Seal Island lies about eight miles southwest of Isle au Haut, nine miles south of Vinalhaven and six miles east of Matinicus in the mouth of Penobscot Bay. As we approached from Vinalhaven on a calm, cloudy day in early September, we saw it first as a dark crayon mark on the southern horizon with a bump on the western end. As we closed in, we found a rocky beach backed by steep ledges frosted with thin grass and low bushes. Coasting along the beach eastward we saw a peapod above high water mark and a small camp, but no sign of life from the camp or anywhere else. It seemed an austere, desolate, hostile island, a feeling increased by a prominent sign reading:

Seal Island

National Wildlife Refuge

This island was a Navy bombing and

shelling target for years. For your safety
and to minimize disturbance to wildlife,
Seal Island is closed to all landings.

Contact the Refuge Office in Milbridge

for more information. (207) 546-2124

Nevertheless, thinking some of the hostile feeling might be dispelled by an investigation of the camp, and watching very carefully where we stepped, we approached the silent building. We found a patio on the eastern side and plastic chairs. Two very pleasant young ladies, Sue Schubel and Kristin Williamson, welcomed us and explained they were staying until November, to watch bird life, especially petrels, for the National Audubon Society, and to supervise two sheep and a goat. They cautioned us not to walk on the grass lest we collapse holes where petrels nest and showed us an exploded practice bomb – another good reason to keep off the grass.

We found an island about a mile long and perhaps 300 yards wide composed of granite ledges running more or less east and west. Between them were rough granite boulders with deep fissures and cracks in some of which grew bushes. Sharp cleavages here and there might have been caused by explosives. The south side of the island is a cliff some 60 feet high occupied by black-back gulls, herring gulls and shags supervised by two ravens.

In early days Indians visited the island for eggs, birds, fish and porpoises. As recently as the 1880s, two Indians paddled bark canoes all the way from Old Town and camped on the island in tents to hunt porpoises. They tried out the blubber for oil and hung the meat in long strips to dry in the sun.

In the 1930s there were four camps on the island. The fishermen landed their peapods and dories on a flat rock in the northeast cove. Their children’s pet rabbits went wild and, with no predators present, became so numerous the fishermen shot them to preserve the small gardens and what vegetation was growing on the island.

During World War II the island was chosen as a training target for Navy ships and planes. The principal target area was the west end between the two peaks. Hits and near misses cracked and broke up the boulders, making good nesting places for petrels and guillemots.

In 1958 the Navy again decided to use the island as a target. They took it by eminent domain, set up targets on the west end and a floating target off the east end and turned loose the airplanes from Brunswick Naval Air Station. The 1965 Coast Pilot says that no live ammunition will be used and that everyone in the area will be suitably warned. But by 1966 the Navy decided that enough had been done and sent an Ordnance Disposal Team to search out any unexploded bombs or shells left from either the wartime attacks or the more recent ones. The team reported that the grass and bushes were so thick and high and the ground so rough and broken that they could not be at all certain that the island was safe. They even tried unsuccessfully to burn it over.

In 1971 the Navy turned the island over to the General Services Administration and it, in 1972, assigned it to the Fish and Wildlife Service under the Department of the Interior. It is now administered by the Petit Manan Refuge from Milbridge.

Fishermen and lobstermen fished in nearby waters and occasionally camped on the island, and picnickers visited it from time to time, but it remained for the most part undisturbed.

On Monday, July 24, 1978, Peter Willauer, Philip Conkling and William Aughten from the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School saw smoke rising from the island. On Hurricane Island they rounded up all the fire fighting equipment that could be spared and a crew, many of whom had been out all the night before on solo or in pulling boats, and rushed out to the island. A picnicker had set fire to the grass and the fire had got down into the peat. The fire fighters dug trenches across the island at the narrow place in the middle, and from Squeaker Guzzle on the south side to the north shore before one comes to the knob on the west end. With backpack pumps and two gasoline pumps, they soaked down the hot spots, but the fire continued to burn underground. They began to hear occasional pops and whistles but guessed they were caused by water hitting the hot rocks. Bill Zuber, in charge of the Hurricane Island boat, radioed the Navy, whose spokesman said there were no unexploded bombs to worry about. Forest Service workers and a squad from the State Prison in Thomaston joined the Outward Bound crew, now exhausted from a second night out. Food and water were sent from Hurricane Island. The fire lines were
dug down to bare rock and were being extended as fast as pick and shovel could dig. The smoke was suffocating and minor explosions continued. Then about 6 p.m. on Tuesday there came a blast that shook the whole island, throwing rocks and dirt high in the air. This was obviously no hot rock but a bomb or shell. The island was hastily evacuated and left to burn until a soaking rain drenched the smoldering peat.

But the desperate fire fighting had been successful. The fire lines held, and only a section west of the middle of the island had been burned. The vegetation has now grown back and the scar has healed.

In the early 1980s the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Canadian Wildlife Service and the National Audubon Society resolved to re-establish the active puffin and petrel and tern colonies, which the island had supported 100 years before.

– Roger F. Duncan

East Boothbay