctrines in which wealth accumulation is seen as both a spiritual duty and sign of god's favor, i.e., a "prosperity gospel."

Meanwhile, nearly 8% of all housing units in Maine are mobile homes -- many of them representing "substandard" housing in terms of warmth, utilities, etc. Many times, these units are the only housing full-time workers can afford. For instance, my brother, who holds a commercial drivers license (CDL) and drives full time, lives in a trailer circa 1980's in a 150-unit "land lease" mobile home park developed in 1960. The unit is extremely difficult and expensive to heat -- and a stable, wonderful neighborhood. We were lucky to get him in there.

We can witness and understand this nation's patterns of inequity in the histories and lives all around us.

We only have to want to understand, and then to act.

What is Rural Resilience, and How Do We Strengthen It?

We’re hearing the word “resilience” tossed around a lot these days, especially since the storms of December 2023 - January 2024. These unprecedented storms brought unexpected southeasterly gales, ocean surges, flooding and heavy damages to Maine’s coastal and inland communities from which many are still recovering.

“Resilience” is the ability of individuals and communities to withstand and/or to recover from challenges both expected and unexpected.

Resilience is a kind of combination of toughness and flexibility. Like nylon fabric or line (or Play-Doh!): can we be stretched, return to our original shape, and last a long time?! Like a rubber ball, do we have the ability to “bounce back” after a natural disaster or economic downturn, or to continue to thrive in the face of ongoing economic pressures?

We know Stonington is tough. A community such as ours, the fabric of which is based on an island isolated from mainland resources and on the difficult manual labor of granite quarrying, construction trades, fishing, and shellfish harvesting, one that has survived as long as the nation itself, is resilient by definition.

An important tool for sustaining this resilience is our shared ability to look to the future, envision the challenges that are coming at us, and plan for how we will address these.

Emergency planning for public safety is a great example of building resilience. What is our plan if a storm cuts us off from the mainland not for a few hours, but for a few weeks? You may have a plan for yourself or your family, but what is the plan for the community, and especially for those most vulnerable amongst us?

As demonstrated by the recent Governor’s Commission on Infrastructure Rebuilding and Resilience which I was honored to co-chair, we can plan for the resilience of our essential infrastructure as well. How do we rebuild our working waterfront to withstand sea level rise and southeastern storms? What improvements do we make to expand and/or to protect our drinking water and waste water treatment systems?

The Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest warming bodies of water in the world. This is already causing changes to what we catch and harvest here. How do we as a community, with generations of deeply invested fishing families, plan and  prepare for these changes? How do we hold onto our access to the rich ocean resource? Stonington’s working waterfront, across three harbors, is larger than any other north of Portland. We’ve built and maintained this access through long time policies and continued investments.

What about the two pillars of social resilience: education and housing? Are we actively coming together to identify, FUND, and take action on the changes we need to reverse the demographic trends making Stonington one of the oldest towns in the state of Maine? To make our schools more competitive, and retain and to attract working age families for our schools and businesses? What plans do we need to address the development pressures that have us at a tipping point of being a year-round vs. seasonal community? 

The Town of Stonington has a lot in the works in the struggle to sustain our year-round fishing community. We urge you to join us on August 11 at our Resilience Roundtable to learn and offer thoughts and solutions to strengthen our island’s historic resilience to face new challenges. The future is in your hands. Watch for details.

Contact the Town of Stonington at any time, via email at econdev@stoningtonmaine.org; by stopping by the Town office; or by calling 207-367-2351. 

25 Years Celebrating Community

Opera House Arts' first season's schedule.

by Carol Estey, Judith Jerome, Linda Nelson and Linda Pattie

Twenty-five years ago this July -- a quarter of a century ago! -- a new island nonprofit, Opera House Arts (OHA), held its reopening gala at a restored Stonington Opera House. The nearly 100-year-old theater’s 250 seats were sold out to an audience entertained by CBS daytime soap opera star Ron Raines and Metropolitan Opera diva Lucine Amara among others, and crowned by a bright double rainbow during intermission.

As the founders of that nonprofit, now collectively departed from the organization for 10 years or more, we are awed and grateful at the whole community support that has made these 25 years possible and want to take a moment to remember and cheer on the next 25!

We and the many volunteers and talented artists from the island and around the world who have shared their gifts in community are inspired by and have sought to celebrate the uniqueness, the stories, the people, beauty and talent that characterizes this place.

Graphic designer, artist, actor
and volunteer Bekka Lindstrom
created the original OHA brand.

THANK YOU for the love, passion, dedication, generosity, talent, creativity and hard work so, so many of you have shared – as artists, volunteers, board members, audiences and participants, staff, and new leadership – in support of that historic old building and of OHA’s founding mission: to use the performing arts to foster and promote excellence in ALL the ways we perform our lives: Incite Art, Create Community.

The four of us, along with our community boards and trustees, understood our nonprofit charitable purpose as to benefit, support, and add value to the year-round community.

Looking from the stage as we started to
rebuild the theater.

In 1999 when OHA purchased the Opera House, not only had Russ’s Hill slid through the back sill and wall, its mud covering half of the theater with a happy family of six raccoons claiming residence – you could also see through many of the walls and there was no heating system.

It took five years to make it possible to hold programs and generate economic impact during the 10 months of the year it is most needed. Our community board members asked for and received a predictable schedule of movies to support year-round restaurants and other businesses; as well as community and educational performance programs, from playwriting and readings to movie-making for all ages, throughout the winter.

First year's ballet classes on stage.

Because two of our founders had a background in Performance Studies and all of us were committed to community service, OHA’s mission was based on our shared belief, then and now, that we all perform different roles as part of our daily lives: as parents, teachers, selectmen, friends, athletes, musicians, workers, etc. One way we believed OHA might make a positive difference as well as providing entertainment for the community was to integrate artists who had sought professional training into the island’s daily life, fabric, education and work.

Cue sheet from Dear Fish,
an educational performance
collaboration with Juneau, AK
through the Kennedy Center
National Partners in Education program.

Actors study and practice how to perform their ever-changing roles with excellence. At the heart of OHA’s eight-year arts integrated learning partnership with island schools and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was “The Actor’s Toolbox:” ways to become aware of and to practice how to work effectively with one’s body, voice, and imagination, as well as how to concentrate and cooperate. These are learned skills, and this “toolbox” remains a wonderful classroom and warm up practice.

We’ve found these “performance skills” to be very helpful for us all as we navigate community life, share our stories, and bring our differences together in public – sometimes in celebration, sometimes to solve the big challenges we inevitably face.

Early Wicked Good Film Series:
Carol, Linda, Emmie, Galen, Ani

Some of our fondest memories are of the programs which brought this particular community together on the stage, in the quarry, or in the streets! The very early Wicked Good Student Film Series programs, including students Walker Collin and Travis Fifield and Galen Koch, all now community leaders. The Hot 8 Brass Band and Board Chair Stan Bergen and wife Sue leading a “New Orleans meets Downeast” second-line parade down Main Street to the Fish Pier. Beloved and newly departed friend Rick Weed at “ballet practice,” swinging dancers from his excavator above the Settlement Quarry in Quarryography. School students from Brooklin, Sedgwick, and the island working with composer Maia Whitman Aprahamian to write lyrics for “Burt Dow, Deep Water Man.” Bringing Deer Isle’s last ferryman, Charlie Scott, and community leader Frank McGuire to life in “The Last Ferryman”...and now ongoing creative collaborations between OHA artists and our neighbors at Nervous Nellie’s and more! We feel very blessed to have created such a deep trove of memories and possibilities with so many of you. Thank you.

Amazing local excavator operator
and dearly recently departed friend
Rick Weed brings Cableman alive
in Quarryography.

As our old friend, colleague, and theater warhorse Jean Wilhelm from Eastport would say: Onward!

As we all were then!
Carol Estey, Linda Nelson,
Linda Pattie, Judith Jerome