Twenty miles off the coast, accessible only by boat or air, is Maine’s most remote year-round island, Matinicus. Several miles even further away is Matinicus Rock, home to one of Maine’s lighthouses and the setting for Penobscot Theatre Company (PCT)’s new show Matinicus: A Lighthouse Play. PCT will bring a three-week performance run of Matinicus to the Bangor Opera House from March 20 to April 6. The Theatre has tapped Maine Seacoast Mission to be the community partner for the production due to the nonprofit’s longtime ties and service work on the Maine island of Matinicus. Join Matinicus’ First Assessor Laurie Webber and Maine Seacoast Mission’s Director of Island Service Douglas Cornman for a Q&A-style “talkback” event after the matinee performance on Sunday, March 23 at 3 p.m. 

Join the Mission on Friday, March 21 from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. for a college and career exploration fair at the Weald Bethel Community Center, 39 Weald Bethel Lane, Cherryfield. During this event, students and community members can meet with representatives from different schools and businesses throughout Maine and New England.  

This event offers attendees a chance to visit and chat with admissions counselors from many of Maine’s colleges and community colleges including Central Maine Community College, Husson University, Kennebec Valley Community College, Maine Maritime Academy, University of Maine, University of Maine at Augusta, University of Maine at Machias, University of Maine at Presque Isle, University of New England, and Southern Maine Community College, as well as Clark University and New England College.  

There will also be representatives from local businesses including Align Physical Therapy, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, MDI Biological Laboratory, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, Machias Savings Bank, Northern Light Health, and the State of Maine Office of Child and Family Services.  

For more information or if you would like your organization to participate, contact EdGE Secondary and Post-Secondary Program Director Christy Oliveri at [email protected] or call (207) 546-5852. 

Last Tuesday on Matinicus, I retired to my cabin for the night. I checked the marine forecast a final time: Wednesday – north winds 20-25 knots, freezing spray in the early morning, four-to-six-foot seas. All normal for winter. Assured that we could depart as scheduled, I drifted off to sleep. The following morning, I was walking to the coffeepot and saw the unexpected glimmer of a wave in the harbor. I turned to Storey, the ship’s first mate, asking, “what direction is the wind?” He gave me an annoyed glance and stated “northeast.” 

The solution is as old as sailing itself – a spring line and a heap of coordination with the mate. We attach a strong rope to the opposite side of the pier and as we back out, we have both protection from slipping westward into the private dock, and a rotational component that turns the Sunbeam in a vector swing. Once the stern is headed into the pesky northeast wind her wind exposure is below the threshold that impacts our ability to maneuver. A burst of the throttle, hard port rudder and the bow thruster will now turn the bow into the wind and allow us to head out the channel. 

Another important aspect is the teamwork between captain and mate. Even before I had emerged from my cabin, Storey had already sensed the situation and put the spring line in place for the procedure. Our goal is to make complicated docking situations look easy when in fact there are many moving parts and years of experience going into each decision. Matinicus is among our more difficult harbors, but all the islands have idiosyncrasies that can entail adjustments at the last minute. Monhegan is another particularly challenging docking situation that may be the subject of a future article! 

The Sunbeam is a magical ship, and I don’t think twice about any frustrations with winter weather. Arriving on Matinicus with its low seasonal population and having over eighty percent of them come aboard for social or medical needs is the essence of our commitment. I will do anything possible to make winter a bit more tolerable. What I value about the Maine Seacoast Mission is that these folks are not “constituents” or “clients,” but true friends that we cherish. 

Residents of Maine’s outer, unbridged islands are used to the ebb and flow of the tides, and the constantly changing landscape of their island. Josh Gray, co-owner of Newman & Gray Boatyard on Great Cranberry, points to a poignant example on his island: Edgar’s Tractor. The tractor got stuck in the sand in 1950, and when Edgar Bunker left to fight in the Korean War, it stayed there awaiting his return. When he was killed during battle, it became a memorial, and over the years, the ocean crept up, getting closer to the tractor as it slowly rusts and sinks into the sand. This kind of erosion has happened over decades, but the storms that hit in January of 2024 brought new challenges that most islanders had never foreseen. During these storms, the coasts were pummeled with the ocean breaching seawalls, washing away wharfs, and landmarks.  

On Isle au Haut, most of the large-scale damage seen on other islands was not as evident because most of the infrastructure is in a protected cove, according to island resident John DeWitt, a retired fisherman.  While a few wharfs sustained damage, and one house flooded, the majority of the visible damage happened when a shed on one of the properties floated out into the cove and broke up. John explains that “It was surreal to watch, but there was minimal impact. When the shed broke up it had junk in it, so it looked terrible but was not all that bad.”  

But on Great Cranberry, the storm did more damage to businesses and wharfs around the island. Gray is a second-generation boat builder on the island, and the storms in January breached the yard’s seawall and brought two feet of water surging into all of their buildings within ten minutes. “The storm surge buckled the large garage doors and inside the buildings there were inches of mud. The salt water ruined tools and fiberglass,” he explains. After the first flood, he was able to move his vehicles to higher ground, but there was only so much they could do to prevent more damage during the second flood a few days later, and another similar flood in March. It took the boatyard a week to just clean up after the back-to-back storms, and almost a year to fully recover. They raised their dock and started storing tools and materials up on platforms, but Gray realizes that if another big storm comes it might not be enough. “I had seen all the sea rise maps, but it did not really hit me until the storm, that all these places one day will be gone. It is hard to come to terms with the impermanence of it all.” He points to other damage on the island which saw roads, docks, and outbuildings that washed away. “It hit the community hard, you know everyone on the island and are intimately involved in such a tiny place.” 

Luckily, while storms have still happened, the large-scale destruction seen last year has not happened again. Webber on Matinicus explains that storms are becoming bigger each year, and while the island will come together to continue to weather the storms, but there is only so much they can do. “The community realizes we need to make some changes that in my lifetime on the island we never had to be concerned about. We are resilient and will do what we need to in order to be on the island. The community will adjust. The difficult part is that insurance companies turn us down for coverage.” She adds, “How can we be prepared for that? When something happens, we deal with it the best we can. And then hope for the best. We love it, so we will make it work.” 

To learn about the programs that serve the islands, please visit explore Island Outreach and Island Health. If you would like to volunteer with the Mission, please visit our Volunteer page.  

Every year, the Mission works to quantify the work that we do by counting our impact. The number of students receiving Mission Scholarships. How many neighbors visit the pantry. The count of vaccines given on or via the Sunbeam. Our 2024 Impact Statement provides these output figures and more than 60 other figures. These numbers illustrate just a few of the many ways the Mission works with Downeast and coastal communities. 

There are also the numbers we cannot easily gauge. The number of smiles and cheers during a game at EdGE afterschool. The amount of students who succeed in school because of the one-on-one mentoring by Davis Maine Scholarship and Journey staff. The number of seniors who can age-in-place because of the work of the Mission and the Island Eldercare network.  

“At the end of the day, what matters is the difference the Mission and its supporters make in some of the most isolated communities in Maine,” says President John Zavodny. “These numbers—how many nautical miles, how many kids on the ropes course, how many meals served—represent the very real compassion and effort of people working in community. The numbers matter because the work matters. Because people matter.” 

All these numbers show that the Mission’s programs are hard-working and participating community members are invested. The Mission is proud to have continually served Maine’s coastal and island communities for 120 years. Each year, the impact statement puts this work into context and highlights the unseen effect here in Maine.