Casco Bay Stories, a project of the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, is focused on gathering engaging stories about what makes Casco Bay special and clean water important. In doing so, we encourage people to reflect on how the Bay has shaped their lives and how it has changed over time. Stories focus on Casco Bay and its watershed, which includes the lakes and rivers that eventually drain to the Bay.
USM Media Students’ Casco Bay Stories: Portland Water District
During their final semester in the USM Communications and Media Studies program, graduating seniors work in small teams to produce documentary films for local non-profits. This hands-on capstone project provides the students the opportunity to use the skills they learned throughout their college career. After researching, planning, working closely with organizations, and executing the production, the films are showcased at the end of the semester. This spring, a group of seniors selected CBEP as a partner for their capstone project. Graduating seniors Joseph Kendrick, Weston Masi, Jenna Palladino, and Grace Waldron created their own Casco Bay Stories by interviewing and engaging with some of the people who work, live, and play in Casco Bay. The students chose to focus on Casco Bay island history, the Portland Water District, Portland Harbor Fish Market, and the Cliff Island ACE program. CBEP Director Curtis Bohlen and Island Institute Fellow Erin Love were also interviewed.
USM Media Students’ Casco Bay Stories: Casco Bay Island History
During their final semester in the USM Communications and Media Studies program, graduating seniors work in small teams to produce documentary films for local non-profits. This hands-on capstone project provides the students the opportunity to use the skills they learned throughout their college career. After researching, planning, working closely with organizations, and executing the production, the films are showcased at the end of the semester. This spring, a group of seniors selected CBEP as a partner for their capstone project. Graduating seniors Joseph Kendrick, Weston Masi, Jenna Palladino, and Grace Waldron created their own Casco Bay Stories by interviewing and engaging with some of the people who work, live, and play in Casco Bay. The students chose to focus on Casco Bay island history, the Portland Water District, Portland Harbor Fish Market, and the Cliff Island ACE program. CBEP Director Curtis Bohlen and Island Institute Fellow Erin Love were also interviewed.
USM Media Students’ Casco Bay Stories: Cliff Island ACE Program
During their final semester in the USM Communications and Media Studies program, graduating seniors work in small teams to produce documentary films for local non-profits. This hands-on capstone project provides the students the opportunity to use the skills they learned throughout their college career. After researching, planning, working closely with organizations, and executing the production, the films are showcased at the end of the semester. This spring, a group of seniors selected CBEP as a partner for their capstone project. Graduating seniors Joseph Kendrick, Weston Masi, Jenna Palladino, and Grace Waldron created their own Casco Bay Stories by interviewing and engaging with some of the people who work, live, and play in Casco Bay. The students chose to focus on Casco Bay island history, the Portland Water District, Portland Harbor Fish Market, and the Cliff Island ACE program. CBEP Director Curtis Bohlen and Island Institute Fellow Erin Love were also interviewed.
Casco Bay Stories Compilation from Casco Bay Stories on Vimeo.
If you missed some of the Casco Bay Stories from this summer, be sure to check out this compilation! There are a few more stories to come, but we wanted to celebrate the end of summer (autumn is just around the corner!) by sharing these stories about living, working, and playing in Casco Bay.
Keeper of the Island: MITA's Caretaker on Jewell Island
Vinnie Marotta works for the Maine Island Trail Association (MITA) and is the caretaker of Jewell Island in Casco Bay. Jewell is the farthest island out in the Bay. It's a popular site for campers and boaters in the summer, and it's Vinnie's job to make sure the island is clean and safe. But Vinnie goes above and beyond the call of duty, he connects with almost every camper who comes to visit Jewell.
To hear Vinnie's story, play the audio story above. Written, produced, and photographed by Galen Koch.
Vinnie on the caretaker boat, anchoring on Jewell Island.
Boats in Cocktail Cove, between Little Jewell and Jewell islands.
Catching Bugs in Casco Bay with Chebeague Island's Only Female Lobsterboat Captain
Mary and Emma Todd aboard "F/V Aiden and Sadie" in Casco Bay
Mary Todd is a lobsterman. She’s been on the water since she was twelve years old and this summer she’s the only female captain operating a boat out of Chebeague Island. Mary runs her boat, F/V Aiden and Sadie (named after her twin children),with her sternwoman and stepdaughter Emma.
The morning I go to haul with Mary and Emma it’s unseasonably cool, with sunshine breaking through dark rain clouds. This is Emma’s first year going out regularly with Mary, but they’re already in sync. They maneuver around one another and the gear on board - the bait totes and the hoses running from the live lobster tank. Their movements seem choreographed; they work silently as music blasts from the stereo and fishermen banter on the radio. (To hear the sounds of Mary's lobster boat, watch the audio slideshow below)
Soundscape: Lobstering With Mary from Casco Bay Stories on Vimeo.
Despite the fast pace of hauling traps, there is a calm rhythm on board F/V Aiden and Sadie. Mary hauls the traps in a hydraulic hauler and pulls the trap onto the boat as Emma unlatches the top and takes out the old bait. Mary picks out the lobsters one-by-one, measuring to see if they’re legal. The ones that are too small or too big get thrown back. The lobsters that are just right get placed in a red bin in the cockpit. Emma puts new bait in the trap, closes the top, and sprays the pot with hot salt water to keep invasive sea plants from growing on the metal. Then she swings the trap to the back of the boat and the whole process begins again until the six-trap string is ready to go back in the water. This all happens in a couple of minutes.
The process seems intuitive, like they’ve done it a thousand times. And, I suppose, Mary probably has. She’s probably done it millions of times. Her grandfather was a lobsterman on Long Island, and she says that she became a fisherman because she didn’t know any better. “I never became a lobsterman… because of any ego thing like, ‘that’s what I'm gonna do! And I can do what men can do.’ It's pretty much because that's what you did.”
She loves it, despite the hardships that come with fishing and trying to balance motherhood and lobstering. It doesn’t really phase Mary that there aren’t other women on the water. The other lobstermen in Casco Bay are used to her by now, and she’s a formidable competitor. When Mary told me that someone cut her line (the string that extends from her buoy to her traps) she said she was actually flattered. “That means they’re threatened by me – they’re threatened by some chick!”
Watching Mary haul, I can see why. There are moments on the boat when Mary’s brow furrows and her face looks stern and concentrated. I ask her what she’s thinking about and looking at. She tells me she is watching the way water moves past the buoys. The motion of the water indicates the strength and direction of the tide. The tide and current affect where her traps settle on the ocean floor, so Mary watches the movement to calculate where to set them. She knows what she’s doing, and the other lobstermen know it.
After hauling for four hours, Mary and Emma catch a giant lobster in one of the traps. It’s huge, but it’s legal, and for a minute Mary is ecstatic. Then she notices the feathery appendages under the tale, indicating that the lobster is female. “I feel guilty keepin’ her.” Mary says as she tosses the giant lobster back into the sea. “You’re lucky I’m a chick,” she calls after the lobster, “if I was a dude you’d be in the tank for sure!”
Paul Rollins has been scuba diving in Casco Bay and the surrounding waters for over 40 years. The morning I interviewed Paul, we met at Kettle Cove, just south of Casco Bay. Paul showed up at the Cove in his company car – a large 15-passenger van with the words “Rollins – Scuba Associates” on the side. The van is a sort of mobile diving office. There are oxygen tanks, diving suits, and facemasks inside. There’s even a tank of hot fresh water for “showers” after his dives (a much needed luxury after swimming in the cold Maine ocean).
Paul is a commercial and recreational diver. He’s logged over 20,000 dives in his career and his business is 30 years old. He specializes in teaching diving to people with disabilities, and he helped create both the Portland and South Portland Police Dive Teams.
Forty Years Diving in Casco Bay from Casco Bay Stories on Vimeo.
Paul’s stories from the past forty years are far too numerous to recount. When I ask him about some of his favorite diving moments, Paul tells me about swimming with a twelve-foot Beluga whale in Kettle Cove. He recounts a story about untangling a leatherback turtle from a lobster trap line (hear Paul tell this story in the audio slideshow above). And he tells me about watching ducks dive 30 feet below the surface to catch fish.
Paul has seen many changes in and around Casco Bay.
He’s watched as the urchin and scallop industries collapsed. He remembers a time when he would brush urchins off of the rocks before diving in. Now the urchins are gone and in their place Paul sees invasive species like green crabs, and star and colonial tunicates. “I look at the Cove and think back to when I was first coming here and we’d have lobsters and crabs and all sorts of whelks and hermit crabs and schools of pollock and flounder and skate and sea robins and sea ravens… now I go there and it’s hard to find even one fish.”
Paul has seen dramatic, and troubling, changes in the ocean. He tells me that pollution, over-fishing, and a lack of state regulations have all contributed to these changes. By the time the urchin and scallop fisheries were regulated, it was too late.
Paul keeps fighting to protect the health of Casco Bay and the surrounding waters. On his dives, he cleans up debris and trash – sometimes alone, sometimes with students. “[People think] if they throw something in and it disappears underwater it’s gone and nobody will ever see it, well… I see it. I see it every time I dive.” And every time he dives, Paul will continue to clean the ocean floor. He knows he can’t change the course of history, but he’s committed to trying. “The ocean is not a dump and sooner or later parts of it… will just literally die. If we don’t have the ocean, we’re going to be an extinct species.” Paul sighs as he says this and takes a deep breath. “I’ll stop there for a minute… I’m on my soap box.”
Restoring Trout Brook with the Trout Brook Youth Conservation Corps
The Trout Brook Youth Conservation Corps - crew members from left to right, Andrew Volent, Brandon Ledoux, Sage Waldron, AJ Romano, Caroline Gleason and team leader Ryan Messier
On a cloudy day in July, I met with the crew members of the Youth Conservation Corps (YCC). Rain fell steadily that morning and by 10 am, despite the peeking sun, the yard beside Kimball Brook was a swamp. The YCC crew members, comprised of five teens and young adults, were unfazed by the soaking grass and sinking mud. AJ Romano seemed excited about the wet ground as he dug the toe of his new Timberland boots into the dirt. It’s only a matter of time before AJ’s pristine boots are covered in mud, and he was eager to speed up the process. The rest of the crew sport scuffed up boots, orange tee shirts, and dirty jeans: the unofficial uniform of the YCC.
“I mean everything on earth needs water… humans, plants, animals, it all revolves around water.” - AJ Romano
The YCC restores the land around Trout Brook and its tributaries, like Kimball. They rip out invasive plants, manage erosive banks, and redirect stream patterns, all in an effort to improve the water quality of the streams. Trout Brook runs through many backyards in South Portland and Cape Elizabeth. It’s an urban impaired stream – meaning that years of urban runoff, storm water, and pollution have damaged the water quality. Trout Brook is small, just 2.9 miles long. Despite its size, this stream has a great impact on the water quality and ecosystem of the Casco Bay watershed. The water running in Trout Brook drains to Fore River and eventually Casco Bay.
Sage Waldron looks on as AJ Romano digs holes for new plants on the riverbank
It’s not often that I meet teenagers (or adults, for that matter) who really love their job. But the YCC are surprisingly enthusiastic about the work they do. They’re quick to tell me why it’s important and how the restoration is helping the brook. Some members, like Caroline Gleason, study environmental science, while others joined the crew simply to get paid to be outside in the summer.
Brandon Ledoux lives in Cape Elizabeth and the upper watershed is his backyard. He likes to be outside, he likes to get dirty, and he cares about the stream because he likes to fish – those are the reasons he joined the YCC. After a few months working with the YCC, Brandon can tell me why they plant certain native species and how sediment affects the water quality. “One of my favorite parts is seeing the before and after and how far it’s come so far.” He feels like he’s making a difference, and he’s learning about an important ecosystem in his own backyard.
Brandon Ledoux and Sage Waldron show off the YCC tools. "I feel like we're making a difference in the long run." - Sage Waldron
This morning the team finishes the restoration quickly. They transformed what was a mess of invasive species into a landscaped garden - with native bayberry and dogwood plants. With the hard work behind them, the crew begins posing for photographs. They joke with me as they pose with sledgehammers, some of the tools they have on hand for whatever work may come their way. “You can never predict what’s going to happen next with this job.” Says crew member Andrew Volent. “It’s just fun.”
The restoration of Trout Brook is possible through the work of many partners including the towns of South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, as well as the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the Cumberland County Soil & Water Conservation District. For more information about the Trout Brook Restoration Project visit http://www.cumberlandswcd.org/troutbrook/
Raising a Family in Tight Quarters: Life on a Sailboat in Casco Bay
Raising a Family in Tight Quarters from Casco Bay Stories on Vimeo.
Cove Henry is three years old, and he’s a bit of a wild man. It’s mid-July in Maine and I’m with Cove, his big brother Kai, and their parents, Josh and Heidi, on the family’s sailboat (and summer residence) Tiny Bubbles II. Kai, the quieter and more contemplative brother, is sitting in an inflatable kayak, eating seaweed as the sailboat tows him through Casco Bay. Cove is running around the cockpit, asking if he can go to the bow. Josh agrees but not before fastening a rope to Cove’s life jacket.
Heidi tells me that usually they have jacklines set up. Jacklines are rope or wire guard rails that run from the stern to the bow of the boat. The boys attach to the jacklines with safety clips, so they don’t fall overboard. “They can move up and forward and we just clip ‘em in, but we don’t have the jacklines set up right now.” Heidi says as Cove, now securely tied to the boat, scampers to the bow and peers over the edge.
Tiny Bubbles II is a small boat. For a family of four (soon to be five) it can get pretty tight on board. But for Heidi and Josh, this lifestyle comes naturally. The couple met in Maui, where they worked together at a school. After getting married, they spent the next three years sailing Tiny Bubbles I in the Pacific – from Hawaii to Samoa to Australia. “That boat was our home,” says Heidi, “We always said we need to do our golden anniversary after one year because it was a 24-foot boat, you couldn’t stand up inside, it was very small and we went totally engineless!” Josh and Heidi planned to live in Papua New Guinea, where they wanted to run a schoolhouse. But when they found out Heidi was pregnant, the couple (at the encouragement of their mothers) moved back to the continental U.S. to live close to Heidi’s mother on Great Diamond Island.
Sailing in Maine is vastly different than in the Pacific. The islands are close together, and docks in the Bay have amenities (like pump out stations and fresh water hoses) for recreational and commercial boaters. In some ways, life on Tiny Bubbles II is luxurious. The boat has a head (bathroom) and even a large bed under the bow for Cove and Kai. It is much more spacious than Tiny Bubbles I.
Cruising with Heidi and Josh, I struggle to see how life on a 28-foot boat could be all that comfortable. But making your home on the water in Casco Bay means that every nook and cranny on the uninhabited islands can be your backyard. When things get hectic on the boat, Kai will paddle his little brother into shore on the inflatable paddleboard, and the boys spend days exploring. Kai recently spent hours on Crow Island, by himself. I asked him what he did when he was alone there and he replied, “I built a sand castle… and I climbed on a rock and talked to the birds.”
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I said, ‘Do you want to play with me?’”
Written, produced and photographed by Galen Koch, 2014.
Steve Bodge is an alewife fisherman at the Nequasset Dam in Woolwich, Maine. Lobstermen from Casco Bay journey north to Woolwich during the month of May to buy fish from Steve. The alewife population has been vastly depleted in the past 200 years and Steve does what he can to protect the fish, while still harvesting enough bait for his loyal customers.
Written and produced by Galen Koch, co-produced and photographed by Peter Lang-Stanton, 2014.
"Can you tell me what you do on Casco Bay or near Casco Bay?"
"We come down here, walk our dog... it's like the most beautiful place in Portland, it's like what makes Portland, Portland..." - Jaymie Genovese
"The only negative I would say is that it's made me a seafood snob..." - Jake Thomas
Casco Bay residents and business owners describe how they use and enjoy the Bay. These short interviews were conducted during Walk the Working Waterfront, an event hosted by Growing Portland, on June 7th, 2014.
This audio slideshow includes the voices of Steve DeMillo, Johan Erikson, Rebecca Atkins, Jaymie Genovese, and Jake Thomas.
Thoughts on the Changing Bay From Bailey Island Lobsterman Bob Perry
Bob Perry lives on Bailey Island, at the northeast tip of Casco Bay. I met Bob on the working wharf by Cook’s Lobster House while wandering through town with my audio equipment and camera. Bob was loading his boat with lobster traps, getting ready to set another round of traps.
As often happens in rural Maine, I had stumbled upon a resident with a vast amount of local knowledge. Bob is a third generation islander, he has a son and grandchildren and all together the family spans five generations. His great grandfather moved here from Nova Scotia on a sailing vessel, and the family has been on the water ever since.
“I first went out on the water when I was about three… with my father, we’d go up and down the bay, clamming and stuff.”
Bob told me that for him, lobstering isn’t an adventure; it’s just a job. Casco Bay is where he goes to work every day and without it, his family’s livelihood would suffer.
Bob has seen a lot of changes on Bailey Island. The town is dotted with small Maine capes, the kind of picturesque homes you see in Robert McCloskey’s classic children’s books. But Bob points out some of the newer additions to the town: large mansions that rise above the pine and spruce trees. The changes make Bob worry. The new houses drain the community’s resources and raise the cost of living.
“I’d like to go back to simpler days, 100 years ago.” The coastline is changing, and so is the Bay. According to Bob Perry, bigger houses mean bigger yachts. “These days everybody’s got a boat, every boat pollutes. Those people in their big yachts aren’t out making a living, they’re burning their living.”
Life on Bailey Island is changing but for today, Bob is worrying about other things. He has to set his traps. It’s already mid-June and he has only 100 out of 400 in the water. I ask Bob when he thinks he’ll be done setting traps. “'Bout September,” he replies, “Just in time to take ‘em up.”
Nature Day Camp campers appreciating what the coast of Maine has to offer
Growing up in coastal Maine, I spent a lot of time outdoors. Warm Maine summers meant swimming at the local pond, barefoot walks to the ice cream shop, and playing Ghost in the Graveyard on hot, sticky nights. My friends and I would compare the calluses on our feet. Whoever had the toughest summer feet was considered, for lack of a better word, “cool.”
Things have changed in the last twenty years. Research suggests that children aren’t spending as much time outside, and they spend hours in front of screens of all types. We hear phrases like “nature deficit disorder” on the news, to describe the effect that this lack of outdoor play has on children. Kids need time outside. They need to be in nature not just to appreciate the world around them, but for their physical and emotional development.
Children at Nature Day Camp learn what's in store for the day
Nature Day Camp, a program of the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust (HHLT), offers structured outdoor playtime for kids. The camp’s objective is to combat “nature deficit disorder.” The goal of the camp is to get children away from the screens and into the woods, beaches, and fields that comprise the Maine coast.
“Sometimes families need a nudge in the direction of more time outdoors and exploring nature. Nature Day Camp, and the Land Trust’s other programs, provide that nudge. We hope to inspire kids to love their town, see that self-directed learning is fun, and care about the world they live in.” Says Julia McLeod of HHLT.
At Nature Day Camp on Orr’s Island in June, I watched a group of twelve children wade through mudflats, looking for clams and other sea creatures. Kids were losing boots and falling into ankle deep water. The children were able to run and explore their coastal habitat, while learning about the animals that live in the intertidal zone.
Caleb and Lucy explore the sea creatures in the mudflats
Lucy, age three, demonstrated to the other children how to coax a periwinkle out of its shell. She held the periwinkle up to her mouth and hummed lightly, “They come out because I have great tone.” I didn’t see the snail emerge, but Lucy managed to convince the other children. In no time, kids were picking up periwinkles from the rocks, humming into their shells, waiting to see what lived inside.
“I learned that it’s good to have a good barrier for the rivers… and that you should always pick up after your dogs and all because it might end up falling into that sewer drain over there and once it does that could be really bad for the river.”
Devon, a 4th grader at Waldo T. Skillin Elementary School, releases trout fry into Trout Brook in South Portland.
The students hatched the trout in the classroom and, on a field trip in May, they teamed up with instructors from the Portland Water District to determine if Trout Brook was safe enough for the fry to be released in the wild.
"The goal was to educate school kids as well as adults and show solidarity with our migratory friends."
Josh Royte poses with Flat Fish Stanley on the Presumpcot River on World Fish Migration Day.
The Nature Conservancy, along with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA, and the Penobscot River Restoration Trust developed four whimsical flat fish posters (with the help of illustrator Laury Zicari) to educate children and adults. People in Maine and other states and countries pose with one of the four fish in locations that are important for them or for the fish.
