When Alden Robinson, the Island Fellow on Long Island in Casco Bay, first heard about the Fellows program in 2005, he was about to begin his senior year at Williams College in Massachusetts. While enjoying lunch with his father at one of his favorite Maine eateries, Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro, “I picked up a copy of The Working Waterfront and thought the program looked interesting. I kind of filed it away until I did the end-of-college job search thing.” It was during that search, riding back from New York City wearing a suit, that he recalls thinking “do I really want to do this?” Instead of becoming a Manhattan commuter, he applied for a fellowship, and now spends his time in the town office on Long Island, working with his advisor Mark Greene on a variety of community projects. It’s a decision he doesn’t regret.
Long Island, Robinson says, “is a very functional community with an embedded culture of tolerance and friendliness and cooperation that is very welcoming.” The town also has a “culture of high achievement”–something he attributes to the fact that Long Island became an independent town fairly recently, in 1993. “They set their sights high, and really believe they can meet their goals,” he says. “There’s not a trace of taking anything for granted. The town is not fractious the way other communities can be. It’s not that there are not politics or conflicts, it’s just that they are resolved calmly and civilly. I wish we could export that to other places!”
Robinson has been spending his time using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to digitize the town’s tax assessment data in preparation for a planned revaluation. This summer, he will do a GIS inventory of the flora and fauna of a 125-acre piece of conservation land on the island. The land was formerly owned by the U.S. Navy and isolated from island residents by cyclone fencing and razor wire. When the Navy left in the 1960s, the land reverted to woods and meadowlands. In the 1970s the tract nearly fell victim to an “almost calamitous” proposal to make it a fuel depot, but is currently owned by the town. “It’s an immense resource on an 800-acre island,” Robinson notes. “The people of Long finally have their whole island back.”
Robinson also has helped town officials grapple with the issue of affordable housing on Long Island, doing research and maintaining an e-mail listserv for the town’s Year-Round Housing Committee. “The issue here is not only affordability, but availability,” he notes. “There are simply not a lot of homes for sale.” The island’s location in Casco Bay just off Portland and only two hours from Boston make it an attractive place to live.
Life in Casco Bay has been good for Robinson. “People were very welcoming to me from the get-go,” he says. “I was very fortunate because previous Island Fellows have left a very good impression with the community.” His favorite aspects of Long Island community life include the food and the music. “Everybody here is a wonderful cook, and I’ve enjoyed lots of dinners at people’s houses. I’ve also enjoyed playing fiddle with other island musicians at various community events.”
An accomplished fiddler who enjoys playing in contradance bands and sitting in on Irish music sessions, Robinson spent a semester during college studying traditional Irish fiddle at University College Cork, National University of Ireland. “The Irish have such a reverence for their indigenous culture,” he notes. “It’s something really unusual.”
As the Louis W. Cabot Fellow, Robinson is one of four Island Fellows whose position is funded by an endowment created by the Island Institute’s “Sustaining a Way of Life” Capital Campaign. Cabot, for whom the fellowship is named, chaired the Capital Campaign Cabinet for the Institute, and also serves as a Trustee and chair of the Development Committee.
Kathy Westra is the Island Institute’s Director of Communications