Cranberry Isles ferry owner: SWH's denial of docking permit would force service to end
Historic home in Somesville sold; cruise ships schedule inflexible in 2022
SOUTHWEST HARBOR, Dec. 11, 2021 - Does MDI and its neighboring islands have a shared purpose which is greater than any self interest? Acadia National Park is such a powerful common thread that the answer is obviously yes.
Even Bar Harbor will win an occasional shoutout from the Quietside, despite its epic honky tonk sensibility. We are reminded of its institutions with national reputations, Jackson Labs, and ones climbing fast to attain that air - College of the Atlantic.
As a sailor, I get instant recognition when I identify my Maine abode as home of Hinckley Yachts. Or when I invoke the art of Winslow Homer and the Wyeths and their favorite plein air creations.
But more times than desirable, the towns will find ways to view their world through the narrow end of a funnel and forsake the common good, especially Southwest Harbor which is still inoculating itself from its ancestral appendage to Tremont.
The case of the Cranberry Isles Ferry comes to mind.
The owner of the historic ferry fears the service which has existed since before WWII will cease to operate if the town proceeds with a proposal to eliminate its pickup of passengers at the Upper Town Dock off Clark Point Road.
Steve Pagels said he plans to attend the public hearing on the matter Tuesday night to appeal to the select board to retain his docking privilege.
Jim Fortune, administrator to the Cranberry Isles select board, is also coming. He’s worried about an economic blow to the precious isles where 160 hearty souls call home year-round, according to the 2020 census.
They are peeved that SWH did a poor job of notifying them about such an impactful proposal. Pagels said when he first heard about the Harbor Committee proposal, he assumed it was going to be a fee increase, and not a wholesale removal of the permit. Fortune said he was never notified.
The chairman of the Harbor Committee, Nick Madeira, told the select board Nov. 23 that the ferry is “a hindrance to the parking” at the terminal and that the $2,500 fee collected by the town annually “is not worth it.” He did not reply to an email from QSJ.
He cited a parking lot and pier owned by the town of Cranberry Isles in Manset, near Hinckley Yachts which can be used to load and off load passengers.
“But that’s a private lot supported by the seasonal residents. We pay $30,000 in property tax to Southwest Harbor each year,” Fortune said. There is no public parking.
Moreover, the Clark Point Road terminal is within walking distance to the village of Southwest Harbor and to inns and houses in the village.
SWH’s new harbor master Oliver Curry said matters are coming to a breaking point between the various interests who used the town’s biggest asset. Residents of Greening Island complained they cannot find space to dock and often have to compete with the ferry for space. Curry cited the proposed elimination of the commercial float lease which has been used by Ellis Boats to make way for more boats to tie up there.
The select board at its Nov. 23 meeting heard from others, including resident Ryan Donahue who decried the “285 percent increase” in harbor fees, including a spike to $2,500 from $800 for residents’ use of the dock and ramp for the season. That was cut down by the board to $1,100.
The harbor committee consists of four commercial fishermen who did not raise the $5,000 fee for lobster buyer trucks parked at the dock. The select board increased it to $6,000.
The most emotional item Tuesday night will no doubt be the ferry elimination. Acadia Chamber of Commerce, which includes SWH and Tremont businesses, sent out an email urging members to attend the meeting.
“The Upper Town Dock was built in 1962 and the ferry to the Cranberry Isles was intended as a user,” Pagels wrote QSJ in an email. “Beal & Bunker originally ran their ferry service to the Cranberry Isles from Southwest Harbor – they sold the ferry ‘Island Queen’ to Chuck Liebow, who continued operating ferry service from Southwest Harbor – selling the ferry service to us over 20 years ago.
“The ferry to the Cranberry Isles has multiple users who all contribute to its economic viability – the ferry is not subsidized: Local workers who commute to the Islands , Residents of the Cranberry Isles who shop and do business in Southwest Harbor , local businesses who ship goods out to the Islands as freight, day trippers and local residents visiting the islands.”
Pagels said that there are provisions for a ferry from the Upper Town Dock in the town’s harbor ordinance.
“Discontinuation of the ferry from the Upper Town Dock will likely make the ferry service not financially viable and possibly end public ferry service from Southwest Harbor
“It would be unfortunate for locals & visitors alike to find out next summer that there is no longer public ferry service from Southwest Harbor to the Cranberry Isles. Although there is a perceived parking ‘issue’ at the upper town dock – it seems collaborating on some possible ideas and solutions might go a long way. There is almost 60 parking spaces at the Upper Town dock.”
Another factor might be the Island Explorer bus which did not operate in 2022 on the Quietside.
“The new Harbormaster’s efforts to police the existing parking regulations in the town’s dock parking lots will certainly have a positive effect , remembering that the town was without a full time Harbormaster for part of this past year,” Pagels said.
There is no high purpose in this interdiction. It appears to be a pedestrian cost benefit decision made by the Harbor Committee without regard to the community larger than Southwest Harbor.
Ferries connect Maine’s islands and give us special bragging rights - that in an era of economic containment, we, as a Community, are willing to protect our specialness and not our differences. You may view the proposed fees here:
Easements to protect Mill Pond, view of Somes Sound after sale of historic village home
SOMESVILLE - The historic house built by descendants of the first permanent settler of MDI has a pending buyer who’s legally bound to preserve the abutting Mill Pond for conservation work by the Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary.
The listing by the Knowles Company states that the house is still being shown pending the current offer closing. It was occupied by John and Betty Fernald for about 30 years in exchange for land they donated to the sanctuary. After Betty died a year ago, the sanctuary board decided to sell the property to help fortify the finances for future projects, said director William Helprin.
The Sanctuary protects and conserves 255 acres of forested and wetland areas surrounding Somes Pond, studies all of the common loons who nest on all the lakes of MDI, maintain fish passageways between Somes Harbor and Somes Pond and Long Pond, monitor the annual alewife (river herring) migration, sample and protect lake water quality, staff a Courtesy Boat Inspection station at Long Pond to minimize the spread of invasive plants.
A direct descendent of Abraham Somes, Dr. Virginia Somes Sanderson conceived the idea of a permanent sanctuary on Somes Pond and formed the Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary in 1985, by donating 33 acres along the pond to the Sanctuary.
Abraham Somes established the first permanent settlement on Mount Desert Island (MDI) in 1761 when he sailed here with James Richardson from Massachusetts. By the early 1800’s there were seven mills, five shipyards, four blacksmiths and two stores in Somesville. The Village of Somesville was a bustling town and was instrumental in having the Trenton Bridge connect MDI to the mainland in 1836. It was the dominant town on MDI until the very early 1900s..
Somes Pond is one of the natural treasures of historic Somesville. A relatively shallow pond (about 26 feet at its deepest), with 104 acres in surface area. The pond derives its waters from underground springs and inlet streams. (Great) Long Pond (900 acres) feeds into Somes Pond via Ripple Pond and two stream sections. From Somes Pond, water flows down to the Somesville Mill Pond and into the harbor, tumbling over three historic dams along the way.
Summer, fall of 2022 likely to be cruise ships’ best year in Bar Harbor unless pandemic says no
BAR HARBOR - Barring what lawyers call force majeure - such as a raging third year of the pandemic - the 2022 tourism season is headed toward a very ugly summer and fall for the 965 residents who said in a townwide survey that there are too many cruise ships.
If all goes according to current trajectory, 2022 is going to make 2019, the last year cruise ships visited enmasse, look like a Quaker meeting.
Eben Salvatore, operations chief of the largest cruise ship business in town, could hardly contain his glee at Thursday’s meeting of the town council’s cruise ship committee of which he is the chair.
The industry had just stiff-armed the council’s request for a reduction of cruise ship schedules for next summer. In response to a question Tuesday from member Jill Goldthwait, Mike McGarry of the Cruise Lines International Association, said, “At this time, changing the 2022 schedule would be very disruptive ... itineraries are often planned years in advance.”
When asked by member Joe Minutolo about the number of bookings so far, McGarry came back two days later and reported to the cruise ship committee that his trade organization, for antitrust reasons, may not ask members to give competitive information about their businesses, such as advanced bookings, which raises the question of whether the council is negotiating with the right people.
Minutolo had moved, but later withdrawn, a motion for visiting ships to disembark no more than 70 percent of their normal number of visitors to Bar Harbor next summer.
Problem is no one seems to know exactly how many passengers visited in 2019, the last year cruise ships operated. Harbor Master Chris Wharff said only each ship has that information because passengers are required to swipe their key card when they disembark.
That information could also reside with the tender operators. Guess who runs virtually every tender boat in Bar Harbor? Ocean Properties - Eben Salvatore’s employer.
In 2019, Bar Harbor hosted 157 cruise ships that carried 254,000 passengers. But not all passengers disembarked.
Projected for 2022: 174 ships carrying 292,212 passengers. About 10 percent of the ships usually cancel their scheduled visits, cruise ship committee members were told. Even with that, the passenger count is certainly to exceed 2019 if current schedules play out.
Even without cruise ships last year, Bar Harbor had its busiest summer in history in 2021 because Acadia National Park set a record for visits, expected to exceed 4 million at the final tally. A visit is counted as each time someone enters the park.
Adding 200,000 to 250,000 cruise ship passengers to that record number has town council members on edge. Even chairman Jeff Dobbs appeared to be growing a spine when he asked McGarry whether he visited Bar Harbor last summer. When McGarry said no, Dobbs said, “It was something.”
But later in the Tuesday meeting, Dobbs reverted to his risk-averse self saying he preferred to be diplomatic even after McGarry gave the council the Heisman.
The town council started this discussion last fall carrying a big stick, with some wanting to curtail passenger visits to 100,000 per season. After the council devised a less onerous proposal, member Jill Goldthwait asked the question, “This applies to 2022, right?”
To which the cruise ship committee played rope-a-dope for a few months with opaque responses until Tuesday when McGarry wrapped his IED with a bow and presented it unflinchingly to the council.
Members continued push McGarry and Salvatore for ways to reduce passenger visits without a schedule change which the cruise committee undertook Thursday, except it discovered even more complications:
Park representative John Kelly reminded members that Cadillac Mountain now has a reservation system for motorists and that motor coaches ferrying passengers will need to register in advance. The hoard of cruise ship tourists will no doubt crowd out land-based visitors to the most popular destination in the park.
Pilot Skip Strong said the relocation of the ships to north of the Porcupine Islands so their lights are less intrusive at night will mean that it will take 12 to 14 minutes longer for the tenders to make the trip to disembark passengers. That’s not a big problem in the mornings, he said, but it will challenge logistics on rounding up the passengers for the return trip, just as land-based tourists are also returning to Bar Harbor from their hikes.
McGarry reported that he could find no contract nor official document which stated that the town had to give cruise lines an 18-month advance notice of schedule changes. Salvatore said he discovered in his personal notes that the council passed a resolution to such an effect in 2008. QSJ could find no such resolution in the minutes in 2008, a year when council chair Paul Paradis was treated to two industry junkets.
At the council meeting Tuesday members played to type:
Dobbs said he disagreed with taking an aggressive stance against the cruise ship industry and that he preferred “diplomacy” to which Minutolo retorted, “You’ve disagreed with us a lot, and the town is disagreeing with you through that instrument we put out, that we paid $14,000 for … the survey clearly stated this town wants a reduction. It’s clear.”
Member Matt Hochman said he didn’t like scare tactics and then launched one immediately by saying he did not wish the town get entangled in a legal battle like the one in Florida where Key West’s cruise ship ban was overturned by the governor. What Hochman didn’t understand (or didn’t want to say) was that the Republican-controlled Florida state government passed legislation to make cruise ships oversight a state function. Nothing like that has been proposed in Maine. QSJ reported on July 31 entities owned by Mark Walsh, vice president of Ocean Properties and Eben Salvatore’s boss, gave $995,000 to Friends of Ron DeSantis, the political committee operated by the Florida governor, according to data collected by the Florida Division of Elections and analyzed by the Miami Herald. The Walsh family business is the biggest hotel operator in Bar Harbor and runs the pier and tenders which ferry passengers ashore.
When member Minutolo asked about seeking outside counsel for advice, Town Manager Cornell Knight, in his passive aggressive mode, cited the last such legal bill at $6,000. Had Knight truly wanted to help guide the discussion, he already would have contacted the legal office of the Maine Municipal Association, of which Bar Harbor is a paying member. This was suggested by Arthur Greif, one of the best lawyers in Maine who has been a thorn in the side of the cruise ship industry ever since he helped defeat the 2019 effort to build piers for big ships. The vote was 493-384 to ban such piers. Greif has stated that Bar Harbor does not need a maritime lawyer to advise the council on how to invoke its right to protect the citizenry’s safety and quality of life. Knight, a big cruise ship enabler, is leaving the job at year’s end.
Several council members raised the specter of a citizen’s petition if the council cannot reduce cruise ship traffic. QSJ has not detected any such movement - yet.
HAPPY 94th BIRTHDAY RUTH GRIERSON!
BASS HARBOR - QSJ first played with fiddler Ruth Grierson at the Common Good Soup Kitchen about 10 years ago. Since then we’ve played about half a dozen times together. I especially liked the tune “Ashokan Farewell” from the Ken Burn’s TV series on the Civil War. Here is a clip from September of 2018 with Jim Vekasi on mandolin and Debbie Krysak on ukulele.
Grierson was born in 1927 in New Canaan, Connecticut. Growing up, she learned to play the violin, as well as piano, cello and accordion. She also encountered her other great passion in life, beside music: the study and appreciation of the natural world, a love passed onto her by her mother, who was an amateur naturalist.
It’s a passion that’s never left her. She’s written a newspaper column about nature on MDI for more than 40 years, first for the Bar Harbor Times, and now for the Mount Desert Islander. She has also published four books about natural history, with a fifth, “Living on the Edge,” a book written with Tom Vining, about tidepools and life along the seaside in Maine, coming out this summer.
“I’d have gone to college to be a naturalist, but back then, women didn’t go to school for that sort of thing, she told the Bangor Daily News. “That was a man’s field. Women were secretaries, they were nurses, or they were teachers. Maybe a waitress. Those were your options. You couldn’t do anything else,” she said, bristling a bit. “So I went to teacher’s college.”
After graduating in 1949, she taught music in schools in upstate New York, and married Stanley O. Grierson, a fellow naturalist, photographer and taxidermist, who passed away in 1992.
Seeking a slower, more rural way of life, the couple moved with their two children to MDI in 1972. There, Stanley Grierson taught at College of the Atlantic, and later co-founded the George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History. Ruth Grierson formed a classical music group, the Teahouse Trio, with pianist Marilyn Dolliver and cellist Mary Abbot, and taught piano and violin to elementary and middle school students across the island.
LETTER to QSJ:
Dear Quietside Journal,
Thank you for sharing the news of the passing of Ralph Stanley.
Our family’s connection to Mr. Stanley is through our enjoyment of a 32-foot lobster boat he built in Southwest Harbor in 1978. Originally the Rita Ann, she is has been renamed after my wife Martha. I gave the Rita Ann to Martha for her birthday nine years ago and had the idea to risk a renaming so I might be allowed to drive the boat from time to time.
Rita Ann’s hull was famously copied with a mold by Jarvis Newman and is now seen around New England as the Jarvis Newman 32.
Mr. Stanley’s boat we consider a national treasure and have pledged to never yacht her up, you could pull traps from her tomorrow. We also have made a promise to never remove her from her home waters of Mount Desert Island and Somes Sound. She simply needs to be kept near Southwest forever. She turns heads wherever she goes. Martha spins on her mooring showing her on all sides to be the true work of art that she is.
Martha (Rita Ann), will now also always be considered a monument to the extraordinary American Ralph Stanley. Please know that as long as our family stewards her (Ryan Donahue, Tim and Mark at Ocean House do all the work each year), she will be carefully cared for and joyously celebrated as she takes us around MDI and beyond.
Rest In Peace Ralph Stanley,
With the highest regards,
Tom Sieniewicz and Martha Eddison Sieniewicz, Broad Cove, Some Sound
Footnote: Ralph’s son Richard Stanley received almost 200 tributes to his father on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/richard.stanley.92372
LINCOLN’S LOG
Ed Bearor of the law firm Rudman Winchell is retiring as Bar Harbor town counsel. He will be replaced by Tim Pease of the same firm. The Islander reported this week that Marc Gousse is retiring at the end of the calendar year instead of the school year in June.
TRIBUTE: Barbara L. Baker (Seeley)
1936 - 2021
Barbara L. Baker, 85, died Dec. 6 at a Bangor hospital after a long illness. She was born in Otter Creek, Aug. 13, 1936, the daughter of Leslie L. and Bernice (Langley) Seeley.
Barbara graduated from Bar Harbor High School. After graduation, she went on to marry her English sweetheart, Gerald G. Baker. They traveled around the country and overseas as a military wife and raised three children. After finally settling down in Ellsworth, she worked for the Ellsworth American before finally retiring to be a housewife. She enjoyed sewing, knitting, crocheting, reading and puzzles. Mom had a big heart and always gave of herself.
She is survived by daughter, Cheryl A. Larson; grandson, Troy E. Larson both of Ellsworth; sister, Rosmond Walls and husband Norman of Otter Creek; nephew, Alan Dorr of Franklin; special niece, Lisa Ranco of Hancock and many more nieces, nephews and other family members and friends in Maine, England, and across the country. She was predeceased by her loving husband, Gerald G. Baker; daughter, Maureen J. Baker; son, James W. Baker; sisters, Anna, Arnona, Rozella and Patricia.
There will be no visitation or service at this time. A burial will be held at Otter Creek Cemetery in the spring.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Disabled Veterans National Foundation, 4601 Forbes Blvd., Suite #130, Lanham, MD 20706
Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Jordan-Fernald, 113 Franklin St. Ellsworth
Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com