Twenty years gives one the opportunity for reflection, so here I go. More than anything else that the Island Institute has accomplished is something that hardly fits in a single, neat, bulleted statement, but is as real as it is intangible. Twenty years ago – or even ten – when we headed off to places like the State House in Augusta or to Washington or Boston on behalf of an island community, it was not uncommon to have people look at you strangely and say something like, “You mean people actually live on those islands in the winter?” Followed up by, “What do they do when summer’s over?” A variant of this type of disinterest among the slightly better informed went along these lines: “It’s not our problem if those stubborn islanders refuse to leave their isolated communities for jobs and schools on the mainland. They’ve made their bed and they can lie in it.”
Today it is rare to hear these kinds of things. I like to think that 20 years of celebrating the strengths and triumphs of island community life through Island Journal, Island News, Working Waterfront and other programs of the Island Institute have contributed to this sea change in the public perception of Maine’s island communities, recognizing them to be the cultural treasures they truly are.
How did this happen? Twenty years ago it was unthinkable that 45 Frenchboro islanders could finance the construction of seven new “affordable” houses and attract a new generation of homesteaders, but that is what they did. Then more recently, faced with the proposed sale of over half of the island – 950 acres – to be carved into a dozen “kingdom” lots, Frenchboro islanders and their friends rallied to raise the buy-out funds and renovate the island’s school, library and church in the process.
Twenty years ago it was unthinkable that one of Portland’s small islands could secede from the city and actually manage its own school and town budgets. But ten years ago with the Maine Legislature’s approval, the unthinkable happened and Long Islanders have been independently running their municipal affairs ever since. And who would have thought that a discussion at the Chebeague town dock store about a multinational food company’s decision to stop manufacturing Crown Pilot Crackers could get Nabisco to reverse course to keep Chebeague’s, New England’s and ultimately the whole world’s fish and clam chowders appropriately prepared? But that’s exactly what happened.
Twenty years ago or even ten, it was nearly unthinkable that Swan’s Islanders could raise the millions of dollars required to buy a bankrupt salmon farm and actually operate it profitably when two “professionally” managed salmon companies had failed. But that’s what they did. Ten years ago it was nearly unthinkable that Monhegan fishermen could get the Legislature to ban politically powerful mainland lobstermen from a disputed area off the island’s southern coast, but that’s what happened after nearly the entire island’s winter community moved to Augusta to lobby lawmakers.
Twenty years ago or ten or even five, it was unthinkable that a community musical celebrating island life might have its day (or evening) at a Broadway opening, but that is what actually happened when North Haven’s Islands opened at the New Victory Theater in New York late in 2001. And then North Haveners leveraged that success into the renovation of a vacant downtown storefront into the Waterman’s Community Center with a wonderful new performance space.
Twenty, ten or even five years ago it was unthinkable that a gritty lobster community like Vinalhaven would aspire to build a new K-12 school anchored by a spacious library and gorgeous performing arts stage and theater. But this year the unthinkable opened to the shock and awe of believers and non-believers alike. Ten or even five years ago, it was unthinkable that Cranberry Islanders – scattered across Great and Little Cranberry and Sutton Islands – could finance a major waterfront acquisition in Southwest Harbor to give them a vital toehold on the mainland. But that is what is happening as we go to press.
These are not the signs of a dying way of life. Threatened, yes, by an ever-rising tide of property taxes, uniquely felt on Maine’s islands and in its working waterfront communities. But if the experiences recounted above are any indication, islanders know they cannot wait for someone else to solve their problems. They must take their problems – or challenges – as opportunities, marshal their friends, including those of us at the Island Institute, and make things happen. This is, in fact, the only way things get done anywhere in the world – it’s just more obvious and direct for island communities and their friends.
Here’s to the next 20 years of problems and challenges!
Philip W. Conkling is president of the Island Institute.