Twelve Miles from the Rest of the World will delight people who live near or have visited the Damariscotta River; people who love history or are fascinated by rivers in general; those who appreciate and aspire to beautiful photography and a wide range of other readers who enjoy a ramble through natural and cultural history.
The book grew out of Barnaby Porter’s 40 years of meandering along the Damariscotta River, which is actually a 12-mile estuary. His experience is supplemented with tidbits about historical sites and oddities he has encountered, and all are enhanced by Al Trescot’s gorgeous photos of the river in all seasons, all times of day.
Trescot and Porter met in 2003 on a short cruise of the upper Damariscotta aboard Gus Johnson’s Shinola. Later, Porter offered to take Trescot on one of his “coving” expeditions. The term was coined by a friend of his who prefers to make time from point A to Point B when he’s out in his boat, in contrast to Porter, who enjoys moseying in and out of the river’s many coves, behind islands and along ledges, and is always ready to stop if he sees something out of the ordinary. Photographs in the book are culled from thousands of pictures Trescot took during many subsequent “coving” trips.
There are two strains of narrative in the book. One is a running river tour that begins at the town landing in Damariscotta and ends at East Boothbay, with a side trip through the gut in South Bristol and down the Thread of Life. Along the way, Porter lovingly describes various sections of the river and includes an eclectic mix of interesting information about different areas, such as the ancient oyster bed ten feet under the bottom mud near Dodge Lower Cove, which is “estimated by researchers to be nearly half a mile long and as much as ten feet deep.” In many places, there are lyrical descriptions of unique spots like Salt Marsh Cove, where “the southern branch offers a visual feast of marbled ledges, huge overhanging hemlocks and glass green water leading in to a very pretty and almost hidden salt marsh. It’s the sort of place that makes you whisper.”
During the tour, he includes descriptions of now defunct historic places and tells about the river’s bounty, such as at Glidden Ledge, where he says “Not only is a huge amount of water concentrated through this constriction in the river but a huge amount of life as well, as is evidenced by bird activity at most stages of the tide and the regular presence of fishermen, not to mention the extensive beds of filter feeding mussels and all kinds of shellfish, starfish, urchins, anemones, worms and other invertebrates.”
The book’s second narrative strain is composed of short essays, many of which Porter wrote for Maine Public Radio and read over the air. They cover a wide range of subjects. One gives a moving description of the night when Schooner Landing Restaurant and Bar burned during a winter storm. “Huge, billowing, orange flames leaped upward through the curtains of heavy, horizontally blowing snow, and hissing jets of water from the fire hoses shot in great arcs, up and over and into the night. Windows popped, ceilings fell, and the letters, ‘Schooner Landing,’ on the gable end toward us were gradually seared and scorched by the heat and licking flames until at last they spelled ‘Defeated,’ or so it seemed.”
He contemplates the power of the tide, “something on the order of 15 billion gallons of water in our river alone,” and describes standing in a mud flat while “the muck sucking at my boots squishes and squirms, acre upon acre of it, the primordial soup, loading the air to saturation with the black, organic smells of trillions of little lives beginning and ending in each moment.” And with the same acute sensory details, tells about two fox chasing each other along the shore, a dead seal pup that had been dragged, possibly by a fox, to higher land, and unrelenting osprey attacks on baffled cormorants and a Great Blue Heron.
Another essay considers the diversity of industries that have flourished along the river. It concludes with a list compiled by an archeological survey that discovered sites of “23 brickyards, 8 shipyards, 13 quays and stone wharfs, 4 mills, 2 ice companies, 2 lobster pounds, 2 dams, 1 salt works and 18 aboriginal sites (oyster and soft shell clam middens).”
Like Porter’s descriptions, Trescot’s photographs evoke the river’s presence. It’s as if the reader can smell the river, feel the dampness of fog, hear working boat engines or crackling ice. Some, particularly scenes captured on crisp autumn days, are startling in their colors. Others are quiet, muted and reflective. Altogether, they capture the vast diversity of the river: its varied shoreline, bountiful wildlife, its human activities and beauty in every season.
The book is Porter and Trescot’s celebration of this diversity and beauty. But it is more, a call for continued vigilance to protect it. As Porter says when visiting Seal Cove: “Despite its popularity among recreational and cruising vessels; despite the frequent sport fishermen and the bird watchers, who sneak in to get a glimpse of the eagles nesting on Hodgsons Island; despite the measured increase of new homes built along the cove’s eastern shore; Seal Cove still manifests a tenuous atmosphere of wildness, a preciousness that seems to hold a certain priority in river-goers’ minds as a piece of the Damariscotta whose welfare must be guarded with great care. I could not agree more myself….but then I feel that way about the entire river.”
Read Muriel Hendrix’s profile of the Damariscotta River Association in the May Working Waterfront.