Further thoughts on Monhegan
Monhegan Island seems timeless. It's part of that remote island's rugged beauty and aura. It's also a problem to the extent that it encourages return visitors into thinking Monhegan will always be just as we remember and love. I'm guilty of clinging to that shallow understanding for 40 years now.
Year-round islanders, of course, have no such illusion. They know in their very bones just how hard the every-day work of sustaining a year-round island community really is. On Oct. 2, the day after Trap Day, I overheard this conversation at The Barnacle Café & Bakery next to the town dock: “How did it go yesterday?” the bakery's proprietor asked a customer who's having some difficulty lacing up his heavy work boots. “My back is killing me,” the lobsterman replied. “I don't want to step into a lobster boat another day of my life.”
Some insights only occur by being there; you can't get them sitting in an office. Going out to Monhegan for a couple of days last month deepened my understanding of the island's year-round community and the challenges the year-round residents face due to the complex and interwoven challenges of aging and diminishing populations, declining school enrollments, rising property values and limited job opportunities. My Oct. 20 story, “On the edge: Monhegan Island's residents take charge of their future,” highlights several initiatives. I've had some further thoughts:
Technology is a bridge
Monhegan is a good ways out to sea. That distance imposes higher costs for just about everything. It also fosters innovation, which includes using the Internet to connect students at the Monhegan Island School with their peers attending schools on other remote Maine islands. Former Monhegan school teacher Jessie Campbell, who now works with the Island Institute's Outer Islands Teaching and Learning Collaborative, says the collaborative is helping students and teachers on Monhegan, the Cranberry Islands, Isle au Haut, Matinicus, Cliff and Frenchboro use Google Docs, Skype and videoconferencing to learn together and share common experiences.
Young people have a lot to offer
Besides recent University of Maine graduate Ben Algeo, an Island Institute fellow who's helping Monhegan and Matinicus identify solutions to high energy costs, I spoke with Tristan Vis, a young permaculture designer and part-time island resident who's been helping the Monhegan Island Farm Project create sustainable garden plots that conserve water through the use of swales and which utilize compost instead of expensive chemical fertilizers. Cantaloupe in October is proof his ideas actually work.
Islanders take care of their own
Richard Farrell, until recently the president of the Monhegan Island Sustainable Community Association, told me in an e-mail exchange that the association grew from a community concern, expressed at the annual Plantation Meeting 12 years ago, that the price for homes on Monhegan far exceeded the means of most people who wanted to live year-round on the island. In 2002, he told me, the average house price on Monhegan was approaching $500,000 (reaching a peak of nearly $1 million a few years later, before falling back to roughly $600,000 in the aftermath of the recession). Funded largely by donations, MISCA has purchased several island properties and made them available at affordable prices or lease rates to local businesses and families. In doing so, it's helping to sustain Monhegan's year-round working community.
“Don’t lose courage”
This Monhegan saying graces the inscription page of “Cutting the Grass With Scissors,” a wonderful 2014 collection of poems by islander Judith Ponturo that I purchased along with Trap Stacker Special Ale at her son and daughter-in-law's brewery. Monhegan Island may seem timeless, but its community, like the rest of Maine, is very much engaged in the real work of creating a future for its young people and the generations that will follow.
Possibilities become reality with courage and hard work.
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