A Deeper Look at Island Life

I would never want to live on an island.  After spending five days on Vinalhaven Island my gut feeling of what would be right for me has been reinforced.  First, this place is basically 5 miles by 7 miles and is 1 hour and 15 minutes by ferry from the mainland - in this case - Maine.  There are about 1300 people here year round.  (Summer population swells to 5000.)  There's an average of a foot of snow that stays on the ground from October 1st through the end of April.

The Town Park and Flag

And then, there's the wind. The local paper, which is really a weekly newsletter, is called 'The Wind'. This place makes West Texas look like the center of the maritime doldrums.

Vinalhaven was settled by a core group of families from Boston circa 1760 .  You can still see their names in the telephone book.  It was and is a fisherman's paradise.  The finned fish are virtually gone - fished to commercial extinction.  However, if you ate a lobster today anywhere in the country, the odds are it came from Vinalhaven.  This is the lobster fishing capital of the world.  Approximately 50% of the island's economy relies on lobsters. There are traps piled up everywhere,

and we've seen boats stacked high with traps in preparation of going out into the ocean around the island and setting them.

Saw these guys out on a Sunday while we were hiking

Some families have been lobstering for generations.  Each family has a designated  area, and personal buoys which mark their traps.  The buoys are colorful and painted in individual colors/design.  It's been known for a lobsterman's traps and buoys to wind up in a heap on a shoreline if he puts his traps outside his own territory.

Drake waiting for the rolls

One of the best lobster rolls in Maine is at Greet's Eats, a food truck at the Vinalhaven harbor, selling burgers, chicken tenders, and lobster rolls.  Every fisherman in line ordered a cheeseburger, but some of the locals and all the

early tourists were scarfing up lobster rolls.  Drake and I bought two, planning on eating them later, but they were so tempting we devoured them immediately.

Quality granite was discovered on Vinalhaven in 1826, and was quarried and shipped out as the building blocks of the American construction craze of the 19th century.  Vinalhaven granite is found in the Washington Monument, old Penn Station in NYC, custom houses, and post offices all around the country, most of the federal buildings in Washington D.C. and the St. John the Divine Church in NYC.  When Penn Station was rebuilt, Vinalhaven was given back one of the granite eagles gracing the top of the old Station.  However, when it arrived, locals quickly realized it was not granite but limestone, and it was carved not on Vinalhaven, but in Tennessee.  With characteristic thriftiness, they promptly put two slabs of their own granite beneath it, and it now graces the entrance to the harbor parking lot.

A legacy of the granite era is the island is dotted with old quarries which are now filled with water and are the swimming holes during the summer.  Drake is thinking the season is here as he's preparing to dive in.  (Oh, sure - it was about 60 degrees this day.)

We stayed in a house built in the 1850's by a member of the owner's family.  It was originally a family home, then converted to a hotel and finally a down and out boarding

house.  Amy and Craig, who are full time residents of the island, inherited it and are slowing re-doing this money pit and are now members of Airbnb. Craig's trying to get the exterior of the house scrapped, repaired, and repainted. Since he also works full time doing construction and caretaking on the island which is dotted with extremely expensive vacation homes of the wealthy, it's a slow process. Those expensive houses, their construction, maintenance, remodeling, and winter care taking are the backbone of the economy which isn't involved in lobstering.  There's some tension between the summer people and the year rounders, but the summer people generate much of the income needed by people for whom Vinalhaven is the good life.

With so few year round people, it's a tight knit community, and the long brutal winters reinforce their reliance upon one another.  According to Amy, Vinalhaven is filled with clubs, and activities in which they make their own fun.  This community is very progressive. For instance,they were the trial for three wind turbines on the island which generate almost enough energy to take care of the island's electrical needs.  (The turbines are the newest 'attraction', and everyone ignores the no trespassing signs to get a closer look at the behemoths.)  Additionally, there is the Vinalhaven Land Trust which has been collecting and protecting island land from development.  We hiked on two of these preserves.

At the same time, they revere their history - there was a Memorial Day Service today  in which the names of all their dead veterans were read - which took about an hour and goes back to the Revolutionary War.  In fact, their town monument is an obelisk on which are carved the names of that war's dead.

All in all, this has been a relaxing portion of the trip after the excitement of graduation and the hectic pace in Boston.  It's heaven to wake up to total silence after New Haven and Boston.  This accommodation is scrupulously clean and comfortable rather than luxurious.  Amy, a woman after my own heart, likes to repurpose and salvage items which is how she's managed to get this place up and running.  We've also managed to start tuning up our hiking legs with a couple of short hikes while here.  So, it's goodbye to Vinalhaven, and keep your fingers crossed, perhaps I won't be seasick on the ferry ride back to the real world.