A rambling conversation between chance acquaintances over two beers in a bar:

Corner Stool: I see where the dam’ gov’ment has slapped a ban on Outer Heron Island.

Adjacent Stool: Sure have. Can’t land there this summer.

Corner Stool: I had an idea that when it was bought by the land trust, it was for public use.

Adjacent Stool: Well, it was, in a way. The land trust passed it over to the Fish and Wildlife so they could preserve it for public use.

Then why can’t the public use it?

Because the people the public elected say so.

I didn’t vote for Fish and Wildlife.

No, but the people we elected appointed them.

I’m not going to hurt Outer Heron. I’ve been going there for years and years. Way back when I was a boy, we used to anchor off the little cove on the west side, go swimming on the beach at the head of it, cook a bucket of lobsters on the ledge over the cove. There was red and white wild roses there in June. On a foggy day you could smell roses and sweet fern off to leeward of the island. There was the remains of an old house just back from the shore and a well, until someone filled it up. We’d bushwhack through the woods to the east side and climb along the cliffs to the south end. Great raspberries there, and eider ducks used to nest on the point. We never did any harm to the island then, and I’m not going to now.

No, except tramping down the raspberry bushes and driving the eiders off their nests.

The bushes grew up and the eiders came back.

How long since you’ve seen an eider’s egg?

There used to be great rafts of eiders in the fall, thousands of ’em. It was a disease cut them down.

That, and people tramping around their nesting grounds. People, nice people with binoculars, drove them off. It’s the same with other creatures. How long since you have seen a big green kelp? How long since you’ve seen eelgrass or caught a cunner or a flounder or even a sculpin?

We used to catch cunners off the rocks and off the wharf and in a punt tied up to a spar buoy. At Monhegan you could see bottom anywhere in the harbor and catch little pollock from your mooring.

So why are the fish and the birds all gone?

I dunno. Times change.

Sure do. You know what changed them? People! People filled up the coves where the little fish lived under the eelgrass. The paper mills and the golf courses poisoned the water. People, more and more people cut down the woods to build more houses and their sewage all ran overboard.

That never happened to Outer Heron Island.

No, but people tramped down the bushes, made paths through the woods, built fires to cook lobsters, left candy wrappers and half-burned plastic cups and did it day after day. Why did the seals leave the Hypocrites Ledge?

The excursion boats made ruts in the water round and round the ledges so the tourists could see the seals and the seals got embarrassed and went off shore.

Where?

I’m not saying.

Good man.

But get back to Outer Heron. I’m not leaving trash there. Never did. I’m not setting the woods afire, and the last time I was there last fall to get cranberries, which there aren’t any, there wasn’t much trash. People have been pretty good about picking up after.

Now there’s a pair of eagles nesting there.

Where?

I’m not saying. But that’s one reason the island is closed – to protect the eagles.

No one is going to hurt the eagles.

No, but they might get embarrassed and go off shore.

There’s more people than eagles.

Just so. Lose one pair of eagles and another and there aren’t any more eagles, same as cunners and sea urchins.

It’s the same way on Roque Island. Can’t land there any more. Jordan’s Delight, where you can’t land anyway, Seal Island, Matinicus Rock, the White Islands where used to pick garnets out of the rock, Damariscove, where you have to stay on the paths, and Jewell Island.* You’re right. Times change. So now we sail round the islands we own, watch the eagles soar over them, smell the roses and sweet fern through the fog and cherish our memories.

Just so. The public drove the public off an island the public set aside for public use. Beats hell, don’t it.

Have another beer on me.

No thanks. I’ve had about all I can stand for one day.

* Roque Island is privately owned but is protected for environmental reasons. Jewell Island is owned by the state Bureau of Parks and Lands and managed by the Maine Island Trail Association. Damariscove is owned by The Nature Conservancy and visiting is restricted and supervised. The Boothbay Region Land Trust and others raised money so U.S. Fish &Wildlife could buy Outer Heron Island.