There are a handful of questions people always ask when they find out I live and work on Isle au Haut. I’m so used to answering the same things over and over that I can usually preempt people’s questions with what I know they want to hear: There are four boys in our one-room schoolhouse, you get used to the boat schedule (it just takes planning), there are between 30 and 40 year-round residents, blah, blah, blah.
But the one question that’s always stumped me is, “How do you survive the winter?”
How do I survive the winter? The dramatic way the question is posed makes me wish I had a dramatic answer: something involving me going off into the wilderness with nothing but a few matches and an ax to my name. In reality, I Skype with my friend Maggie (the Island Institute Fellow on Peaks Island), eat lots of brownies, become intimately familiar with the offerings on Netflix, cross-country ski and jump at the chance to do anything (even just walking to the dock, the store or the post office) where I can interact with the few people left out here.
Folks at the Island Institute often say that island life is a microcosm of what life is like on the mainland. I would take it a step further and suggest that winter life on an island is like a microcosm of island life. (I am stopping myself from making a really horrible pun about the movie Inception. You’re welcome.)
All the same problems and struggles of island life are present in the winter—they’re just exacerbated. The population is that much smaller. There are even fewer things to do. You start getting cabin fever in a way I never knew existed. I went two weeks last February without seeing a single person other than the sweet woman who works at the post office.
But if the lows are lower, the highs are higher. When you have such little interaction with other people, you begin to truly cherish it. If I’m walking down to the store and share a wave with Paula or Donna as they drive by, it immediately brightens my mood. A surprise visit from Kendra? Highlight of my week. I love those rare occasions when four or five people show up for the library coffee hour I help run, or when I see a handful of folks at the store. Knitting nights at Lisa’s are a must.
How do I survive the winter?
The same way I survive island life in general. I had to learn to live in each moment, not to take anything for granted and truly find joy in the little things.
It’s not for everyone”¦. but I’ll take it.
Megan Wibberly is an Island Fellow on Isle au Haut through AmeriCorps and the Island Institute.