Long Pond accident cautionary tale for boaters; wardens must own responsibility for public safety
SOMESVILLE, July 25, 2021 - The only time I came close to death was swimming in Long Pond about 20 years ago.
I employ the breast stroke so I may see all the boating activity around me. Now and then there will be a boater who is either ignorant of the rules of engagement or is just cavalier about safety.
Such was the case of a boater who was towing his daughter on water skis headed toward me without a spotter. I figured he would eventually spot me. But he didn’t.
I dove and watched his boat race over me, with the propeller only inches from my face. And I remembered he was towing a skier, so I stayed down until she passed as well.
Long Pond is the biggest body of water on MDI but it’s small by Maine standards. At only 900 acres, it is the only lake on the island that allows motor boats. Add to that the hundreds of canoers and kayakers who rent from the National Park Canoe and Kayak Rental, the various sailboats and water crafts used by cottage owners, freshwater fishermen in their boats and sundry others from cigarette boats to pontoon floats and you have a potential powder keg.
Which was exactly what happened last week, according to a neighbor, when a Boston Whaler slammed into a kayak sending its elderly female occupant to the hospital with multiple injuries.
You don’t need a 100-ton pilot’s license to figure out who’s at fault. Speed boats have the fewest rights on the water. They must give way to almost everyone else, especially “vessels under oars” like a kayak.
The problem is enforcement. Even though Mount Desert and Bar Harbor police, Mount Desert Fire and Northeast Harbor Ambulance responded to the crash, Long Pond is under the jurisdiction of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
Where is a warden when you need one?
They seem to be ubiquitous when I’m fishing, eager to generate revenue for the state in the off chance I forgot my license.
Last week there was not a one to be found. Several calls into the warden assigned to take press calls were not returned.
The accident occurred in the area between the Northern Neck Road causeway and the eastern shore of Long Pond, according to witnesses. The “no wake” signs several hundred yards from the canoe rental launch are totally inadequate as many boats hit full throttle in the narrow part of the lake extending to the end of Northern Neck Road. The “no wake” sign should be extended all the way to the end of Northern Neck.
Long Pond is also extremely popular in the winter when folks get creative with ice fishing and testing the thickness with all manner of vehicles and structures. I’ve long been curious about the ice house below and how the owner was able to obtain all those road signs.
I called the number and name on the door but got no response.
Fight over Tremont campground far from over …
TREMONT, July 24, 2021 - Residents have had four days to digest the revised proposal for Acadia Wilderness Lodge, and the prevailing sentiment remains that the campground is inappropriate for the neighborhood in West Tremont.
Lisbeth Faulkner, owner of Seal Cove Pottery and Art Gallery on Kelleytown Road, expressed views which were representative of many interviewed by QSJ:
“They are trying to make themselves ‘glamorous’ wilderness, of which their current construction is neither glamorous nor wilderness. They wouldn't know glamorous or wilderness if it bit them.
‘There are too many things that they want open ended for development in the future. Tremont needs serious standards to protect its citizens.”
Faulkner was referring to the gaping hole in the proposal - nearly half of the 43-acre lot set aside for some future, undetermined development.
And then there is the question of credibility. Many neighbors point to a smaller campground on Kelleytown Road approved by the Planning Board in 2019 which they said has exceeded its scope. “The scale is way beyond what was approved,” said Cindy Lawson, an abutting neighbor about Acadia Wilderness Village, the initial foray into Tremont by Kenya and James Hopkins, owners of the campground.
“The yurts are so close together that you most likely could not drive a car between them and there is lots of bulldozed land - hardly a "wilderness," Faulkner wrote in an email.
One neighbor has pointed this out to Code Enforcement Officer Jesse Dunbar, but he was out of the office Friday afternoon and could not be reached.
The smaller campground was a litmus test for the town’s peculiar “residential/business” zone which is “to preserve the integrity of the residential uses while allowing for maritime related and light commercial activity which are compatible with the physical capability of the land.”
In 2019 the Hopkinses were granted approval to build 11 camping units on a 1.6-acre lot on Kelleytown Road. If the owners can’t be trusted to stay within the approved application of that smaller campground, what’s to prevent them from changing the scope of the larger application, so say residents.
Robert Cantwell, one of two neighbors who spoke positively of the revised proposal at Wednesday night’s “neighborhood meeting” organized by the campground owners, qualified his earlier statement by saying, “While the new plan is far more preferable than the earlier plan, the best campground, my my opinion, is no campground.” Cantwell, a seasonal resident, said he shared concerns expressed by West Tremont neighbors about water supply, under-engineered septic systems, traffic, encumbered town services and the open question about the undeveloped section.
“It also very closely abuts residential neighbors whose property values will plummet. The planning board approved it because Tremont has no standards to approve or not approve such a plan,” stated Faulkner. “The new plan although thankfully not including RVs, is still large for the largest neighborhood in Tremont. There will still be traffic, noise, light, etc, in many resident's back yards. We still need standards to evaluate the Florida developers’ latest idea. Of note is that they are also reserving the option to add on, make further development, etc., on a wetlands. They are also going to have a spa, a store, a swimming pool and other activities of unknown boundaries.”
Many residents say the owners should be told to file a new application as the current “concept plan” is nothing like the original proposal. The owners are planning to present it to the Planning Board Aug. 10.
The enduring myth of Columbus gets a DownEast welcome
SOMESVILLE, - Taiwan is about as away as there can be from DownEast.
To celebrate the founding of the Republic of China and the end of the dynastic rule on Oct. 10, 1911, the exiled dictator Chiang Kai-shek marshaled his troops to parade every year on “Double Ten” day, a national holiday. My siblings and I would stake out early the best spots in Downtown Taipei to watch the tanks, the artillery and the troops as they rumbled by.
My favorite was the “Goose Step,” a hallmark of the German military before and during World War II. The Germans helped build Chiang’s military in the Twenties and Thirties.
Little did I know in 1956 that the Goose Step was emblematic of fascism. An entire generation of Europeans cowed under its diabolic symbolism and existential threat. And that was the whole point. (You may witness its dark power in the video above as the Taiwan veterans re-enacted it in 2016)
But at some point in my life I learned the truth about the Nazis, probably through multiple John Wayne movies. Those movies also chronicled the purposeful European settlers as they bravely fought their way west against the Indian savages, so I was also led to believe.
Over the last three weeks, hundreds of kids in DownEast had the opportunity to board a replica of a 15th century ship Nao Santa Maria, one of the three Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic. For a 6-year-old it’s a magical experience, no doubt, to climb in and out of the cubbyholes below deck and wonder how anyone could sail for months on such a small craft.
It was an odd juxtaposition - feting the progenitor of the largest mass carnage and enslavement in history and fueling an enduring myth which survives while the Nazi flag and the Confederate monuments could not in America. Moreover, Maine is one of 14 states which ended its official celebration of Columbus Day in 2019.
Hundreds of families showed up in Bucksport and Castine and showered the replica ship with adulation despite the ship owner’s apologia on its Facebook page:
“The Nao Victoria Foundation is deeply sorry that the presence of the Nao Santa Maria could cause sore feelings and be misinterpreted.
“Our aim is, and always has been, to contribute spreading the knowledge of maritime history in general. When we interpret and remember the historical voyages and encounters that were lived between the two known worlds, we do so with the intent to educate and stimulate our collective progress for the future.”
The post was greeted by 195 supportive comments. Typical of the comments were these two:
Angel BellavanceMy husband and I had the pleasure of coming abroad today. The vessel is magnificent and so full of maritime history. There is so much more to this piece of history than the atrocities attributed to the explorer aboard at the time. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to learn about this amazing ship and traveling across the globe to do so. We thoroughly enjoyed speaking with the crew and learning what life was and is like aboard the Nao Santa Maria.
Matthew FlemingStop apologizing for everything. Every time somebody is offended there seems to be this need to take to social media and offer up our condolences and apologies for some poor fragile, thin skinned delicate cry baby who took offense to one thing or another. Who cares. You're offended. Congratulations. Now move along to your safe space with your box of crayons and let people who aren't offended by everything at the drop of a hat carry on with their daily business.
The replica owner’s definition of “education” was to perpetuate the language long dismissed by contemporary educators. “The Nao Santa María is one of the most famous ships of mankind. On October 12th of 1492, led by Christopher Columbus, it played the main role on one of the most important historic landmarks: the discovery of America.”
In 1492 there were 75 million people in the Americas and only 60 million in Europe.
According to Wikipedia:“It is estimated that during the initial Spanish conquest of the Americas up to eight million indigenous people died, primarily through the spread of disease in a series of events that have been described as the first large-scale act of genocide of the modern era. Acts of brutality and systematic annihilation against the Taino People of the Caribbean prompted Bartolomé de las Casas to write A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies') in 1542—an account that had a wide impact throughout the western world as well as contributing to the abolition of indigenous slavery in all Spanish territories the same year it was written.”
Passamoquoddy educator Dwayne Tomah took the opportunity in Bucksport to teach the ”Doctrine of Discovery,” the papal decree in the late 15th Century which was the spiritual and intellectual underpinning for the Spaniards’ violent taking of property and which extends into the laws of the United States to this day
QSJ attempted to learn about how MDI schools are teaching Columbus but it was made difficult because of summer vacations.
Julie Keblinsky, MDI’s new head of curriculum for the upper schools, stated that teachers here have great flexibility as to sources of information to teach about Columbus and that “our teachers have been trained by the Abbe to use a decolonized lens when examining history.”
Chris Newell, executive director of the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, said, “When we teach about approaching educational material through a decolonized lens, we're essentially asking educators to examine the sources of the information they teach. Commonly, the sources are written and interpreted solely through the lens of someone associated with colonization. As a result, a lot of educational material glosses over the atrocities that come along with colonization. Especially to Indigenous people. By attempting to invisibilize the negative effects of colonization, essentially the message is everything about it was good and we all benefit from it. However, the other side of colonization anywhere in the world is that it requires land and there is always a process of depopulating an Indigenous population, followed by assimilation and termination policies. All of which are genocidal by the U.N.'s definition of the term.
”What I ask educators to do is to use a set of inquiries when approaching material:
What are the stories that shape our view of history?
Who are the storytellers?
What are the stories we still need to hear?
’In America, in nearly every case this involves re-incorporating Native perspectives to the story.
”For Columbus, the use of vocabulary like ‘discovery’ when it comes to what he did is viewing his journey through lens of a colonizer. To Taino people he was a criminal and genocidaire who was lost. Decolonizing your understanding of Columbus often involves self awareness of how we were taught about these things in our own educational experience and a willingness to expand that knowledge to include all sides. Along with the process often comes a change in vocabulary (i.e. not using the word ‘discover’ with Columbus).”
Quietside neighbors help headline COA’s Summer Institute
BEECH Hill - Two Quietside neighbors are featured speakers this week at the College of the Atlantic’s Summer Institute, an “ideas festival” showcasing experts from around the world. This year’s theme, Good Food and Food Fights, will explore all aspects of food - production, policy, climate change, food justice, hunger, organics, nutrition, and the joy of eating and cooking.
Frances Stead Sellers
Seasonal Long Pond resident Frances Stead Sellers of the Washington Post will talk Thursday at 9:30 a.m. to Cara Stadler, chef and entrepreneur of Maine restaurants Bao Bao, Tao Yuan, ZaoZe, and Canopy Farms, and COA trustee Michael Boland ’94, owner of local MDI-area favorites Havana, Islesford Dock, and Copita about the challenges of running restaurants in a rural state with a small and seasonal population. How has COVID-19 affected the labor market and dining experience? What kind of changes should we anticipate for the future—more automation, more subcontractors or gig workers? Sellers also dives into the tipped minimum wage and Cara’s experience of scrapping—and later reinstating—the tipped wage at her restaurants.
Anna Davis
Anna Davis has been co-manager of COA’s Beech Hill Farm since 2014. In addition to growing certified organic vegetables for COA and the wider community, the farm serves as a living laboratory where COA students and faculty engage with agriculture as a central concern of human ecology. She will join farmer Amber Tamm (’17) and community chef Anochi Odinga, who spent the last year making thousands of meals for vigils, protests, and gatherings to make sure their community was well fed while fighting for justice. They will discuss the future of this “farmer + chef” collaboration, highlighting the possibilities and challenges to ensuring that regenerative organic food is able to reach those who need it most. Wednesday at 11 a.m.
Lincoln’s Log
Monday at 8:15 is Somesville night at Acadia Repertory where locals get admitted free.