COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Volume 10 . Number 1. . Spring 2014 FIELD ECOLOGY Shan Burson '83 took this photo of the Grand Teton while skiing near his home. Shan works as an acoustic ecologist for both the Grand Teton and Yosemite national parks. The Teton Range can be quite silent, especially in winter; at other times cascading rivers, blowing wind, and the bugling of elk mingle with noise from aircraft flying overhead, and motorcycles and other vehicles on park roads. COA The College of the Atlantic Magazine Field Ecology Letter from the President 3 News from Campus 4 Watson Reports 10 Donor Profile Jay Pierrepont 13 FIELD ECOLOGY Introduction John Anderson 15 Soundscape Ecology Shan Burson '83 16 The Right Whale Scott Kraus '77 19 Field Ecology Journeys Designed by Khristian Mendez '15 22 Paleoecology Jacquelyn Gill '05 24 Policy, Politics, and Protection Erica Maltz '08 26 In the Mixtecan Field Greg Rainoff '81 28 Applied Ecology Tanner Harris '06 31 Students in the Field 33 Apples Hannah Hirsch '16 36 Kalokagathia Jayson Bowles 17 38 Poetry Sarah Haughn '08 42 Alumni and Community Notes 44 In Memoriam 50 Toward a Literary Ecology Karen Waldron 51 Ecology and Experience Rich Bordon 52 This Summer at COA 53 COA This year marks the sesquicentennial of the publication of The The College of the Atlantic Magazine Maine Woods, written by that astute and poetic field observer, Volume 10 Number 1 Spring 2014 Henry David Thoreau. To celebrate, I reread Ktaadn, the story of Thoreau's initial Maine journey. I happened to be in Boston, Editorial so I also stopped by the Harvard Museum of Natural History's Editor Donna Gold Editorial Guidance Heather Albert-Knopp '99 homage to this anniversary, "Thoreau's Maine Woods." It is John Anderson a glorious exhibit, featuring large-format images of Maine's Rich Borden Lynn Boulger mountains, trees, and streams by photographer Scot Miller. But I felt homesick; Dru Colbert displaced-I longed for those woods, for the smell of moss after a rain, the Ken Cline Michael Griffith '09 miracle of trillium, the joy of seeing a moose spray droplets of water in the Jennifer Hughes sun as it shakes its head after a long lake drink. The museum images, however Katharine Macko Editorial Consultant Bill Carpenter exquisite, are remote from the direct experience of the place; they hold little of Alumni Consultants Jill Barlow-Kelley Thoreau's trembling encounters with nature as "something savage and awful, Dianne Clendaniel though beautiful. that Earth of which we have heard, made out of Chaos and Design Old Night." Art Director Rebecca Hope Woods COA Administration The founders of College of the Atlantic-inspired by Thoreau, among others- President Darron Collins '92 created a school in which students are immersed in firsthand experience. At Academic Dean Kenneth Hill Associate Academic Deans Catherine Clinger COA students connect directly to their subjects-to learn for themselves, much Stephen Ressel as Thoreau did, aided by faculty catalysts-whether studying biology, history, Sean Todd Karen Waldron literature, art, or land use planning. Administrative Dean Andrew Griffiths Dean of Admission Heather Knopp '99 Dean of Institutional Lynn Boulger This kind of learning hones self-reliance and keen observation, qualities crucial Advancement to thriving in our unpredictable world. The work we do-any of us, but especially Dean of Student Life Sarah Luke the work this generation graduates into-asks us to span multiple skills. COA Board of Trustees Take Erica Maltz '08, fisheries program manager for the Burns Paiute tribe in Becky Ann Baker Sarah A. McDaniel '93 Oregon (see page 26). Her duties range from wading rivers in search of trout to Dylan Baker Linda McGillicuddy Timothy R. Bass Jay McNally '84 negotiating with state governments. Beyond COA's course-required fieldwork, Ronald E. Beard Stephen G. Milliken Leslie C. Brewer Philip S.J. Moriarty Erica credits her interdisciplinary preparation to the rigors of class presentation, Alyne Cistone Phyllis Anina Moriarty a governance structure using student facilitators, and the college's close faculty Nikhit D'Sa '06 Hamilton Robinson, Jr. Amy Yeager Geier Walter Robinson connections. But Erica's interdisciplinarity extends further. Her first appearance George B.E. Hambleton Nadia Rosenthal in the magazine came in Spring 2008 with the publication of an excerpt from her Elizabeth D. Hodder Marthann Lauver Samek senior project-a novel set on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra. Philip B. Kunhardt III '77 Henry L.P. Schmelzer Anthony Mazlish William N. Thorndike, Jr. Suzanne Folds McCullagh Cody van Heerden, MPhil '15 Thoreau's close observations of the natural world were unusual in his time; I fear Life Trustees Trustee Emeriti they remain so today. And what a loss that is! An education in the field leads to William G. Foulke, Jr. David Hackett Fischer one of life's most essential skills: the ability to be present, to rely on oneself, to Samuel M. Hamill, Jr. Sherry F. Huber John N. Kelly Daniel Pierce mobilize one's senses, one's intelligence, one's entire being to discover the core Susan Storey Lyman Helen Porter William V.P. Newlin of the encounter, as well as the crucial linkages-and so to make a difference in Cathy L. Ramsdell '78 John Reeves John Wilmerding the world. Henry D. Sharpe, Jr. The faculty, students, trustees, staff, and alumni Damn Damn Id gold of College of the Atlantic envision a world where Donna Gold, COA editor people value creativity, intellectual achievement, and diversity of nature and human cultures. With respect and compas individuals construct aningful lives for themselves, gain appreciation of the relationships among all forms of life, and Front cover: Mot-mot. John Anderson, faculty member in biology, took this image safeguard the heritage of future generations. while in the dry forests of the Nicoya Peninsula on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica with fellow biology faculty member Steve Ressel and fourteen students. The journey COA is published biannually for the College of the completed the class Costa Rican Natural History and Conservation, one of COA's Atlantic community. Please send ideas, letters, and submissions (short stories, poetry, and revisits to intensive field-based courses. The group spent the March break in Costa Rica's human ecology essays) to: forests and fields, observing the ecology and biotic diversity of the region, creating detailed field journals, and discussing the implications of this diversity on concepts of COA Magazine, College of the Atlantic conservation biology. 105 Eden Street, Bar Harbor, ME 04609 dgold@coa edu Back cover: Island Landscape (detail) by Jennifer Judd-McGee ('92),* 24"x26," original papercutting, 2013. An internationally recognized mixed media artist and illustrator WWW.COA.EDU from Northeast Harbor, Maine, Jennifer Judd-McGee receives inspiration from her coastal surroundings, and the patterns and forms she finds in nature. Her work is on display this summer, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., July 5 to September MIX PRINTED WITH 12 in the Ethel H. Blum Gallery. CERTIFIED Paper from responsible sources FSC WIND www.fsc.org FSC® C021556 POWER *COA indicates non-degree alumni by a parenthesis around their year. COA President Darron Collins '92 bands a herring gull chick. Photo by John Anderson, taken on Darron's very first trip to Great Duck Island. From the President My first encounter with the field was via a Walt Disney important skills a student could possibly acquire in production of Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf. In that movie a preparation for a life committed to serving humanity and field biologist gets sent to Alaska to determine why caribou the planet. It is a craft obviously critical to the natural are disappearing. For me, at age thirteen, the take-aways sciences, but equally central to the social sciences, writing, were two: 1) there is a job called field biologist that pays the humanities, and art. At COA, we cultivate this kind of people to be out in the woods applying science toward observation better than at any other college in the country. some greater cause; 2) wolves are the most interesting This will become clear in the pages that follow. animals imaginable. Coming to know the world through such observation-what Fast-forward five years and I'm now sitting in John we've organized in this edition of COA under the title Field Anderson's Functional Vertebrate Anatomy class, winter Ecology-cannot be replicated through the reading of text term of my first year at COA. I'm up to my elbows in canine in analog or digital form; it must be practiced. Through skulls-fox and coyote, as I couldn't get my hands on such praxis-where the instruments are as primal as our wolves. I'd come to COA partially because of wolves but sensory organs and a pencil-subject and object do a largely because of the allure of this place called the field. transformative dance that is both utilitarian and aesthetic. And I'll never forget the afternoon, the one with skulls, I've witnessed this recently as a visitor to Great Duck Island, when John called me into his musty, disheveled office: "Pack watching students observe eiders, guillemots, and ravens your bags-you're heading to the field to study wolves." from the lighthouse tower. It's extraordinary. Only at COA Stories herein describe this process-with birds, with That summer I found myself in the remote black spruce whales, with apples, with lichen. In such cases the field bogs of Canada's Northwest Territories working on a snaps into focus quickly and perfectly. But readers should study of wolves and bison as a field assistant. It wasn't the stretch and question the precision of the term. What is religious experience I'd expected, though the bugs made the complete set of these fields we operate in as human us scream for God. While I spent more time collecting ecologists? bison feces than streaking through the wilderness with my wolfy brethren (you'll need to watch Never Cry Wolf I'll leave you to find your own answers and expect the for the reference), that summer I unconsciously began to storytelling that follows will be of great service. deconstruct the notion of the field and learned the craft of precise, patient, contemplative observation. In a world of 140-character Twitter blasts and painfully short attention spans, such observation is today undervalued and unpopular. But I would argue it is the cornerstone of human ecology and one of the most Darron Collins '92, PhD COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 3 NEWS FROM CA MPUS AFTER 8 MONTHS, TURRETS HAS FOUR SCIENTISTS SPEND 34 DAYS EMERGED FROM SCAFFOLDING ON MOUNT DESERT ROCK. POLISHED AND RESTORED PHOTO BY TANYA LUBANSKY HAVE ELECTRICITY, WILL TRAVEL DECEMBER JANUARY FEBRUARY Juice and soda machines are no longer on The Brooke Astor One-Year Fund for New Thanks to the work of Alex Pine '14, campus at the urging of students. Instead, York City Education offers $134,000 for COA Darling's Ford of Bangor gives COA a new healthier, local beverages are being offered. student teachers to enhance environmental Ford Focus electric car. science education and college preparation Surya Karki '16, co-founder of the for socio-economically disadvantaged COA students wielding shields and swords farm-funded, community-centered students at the NY Harbor School. march on each other during the Greek Maya Universe Academy schools in Hoplite Snow Battle, organized by faculty Nepal, becomes one of seven finalists Princeton Review names COA one of the member Gray Cox. in the Unilever Sustainable Living Young nation's 75 "best value colleges" for the Entrepreneurs program, with an invitation fourth time in five years. Nick Urban '15 presents his net-zero to meet Prince Charles in London. bathroom design to the Energy Academy Students create the annual 13-Hour Play in Samsø, Denmark. A working model, with Production (Half) Marathon, a hilarious, solar hot water, composting toilet, and bizarre extravaganza written, directed, more, is on exhibit on the Danish island cast, and performed in, yes, 13 hours. known for its energy independence. POLLY MCADAM '14 CONTINUES SENIORS PRESENT THEIR EXPERIMENTING WITH USING ALDER EARTH DAY BRINGS OUT THE COA PROJECTS TO PARENTS, AS COMPOST. COMMUNITY. TRUSTEES, AND VISITORS. MARCH APRIL MAY Kyle Shank '14 and Katie O'Brien '15- For the sixth year in a row, COA has a place COA parent trustees Becky and Dylan coached by faculty member Jamie on Princeton Review's Green Honor Roll, Baker screen Dylan's new film, 23 Blast, McKown-debate nuclear power with the one of only two colleges to remain on the as a fundraiser toward a chair in the Japanese National Debate Team. list every year. performing arts. The film, shown in Gates, is based on a true story about a football On one momentous day, COA raises Studio Four has a new, professional-grade player who loses his sight. $84,295 from 729 individuals, meeting space dedicated to intaglio printmaking an anonymous matching grant during its thanks to art faculty member and master The senior project production of Othello, annual 24-hour fundraising challenge. printer Catherine Clinger. Look for a small directed by Benjamin Moniz '14, cross- number of limited editions in 2015. casts Othello as a woman, played by Sophie Mary Harney '96, back from Ireland with Cameron '17. The play is staged on the a master's in Irish studies, is picked for Students raise $789 for Share the Harvest floor and balcony of Gates; the audience commencement speaker on June 7. and other food projects at a locavore pop- sits on stage-creating a space that echoes up meal for trustees and others. the Globe Theater in London. 4 FIND MORE STORIES AND PHOTOS AT NEWSWORTHY.COA.EDU Anna Demeo Takes New Role JOIN Anna Demeo came to COA teaching hands-on classes in renewable energy, guiding THE BLACK FLY SOCIETY students in siting and installing solar energy panels and a wind turbine. Her seamless connections between education and sustainability helped to inspire COA's current energy plan: using classes and project-based learning to develop the interdisciplinary skills needed to promote responsible energy use. Following the FLY June retirement of Craig Ten Broeck as the David F. Hales Sustainability Coordinator (see page 47), Anna becomes director of energy education and management. BICK SOCIETY "I can't imagine anyone better to carry on Craig's efforts," says Darron Collins '92, COA president. "Anna has already contributed extensively both to the college's sustainability efforts and to our community outreach, especially in the realm of renewable energy. She is a brilliant engineering investigator and a clear communicator. I am thrilled that she has agreed to expand her work at COA." COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC Formerly an electrical engineer focused on system design, Anna holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado, and both an MS in marine bio-resources and a PhD in engineering in the natural sciences from the University of Maine. Her thesis offered an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable energy- Honoring COA's mascot, combining community outreach, economics, education, and technology. In her new The Black Fly Society was role, Anna expects to continue her project-based renewable energy courses on campus and at the college's farms. established to make donating to COA's annual fund easier Says Anna, "I have great respect for COA's educational philosophy, which uniquely enables students, faculty, and staff to take an active role in the sustainability of and greener. their community. I am very much looking forward to building on the valuable work that Craig has done over the years." We hope you'll join this Funds Boost Sustainability of Farms swarm of sustaining donors by setting up a monthly COA's farms have become increasingly integral to the curriculum. Two recent grants online gift! to the Peggy Rockefeller Farms will go even further toward enhancing sustainability and integrating the farms with the campus and the wider world. It's the paperless way to give to COA. David Rockefeller-who donated the two farm properties to COA in 2010-has given $589,300 to fund a range of projects, among them experimenting with alternative crops such as garbanzo beans and dryland rice, establishing a rotational Go to coa.edu/donatenow grazing system for sheep and possibly cattle, and this spring's planting of the first fifty trees of a planned rare heirloom apple and pear orchard. and under "gift frequency" select "monthly." An additional project-freeing the farms from dependence on fossil fuels and making them a regional showcase-will be assisted by a $200,000 grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation. COA is currently examining the best options for If you want to give to the maximizing energy efficiency and outreach. annual fund by mail: Anna Demeo has been instrumental in this work. "The grant allows COA to go COA Annual Fund beyond making simple, 'off-the-shelf' improvements to the farm by providing the space, expertise, and equipment that will enable students to actively participate 105 Eden Street in the design and development of sustainable solutions for the farm and campus," Bar Harbor, ME 04609 she says. Please make your check Adds Darron Collins '92, "The Peggy Rockefeller Farms, like their sister farm out payable to COA. at Beech Hill, are our laboratories for experimenting with and understanding the human ecology of food. Ultimately, these grants mean more opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to work out at the farms, more locally produced food Questions? Call 207-801-5622. for campus, and more engagement with the wider farming community in Maine." COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE #4756 in the West Indies. Image courtesy of A. Kennedy, BREACH/NOAA. Whale Journeys North Atlantic humpback whales winter in either the West Indies or Cape Verde-across 4,000 miles of ocean. But one whale, known as #4756, seems to have done both, according to Allied Whale senior scientist Peter Stevick '81. Looking at photos of whale tails, he saw #4756 in the Cape Verde Islands in 2009 and 2011. But in 2012, #4756 was photographed in the French West Indies, and then it was pictured back near Cape Verde in 2013. It's the first time a whale has been known to move from one North Atlantic wintering Mars Family Funds Mount Desert Rock grounds to the other-and back. Restoration SHE Comes to COA Located twenty-five miles offshore, the Edward McC. Blair Marine Research The Society for Human Ecology- Station on Mount Desert Rock is one of COA's iconic locations-a platform SHE-holds its twentieth conference for field research on whales, seals, and birds by COA students and faculty, as from October 22 to 25. This one well as other researchers. But Hurricane Bill in 2009 and Superstorm Nemo will be at COA. The theme is in 2013 severely impacted MDR, making this lonely outpost-the farthest Ecological Responsibility and Human offshore island along the eastern coast of the United States-more difficult Imagination: Saving the Past - Shaping to use. the Future. Speakers include Keya Chatterjee of the World Wildlife Fund Come summer the station will be repaired, thanks to a $425,000 grant on "Optimism in the Face of Climate from Jacomien and Forrest E. Mars. Says faculty member Sean Todd, who Change," Thomas Dietz of Michigan supervises students on MDR, "Jacomien and Forrest's gift is just remarkable State University on "Rethinking and wonderfully generous." The renovations will enable the college to offer Sustainability: The View from Human an extended season for an even greater number of researchers (see page Ecology," Robert Dyball of Australian 33). "Mount Desert Rock," continues Sean, "is a historic landmark that had National University on "Looking a lightkeeper before the Civil War. Mariners of all stripes have a romantic Forward: Some Future Pathways for attachment to this lonely, haunting, beautiful outpost in the Gulf of Maine. the Society," artist Louisa McCall We are so grateful to the Mars family." on "Creating a Different Future: Co- mingling Artful and Scientific Ways Forrest is the grandson of Franklin Mars, founder of the Mars Company, of Knowing," Carl Steinitz of Harvard creator of Mars and Milky Way bars, among other foods. Sean first met University on "After the Tsunami members of the family while working as a naturalist and researcher in the and the Nuclear Disaster, What Antarctic, where the family was also traveling. Should Be The Future for Soma City, Japan?" and David Sloan Wilson of The repairs will secure the ramp allowing access to MDR, rebuild the Binghamton University on "The New boathouse and the generator shed, and renovate the lightkeeper's house, Social Darwinism." Find details at paying attention to state historic codes but using state-of-the-art methods societyforhumanecology.org to enable the structures to better weather future storms. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Watson to Take Anouk de Fontaine '14 Dancing Around the Globe Anouk de Fontaine '14 will dance around the world upon capoeira practitioners in Brazil, Tibetans in India, and Butoh graduation, having received a $28,000 fellowship from the performers in Japan. She seeks, she says, to "understand Watson Foundation to pursue her dream project, "Dance the specific movements, rhythms, and vocabularies that as Medicine: Looking at Dance as a Tool for Community create kinesthetic healing," with the hope of using this Healing." knowledge to "begin to shape a dance form that can be a tool for recovery." A dancer since age three, Anouk spent years concerned that dance was lovely, but not useful. Then she realized how The Watson fellowships-this year going to forty-four much dance helped her through her own troubles. "Dance people from a select group of colleges throughout the can heal," she says, "It has helped me heal. My lifelong nation-are considered investments in the fellows even quest is to extend that potential of dance to other people." more than in their projects. COA has had thirty-three fellows in the past thirty years. These fellows have gone To explore the ways that people use dance to process and on to head major non-profits, become international recover from trauma, Anouk will connect to contemporary negotiators-and lead colleges (that would be Darron dancers in South Africa, ritual dancers in Swaziland, Collins '92). COA's Peace Project Grantees to Create Urban Gardens Two student groups, both composed and affordable transportation. commemorate her hundredth of Davis United World College By encouraging young people to birthday. She committed $1 million Scholars, have received Davis Peace participate, Maria and Maytik hope each year until her death in 2013 to Project funding to address issues of to foster a continuation of traditional fund one hundred student-created food insecurity this summer. agricultural knowledge. Already they projects with $10,000 each. The Davis have a site for the garden, and the family will continue the funding this Boglárka Ivanegová '14 of Slovakia, commitment of a local organization to summer. Ana Puhac '14 of Croatia, and Zuri de continue the work after they leave. Souza '14 of India will be in Bratislava, Below: artist rendering of the Rooftop of Eden garden the three COA students Slovakia, constructing and designing a The Projects for Peace awards were plan to make. The building was once the sustainable, sheltered rooftop garden. created by the late philanthropist first supermarket in Bratislava, Slovakia. Their project, Rooftop of Eden, will Kathryn W. Davis in 2007 to Rendering by Veronika Kovacsova. use the open-source microcontroller Arduino platform to regulate moisture and light in the garden's hydroponic system. The students, who at COA are working in food activism, ecological architecture, and urban sustainability, hope to transform a "closed urban gardening project into an open platform for dialogue and community interaction" and reach out to minority groups, especially African migrants and the Roma community. Meanwhile, Colombian students Maytik Avirama '15 and Maria Escalante '15 will head to Bogotá to create an urban garden in the city's San Cristóbol district, offering rural families displaced by ongoing civil conflicts, narcotics traffic, and free trade agreements a means of growing much-needed produce. The district suffers from poverty and food insecurity, and lacks such basic services as water, electricity, COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 7 Reading the Deep Landscape Sarah Hall, COA's newest faculty member Spend an hour with Sarah Hall, fossil fuel era is what is causing the us to better understand the past and College of the Atlantic's newest faculty planet to warm. plan for the future. member and the first holder of the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Chair in "I can't imagine going through life Following a geology degree at Earth Systems and GeoSciences, and without thinking about rocks and Hamilton College, a year working the world won't look the same again. earth processes," says Sarah. "I feel at an environmental consulting Time hurtles from the few seconds unsatiated seeing various landscapes firm, and a year with AmeriCorps, an earthquake takes to alter the and not knowing what processes and Sarah studied for a PhD in earth and landscape, to the 420 million-year over what timescales such diversity planetary sciences at the University story of Mount Desert Island's rocks. and beauty were formed." of California, Santa Cruz. Two years For Sarah, soil and stone are more ago, when COA posted a two-year than surfaces to be trod upon; they Sarah grew up camping, hiking, earth science position, Sarah was are the pages of a history book that and observing the stars around an assistant professor at McGill reveal Earth's ancient processes, as Binghamton, New York. Stars led her University in Montreal, Canada, well as those that continue to shape it to rocks, a connection that reminds longing to teach at a smaller school today. us that our earth is a product of the with a strong community and a cosmos. "The only way we know mission that compelled her-one Similarly, when Sarah thinks about anything about the earth's history- that would also be fully encouraging fossil fuels, her mind spans back to beyond about a million years ago-is of field-based education. Sarah the Paleozoic era when the organisms through the rocks," she says. "That's applied for and received COA's initial that have been sequestering carbon all we have." Knowing this history is position, and this year applied for the for 300 million years were alive more than just interesting, insists permanent post. "I've been excited and storing energy from the sun. Sarah. Knowing the interactions of the ever since," she says. "COA is my These eons of stored energy being various processes involved-water, dream job in so many ways." unleashed all at once in our current soil, weather, human land use-helps 8 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Students in Sarah's introductory Geology of MDI class go into the field every week; those in her Critical Zone Il course go nearly every class. Fieldwork, says Sarah, "is key to learning geology, and a great benefit to studying it at COA. There's the park, COA's MDI properties, its islands, and the boats." At the summit of Cadillac Mountain, Sarah shows students the landscape perspective, the U-shaped valleys carved by repeated glacial advances, most recently only 20,000 years ago. "You are standing on rocks explosively intruded and erupted. Through millions of years of erosion, the granite that cooled and crystallized in a deep magma chamber has been brought to the surface." She also notes the closer view. Though all the rock is granite, the fractures, dikes, minerals, and even lichen show variations that give the rocks character. The glaciers that carved the landscape of MDI have long since retreated. To see contemporary examples of some of the processes that shaped our island, Sarah takes students to the Cordillera Blanca region of northern Peru where they can see earth-shaping processes such as active tectonics and modern glaciation. On a post-class journey, students in her South American Earth Systems class can literally touch an active fault at the edge of the Andes Mountains, then travel through thirty-six one-lane tunnels to a hydroelectric dam. The melting glaciers, water needs due to increased agriculture, water quality issues from mining, and quantity issues from the hydroelectric dam, make the region ripe for controversy, says Sarah. "It's all interconnected. Quite human ecological." -Donna Gold Left: Sarah Hall talks to students in the Ulta Valley of the Cordillera Blanca about the modern glaciers, moraines, and bogs behind her. Above right: Josh Noddin '16 and Becca Harvey '16 describe the granite at Seawall Beach for Sarah's Geology of MDI class. Right: Ben Moniz '14 contemplates Lago 69, a lake at the toe of a melting Andean glacier some 15,000 feet above sea level in the Cordillera Blanca. Students from the South American Earth Systems class camped and hiked in this glacial valley to study the modern glacial landscape. Photos courtesy of Sarah Hall. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Watson Report It is a Waste to Call it Waste: Exploring the culture of compost Story and photos by Lisa Bjerke '13 Lisa Bjerke '13 is spending this year in waste piles, dumps, and composting bins on a Watson Fellowship to Germany, India, China, and Japan, seeking to understand how she can "compost" human attitudes as well as organic 'waste' to become resources for sustainability." Here she writes about a day in her life in India. I step out of the apartment building workers of this informal recycling The family of one young man I have in Kolkata* to investigate today's sector are not seeking to be good befriended runs a recycling shop "waste," heading behind the building environmental stewards: waste is but does not want to take me there. for my daily inspection of the little their livelihood. What I consider His business-like the majority of trash bin that serves as a communal waste they see as income. recycling businesses-is considered a waste management system for at least nuisance, and so it's under constant ten families. It is empty! The broken Near the women, dogs and birds threat of being removed by the police glass I placed in an old cement bag are engaging in their own urban and local government. The businesses yesterday, the stacks of cardboard recycling, opening plastic bags to pay the police to avoid being and trash from other apartments get at the leftover food and other harassed; a visit by an outsider could that were there last night, have been organic material for which there is attract unwanted attention. picked through and removed-all no market. But the small plastic bags before six a.m.-by individuals from filled with rotting flowers discarded To solve the problem of waste, the Kolkata's complex and effective from the daily pujas, or home worship city doesn't engage with the informal informal recycling sector. These ceremonies, are not seen as food by sorting/recycling sector, but instead informal recyclers-those who sort the animals, so I open some of the hires street sweepers. I accost the the waste for valuable materials; bags, freeing the holy flowers to enter sweeper who works down the road those who buy the paper, plastic, Mother Earth's own recycling process: from my house. He fills his cart metal, and glass; and the transporters composting. with what has been refused by the and middlemen-play one of the recyclers after being discarded from most significant roles in Kolkata's The pile on my street is a good sample residences during the last twenty- solid waste management. Still, of Kolkata's visible waste. It is mainly four hours. His home is a shed on the they are often called ragpickers or organic, "wet" waste, wrapped and street corner; he stores his cart in wastepickers, and their work generally mixed with the "dry" waste (plastics, the nearby market and is paid by the goes unnoticed. glass, packaging, and other unwanted Kolkata Municipal Corporation to take items). Much of the dry waste has its contents to that ward's dumpsite, I walk out onto the street. Two women recycling value, but needs to be sorted next to the market. Daily, a municipal are carrying large bags into which they by hand. As I watch the sorters, I am truck picks up the pile and drives it to put the recyclable contents from the thankful for those who turn trash into Dhapa, a part of Kolkata that is both neighborhood's discarded materials. resources, and overwhelmed by my a landfill and a residential area for They sort and collect, then carry what questions: what makes this system those who make their living from the they can to the local recycling shop. By function, what parameters are hidden waste. Dhapa is situated within the just placing it outside, my cardboard within the network of solid waste East Kolkata Wetlands, designated a and glass have entered the Kolkata management, what is it like to be an "wetland of international importance" recycling stream. But the dedicated informal recycler? under the 1971 international 10 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE wetland treaty, known as the Ramsar at COA, the workers and workstudy engineer. It turns out that some of the Convention. students at Buildings and Grounds waste from the city is actually being relish turning organic fiber into a huge composted by a company operating As I walk through my middle-class bonfire. Throughout the world, there next to the landfill, and fertilizers neighborhood, I pass the vegetable seems to be something about the heat are being made and sold from the market and think about how local and mesmerizing flames that lead compacted, mixed waste of the city. the food is. Forty percent of the us to prefer the fire's carbon-related This makes me wonder what makes vegetables sold in Kolkata are grown implications to recycling these fibers some engage with compacting, others by farmers around the wetlands and into soil. with combustion, and still others with Dhapa dumpsite, using the organic composting and recycling? waste and sewage as fertilizer. Recently I visited the new compactors found in some of the more affluent My days in Kolkata are filled by Heading home, I enter a park where wards. Here, municipal workers meeting people whose lives center women collect fallen branches and dump the contents of their carts upon its waste, at every level- neatly stack them to sell as firewood into a massive, spotless compactor governmental officials and workers, and building materials. Men usually hole, without sorting. The paper and citizens and groups seeking to make collect the leaves from around bushes cardboard, plastic bottles and bags, change, chance experiences. As I and trees, just as we do at COA. I leaves and food become one unified investigate these hidden functions think about the human perception and contaminated square of less I am continuously reevaluating my that leaves look scattered and messy, visible but organized and scientific- and others' perceptions of "waste" and how that perception makes us looking "progress." The workers are and composting, indeed, composting intervene and "manage" an already proud of the efficient technology and within my mind the many conceptions functioning system. In the park, the are certain the squares get recycled, of waste and resources: how do we leaves are collected with other "trash" that fertilizers are made out of the value the things in our lives? and made to disappear by burning. liquid. I try not to look skeptical. What Removing nutrient-rich organic matter type of fertilizer can be made out of Above Left: Dogs and birds engage in from the vegetated ground is absurd broken lamps, plastic bottles, and urban recycling, foraging for leftover food when you think about it. chicken bones? and other organic material. Center: Leaves and other park debris are burned in small piles in the park. Right: Lisa Bjerke '13 Outside the park, too, I pass pile To fully grasp the story of Kolkata's stands between the female and male street after pile of burning stuff, mainly waste management, I realize I need sweepers in this photo taken by her friend leaves but also plastic and electronic to visit Dhapa, the landfill where the and translator, Nilanjan Maulik. cables. I try to understand this desire waste ends up. Bureaucracy makes *Kolkata, formerly Calcutta to burn things. It is more than just this difficult, but I manage to obtain making "waste" disappear. Each fall a permit from Kolkata's deputy COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 11 Watson Report Preparing for a Changing Climate Story and photo by Graham Reeder '13 "Bangladesh used to be the most vulnerable country in the world. Now we're resilient and we have our dignity back." -Khalid Islam Graham Reeder '13 received a Watson Fellowship to travel to Norway, Poland, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and the Maldives on his project, "Preparing for a Changing Climate: Community-Based Adaptation Strategies." Khalid is a young volunteer with the particularly in the face of climate is not to say that all NGO presence Bangladesh Red Crescent Society in change. This reputation has largely is necessarily neocolonial. WeAdapt Bandarban, a small city in the south come from the prominent work of runs an open-source database east of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladeshi negotiators at United that highlights community-driven not far from the Myanmar border. Nations climate talks, and a group of adaptation research and projects, He works with a community-driven Bangladeshi scientists, four of whom and its map of Bangladesh is chock- initiative that seeks to secure safe have become lead authors for the full of good work being done. Not drinking water in this mountain region Intergovernmental Panel on Climate many places could bounce back at of the country. After spending nearly Change. But how has this work the rate communities in Bangladesh a month unable to leave the smog translated into actually making people have in the face of some of the and traffic of Dhaka because of post- and communities more resilient? most severe climate impacts we've election political violence, I relished Measuring this is no small task, and I seen to date, a testament to local the news that the national strikes, or won't pretend I can even scratch the government's seriousness about hortals, to protest the recent sham surface of the issue in my few short disaster preparedness and water election were easing. It would again months here. I do think-regardless of management. be safe to get out of the offices in the the status of actions on the ground- capital where plenty of lip service was that Bangladesh's changing narrative The story of a Bangladesh that has the being paid to Bangladesh's newfound is important. capacity to advocate for itself, on its resilience to climate change. There own terms, and can figure out what is I could speak with those who were This country has seen endless foreign required to deal with climate change, adapting their lives to the impacts of involvement under the paternalistic poverty, and other systemic issues, is these changes-what I sought to learn guise of poverty alleviation. A one that Bangladeshis are keen to tell, during my Watson Fellowship year. Bangladeshi anthropologist I met and it's one we can all benefit from described doing research with hearing. Bangladesh is widely celebrated as a communities living on chors, or success story in the making. Despite small river deltas. He noted that, Above: Rather than relying on rice paddies alone, this farmer in the mountains of being one of the world's forty-nine "the NGOs have colonized every Bangladesh has planted a diversified range least developed countries, over the single town in this country. It is of crops, enabling him to better withstand past decade it has gained a reputation impossible to find a community the variations caused by climate change. as a world center of resilience, without Western NGO presence." This 12 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Donor Profile Jay Pierrepont of Equilibrium Capital Group: Driving Change for Good By Donna Gold "Sustainability," declares Jay Pierrepont, "is where opportunities exist." A private equity financier and COA donor, Jay believes that the future of the planet is linked to successful investments. "Change will be driven by where returns can be made," says Jay, a principal at Equilibrium Capital Group, which is geared to investing in businesses that are solving environmental problems. Jay's passion for doing well by doing good follows a successful career with Pantheon, a more typical private equity corporation. Having helped Pantheon become a billion-dollar firm from a raw start-up, Jay began to consider his legacy. He had provided a stable home for his children, but what about a stable world? After twenty-five years, Jay wondered whether he might harness the ingredients that made Pantheon a success and apply them to enterprises that would solve the world's looming problems. Jay Pierrepont holds a young gull on a visit to COA's Alice Eno Field Peering into the future, Jay sees a potential avalanche of Research Station on Great Duck Island. Photo by Lisa Pierrepont. trouble, starting with shortages in water, food, energy, and other resources generated by larger populations and a good friend of Jay's father, and days spent working as a global increases in a demanding middle class. "A change is sternman-at age ten-may have had something to do with being brought upon us," he notes. "If we don't solve these Jay's passion to do well by doing good. Rising before dawn problems it's a bleak future." to work on a lobster boat, seeing the abundance of life dependent upon the oceans around Mount Desert Rock- But where many see doom, Jay sees opportunity. and also working the farm that his family owned in New "Those who can find solutions to these problems-more Jersey-gave the New York City-raised Jay such a love of sustainable energy systems, agriculture that is sustainable nature and so great an interest in the earth's resources, that for the land and for its workers, water reclamation-would he majored in agricultural economics as an undergraduate, not only improve the coming world, but might also find moving into business from farm management. themselves doing quite well," he says, recalling some of the sentiments that created COA's Sharpe-McNally Chair in Later, when Jay began coming to Maine with his own family, Green and Socially Responsible Business in 2006. COA became a focus. Their children attended the college's Summer Field Studies day camp, and he and Lisa, his wife, At Equilibrium, Jay and his colleagues look for companies joined The Champlain Society, enjoying summer lectures, that can, say, turn agricultural wastewater into fertilizer and gallery openings, and fresh produce from the Beech Hill drinking water, thus leading to more energy, fewer methane Farm Stand. emissions, and more clean water. Other investments feature energy-generating LEED-certified buildings in urban "No one is going to care if I was successful in private equity areas; or the fostering of permanent crops such as organic in my life," Jay concludes. "But they will be interested if I high-bush blueberries in summer and citrus in winter. Once can change Wall Street and Main Street, if I can make the Equilibrium finds these innovative enterprises, it seeks same or better rate of return by being sustainable as I investors to get the projects off the ground or take them to can by investing in completely nonsustainable, standard the next level. Jay likes to say that investors in Equilibrium corporations." "come for the returns and stay for the impact." In other words, says Jay, "Give sustainability a chance. This It's just possible that summers spent in Maine, taking is where opportunities exist. If we don't do it, we won't be whale and bird excursions with COA's late trustee Ed Blair, leaving the world in a better place." COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 13 Field Ecology, An Introduction By John Anderson, faculty member in biology I said in my heart, "I am sick of four walls and a ceiling. I have need of the sky. I have business with the grass." - Richard Hovey We hear a lot about "experiential education" these days-of the importance of students actively engaging in learning the tools and techniques that they hope to apply in the future, of the vitality of context, the recognition that where something occurs may have a profound influence on what happens. Classrooms can be wonderful places for discourse and debate, texts can be sources of deep truths, but organisms other than humans tend not to read textbooks, and even the best writer or teacher will be limited by their own experience, so if we are to realize a more complete understanding, sooner or later we must all adopt the motto of Rudyard Kipling's Rikki Tikki Tavi and "run and find out." Since its inception, College of the Atlantic has endeavored to balance the importance of "book learning" with hands-on work "in the field." Many other educational institutions do aspects of each, but they tend to either emphasize the classroom, with intermittent forays into the field, or they dismiss classrooms and texts too thoroughly, and focus almost exclusively on the "experience," with little attention to the follow-through, the analysis, the write-up, the presentation-to-others. At COA, students are encouraged to take an idea the whole way, from the "I read/teacher said, but I wondered through to the literature search, planning, observation and data collection, analysis, final write-up, and new questions. When I go to professional conferences with students I am struck by how often colleagues from away assume that COA undergrads are graduate students. I am also struck by the grace and ease our students exhibit in professional settings-they talk to peers and "silverbacks" with the ease that can only come from actually knowing what one is talking about. Essential to this program are our islands-Great Duck and Mount Desert Rock. Every year a new generation of Ducklings and Rockettes walks beneath the arch at the head of the pier that our late trustee Ed Blair's generosity built, passes onto the dock, and goes to sea for a while. Sung to sleep by foghorns and breakers, with dreams haunted by petrels and awakenings brought by the call of the gulls, a great magic is wrought. Students leave the classroom as students; when they come back, they are something else. I am a deep believer in the necessity and the magic of islands, but I also believe that similar spells can be cast on shore, in museums and archives, in testimony before panels, as well as behind microscopes and microphones. The key is to think and go and think some more. In enabling and in celebrating the true duality, interpenetration and importance of the world inside and the world outside, we find a great strength of our human ecological form of education. What follows are a few of the stories of the remarkable students who have made this journey; each has added to our store of knowledge and their own, but each would, I suspect, agree with Loren Eiseley's warning, told from a beach long ago: "Those as hunts treasure must go alone, at night, and when they find it they have to leave a little of their blood behind them." The gull chick in this image has been banded, thanks to the work of student field researchers on Great Duck Island. The band allows researchers to track its life trajectory. Photo by Julia De Santis '12. 15 SOUNDSCAPE ECOLOGY: Shan Burson '83 By Michael Griffith '09 You've come to Denali National Park to Yellowstone national parks, his job In his second year, he was able to get away from life's distractions: cell is to record, analyze, and archive the study dendrology, natural history, and phone, Internet, engines. Noise. This sounds-both natural and not-that ecology. After his friend Peter Wayne morning, having had your fill of gazing permeate the parks. Elk. Geese in '83 (see Spring 2013) transferred to at Denali, the great one, the highest flight. Snowmobiles. Bison in rut. COA, Shan visited. "This is really cool," mountain in North America, you skied Cascading streams. The work is he remembers thinking. "This is where over miles of fresh, soft snow. You deeply, inherently human ecological, I want to go to school." Seeking to be stop dead when you see the wolf. For rooted in the observation-and outside observing, not inside a lab, a second you can only hear yourself improvement-of interactions he transferred to COA. Past president breathe. Then comes the crunchy between humans and the natural Steve Katona, then a biology faculty sound of your pole sinking where you environment. Reducing noise in a member, and his colleague, the late stand. Raising your binoculars, you snowy field is as good for animal Bill Drury, certainly didn't keep him can see the wolf's jaw flex: is it going indoors. "I loved bird songs," he says. populations as it is for park visitors: to howl, to vocalize somehow? "It didn't take long for Bill to excite me we want to hear the wolves, but the about avian ecology." And send him wolves want to hear each other, too. It happens in an instant. The jaw into the field. "All populations and communities opens. The mouth widens. But instead benefit from the reduction of noise," of a howl, you hear the roar of a Natural Sounds plane flying high above the animal's says Shan. Human and animal. Today, Shan's research on open, soundless head. The engine soundscapes takes him to some of the noise recedes as the wolf snaps shut As committed as Shan is to acoustic most "fantastically beautiful" natural its snout. Soon the plane will land, ecology, the path "wasn't straight, sites in the United States. When bringing more visitors to Denali, and or planned." It began, in a way, in climbers complain of hearing Teton the wolf will trot away, its next howl the pre-med program at one of New Park Road from the top of Grand stored safely in its lungs. England's state universities. "I was Teton, Shan hikes up for a listen and so excited about college, about really installs a discreet sound monitoring Shan Burson '83 has dedicated his life learning," he says. "When I got there, system. These autonomous systems to listening. As an acoustic ecologist though, it just seemed to be about capture not only sound levels but now working for Grand Teton and weeding people out." sounds themselves, offering Shan 16 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE aural snapshots of what's on a with female mate choice, says Shan, "I when they hike along the shore or mountain, by a lake, or in a dense spent a whole season recording bird paddle their canoes and kayaks. wood. song in a really well-known population His ten-year look at snow vehicles of birds." Years later, doing mammal- has resulted in a lot of change in Once a system is mounted, related work in wildlife biology at Yellowstone and has influenced microphones whir into action, Alaska's Denali National Park, Shan park policy. But behaviors can't be revealing the sources-often heard complaints about the noise of altered, or new rules established, until surprising-of sound. Listening to aircraft overflights. "The park was thorough studies have considered all an early recording of Yellowstone, looking for somebody to study the the variables. Shan heard something like the roar acoustic issue in Denali," he says. "I of a lion at close range. "Man, what had some experience." "The natural soundscape is a is that!" New to Yellowstone, he sent protected resource, just like wildlife the recording to a wildlife biologist To quantify the impact of aircraft or plants or air quality. So any kind of who told him the sound came from a overflights in Denali, Shan returned to planning process we engage in looks bison in rut. Shan has since become acoustics. Measuring sound levels is at effects on the natural soundscape. an expert on the parks' soundscapes, informative, but if you want to know We're doing a lot to mitigate noise and but he still hears thrilling, unexpected what is making the sounds, Shan says, restore natural sounds." things: the strange utterances of "to this day, there's nothing better barking foxes, nocturnal amphibians, to identify sound sources than the Consciousness of noise pollution or female elk, typically less vocal than human ear. Making and analyzing has spread to America from Europe, the male members of their species. recordings allow us to do that." Three years later, he moved on to a new set "I get a lot of enjoyment from listening of challenges: assessing the impact of to recordings back in the office," snow vehicles in Yellowstone and the Shan says. "That allows me to be air traffic surrounding Jackson Hole on-site-virtually-at night, in the Airport, near Grand Teton. early morning, times I would never be there in person. I get a real sense "I love natural sounds," he says, "but I of what the soundscape is like just deal with a lot of noise issues." by listening to these recordings, and it's remarkable how many different The task's not easy. The gurgling animals vocalize." of streams running down from the mountain enhances the experience With thousands of hours of recordings of park visitors. So does the blowing in his database, representing of wind. The quieter the park, the soundscapes from across both parks, more extensive the impact of noise- Shan has many years of listening straight-pipe motorcycles and other ahead of him. To date, though, much road traffic, boats, snowmobiles. of his time has been devoted to An acoustic ecologist does not seek installing and maintaining twelve pristine silence. While the noise of portable sound systems that he has a typical city street may clock in moved around to more than eighty at eighty decibels and your urban locations. Once up, he might visit a bedroom at thirty, in Grand Teton, site every three weeks, travelling by where the sound of cascading ski or snowshoe in winter, climbing streams is nearly ubiquitous, the when necessary, or canoeing across lowest sound-level measured by lakes. "What I really like is going to Shan is just over six decibels. At that places I normally wouldn't go-and level you can hear a car from miles certainly not repeatedly-in each of away. Quantifying and describing the seasons." soundscapes is difficult: "Both natural and non-natural sounds are hugely Shan Burson's first long-term sound Noise variable by season, by time of day, by monitoring station, in Denali National After COA, Shan researched location." Park, 2001. The heavily insulated box holds batteries, a solar charge controller, bird genetics and ecology at the lightning arrestor, sound level meter, University of Minnesota and warbler Currently, Shan is investigating boat and laptop computer. Reachable by vocalizations at Dartmouth College. As traffic on Yellowstone Lake during snowmobile in winter, in summer access is via helicopter. While Shan downloaded a doctoral student wondering whether the warm weather months, working acoustic data on this trip, the pilot male song types had anything to do to quantify what visitors experience gathered blueberries. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 17 where for years it's been considered a More problematic than the impact of percent of land in the US is within one matter of policy and planning. "I think noise on the wilderness experience is kilometer of a road, the problem is people in general are finding that their its effect on animal communication. urgent. lives are filled with noise, and are Shan cites a recent study conducted getting more and more interested in on a patch of mountain shrubland in Shan notices other issues. "There going places that sound natural." But Idaho, not far from where he works. are birds that are singing at higher for all our capacity to listen closely, A group of scientists constructed a frequencies-higher pitches-so we're also adept at blocking out what "phantom road" of fifteen speakers that they're not being masked so we're used to hearing. "Often when along the Boise Ridge, away from much by motorized sounds, which variables such as car movement and I'm on hikes," says Shan, "I ask the are mostly at low frequencies. Some people I meet, 'How many jets have pavement, and banded nearly seven birds are singing earlier in the day, you just heard flying over?' And they thousand migratory songbirds. When or they're shifting their nests." But the speakers were switched on, birds while technology creates problems, say, 'We didn't hear any.' But I've been fled the ridge. When the phantom it also generates solutions. Beyond counting, and there might have been road went silent, birds returned to the improving the lives of the animals seven, eight!" valuable stopover site to fatten up on who live in the parks, as well as the their lengthy journey. experience of the humans who come Impact to see them, Shan expects the data At Yellowstone's popular geyser Even more worrisome, birds near and recordings he has collected to be basins, Shan is creating an acoustic the noise lost body mass throughout useful for decades more. "The data map to allow him-and others-to the day-literally, hour by hour. The have a tremendous archival use for visualize the soundscape like never implications for conservation are the future in ways I don't even know before. Even a basic spectrogram can dramatic: without adequate fat stores, about now," he says. help researchers cut through a day's birds can't travel. Migration accounts data. If they see something unusual in for 85 percent of all mortality in some one of the graph's spikes-say, a loud songbird species; in the absence Michael Griffith '09 teaches English noise at 5:33 p.m.-they can simply of safe migratory stopovers, this literature at the American School click on it and listen. With acoustic number could rise-and important Foundation in Guadalajara, Mexico. mapping, sound becomes form. populations dwindle. Since 83 He's at work on his first novel. Page 16, Shan Burson '83 sets up a microphone to measure the noise of oversnow vehicles in Yellowstone National Park during the winter of 2014. He's comparing the noise levels of various snow vehicle models, with the goal of reducing noise impacts. Above, Shan continues to collect noise measurements. Photos used by permission of Neal Herbert, Yellowstone National Park. 18 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE It was the summer of 1980. Conser- THE RIGHT WHALE: vation biologist Scott Kraus '77 was flying aerial surveys over the Bay of Scott Kraus '77 and Earth's "Canary" Fundy to help create an environmen- in the Ocean tal impact statement. An oil company was seeking to build a deepwater port By Marni Berger '09 in Eastport, Maine, asserting that because there was no information on marine mammals in the area, such a port would have no impact on wildlife. In early June, Scott spotted one right whale; another was seen in early July. "Even that was exciting," says Scott. This was a time when right whales were so scarce that many thought they were a lost cause, soon to be extinct. Then, in mid-August, flying a US Fish & Wildlife Service float plane, Scott saw below him twenty-five right whales. Twenty-five! Even better, four were calves with their mothers. Needless to say, the deepwater port was not built. In fact, the surveys revealed that the Bay of Fundy was Aboard the R/V Nereid, the New England Aquarium right whale research team approaches a veritable marine mammal nursery, and photographs a right whale in the Bay of Fundy. filled with all kinds of species made safe from humans, says Scott, by The boy, the man, the sea, the world "what most interests me is their Fundy's legendary fog, and equally Perhaps this is a trajectory Scott's home-how to keep their habitat, legendary tide changes. Vessels were mother could have predicted when, the ocean, intact." At the aquarium, wary of working the waters in this as an eleven-year-old in northwestern much of Scott's time is spent raising broad, thirty-mile-wide bay with Connecticut, he insisted he wanted to money for research and overseeing a intense currents, rocky ledges, and be like Jacques Cousteau. Never mind range of specialists who are focused uncertain visibility. that he hadn't ever seen the ocean, on various aspects of oceans, from Scott's fascination was steadfast. those modeling arctic ice and the Today Scott is a vice president at He came to College of the Atlantic links between bowhead whales and the New England Aquarium, and in 1972, a member of the first class. plankton, to specialists on lobsters a leading researcher of the North For his senior project, he and Steve and shell disease, to researchers Atlantic right whale. But much of Katona, former COA president and working on endocrinology in a his work focuses on how human founding biology faculty member, laboratory studying ocean health. created the first photographic activities, from shipping to climate catalog of whales, showing that the Scott himself explores the conse- change, impact the species. "We're flukes of the humpback are precise quences of human disturbances to looking at entanglements, ship identifiers of individual whales. Photo large populations of sea life, devel- strikes, and everything that affects identifications are now standard in the oping methods for understanding the whale," he says, "and trying to field-a way for scientists to focus on whether human involvement with identify management and regulation individuals and learn about specific animals will upset their reproduction strategies to reduce all the things behaviors and connections (see page and mortality rates. "When you have that are knocking right whales back, 6). And yet, says Scott, what brought a disturbance-shipping, wind farms, so that they can recover to a larger him to COA was not the creatures in fishing gear entanglement-if one of population size." Scott is not only the ocean, but the ocean itself, and his those things negatively affects one one of the whale's biggest advocates, concern about the impact of the oil animal, does it impact the whole pop- but someone who sees that through economy on the sea. ulation?" he wonders. Although still understanding the right whale, in the early stages of this work, Scott human beings can better understand The well-being of the ocean is still and his team are finding that this just ourselves and our power to protect what concerns Scott. "As much as might be the case. For example, calv- and heal oceans. I love working on whales," he says, ing intervals of female North Atlantic COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 19 right whales who have experienced machines and light street lamps. Scott estimates that humans fishing gear entanglements have in- Right whales were the unsustainable have killed over a quarter-million creased by a year or more; the impact energy source-the petroleum-of right whales over the span of our is translating to the entire species. the nineteenth century. They were existence. When we stopped the also hunted for baleen, long thick outright killings, populations started Understanding how human beings plates that filter food from seawater. recovering. But some time around affect animal populations is vital to A single right whale can have more the 1970s, oceans began getting more influencing federal regulations, Scott than two hundred baleen plates, each dangerous for animals. "International adds. "Regulators should be managing hanging like six-foot doors from the trade exploded," says Scott. Much things that really make a difference whale's upper lip. Made of keratin, of our new global economy travels to populations and not be so worried the substance of human fingernails, by water-in vessels that are larger, about mild and transient effects to baleen was that century's plastic, faster, and more numerous than ever individuals." used for corsets, venetian blinds, before. Meanwhile, the ropes that umbrellas-you get the idea. fishermen use to secure and haul The right whale gear have gotten much stronger. Before commercial whaling ended By the time hunting was outlawed, The result: right whales have been in 1935, the right whale was always there may have been only two dozen getting struck by ships and entangled "the right whale to kill," hence the right whales left. Having been listed as in fishing gear. Today, more than name. These large whales, which an endangered species in 1972, some 80 percent of all right whales bear can grow longer than fifty-five feet, five hundred individuals are currently entanglement scars. One study found were slow swimmers, easily caught. known. that fishing gear killed or seriously While most other harpooned and injured more than 1,500 whales of all killed whales would sink, the bodies To Scott, right whales are our greatest species in the North Atlantic between of right whales contained so much teachers in understanding human- 1970 and 2009. blubber they floated like logs. Once inflicted marine damages. "They're the boiled in cauldrons, this blubber ocean's ambassadors to the human Additionally, those whales that live could be turned into oil to both grease race." along the United States' East Coast are 20 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Left: Scott Kraus '77 holds a net filled with right whale feces so as to study the secret lives of whales-sexual maturity, pregnancy, even stress levels. This technique was an innovation of New England Aquarium senior scientist Rosalind Rolland. Above: The New England Aquarium's R/V Callisto approaches a small group of right whales for fecal sampling on an early September morning in the Bay of Fundy. Photos courtesy of the New England Aquarium. subject to ships' underwater noise, devil, but Scott says dealing with "That took at least fifteen to twenty which in some areas surpass levels people with concerns different from years." He is confident that there are legally acceptable for humans. They're yours doesn't mean giving up your alternatives to mistreating the ocean. also subject to numerous pollutants principles. "It means recognizing that "And if not," he says, "technology east of the Rocky Mountains. "The the world consists of a lot more than may help-slowing ships, quieting entire Mississippi Basin, everything: just us." underwater noise, and eliminating pollution, pharmaceuticals, pollution-we can do all of this!" agricultural run-off, pesticides-you Ultimately, says Scott, the health of name it, it's in there. If you measure a the right whale is a strong indicator Oil, ships, fishing, whales, oceans, right whale's blubber, you'll find every of the health of the entire ocean, and and beyond. Scott credits COA for contaminant that's been detected in "the reason to save the ocean would nurturing the holistic lens through humans," says Scott. be to save your own butt." On the which he sees the oceans, and by most fundamental level, the ocean extension, the world. "I think COA And so, he adds, "What right whales buffers extreme temperatures and gave me the foundation for seeing are really doing is telling the story of provides between 40 and 50 percent how things are connected," he says. "It what human beings are doing to the of all oxygen on the planet. "You really also helped me realize that nothing is ocean. That's a big story." don't want to screw up that, because black and white. There aren't bad guys then we're all in serious trouble," Scott or good guys. There's a lot of gray in There's no black or white adds. the middle." "I work a lot with the fishing and wind energy industries to help reduce "Most people don't understand their their effects on whales and dolphins," dependency on the ecosystems Scott says. He seeks to demonstrate around them," Scott continues. But Marni Berger '09 is a writer, teacher, that protecting the right whale, and he's optimistic. After all, Scott and tutor, and dog fanatic. Her essays, short the health of the ocean, is in the his team have managed to slow East stories, and author interviews can be industries' best interest. It sounds Coast shipping speeds to protect right found at The Millions, Fringe Magazine, a little like making deals with the whales during their coastal travels. Litro, and The Days of Yore. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 21 1992 1992 Dorie Stolley '88 Steve Baird '83 Peter Duley '84 Dorie chops prairie dogs to feed reintroduced, endangered black- footed ferrets in Wyoming. Field Ecology Journeys 1993 Those who are devoted to field ecology seem to thrive on outdoor adventures and the camaraderie of fellow This twining of ecologists. This twining of friendship and nature honed friendship and at College of the Atlantic has alumni connecting and nature honed reconnecting across miles and over decades. at College of When Steve Baird '83 was in graduate school, he the Atlantic has spent four winters studying the survival of American alumni connecting redstarts in Belize where this photo of Steve, Peter and reconnecting Duley '84, and Dorie Stolley '88 was taken. Thanks to a across miles and Fulbright scholarship, Steve was assisted by many more over decades. classmates, including Shan Burson '83, Lisa Burton '86, Marie McCarty '82 (now Steve's wife), Rick Schauffler '83, Steve explores Belize's Ann Seymour '88, and Chris Vincenty ('83). highest mountain with naturalists, Mayan guides, and British soldiers. Steve and Marie now live in Homer, Alaska, where Steve works at Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. He's been helicoptered onto a salt marsh to hike 1984 for days, had close encounters with moose and grizzly bears, and seen wolves and a wolverine; once a beluga whale used his inflatable raft like a toy, spinning it around. Last winter, Steve returned to Belize, meeting Shan Burson (see page 16). Torn between environmental education and field biology, Dorie did both seasonally for years before getting an MS in wildlife biology and working for the National Park Service, then the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Today, her environmental efforts are enhanced by an MA in communication. Peter is a fisheries wildlife biologist for NOAA in Woods Hole, Massachusetts where he works with Tim Cole '88. With Tim he's studied humpback whales in Hawaii, with Steve (and briefly Dorie and Rick Schauffler) he's helped restore puffins to Maine's Seal Island. He's studied sea ice impacts on seabird and marine mammal reproduction in Antarctica, flown right whale aerial surveys in Florida, and studied bowhead whales in Alaska- visiting Steve and Marie. Peter retrieves a snowy owl found by Rick Schauffler '83 on Maine's Seal Island. Designed by Khristian Mendez '15; story by Donna Gold. Photos courtesy of Dorie, Steve, and Peter. 22 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 2001 2002 2012 Training to set prescribed fires in the Bird banding in Saskatchewan, Counting nests, eggs, nestlings, to monitor roseate terns Texas Rio Grande Valley. Canada. on Bird Island in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. 2005 2005 2011 Scanning for grizzlies during Retrieving juvenile salmon Installing a deep-rod benchmark to measure land-level salmon work in Alaska's on the Anchor River near change in a Kachemak Bay salt marsh, having carried some Kachemak Bay Research Kachemak Bay. 140 pounds of equipment across the marsh. Reserve. 1997 1999 In Antarctica with the R/V Nathanial B. Palmer. Photo-identifying humpback whales in Antarctica. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 23 ON THE TRAIL OF MAMMOTHS: Deep-time field ecology Story by and photos by Jacquelyn Gill '05 Jacquelyn Gill '05 is a paleoecologist researching how the issues of the past-climate change, extinction, ancient human activity- provides clues to how wildlife might respond to the changes currently facing our planet. She obtained a PhD in geography at the University of Wisconsin and is now an assistant professor of paleoecology and plant ecology at the University of Maine. Paleoecologists often say the past is How do you research a landscape reconstruct the past, like growing the key to the present. To those of us you can't even see? So much of what I plants in chambers with the carbon used to thinking on the timescales study is long vanished, from the great dioxide concentrations found in of minutes and months, the concept ice sheets that once covered much the past. Of these, the first option, of ecological change on geologic of North America to the mammoths, seeking evidence, is most common, timescales isn't exactly easy to grasp. giant ground sloths, and black bear- and it's what gets us into the field. I had my first epiphany about time sized beavers that were once as much on an ecology field trip with John a part of North American ecology You'd think that being unable to Anderson, COA faculty member in as moose, coyotes, and squirrels actually see your study system would biology. Grinning like a magician about are now. In the absence of a time be a major drawback, but in fact to make a big reveal, John pointed machine, paleoecologists have several it's one of the things I love about out cliffs, boulders, and a cave as we options. We can reconstruct past paleoecology. Much of my work relies hiked along Acadia National Park's landscape changes using natural on tiny bits of ecological flotsam and Gorham Mountain trail. These looked archives-bones, plant and animal jetsam that fall into lakes and bogs, suspiciously like the ones we'd just matter, and other evidence of past where the oxygen-poor environments left at sea level, formed by the push landscape change stored in rocks and at the bottom preserve clues to and pull of the Atlantic Ocean. It was mud; we can create computer models ancient landscapes for thousands no coincidence that these landforms of past landscape processes; and we of years. For me, a typical field day looked similar, John explained. The can design modern experiments to is spent on an anchored platform Gorham Mountain caves, now 250 feet above sea level, were formed by the ocean. Twenty thousand years ago, the glaciers were more than a mile thick over Maine and the weight of the ice sheet was sufficient to depress the earth's crust. In the thousands of years since the ice melted, Mount Desert Island has continued to rise, millimeter by millimeter. To us budding ecologists, the lesson wasn't just about geology. Gorham Mountain reminds us that change happens, and that the past not only influences the landscapes we see today, but that those changes complicate our very ideas about ecology and conservation. That day I was bitten by the deep-time bug, and it altered my life. While I later worked with John on petrels on the college's Great Duck Island, I resisted the allure of the present, drawn instead to the past by MDI's glacial landforms and my curiosity about the plants and animals that have lived here since the ice melted. A bison munches grass, blithely ignoring a fence erected to test the impacts of grazing on the Konza Prairie in the Flint Hills of northeastern Kansas. 24 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE about the size of a picnic table in the middle of a lake. From my floating field station I extract meters of mud cores rich with pollen grains from long-dead trees, bits of charcoal from ancient fires, parts of aquatic insects and algae, and other clues to past climate and environmental changes. Using radiocarbon dating and other techniques, we can place events like forest fires, extinctions, or the arrival of a new species in a broader context. Analyzing cores in the lab is rather like the work of a forensic scientist, reconstructing past environments from the clues left behind by their ancient inhabitants. Compared to many ecologists, my fieldwork is relatively compressed- usually lasting just a couple of King penguins hang out on the beach at Volunteer Point, Falkland Islands. weeks-but it's a valuable chance to get my hands dirty. Sometimes the weather is stiflingly hot, at other times herbivores produce a lot of dung, about what mammoth-grazed it's bone-chillingly damp. The biting which in turn provide a lot of habitat landscapes must have looked like. midges, poisonous snakes, leeches, for dung fungi. Many of those fungal and alligator snapping turtles give spores reproducing in mammoth What's next for this human ecologist? even the most mundane lake in an dung ended up in the lakes I cored I've recently had the opportunity to Indiana cornfield a touch of an Indiana thousands of years later. When the research penguins and other seabirds Jones adventure. Critical equipment ice age animals vanished, so did the in the Falkland Islands, where critical gets lost over the side; gear fixes are spores, and in my cores this was habitats are threatened by climate improvised with duct tape and water followed by major changes in forest change, grazing sheep, and sea noodles. This mix of back-breaking trees and fire activity. Thirteen level rise. The birds provide crucial physical labor and creative problem thousand years ago, the combination nutrients to the cold, subantarctic solving keeps me coming back to the of herbivore extinction and climate island plants, too. (It looks like I'll be field year after year, despite sunburns, change triggered a period of working with dung for a while longer.) sore muscles, blisters, and insect ecological upheaval that lasted over Surprisingly, both the Falklands and bites. a millennium; the forests were never the Gulf of Maine have undergone the same again. similar environmental changes in the While I'll never observe a mammoth last 20,000 years, and understanding in the field, paleoecology does In my new position at the University how wildlife responded to these offer the advantage of time; my of Maine, I continue to research how changes in the past will give us "experiments" lasted thousands plant-animal interactions are affected valuable clues for the present. Lately of years. For my PhD research, I by extinction and climate change, I find myself thinking about guano, wanted to know what happened looking at things like seed dispersal, penguins, and tussac grass instead when ice age megaherbivores the availability of dung-derived of mammoths, dung fungi, and trees. like mastodons went extinct: did nutrients in soils, and how herbivores In a way, I've come full circle, back to the plants notice? The fossil bone affect biodiversity. In addition to past the island ecosystems where I first record is often too incomplete to reconstructions, modern experiments discovered my passion for ecology compare with vegetation changes are valuable, too. In the absence of as an undergraduate. Whether I'm from pollen records, and so I decided mammoths, bison can be a useful working on a lake in Indiana, a bog in to try something a little different: surrogate. When you spend most of Maine, a bison sanctuary in Kansas, dung fungus. To reconstruct past your time in front of a fume hood or a penguin rookery in the Falkland populations of large herbivores, I or a computer monitor, you can feel Islands, I study the past with my went back to those natural archives disconnected from the natural world. feet firmly rooted in the present, in lake cores, searching for spores There's nothing like having lunch and my mind on the horizon and the from a fungus that grows in herbivore alongside grazing bison, surrounded challenges it brings. dung. Large populations of big by dung patties, to get a girl thinking COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 25 POLICY, POLITICS, AND PROTECTION: Erica Maltz '08 and the bull trout By Marni Berger '09 Erica Maltz '08 takes a break from rivers and resource meetings to hike the Wallowa Mountains of northeastern Oregon. Photo courtesy of Erica Maltz. Erica Maltz '08 first met the Columbia "I fell into the job haphazardly," she 1970s-still flush into the water from River when she crossed its largest says. She came to Oregon from her farms, roads, construction sites, and tributary, the Snake River, in home in Hampden, Maine for a three- storm-water systems. Dioxins, among southeast Oregon. The Columbia is month position after graduation. the most carcinogenic substances in by volume the fourth largest river in "Then," she laughs, "I realized I the world, bleed into the river from North America, and Erica had already didn't save enough money to drive chlorine bleaching by paper mills become intrigued by its mystique, all the way back home to Maine, so along the shore. habitat diversity, and dangerously I had to find other work." Following a year at an unsatisfying state job, The Snake River suffers particularly high vulnerability to pollutants, having Erica spotted a job listing with the from hydropower dams, a main read about it in faculty member Todd Burns Paiute to work on salmon energy source of the Northwest. Even Little-Siebold's environmental history reintroduction to the Malheur River. though the Oregon Environmental class. In crossing the Snake, Erica felt It was only a temporary position, Council, or OEC, reports that dams like she was meeting a celebrity. but after about a year the fisheries drastically reduce water quality by program manager left; Erica was causing pollutants to accumulate in Six years later, Erica has not yet left offered the job. "I'm so thrilled to be sediments behind the structures, the the Columbia watershed. For the working in the Columbia and Snake dams aren't going anywhere anytime past three years she has worked river basins today," she says. soon. They also slow water flow, for the Burns Paiute tribe's natural which is a problem because the sun resources department in Burns, Burns is beautiful and desolate, warms sluggish water, killing cold- Oregon as fisheries program manager. adds Erica. Though there are fewer water fish such as the endangered bull She is charged with implementing than five thousand people in the trout-the very species Erica and her recovery actions in the Malheur settlement, it's the seat of Harney team strive to protect. The bull trout, River for the bull trout, listed under County-with a population density of salmon, and other cold-water fish are the Endangered Species Act, as well around one person per square mile. integral to Northwest Native American This part of the world still fits the heritage and traditions. as with reintroducing Chinook and definition of "frontier" under 1890 steelhead salmon to the Malheur, a standards. Because Native Americans consume tributary of the Snake River. the fish at a rate as much as eleven What ails the mighty Columbia? times greater than that of others in A fisheries department of three means The Columbia River is a suffering the United States, the river pollution each person must be a specialist and beauty. The river and its tributaries is endangering their health. The a generalist. On any given day, Erica drain an area about the size of France; Environmental Protection Agency finds herself drawing upon talents in because of this sheer size, what are deems pollutants "of concern" if field biology, policy, fundraising, and known as legacy chemicals-including they exceed a one in a million risk of diplomacy. PCBs, DDT, and DDE banned in the causing cancer. The OEC estimates 26 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE that, "the risk of cancer from toxins in Erica advocates the interests of the While she laughs and admits "it's all Columbia River fish may be as high as tribal council to state and federal trial and error," Erica feels that COA one in fifty for sturgeon and seven in governments. Their concerns are gave her the confidence to launch ten thousand for salmon." often direct and controversial, such those tries. "COA did a great job as the blockage of the Malheur River grooming that skillset for myself and Nevertheless, the bull trout, salmon, by the Hells Canyon Complex, a major other fishery folks that I graduated and other species lure fishing private hydropower complex on with," she says. Partly, she adds, this tourism, which brings in money. the Snake River. "In a dream world," is due to a curriculum that emphasizes According to the Natural Resources says Erica, "the three [Hells Canyon] oral and written presentations Defense Council, "Roughly ten million complex dams would be removed and over tests, and encourages student we would have an alternative source Americans spend an average of ten involvement in facilitating meetings days a year angling for salmon and of energy." But at the very least, and participating on committees. trout, and the estimated value of the when hydropower facilities pollute "COA grads are ahead of the game the river, she says, they ought to pay for actual communication skills, combined fisheries ranges from $1.5 for mitigation-which translates to and that's something that may take billion to $14 billion a year." trapping and hauling fish, and river others years," she says. At COA, too, restoration so that the river is cleaner she became accustomed to working And then there's the brook trout. and cooler. She'd also like them to pay one-on-one with faculty members Though a delight to those fishing in for recovery actions for native and and other mentors, leading her to Maine, brook trout don't belong in the endangered resident species, such as seek similar guidance in her work. Pacific Northwest. They were brought bull trout, not to mention the cultural "I've been helped by some really great from the East, possibly in the early impacts to tribes and other residents federal employees," she adds. 1900s, to stock the rivers of the West, that live within the watershed area. but they mate with native bull trout, A lot has changed for Erica since wearing thin the endangered species' Anything the team and tribal council she crossed the Snake River for the gene pool. According to Erica, to save want to do-say, increase fishing first time in 2008. She is no longer a bull trout it is "critical and urgent" that opportunities-must occur in kid seeing the Columbia River as a brook trout are either eradicated or collaboration with federal agencies. celebrity. The watershed is home now, controlled in northwestern waters. This process involves arranging and she is committed to the Burns This translates to fieldwork-donning formal meetings between the tribal Paiute and to restoring the tributaries chest waders and immersing herself in council and relevant federal officers. of the "mighty Columbia," even when the river-which Erica loves. The small More difficult is working with state the odds seem against her. Often fisheries program team works in both governments that have little stake during tribal council and government a headwater lake and in tributaries of in-and do not prefer to have- meetings, Erica realizes she is decades the Upper Malheur River, removing government-to-government relations younger than everyone else in the the brook trout by electro-fishing, with tribes when issues span state room, and the only woman. But she gillnetting, angling, seining, and weir borders. Presenting scientific data feels prepared. COA taught her to trapping. is often the best way to go in these stand up for what is right in the face cases, Erica says. of environmental or human injustice, Politics, diplomacy & waterways says Erica. "If it's time to stand up for "I've definitely developed some what our council has asked us to do, It gets more complicated. Erica must diplomatic skills," Erica adds. I'm not afraid." straddle a line between protecting the river and working with the very industry that pollutes it. The Burns Paiute Natural Resources Department receives mitigation funds through the Bonneville Power Administration, or BPA, which operates the federal hydropower system on the Columbia River. BPA also has a complex history with nuclear power plants. For the Burns Paiute, and for Erica, restoring the Columbia River and its tributaries, and catering to industrial interests, A bull trout from the North Fork of the Malheur River. Photo courtesy of the Burns Paiute Tribe presents a Venn diagram of diplomatic Natural Resources Department 2008. loyalties. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 27 Morning in Pensamiento Liberal, in Oaxaca's Sierra Mixteca. All photos are by Greg Rainoff '81 unless noted. IN THE MIXTECAN FIELD: Greg Rainoff'81 While field researchers concerned with the habits of communal traditions, including expectations for mutual animals need to watch from a distance, finding a way to assistance during harvests and cooperative governance. take notes unobserved, the fieldwork of a person interested in other humans is all about communication. Greg Rainoff Greg's film focuses on a human ecology conundrum. '81 is currently creating Burning Paradise, a film about The farmers can feed themselves on the corn, beans, the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Mixteca who live in and squash they grow, but they need something that will the steep mountains southwest of the Mexican city of bring in cash. Before NAFTA, that something was corn. Oaxaca. The people here are called hijos de maize, children Today, unable to sell their crops at a profit, those who stay of corn, because it was through ancestral hands in this frequently resort to the environmentally problematic job place that corn was biodiversified (a term Greg prefers to of creating charcoal, obtained by cutting hardwood in an domesticated). Here too, is where some of Mexico's earliest infamously deforested region, and slowly burning the cut writings were found, codices created more than seven trees in large, cone-shaped, underground ovens to be sold hundred years ago. But centuries of intrusions, beginning in the city-earning maybe sixty dollars per tree for an with the introduction of sheep and goats by the Spaniards eight-day work week. But burning charcoal is illegal, as the in the sixteenth century, continuing with massive charcoal forests are protected zones. So they say their choice is one production during the nineteenth century, fertilizer illegality-charcoal-or another: migrating to the States. dependence begun with the Green Revolution of the 1960s, and the recent influx of subsidized, low-cost corn from Ultimately this story-and its larger implications of the United States under the North American Free Trade environmental policy, cultural diversity, and the clashes Agreement, or NAFTA, have all contributed to massive social they sometimes cause-will be told in whole cloth, but and environmental degradation. In places, as much as five it has come to Greg in bits and pieces, as life often does, meters of topsoil have eroded and some 80 percent of the beginning when he was hired to document the building of a people have left their homeland for the city of Oaxaca and new community center in the region. Gradually the people points north-including the US. Yet others remain, eking out in that pueblo came to know him; gradually he gained their a subsistence livelihood in villages, or pueblos, with strong confidence, learning of their hopes, dreams, fears, and 28 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE SIN A 15 troubles. Expanding to other communities entails making similar connections through numerous visits up twisting mountain roads, days of talking and sharing, getting to know one family, then another. Last December our family-Bill Carpenter, our son Daniel, and I-joined Greg on one of these expeditions and were invited on a journey down a steep mountain pathway to the waterfall of some new Mixtecan friends, passing, along the way, their smoldering charcoal mound. -Donna Gold The stories of some of these people can be heard at https://vimeo.com/crucibleproductions Clockwise from top: Graduation day; President of Cholula, Oaxaca, a small village located in the Mixtecan mountains-Cholula, says Greg, is a pueblo with no school, no store, almost no water, and nearly entirely deforested; Anastasia at the stove-her home is about a two-hour walk from the pueblo with no electricity or plumbing, just a river, the woods, goats, and corn; The family of Franco and Marcelina, in Pensamiento, where Greg lived for several months. 30 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE APPLIED the bishop pine forests of northern Tanner went on to pursue a master's California. in plant and soil science at the ECOLOGY: University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A fascination with plants He worked with Bill Manning, a plant Tanner Harris '06 Originally from Walnut Creek, biologist who focuses on the effects and environmental California, Tanner was always of air pollution on plants. Later, with interested in plants and the natural Nishi's help, Tanner and Luka Negoita consulting world. So when he went for an '11 were hired by the United States admission interview in San Francisco, Forest Service to hike and inventory By Julia De Santis '12 and Sarah Baker, former dean of several thousand acres of burnt forest admission, pulled out a map of in California, comparing post-fire Tanner Harris '06 walks through Acadia National Park, pointing to regrowth from serpentine to non- the desert near the Mexican border COA's campus across the street, serpentine soils. with California, jotting down every Tanner was sold. Once in Maine, he cactus and scraggly twig he sees. focused on plant ecology, taking Consulting Trained as a field ecologist, Tanner biology faculty member Suzanne At WRA, Tanner uses his training in applies his skills with WRA, Inc., an Morse's plant morphology and biology and ecology to assess a site, environmental consulting firm that horticulture-based classes, studying help clients understand the regulatory helps individuals, companies, and lichens and bryophytes with adjunct issues they're facing, and recommend municipalities navigate California's faculty member Fred Olday, and ways to reduce the impact of the complex permitting processes. The plant taxonomy with visiting faculty project and restore or mitigate current clients want to create a solar member Alison Dibble. unavoidable issues. His work often installation on their desert property. begins with a biological survey to Biological surveys like Tanner's are After three years Tanner took a figure out what is on the land. often the first step in minimizing break to attend a gardening school the impact of various forms of in Scotland, trading one remote "Field days can be great," says development. ecological outpost for another. Tanner, "Sometimes I am just visiting Meanwhile, botanist Nishanta (Nishi) a vacant lot in Oakland," but other These aren't feel-good efforts. In Rajakaruna '94, joined COA's faculty. days he is exploring remote areas in California it is the law. "All projects When Tanner returned to campus, Santa Barbara County, or using his must undergo environmental review he began his senior project under knowledge of serpentine soils to map under the California Environmental Fred and Nishi's guidance, conducting habitat for endangered butterflies in Quality Act, which examines the a lichen inventory of a serpentine the hills above San Jose. biological impacts of a project. That outcrop in Brooksville, Maine. is what we help clients with at WRA," says Tanner. Additional approval is required for projects that will affect species or habitats protected by California or the federal government. Tanner especially loves to work on projects in the desert. "It's such a strange place," he says, "It's a harsh environment and organisms have developed interesting ways to cope, usually some sort of extreme life cycle or bizarre growth form. At first it seems like there isn't much out there, probably only three or four dominant species of plants. But once you start looking harder, you notice all sorts of plants growing in this seemingly inhospitable place." After Tanner's work in the desert he spent a week surveying dunes along the southern coast of California. Tanner Harris '06 on a field trip with the California Native Plant Society to The Cedars, a By the end of the month he was in serpentine outcrop in Sonoma County, California. Photo courtesy of Tanner Harris. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 31 A field of lupines at a property under study on the central coast of California. Photo courtesy of Tanner Harris. But the field time is also rigorous. that WRA can help identify. If a client's proposed something else and that will "Any time we go into the field, we have land has a lot of habitat or species eventually get reviewed and litigated. to be aware of potential regulatory issues, WRA may suggest putting a I don't expect to see that wetland issues so that we can advise our conservation easement on the land restored in my lifetime." clients," says Tanner. In addition to rather than developing it. Clients can California's laws, these include federal then sell credits for their conservation Delays such as these leave Tanner laws like the Clean Water Act and the efforts, often at a considerable profit. concerned about the implications Endangered Species Act. "Then there This is known as a mitigation bank. of his work. "A lot of what we do are regional, county, and city issues The credits can then be bought by facilitates development, which is not that are unique to each project area," others needing to mitigate impacts something that I ever thought I would Tanner adds. "Everyone in our office associated with their projects. end up doing. We always mitigate for needs a basic understanding of the habitat, but sometimes habitats take regulatory framework, but a lot of Others choose to pay an in lieu fee, years to be restored or created, and these laws are pretty nuanced, and we says Tanner. "Right now many of our if the habitat is being taken up faster rely on our collective experience for clients are donating their money to than it can be restored or created, you guidance." the South Bay Salt Pond restoration in are still at a net loss-the plants and the southern portion of San Francisco wildlife that use those habitats have to Following fieldwork, Tanner connects Bay that is being implemented by the go somewhere." with WRA's landscape architecture US Fish & Wildlife Service and other or mitigation banking departments agencies." And yet, he continues, "I have to to put together options for any remind myself that development is necessary restoration or mitigation. When both Tanner and the client going to happen one way or another, If those are required, it can take a are comfortable with the plan, and the work that we do helps people few forms: onsite or offsite habitat Tanner applies to the Army Corps of to develop in a more responsible creation or restoration, purchasing Engineers, state water board, and way. We help people avoid sensitive mitigation credits from a mitigation California Department of Fish and resources and species, restore bank, or an in lieu fee to help Wildlife for the necessary permits. impacted land, and protect habitat support a public or privately funded in perpetuity. Sometimes all at once, restoration project, usually at a "Some projects go on forever," sometimes just one at a time." regional scale. Tanner says. "I am working on a wetland restoration project in LA The first option, creating a wetland right now that has been going on or other type of habitat to mitigate since the early 1980s. They proposed Julia De Santis '12 is living in the San effects on the piece of land that will be something and it went through Francisco Bay area, working with people developed, can be done on the client's years of environmental review and with Alzheimer's, and planning further property or on another piece of land years of litigation and then they studies in the medical field. 32 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Students in the Field Students at College of the Atlantic often find their way to fieldwork at the start of their studies. The following three projects have the weight of graduate work, though the students began their research by their second year. For Rachel Sullivan-Lord '14, that work became her senior project; the work of lan Medeiros '16 will be published this summer; and the research by Anneke Hart '16 could become her senior project-but like many a human ecologist, she is also pulled in other directions. -DG THE TOXINS into an aquatic environment and is The samples Rachel collected were IN OUR MIDST: converted to an organic form; this sent to the Sawyer Environmental Rachel Sullivan-Lord '14 highly toxic substance can be-and Chemistry Research Lab at the is-readily absorbed into living University of Maine. The results By Katie O'Brien '15 tissues. Rachel continued collecting underscore the impact of mercury samples while working on the bioaccumulation. Though she found college's M/V Osprey in 2013. To find levels of only 0.01 to 0.02 micrograms the mercury levels in seals, Rachel per gram, wet weight, within the fish collected scat, heading to their haul- the seals were eating, the levels in out rocks about an hour before high the seal scat were as high as 0.08 to 1.4. And Rachel only tested what the tide, when the seals would have just seals excreted; as much as 60 percent left the ledges. She put each sample of the mercury ingested by the seals in a plastic bag-and then into a remains stored within their bodies. second bag, because, she says, "They This is extremely concerning, as even stink so much!" For the gulls, Rachel low doses of methylmercury can collected blood samples once each cause neurological and development year, relying on two helpers, "holding damage. Notes John Anderson, faculty chicks carefully and making a tiny pin- member in biology, "These amounts Above: Rachel Sullivan-Lord '14 collects prick on a small blood vessel on the are an indicator of potential serious seal scat once the seals have slithered inside of the wing and collecting a very environmental contamination, both of off the rocks of COA's research station small amount of blood with a capillary on Mount Desert Rock. Right: A gull chick mercury and other toxins that could peeks into a crevice. tube." She also collected unsuccessful affect survival and reproduction, and Photos by Rachel Sullivan-Lord. eggs from MDR, and was able to get have implications for human health additional eggs from students working as well as that of other species in the Rachel Sullivan-Lord '14 fell in love on Great Duck Island. Gulf of Maine." with life on Mount Desert Rock her first year at COA, when she visited When not collecting, Rachel sat in the MDR's Edward McC. Blair Marine lighthouse tower for hours at a time to Research Station, twenty-five miles see what the chicks were being fed by offshore. She longed to spend more their parents, or prepared seal scat, time in its isolated beauty; she also washing it through a sieve to identify realized that "nothing really, that I what had been eaten. Field research, knew of at the time, had been done on she discovered, requires flexibility and contaminants at MDR-and there's a careful planning, especially on MDR. lot going on out there." While mercury "It's not an easy place to be. There's in seabirds has been examined in the no running water, and transportation Bay of Fundy and along the Maine coast, Rachel discovered that it hadn't is not a guarantee. There's always a been tested as far offshore as MDR. chance that a weather system could "It's important to know what toxins come up. On good weather days you are there." can take the boat out or go up in the The depressing part, says Rachel, tower-but if it's too foggy you can't "is that you can find mercury even For her senior project, Rachel see anything from the tower." Rachel in the middle of the ocean. It's there spent the summer and fall of 2012 loved it all. "If I could stay on MDR for and has been there for a while, and is living on MDR to research levels of an entire year I would," she adds. "I not just a result of human activities methylmercury in seals and gulls. am a field biologist most definitely. I in the Gulf of Maine, but the whole Methylmercury is formed when knew that before I went to MDR and planet." Mercury wafts in on the wind mercury, an inorganic element, gets that has only fueled my love of it." and rain from coal plants and waste COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 33 incinerators in the Midwest, has been She sees her work as the beginning. dumped into the Penobscot and other She'd like to see similar contaminant rivers by Maine industries, and travels research become part of field season along ocean currents from far afield. protocols on both Great Duck and "And there isn't an easy way to clean it MDR. "It is relatively simple science up," Rachel adds. to do," she says. Much can be done by observing what the seals eat, and But she also found it fascinating that taking tissue samples. "Our long-term there are differing levels of mercury in data collections on the islands are different tissues of the gulls and seals. really important to understanding This, she says, "can provide insights the ecological processes over time; into the food webs around our islands repeating these contaminant studies and how organisms store toxins and over several years could be an get rid of them." important addition." Rachel Sullivan-Lord '14 holds a vial of blood drawn from the wing of a seagull on Mount Desert Rock. IDENTIFYING LICHEN: Ian Medeiros '16 By Donna Gold, with research by Katie O'Brien '15 of different chemicals, you have finding, says Nishi, "is significant as it to be in the field and the lab. Most contributes to our understanding of fieldwork, in fact, is a dance between biodiversity in Maine and documents on-site research and the lab." In the importance of studying waste- botany, the field is where you find the lands and barren sites otherwise samples, and intuit what might be rare ignored." or even new. As fascinated as lan is by lichen, he's lan came to COA for botany and soon not fully sold on fieldwork. Having became entranced by lichens. "I spent the summer of 2013 studying started noticing lichens everywhere fire ecology in California, it took him and I became obsessed and still am. months before he could overcome They're really cool to me because we his precautions and step over a log don't know so much about them-and again. "Even on campus, I'd find At age 19, as a second-year student, they're absolutely beautiful." myself looking for rattlesnakes, it had lan Medeiros '16 is the lead author of become such a reflex. You pick up a lot a study that documents not one, but Working with botany faculty member of interesting habits in the field." four lichen never before documented Nishanta (Nishi) Rajakaruna '94, lan in New England, along with the first has been looking at rock outcrop modern recording of three additional lichens in Hancock County, especially lichen species in New England, and sites with high heavy metal content. the first modern recording of another The lichens he identified come from species in Maine. lan's dedication two industrial sites on Deer Isle active recently earned him a coveted in the mid-nineteen hundreds: Pine Goldwater scholarship-one of only Hill, an old quarry, and the Callahan three awarded to Maine students. Mine, now a superfund site. lan's lichen work may have begun in lan's paper on the lichen identities, the field-but it required a lab for co-authored with Nishi and lichen completion. Lichens can be quite specialist Alan Fryday of Michigan difficult to identify, requiring careful State University, has been accepted by analysis of specific chemicals to Rhodora for publication this July. ascertain the species. This is done lan Medeiros '16 documented the first through a method known as thin-layer While Nishi frequently publishes with modern Maine appearance of Coccocarpia chromatography, in a lab. "There are undergraduates as first authors, this palmicola, found on Deer Isle's Pine Hill. A things you can't do in the field," says is the first by a second-year student, tropical species, it is also found in isolated localities along North Amerca's east coast lan. "If you want to understand why indeed the first by a student not as far north as Newfoundland. Above photo these lichens are producing hundreds working on a senior project. The by Alan Fryday. 34 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE GULL DISRUPTIONS: She continues, "Originally I was just distance than any gulls on Great Anneke Hart '16 looking at the difference between Duck, even on the rocky shoreline, the rocky coastline and the field on says Annie, "might indicate that their By Katie O'Brien '15 Great Duck, and John was the one tameness is due not only to their who suggested it would fit really well dense population, but because they're if I also compared it to Mount Desert more accustomed to humans." Rock." Her data were able to quantify some of the observations that Lindsey While the study indicates that gulls had made. will reproduce despite human disturbances, Annie remains Annie measured the distance at concerned; John as well. Nest surveys which gulls nesting on the fields and found more dead chicks within the rocky shorelines of Great Duck, the nests of the "tamer" gulls on and also on the rocks of MDR, were MDR than on Great Duck. "We are disturbed enough to fly from their constantly concerned about our nesting area as she walked toward possible impact on our study species," them. She also recorded other factors, says John. Future research might such as the temperature, weather, monitor the fledging success on both even the primary color of her clothing. islands, as well as whether the gulls Anneke (Annie) Hart '16 spent the return to their nests year after year. summer of 2013 well, disrupting In addition to verifying and quanti- gulls. Living out at the college's Alice fying Lindsey's theory that gulls on Doing this research as a second-year Eno Field Research Station on Great MDR allow humans to come much student was both challenging and Duck Island for six weeks, Annie closer than they do on Great Duck, satisfying, says Annie. "Being self- wanted to know how humans impact Annie also found that "the flushing directed is difficult and something I gull colonies, and whether that impact distance of gulls nesting on the rocky think everyone should have to work varied depending on where the gulls shoreline of Great Duck Island was on because it's good for your personal were nesting. "I would pick a gull significantly closer than that of gulls growth." As for the gulls, they got that I could associate with a specific nesting in open field habitats." their own. "It's really messy work," nest and walk towards it until it flew. says Annie. "You get pooped on a lot I'd then measure the distance from Annie believes that gulls on Great and hit in the head by angry momma myself to its flying point." Duck's rocky shores allow humans gulls and papa gulls." And yet, she to come nearer because the gull is hooked on fieldwork and birds. "I The research was designed by Annie population there is more dense. This, didn't go to the island a bird person with help from other COA students she says, "may give individuals a sense but I left as one," she says. and biology faculty member John of protection through numbers." That Anderson, who supervises student gulls on MDR have a closer flushing researchers on Great Duck each summer. Her study, which was presented at the University of New England's annual Northeast Undergraduate Research and Development Symposium in March, continued the work of Lindsey Nielsen '13, who hypothesized that gulls on Mount Desert Rock, which is 1/70 the size of Great Duck-and (as the name implies) all rock-would be tamer because the gulls were accustomed to human presence. Annie theorized that habitat would also be a factor. On Great Duck there are more opportunities for gulls to nest far from humans, and yet Annie says, Above left: Anneke Hart '16 stands at the lookout on top of the Great Duck Island light "an increasing number of gulls have during the daily tower count, when students count birds and note the tide, visibility, and selected human-occupied areas to any oddities of the day, creating a continual record of activity on the island. Above: Gulls nest in." guard their chicks on the rocks of Great Duck Island. Photos by John Anderson. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 35 APPLES Finding History in the Field Illustrations by Hannah Hirsch '16 It happens in stages. A tree here; a tree there. Your eye becomes attuned to those bearing apples, and the apple trees lead to historic farms and orchards written in layers on the landscape. Maybe it is the old apple tree held together by iron plates that you're seeing, the one planted by Marie Thérèse de Grégoire in her walled garden some time around 1798, when just a few dozen English families lived in the region and Marie Thérèse owned half of Mount Desert Island and much of Hancock County. That venerable old tree still stands today, nestled next to her house in Hulls Cove. Local historical fieldwork begins with seeking insights from within living memory, often captured through oral histories; then turning to census records, historical maps, and ephemera. In my class History of Agriculture: Apples, students record local agricultural history by documenting relict apple trees scattered around Hancock County in field journals. Only by scouring the landscape for the trees and their stories can we connect the human memories of the apples with the broader context of some two thousand different named varieties planted by Maine farmers. Visual documentation of the trees and their context is crucial; by doing so students capture the characteristics needed to identify rare species-and learn close observational skills and a range of other aspects of fieldwork. Already students have found the president, black twig, and nodhead varieties, as well as several others yet to be identified. -Todd Little-Siebold, faculty member in history 10/8 Tree A Went to a upot across from the Dar Harbor winery. There were 6 trees an the properly that Cl documented. all thees except for B and possibly A were winny showed potential for a hugle variety. Tree A clore the road fraund guft slime follman True A E F rariety cl suppose these trees were about 50-100 years old. Trees Cand D fuile large. potentially guite old. most of the trees showed evidence X priming Your sione recently Tree A's dominant warrety were bright five green with little brown dots. The majority of the the stem and were flat-ish, comical apples had apparent mear new also -Gottom 36 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Northern Spy - coa orchard/publicgardens oblate in shape, extremely lumpy russecting around stem stem about 2-3 an long w/ bulbows end some flushing around item. oxidings quickly fught blue green Skin OD FEKN TRAIL Tree 2 NF= NOT FRUITING 6 a nite possibly & basal graft, its have - NE tell sice we were only able to get one 4 THE apple off of the 5 tree. apple is obtain. asymmers del DIRT ROAD and sightly squar Shirt for VL Rulay nea bluen over yellow N N 3km similar in a winter 'P & leneicles ever deepest partof -6 a few white 7 flush aper 7 J NF Bia WOOD TRAIL , - COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 37 KALOKAGATHIA By Jayson Bowles '17 An excerpt from a novel in progress, begun in Bill Carpenter's winter 2014 class, Starting Your Novel. 12/21/2013 listens to shitty Europop we're fine, happened, so I'm on my guard. I keep dreaming I'm trapped inside but every single time he comes up Happens enough that I'm happy to see a kaleidoscope. It's different than front for whatever stupid reason, we familiar faces. any other dream I've ever had, and get into an argument over the most it's been going on for a while now. asinine stuff. Today he got all up in I am sure as hell always happy to see No idea how long exactly. There's no my face because I didn't see some Rudy. Rudy, my man, the old, fat sack beginning or end to the place, just me, guy who stole some Doritos. I don't of crap that comes in every single surrounded by a hexagonal mirror. even think anyone stole them, I just night, I shit you not, and always gets There's a reflective floor and ceiling think that one individual bag fell off the same off-brand hundred-proof too. I seem to go on forever. I know the truck when we were unloading booze and the same package of thick I'm in a kaleidoscope because as soon or something, so we were one short. and husky cigars. He's real scraggly as I've looked in every direction and Then he starts accusing me of stealing and always wearing tacky old seen that each is a mirror, things the Doritos, like what the hell, I don't sweaters and horrible cheap cologne. start to distort. Shapes, colors, and even like 'em. Then he says I'm a liar That doesn't do him justice, though. fractals all start to bend and mess and that I love Doritos. I just don't get Rudy is the kind of guy who will with my reflection, each reflection in this guy. I think he likes conflict or sneak up behind some guy robbing a different way, and it really confuses something. He never even reprimands the place, knock him out with a forty, me. Not just a little bit of confusion, me or fires me either, just always help you hold the guy down while the but a lot, the kind of confusion you complains at me. police take an eternity to show up, could only get in a dream, if that and then smoke with you after your makes any sense. I get this feeling, Man, on those nights when he's not shift is over to help you de-stress. To this really unshakable feeling, that there, it is sublime. So, so sublime. quote something my dad once said no matter what I do, I will become So long as no one robs the place, but about somebody else, "He's a ten- whatever I look at. Like I don't exist I mean that doesn't happen much. gallon man in a one-gallon body." at all, like I'm just bokeh, just random It'll be pitch dark outside and the Paul would drive me crazy if Rudy little blurred things of shape and white and fake bulbs will flare out wasn't around to help me out. He tells light in the background of my own into the night, and like moths to the a lot of stories, apparently he's ex- reflections. flame people from all around with military from 'Nam or something like all different agendas come to the that. I've hung out with him once or And then, sooner or later, I wake up. gas station. Oh man, I make it sound twice, and he's so relaxed, it's weird. I It always feels incomplete. The dream so noble, but on nights when you're thought he'd be a really pent-up kind isn't a nightmare or anything, it's pretty plastered, it's pretty noble. And of guy, but he just seems to coast on just I've been having this dream over you know there really is a romance life, kind of like a car with its lights and over and I don't know if it means to it between the humdrum dealings off coasting into the empty desert. He something or doesn't. And it confuses with friendly-enough neighborhood doesn't really take anything seriously, me, enough to write this little journal. regulars and the random drifter. In which is one of the reasons I like him The hexagonal mirrors kind of remind those silent moments in between so much. He's always the first regular me of the outward triple window at the slow stream of customers, the to show up, and I'm always happy to the gas station, but I don't know. At coincidences of the night happen. see that good old guy. the same time it doesn't really remind One car arrives on the side, parks, me of anything at all. I need to put but no one leaves. Another, after a Oscar, the next guy, is a little this down and get ready for work. time, arrives, parks beside it, and different. Me and Oscar have one people exit and enter. I am aware of of those kind of acquaintanceships 12/28/2013 it but I don't see it, don't pay attention where there's kind of a median of Seven more dreams exactly the same. to it. One leaves, then another, or awkwardness that prevents us from Seven more nights of exactly the same sometimes, one stays a while and merging, if that makes any sense. He bullshit at work. I know this journal more come and go. Those can be probably wouldn't understand what I was for dreams, but I am desperate pretty dangerous. Stray gunshots, meant just there. Despite that barrier to vent right now. Paul, that fat intentional gunshots, stabbings, and we get along well enough. He always bastard, gets on my last nerve. When that's before the police get involved. comes in this stark, burnt-orange he smokes in the camera room and It doesn't happen much, but it's Dodge Challenger with dual black 38 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Photo by Bill Carpenter. racing stripes and xenon lights and Yvette is one of the more consistent and there's not much to write about spinners on the rims, and huge bass of the crazies. She's always wearing her either, I think, but regardless of speakers, and all that stuff. I've only a neon-yellow reflector jacket; I have that I still think of her often and I seen him race like once or twice, even no idea where she got it. She's always wish to know her like a friend, like though he shows up to the station talking to me about love, different she really is. way more regularly. He's alright I kinds of love, ancient Greek love, guess, I mean I'm not a street racer or Christian love. She's real eccentric. Geoff is kind of a weird guy. He anything. It's interesting trying to talk She's always coming in and getting doesn't ever say much, and he's to him, trying to somehow circumvent chocolate malt balls and tea. She's got always pacing and walking back our block in communication. He can a damn good sense of taste, despite and forth. He's got a lot of nervous be pretty entertaining. He always being crazy. I have no idea where tics, like scratching his neck and gets the same things too: gum and a she goes, but she always seems to throat, and sniffing, and blinking NOS energy drink, I guess because he be hanging around, so I don't guess hard. It may seem like I have a huge either has a good sense of irony or is she goes too much of anywhere. complex about the details of this guy, oblivious. A lot of our conversations Whenever she has those rare moments but I assure you, you only need to are about who is which at what time, of lucidity she's pretty interesting be near him once to have all those really. I think he usually gets one over to talk to. She seems to know a lot, details imprinted on you. He's always on me, which troubles me because he but I have to help her a lot as well. buying menthol cigarettes, mint has highlighted spiked hair and wears I talk to her while she rambles and gum, cough syrup, chocolate milk, Hawaiian shirts. Who am I on the even though I'm not too sure what devil cakes, cupcakes, and stuff like totem pole of life if I have ironic duels we're talking about most of the time, that, which I think is a little crazy with that kind of guy? she seems to enjoy it. I've helped her because he's as skinny and pale as a on her way to the shelter a couple of candy cigarette. He's a pretty good There must be something magical times when I saw Paul snoozing like customer, according to Paul who is about the fluorescent glow that the gas the fat lard he is. If he ever saw me always on me to be extra nice to him station has at night because it seems help her I would never hear the end of and to encourage him to just empty to magnetically attract crazy people. it. There's not much to say about her, his pockets. Seems kind of rude to COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 39 me, but what do I know? A lot of the center of the floor. Near where I lay were lit up from the back with the interactions between me and Geoff my head is where I usually keep my warmth of the sun. I didn't look at the revolve around some kind of awkward wallet, phone, lighter, pipe, that stuff. sky itself while I was watching this; I stare. And then whenever the stare Standing up at the foot of my bed and was watching the somewhat darkened is broken I feel like he is boring into facing away, there's a partition in the reflection on the building's windows. me with his bulging and unrelenting right corner behind which is the very I think, in a way, I was enjoying the eyes. His eyes are terrifying. Huge, closely coupled shower/toilet pair. beauty of the sun, but if I was asked, off-white, slightly yellowing orbs No sink, that's in the kitchen. The I think I would say I was looking at crisscrossed by a squiggly grid of whole kitchen is kind of fucked. The the buildings, because that was what I bloodshot vessels. I always tense up checkerboarded tile, with its slightly was literally looking at. real bad whenever he shows up, he worrying sheen of dust and grease, is really freaks me out. He's way too littered with these big, white-painted, I came back after the walk and frisky and sketchy for my liking. I wood, pantry-sized cabinets. I don't smoked a couple more bowls, and don't think he's really going to do use the kitchen much, not even to then started sipping off of a forty. I anything, and I've never had to swat store booze. I have a couple of ice was enjoying myself pretty well, but him away or anything like that. He chests I keep full of ice around my all of a sudden I remembered what just looks like he's always about to do room that keeps the booze as well as originally made me pick up this book something. the rest of the room kind of chilly, and start writing in here today. so that I have to layer under all my The dude who usually shows up blankets to get warm, just the way I All the usual stuff happened in the after Geoff ends up skittering away like it. dream, but this time the ending was is actually a chick who calls herself highlighted and expanded. There was Boozi. If Geoff likes cough syrup, On the parallel side of the kitchen a floating puddle and I moved to it as Boozi fucking loves it. She comes there is a row of three weird, small, if a chain hooked my heart and pulled late in the night and practically gets square windows that have a wonderful me toward it. I felt a powerful haze gallons of the stuff. She's really chill, view of a wall, a pillar, and a part of fall over me the closer I got near it, she talks very softly and slowly and the track of the above-ground subway. and once I got close enough, I dunked you sort of have to strain on and listen That damn subway has been a pain my head into the puddle like I was to every word. Her pupils always more than once. It always comes bobbing for apples. I didn't drink or seem to be dilated and her eyes are at the worst time, like when you're inhale, I sucked in, and it coated my very deep and darkly colored. To trying to admire what little beauty throat, my stomach, and my lungs like be honest, I really want to hang out you can from the dingy and dinky-ass a thick, dark, sugary, licorice, liquid with her, as a friend, you know, window. Robitussin. I could feel it oozing into but I don't really talk to her outside the cracks of my brain, feel it unknot of whenever she brings stuff up to Today, like on all of my days off, I and unwind all my pent-up muscle the cash register. I feel like I would woke up in my apartment. This day I fibers and all my clung-onto energy. disturb her, which is a weird thing to woke sort of early, around three p.m. I didn't think it was strange that I say, but it really feels that way. Just My laptop was on and it hummed started to want to dream while already getting her name ended up making me from its perch on my chest, and I inside my own dream. My vision and feel like it was some terrible crime on could feel that it had really overheated my perceptions got darker and darker, my part. It was so long and drawn out, me, so I kind of shoved it off. Lying and then for a while all I remember is her hearing my question, processing on my mattress I smoked a couple of a comforting blackness. Not a regular it, and responding. She just seems bowls before I showered, got dressed, blackness, like when you sleep but to experience life in a more drawn and went out to get some food. I don't dream, but one with an enhanced out and expanded lens. We're able to got a taco at a taco van. I didn't pay sense of comfort, rest, and security; a interact, but only in a passing way. I much attention to it; I was more relaxing blackness I could be content might get around to actually talking to concerned with the building in front with for a nice, long rest. It felt a little her eventually, but right now I don't. of me. It was all glass windows, and more complete. I don't know if this was part of the Man, I've really digressed. I feel intention in its design, but it angled I'm not really sure what it means. It so much better, though. I'm off the lighting from the sunset perfectly. was alright though, I feel incredibly tomorrow, so I think I will write some It was golden, pinkish, and fiery, and rested today. If, to be rested every more and get this stuff off my chest. there were clouds stacked in rows and day, I have to have incredibly rows on top of each other, and to be confusing dreams, I think I'd be okay 12/29/2013 honest, it looked like a wall cloud. with that. Before I go much further, it might The sun seemed like it was moving help to describe my room a bit. down below the clouds, but not the If I'm not smoking or drinking, or There's my mattress, right in the horizon, and the clouds it hid behind out getting some of either, I'm on 40 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE the Internet. The Internet, smoking, self-appreciation. A little similar to he's in his retirement, taking things drinking, each is fun in their own Paul, but of course Paul always comes easy and not worrying about anything. way, but I think they are funnest when across in a really foul-mouthed and they are used as a distraction. I'm humorless way, probably because, When he took in a deep breath from in that state of mind right now, with from what I see, he never interacts his pipe, the red cherry burned heady smoke in my lungs and malty with anyone at the store. brightly against the darkness. It drink in my mouth. God only knows looked like a strange glowing lunar what I'd do if I didn't have one of Well, before I digressed so badly eclipse over a vast black desert. When them, let alone all of them. I'm in that I was talking about me and Rudy it faded, it looked like a dimming state of mind where I can even admit smoking. So there we were, and we taillight. Just another dimming what I'm distracted from; where I can each smoked and drank for a while, taillight out in the black desert say with nostalgia, bitterness, and and we ended up talking about coasting and darkening until it's gone comedy that I don't have any friends. dreams. Not the kind that I made and erased forever. Just cruising. Not this journal for, the Martin Luther too much pain. Kind of an exaggeration, I know, King kind. He had asked me what my but I wouldn't even count Rudy as a dreams were, and what I wanted to do "Through highs or lows, I friend of mine, or even my landlord, with my life. I told him I didn't know, Thomas, who believe it or not is a and I was glad that I was buzzed felt like this was an alright decent human being. They're good enough to be able to laugh at myself place in life, with not too guys, I'm not trying to give the on the inside. I could feel the whole much effort, and not too impression that they're not. It's just conversation, our whole relationship, that I don't really spend that much slowly creep to a place more personal much pain. Just an alright time with them outside of what and more sealed off. place to cruise for a while I'm more or less obligated to, and and spread my wings." whenever I do, I always feel like there He asked me if I was sure I didn't is some missed connection. Rudy, for know, and I told him that, more or example, is always pretty funny and less, I was. We kind of sat there for To be truthful, I don't know how much a good guy whenever he comes by a while in the darkness, lit only by a of the conversations between me and the station, but when I went over to lava lamp. The wispy smoke slowly Rudy were exactly communicated his place to smoke and drink once, ascended in front of a poster with that night. I was definitely under the he seemed very different. His house a giant pot leaf on it, then began influence, and so I remember more was kind of dark, and on the inside it dancing in what little light there was. general impressions of things than looked a little like mine, except scaled It seemed to corkscrew and spin and what actually happened. I know up a bit, and he had an old box TV, twist and bend in the sliver of light. I though, that at some point during and he also had some nice posters said that I was kind of alright where I that night me and Rudy both sort of and stuff hung up on the wall, band was, that I felt like things were going came to understand our places in each posters and some nice drawings and fine and I had no problem with how other's lives as sort of a center point of paintings and stuff. Really, now that they were going and I wouldn't mind camaraderie, which at the same time I think about it, his place didn't look if they weren't interrupted for some disappointed both of us. We still joked too similar to mine at all, but I still time. Through highs or lows, I felt around and laughed at the gas station feel like it did. I was surprised it was like this was an alright place in life, after this, but we always left it there. as nice as it was. with not too much effort, and not too much pain. Just an alright place Each time I see him now I feel a He actually had a nice, old, authentic to cruise for a while and spread my fainter and fainter tinge of pain. Each phonograph which he played some wings. time it gradually fades away as the Creedence and some other old stuff memory slowly slips from my mind on. He insisted I call it a phonograph, He said he understood that, and we sat like an unbound sheaf of papers in and not a record player. Sometimes quietly for a while. I asked him about front of a weak but determined wind. he's real finicky about real small his dreams. He said he had dreams to It's only ever in moments like here details like that, but it always comes be a surgeon when he was a kid, but and now, alone and somehow seeing across in a good-humored way. He that he ended up not going to college unshakable reality through all the always has this little glitter in his eye, and going to Vietnam instead. When distortions, that I'm able to look back hidden under the crags and cracks he came back he got a job as a truck and remember that strange moon with and folds of his weather-beaten face, driver and he actually did quite well no one to watch it. that tells you what he's about to say for himself there. Looking back on it, isn't serious at all. He says it with a he says he doesn't regret not becoming smile, a fake air of condescension, a surgeon because the dream was For the ancient Greek, Kalokagathia was and an honest sense of irony and mostly at his father's insistence. Now the spirit of nobility and goodness. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 41 Poetry By Sarah Haughn '08 Recession cupellation flat flat the corn barrens iyou and the force field each november we constitute severed back, boneplucked our bodies turned to fringe singed edgeward pale sidewinding winds couple against the skyclose didn't we always suspect sprawl of starch this was coming stalks rakish at the horizon haven'ti, haven't you before the rains only ever been present and the unfettered soil at the heat bitten frets upward in cyclonic heaves peripheries but now the sky alone until now flat chalk monochrome with our singular suspicions and who will remember the apparition of such flintstock the archive a stillness you wrote far off beyond the distance of we've only ever acres the dusty smoke been edges unsettles form from form you ou oui and who but now with our interiors reflects this swirling sweep of waste O, agony sudden root the all of us as we wend finger flame machinelike, wintercut saying i, i,i in the raw thrall or smoldering wound of it. Sarah Haughn '08 is pursuing her master's in creative writing at the University of California, Davis. 42 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Alumni Music Albums Caleb Davis '02, guitarist with Coke Weed Back to Soft, 2013 Nice Dreams, 2012 Volume I, 2011 Coke Weed's latest album was featured on National Public Radio's World Cafe in July, 2013 and hit Rolling Stone's top-ten list the following September. SQUARE PES Aaron Jonah Lewis '05 Corn Potato String Band, 2014 Recordings On Honest-To-Goodness Wax Cylinder, 2014, by Roochie Toochie & The Ragtime Shepherd Kings Galax, NYC, 2013, with the Square Peg Rounders NYC Route 77, 2012, by The Froggy Mountain Boys Wild Hog, 2012, with Thomas Bailey Taking Razzer to the Tinkers, 2011, with Ed Hicks Aaron, a multi-instrumentalist, appears on recordings from bluegrass to classical Turkish. Matt Mclnnis '09, vocals and acoustic guitar with Sea for Miles Sultans So Old So Cold, 2014 The debut album of a musical collaboration between Matt, as songwriter, and producer Michael Mclnnis. Writes Matt, "Seek creaky docks and beaches covered in snow. Find solace in long and dusty train rides and the feeling of salt on your skin." Brooke Brown Saracino '05 Architecture, 2010 Quiet, thoughtful music by Brooke, a singer-songwriter who describes herself as western Massachusetts meets San Francisco. Robby Simpson ('05) Traveling Without Weapons, 2013 An Americana album with nods to old country and bluegrass, and a steady thread of rock throughout. Matt Young '93, playing harmonica and mandolin with The Ghost of Paul Revere Believe, 2014 North, 2012 The band is described as a "masterful amalgamation of bluegrass, folk, and gospel," proving that "superior roots music can come from anywhere." COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 43 ALUMNI NOTES 1980 nation's highest honor for teachers Presidio Graduate School and is of mathematics and science. She is now a business analyst at Bay Area known for her project-based learning Installations, a small company in experiences-a recent class worked California. with the town recycling committee to collect data, create public service announcements, and publish a book. Upon receiving the award she commented, "I hope the award provides validation of this type of work and serves as inspiration to This past year Ruth Hill and spouse John Brooks launched their family business, Brooks Boats Designs, in a new direction: creating an easy-to- build sailboat kit designed especially for kids and adults learning to sail. Darrin Kelly was promoted to special With their four school-aged children, uses permit administrator with the they built Zip, the first DragonFlyer, Tongass National Forest in Alaska. and took the boat to the Maine Boats, He writes, "I have moved to Juneau, Homes & Harbors show in Rockland, AK from Sitka with my amazing wife, ME. The first batch of DragonFlyer kits Megan Gahl, and sons Finnan, 4, and was delivered this spring, and one colleagues to pursue the wonderfully Cormac, born in February. We look will be built at WoodenBoat School's messy work of real learning." While forward to more exploration of the family week in August. Ruth is back to in DC Beth visited Congresswoman wonders of southeast Alaska and writing more, including an article for Chellie Pingree '79. would love visitors from Maine and Professional Boatbuilder and a marine beyond." natural history piece for Maine Boats, 1992 Homes & Harbors. Christie Denzel Anastasia is now 1996 deputy chief of interpretation at Jason Harrington was awarded tenure 1986 Acadia National Park, moving to and promoted to associate professor Glenon Friedmann started Bar Harbor Mount Desert Island after holding in the Department of Media Arts, Community Farm, now in its fifth year several positions within the national Sciences, and Studies at Ithaca College. of production. Recently, Rose Avenia park system, most recently at joined her in the purchase of a historic Alaska's Denali National Park and Jim Kellam has been awarded tenure farm preserved with an agricultural Preserve. At Acadia she will focus on and promoted to associate professor easement. This season, Robin Owings partnerships, visitor experiences, and of biology at Saint Vincent College '13, Chris Monahan '13, and Nadia communication. Her ongoing passion in Latrobe, PA. He says he couldn't Kasparek '15 will also join the crew of is to connect people to their parks have done it without his friends and farmers. Glenon completed MOFGA's for transformative experiences that colleagues, and he is indebted to Journeyperson Program and reads anchor values conducive to healthy COA for giving him a firm academic herself to sleep learning about soil minds, bodies, and ecosystems. foundation, opportunities to grow chemistry. Christie is living in the Beech Hill area in self-confidence, and hands- and is looking forward to reconnecting on experience through field trips 1991 with the COA community, the winter and internships. Jim recently had Beth Heidemann, a kindergarten sun, and much warmer temperatures. two research papers accepted for teacher in Cushing, ME, was honored publication and he has been granted for her teaching with a prestigious 1995 a sabbatical leave in spring 2015 Presidential Award for Excellence Taj Chibnik received an MBA in to pursue a study on woodpecker in Mathematics and Science, the sustainable management from nesting behavior. 44 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 1998 and shifted production at a new Ryan Boduch and his wife, Kristine, central kitchen. Under Blair, the welcomed their first son, Benjamin district has doubled its use of local Caden Boduch, on Feb. 27. produce. One source is the family farm of Carolyn Snell '06. Students After many years of planning travel also have a chance to taste and for friends, family, and herself, evaluate different foods-including Tracey Teuber Winger has opened seaweed. The BDN story was on just Unraveled Travel (unraveledtravel. that: students taste-testing seaweed com). As a travel agent, Tracey as a pizza topping. can help people with independent excursions, travel with pets, as well as Finn and Drake (Windsor) Pillsbury Chrystal Seeley-Schreck started cruises and package tours. tracey@ '03 moved to Phoenix, AZ from Las her fourth year with the Wisconsin unraveledtravel.com. Cruces, NM in November so Finn could Department of Natural Resources in a take a job as a science teacher at new role, as education leader for The 1999 Scottsdale Preparatory Academy. Finn MacKenzie Center. She is responsible Hannah Fogg writes, "Jon, our son, says, "It is a far different life than that for designing and leading new Ashtee, and I are living in Portland, of a research ecologist, but one that programs focused on environmental ME. We just welcomed our second has been simultaneously exhilarating education and outdoor skills. She baby, Anouk, into our family in and exhausting." Drake is continuing writes, "my wife, Heather, and I got February. We're always dreaming of her career as an illustrator, currently married two years ago in Wisconsin, how to make our home and life more producing a narrative nonfiction even though it wasn't (and still isn't) ecologically sound and sustainable, story set in the Chihuahuan Desert. legal in this state. In September, we and have been steadily growing our Their children, Hawkes, 7, and Libby, crossed the border into Iowa and were knowledge of permaculture, planting 3, are enjoying their southwestern legally wed just outside the Dubuque a food forest, and thinking about how adventure, Arizona being the third courthouse in the old jail yard! to rely more on homesteading and state they have lived in. Marriage equality, one state at a time." buying locally. Sending love to all." 2004 Josie Sigler Sibara received a $25,000 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and an Elizabeth George Foundation grant for her novel-in- progress, The Flying Sampietrini, set in Rome during World War II. Josie's spouse, Jennifer, has recently accepted a tenure track job at Colby College. Josie writes, "We are really looking forward to spending more time in Maine!" At 4:40 a.m. on Feb. 28, Brianne (Press) Jordan, husband, Brian, and Allison Rogers Furbish started 2014 2000 big sister Amelia, welcomed Cheyenne as energy program assistant at Vital Tori Lee Jackson has been promoted Presley Jordan into the world. She was Communities, a nonprofit in Vermont, to associate professor and granted 7lb. 4oz. and 20" long. where she works on the "Solarize tenure at UMaine Cooperative Upper Valley" campaign to help make Extension. She works as an 2003 solar energy more accessible. She agricultural and natural resource The law firm of Bernstein Shur also became founding editor of The educator in the Androscoggin and announced that Eben Albert-Knopp Lebanon Times, a quarterly, good news Sagadahoc office. was named 2013 Pro Bono Attorney only newspaper serving Lebanon, NH, of the Year by the Immigrant Legal and completed her MBA in sustainable 2002 Advocacy Project. He was chosen for business at Green Mountain College. Blair Currier, local foods specialist his tireless work on several ILAP cases, "A decade after graduating from COA, with the Portland school district, in particular advocating for more than I'm excited about how the human received recognition in both The four years before the Immigration ecological approach continues to Forecaster and the Bangor Daily News Court in Boston, MA on a complex inform my education, career, and this winter. Blair has transformed the asylum matter involving a Rwandan life-and helps me tie them all lunch menu, developed partnerships, client. together in a balanced, holistic way," COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 45 ALUMNI SUPPORT MAKES A DIFFERENCE she says. Allison lives in Canaan, NH with husband, Shawn, and Amelia, 4; and loves spending time with wonderful fellow COA alumni. Anais Tomezsko and Noah Scher recently welcomed their first child, Emma Grace Scher, to the planet. The three live in Colorado under the steady gaze of Mt. Sopris. Anais runs the non-profit end of a legal aid agency and Noah co-owns a small gardening company. They are thrilled to be new parents and have enjoyed recent visits from fellow alums. 2005 Marjolaine Whittlesey writes, "I'm loving life in Portland, ME, where I juggle several jobs, my favorite being an intern at the Telling Room, a non-profit writing center. In the evenings I'm back on stage: this spring I get to indulge in the verbal Peter Moon '90 and his stepdaughter, Lauren Broomall '09. Photo courtesy of Peter Moon. thrills of Shakespeare while exploring the embodied storytelling world of physical theater. Come to PortFringe Peter Moon '90 in June to see a show!" 2006 "In a world growing ever more polarized into simplistic and passionate extremes, Mihnea Tanasescu has several recent I can't imagine a better medicine than a COA education. It's been more than publications, including "The Rights of Nature in Ecuador: The making thirty years since I first set foot on campus and started studying the complex of an idea" in International Journal of challenges of our earth in a more integrated way, searching across disciplines Environmental Studies and "Rethinking for deeper insights. It's a difficult path without simple, certain answers. But Representation: The challenge of non- with every new graduate there are more of us to take up the challenge and our humans" in the Australian Journal of Political Science. His daughter, Lavinia, collective chance of success grows." was born Oct. 14, 2013. "She is just lovely," he writes. "To this day, I'm amazed at how relevant and influential my COA experience 2007 was in preparing me for the life I lead. The more people who can share that Kayla Hartwell is in the third year of a experience and benefit from those same tools, the more reason I have to be PhD in anthropology at the University optimistic, to think that we will make the right choices to build a better world for of Calgary. Since 2008 she has been our kids. I think that's a pretty good reason to support COA." studying a wild population of spider COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE monkeys at Runaway Creek Nature After developing book preservation Reserve in Belize. The main focus of and conservation skills as the second her dissertation research is to better Gaylord Brother Preservation Intern understand the factors that influence at Syracuse University's Bird Library, the unique association patterns of she moved back to Bar Harbor and spider monkeys. An article about began work at the Northeast Harbor her work, "Spider Monkey Society is Library in October 2012 as their first Sexually Segregated," appeared online professionally trained archivist. She in New Scientist. It was based on her writes, "I have been making great own article in the International Journal strides in the archive and library!" of Primatology. She writes, "I hope to finish school within the next year or 2010 Needless to say I'm happy with not so and move to Belize to continue my Laci (Lee) Mitchell married Brendan moving for a while!" research. Come visit me!" Mitchell on Oct. 12, 2013. Jeanee Dudley was maid of honor, Alyson 2011 2009 Bell a bridesmaid, and Laurel Feeser Matt Shaw's video, A Listening In August, Neith Little received a an usher. Elena Piekut '09, Jason Air, premiered at the Binghamton master's in soil and crop sciences Bosworth, and Elizabeth Fisher- Student Experimental Film Festival in from Cornell University. She has been Bruns attended. "We wore orange November. He completed an MFA in working at Hampshire College as wristbands in honor of my dad who moving image from the University of their food, farm, and sustainability passed away less than two weeks Illinois at Chicago this spring. specialist since 2012. before the wedding," Laci writes. "In the last year we moved from South 2012 Hannah Stevens earned a master's of Dakota to Chicago and then back This coming fall, Nick Harris will library and information science from to New York. I am working for the begin a PhD in microbiology at the Simmons College in Boston with a Firemen's Association of the State of University of California, Berkeley. focus on preservation management. New York and taking improv classes. Craig Ten Broeck Heads Home After nearly nine years overseeing sustainability at COA, Craig Ten Broeck, COA's inaugural David F. Hales Sustainability Coordinator, is retiring. Craig has had a thirty-year career in policy and planning, working in conservation, agriculture, and environmental protection, mostly in Maine's state government. In 2004, after leaving government, Craig through-hiked the Appalachian Trail, then took on COA. "For nine years Craig has worked tirelessly to reduce COA's carbon emissions, improve energy efficiency on campus, source sustainable building materials and products, get the Peggy Rockefeller Farms going, and make Beech Hill Farm more sustainable," says COA President Darron Collins '92. "He has been essential in enhancing our efforts to step up to our commitment and reputation as an environmentally sustainable institution." Lisa Bjerke '13, who came to COA passionate about eliminating waste, worked closely with Craig. "I especially appreciate how he encouraged student engagement," she writes from India, where she is on a Watson Fellowship (see page 10). "Even though he had limited resources, he managed to support student efforts and was key to our institutional memory regarding carbon emissions." Adds David Hales, COA's former president, "I admire Craig for so many reasons, but I couldn't say enough about his integrity. This is a man who lives what he believes." We all join Lisa in wishing Craig, "a wonderful future full of hiking and environmental work," as he heads back to his central Maine home. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 47 COMMUNITY N o T E S When NYC's Time-Out magazine Bill Carpenter, faculty member in Auditorium in Ellsworth, ME and at the surveyed top animators for opinions literature and creative writing, read Common Good Cafe on Mount Desert on the best animation films, Nancy from his poetry and work in progress Island. Andrews, arts faculty member, was at the Stockton Springs Community among those queried. As a participant Library. Dave Feldman, faculty member in in the 2013 deCordova Biennial in math and physics, taught a massive, Lincoln, MA, Nancy was asked to join In January, Ken Cline, David open, online course, or MOOC, the Biennial Book Club, selecting a Rockefeller Family Chair in Ecosystem through the Santa Fe Institute. More book that shaped her work. She chose Management and Protection, was than 5,000 students enrolled-a bit The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. invited to participate in the inaugural different from the 15 to 20 students Wells. A podcast of an interview with meeting of ALPINE (Academics for typical in his COA classes. Dave's Nancy was broadcast on WICN. Land Protection in New England) at Chaos and Fractals textbook (see Spring Nancy's films were recently screened the Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA. 2013) was reviewed in the Newsletter of at Northern, The Olympia All Ages ALPINE brings together teachers and the European Mathematical Society by Project in Washington, and she gave a researchers from prestigious New Durham University's Tom Ward as "an TEDx Dirigo talk on her work with England schools to see how higher interesting and unconventional Intensive Care Unit post-traumatic education can directly impact regional textbook. The fact that this material stress syndrome. Meanwhile, Nancy land protection and conservation. Ken has been honed by real classes comes has received a three-week post- was also invited onto the implementa- across clearly-the examples and production film residency at the tion committee of the Keeping Maine's explanations are invariably carefully Wexner Center in Ohio to complete Forests coalition, a collaborative thought out and clear." her first feature film, The Strange Eyes group working to ensure the vitality of of Dr. Myes. the forest products industry while sustaining a healthy and intact forest ecosystem. Also involved are Sherry Huber, former trustee, and Ted Koffman, former COA summer programs director. The Ashley Bryan Center opens this summer on Islesford, ME with contributions by arts faculty member Dru Colbert, Danielle Meier '08, Eli Mellon '11, MPhil '14, Betts Swanton '88, and Josh Winer '91. Triple Pundit, a sustainable enterprise Following the June publication of website, published an article on anthropology faculty member Heath Faculty member in political philosophy Strategic Sustainability by Jay Cabot's first book, On the Doorstep of Gray Cox gave a talk at the University Friedlander, Sharpe-McNally Chair in Europe: Asylum and Citizenship in of Maine on "A New Paradigm of Green and Socially Responsible Greece, with the University of Ethics" for the philosophy Business. Jay was also quoted in Pennsylvania Press, Heath will be back department, and another on "Rogue Entrepreneur and delivered papers at in Greece on a Fulbright scholarship. AI, IBM's 'Smarter Planet' and other an academic conference on She will serve as a visiting professor in Existential Threats from Artificial entrepreneurship in Texas and at the the department of social anthropology Intelligence" for UMaine's Marxist AshokaU social entrepreneurship at Panteion University in Athens Socialist Forum. He also spoke at a conference at Brown University. Jay during winter and spring terms, 2015, George Mason University conference designed a business boot camp with exploring how the expansion and on "A Conflict Resolution Paradigm for Fair Food Network and a workshop at intensification of civil society Ethics." Gray is the principal author of the Maine Sustainable Food Systems initiatives are impacting social ties and a pamphlet issued by the Quaker Forum. At COA, his Sustainable notions of community as Athenians Institute for the Future on "Quaker Strategies class consulted with Black navigate life under austerity. She will Approaches to Research." Finally, Dinah Chocolatiers, MOO Milk, Acadia also echo her COA class, Ethnography, Maclir, the Irish band Gray plays in, Corporation, and Mano en Mano, Advocacy, and Ethics, as a seminar. performed fundraisers at the Grand recommending improvements to the 48 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE enterprises' social, environmental, serpentine soil-plant relationships and Conference on the Biology of Marine and financial performance. on phytoremediation, the use of Mammals in Dunedin, New Zealand, plants to clean contaminated soils, supported by COA and Bar Harbor Sarah Hall, the Anne T. and Robert M. offering seminars at the University of Whale Watch funds. Sara presented Bass Chair in Earth Systems and Peradeniya on phytoremediation. He the poster "Seasonal occurrence of sei GeoSciences, traveled to Newcastle, also visited regions of his homeland whales (Balaenoptera borealis) in the England to work with a colleague that he had never seen in preparation Gulf of Maine: An examination using processing glacial moraine samples for a tropical ecology course in Sri passive acoustic monitoring of the from Peru's Cordillera Blanca, and Lanka he hopes to teach. For a list of Outer Fall region," which she co- then to California's Lawrence Nishi's recent peer-reviewed authored with Sean, Jaqueline Bort, Livermore National Lab to analyze the publications, see his website at MPhil '11, and others; Alex and Zach samples. Sarah also gave the talk, nrajakaruna.wordpress.com/ also presented posters. In the photo "Active Tectonics in the Peruvian publications. Andes" at the University of Rochester in New York State. Doreen Stabinsky, faculty member in global environmental politics, Biology faculty member Chris continues her active engagement in Petersen has received funding to work international climate change, with students on two new projects agriculture, and biodiversity politics. this summer. As part of a National At the UN climate negotiations in Science Foundation grant to a number Warsaw, she served on a government of researchers from New Hampshire delegation as a technical advisor on and Maine, two students will be the issue of loss and damage, helping looking into improving the science of to establish the Warsaw International how decisions are made for healthy Mechanism on Loss and Damage; from the New Zealand conference are beaches and clamflats on Frenchman Doreen later participated in the first Scott Kraus '77, Sean Todd, Zack Bay. As part of COA's National meeting of the executive committee of Klyver ('05), Jenny Rock '93, former Institutes of Health INBRE funding, the mechanism. In December she was Allied Whale research associate another student will study estuarine an invited speaker on climate change Harriet Corbett, Rachel Sullivan-Lord fish from the Goose Cove superfund and biodiversity at the Multi- '14; front row: Alex Hill, MPhil '14, site on Deer Isle where fish swim in stakeholder Dialogue on Integrating Allied Whale intern Nadia Ramirez, water with high heavy metal toxicity. Social-Ecological Resilience into the former Allied Whale research He continues to serve on the board of New Development Agenda, held in associates Paula Olson and Annie the Somes-Meynell Sanctuary, is chair Medellín, Colombia. In February she Zoidis, former COA faculty Mo Brown, of the Bar Harbor Marine Resource was an observer at the meeting of the and Sara Golaski '13. Sean returned to Committee, is a member of the INBRE Green Climate Fund board in Bali. Antarctica in January and February steering committee, and is the vice- aboard the M/V Hanse Explorer for president of Frenchman Bay Partners. Davis Taylor, faculty member in three weeks as an invited guest and economics, was joined by Molly naturalist/guide. The expedition Anderson, Partridge Chair in Food and yielded a record-breaking 103 whale Sustainable Agriculture Systems, and tail images for the Antarctic Ken Hill, academic dean, at Prescott Humpback Whale Catalog, curated by College for the annual Eco League Allied Whale. conference. Taylor chairs the faculty coordinating committee of the six- Karen Waldron, Lisa Stewart Chair in school consortium. This conference Literature and Women's Studies, followed a similar gathering in July at chaired the literary ecology panel, Alaska Pacific College at which Davis America's Mythic Landscapes and facilitated the development of a Iconic Places: Human/Nature strategic plan to broaden student Intersections, at the Northeast opportunities across the consortium. Modern Language Association's Nishanta Rajakaruna '94 served as a annual conference in Harrisburg, PA in visiting scientist at the Institute of Sean Todd, Steven Katona Chair in early April. She also presented a paper Fundamental Studies in Kandy, Sri Marine Sciences, traveled with Zack on the ecofeminist inclinations (before Lanka during the winter term. He Klyver ('05), Alexandra Hill, MPhil '14, there ever was such a term) of Sarah worked with a plant biologist and a Rachel Sullivan-Lord '14, and Sara Orne Jewett's representations of geochemist on projects relating to Golaski '13 to the 20th Biennial Maine. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 49 In Memoriam Barbara Strachan Deering Danielson Kirsten Stockman '91 February 19, 1947-December 2, 2013 March 9, 1968-December 13, 2013 Barbara Danielson lived her credo, "Live well, laugh often, During the month of March in Bulgaria there is a holiday to love much." Abundantly generous, endlessly encouraging, welcome spring called Baba Marta, in which red and white her laughter, joy, and love were infectious, exemplifying yarn Martenitsa dolls are hung in the trees. If you had ever what it means to live full of grace, integrity, curiosity, and passed Kirsten Stockman's house on Mount Desert Island with a deep appreciation for beauty. in the spring you would have seen the trees in her yard adorned with red, welcoming the season. Kirsten not only A true human ecologist, Barbara embraced all noticed the beauty of the world around her, but celebrated opportunities and challenges with a sense of wonder it. In the spring, summer, and fall you would find her out and a passion for knowledge. Raised in Europe and the in her garden, on her bike riding Acadia National Park's Middle East, she came to the United States as a teenager, carriage trails, hiking with her girls, or swimming in one of obtaining degrees in military history from Hollins College, the island lakes. In winter, she would be in the park on her and interior design from Inchbald School of Design. skis whenever the snow was good. Barbara worked for Hastings Design and the Greater Miami Opera, and became a director of her family's Kirsten was an accomplished baker, home cook, food Miami Corporation. Centered in community, she served preserver, gardener, and homemaker. She was also on numerous boards, including the Miami City Ballet as a talented writer, and a great athlete and outdoor a founding member, the Dade-Monroe Mental Health enthusiast. Kirsten was a loving daughter and sister, Board as president, and the Women's Health Center in devoted mother and wife, and a loyal friend. She made Bar Harbor. She also volunteered with Hospice of Hancock many contributions to her community, among them County. At COA, Barbara served on the board of trustees opening Mother's Kitchen in Town Hill and founding the for eight years and helped to create the Deering Common Maine Women's Balkan Choir. Community Center. Her biggest gift, however, was her smile and presence. Kirsten loved to sing and dance and was a great folk dancer who knew many traditional dances. One of my favorite Barbara's Mount Desert Island home, Ithaca, became a memories of her was the time she and her husband, Tom sacred space through her vision, design, passion, and Crikelair, took my husband, Zach '00, and me to hear some spirit. I had the fortune of living at Ithaca as caretaker; friends play folk music in a crowded, summertime Bar Barbara's presence in my daily life forever changed the Harbor restaurant. Soon Kirsten had taught most of those way I'll see the world. During the growing season of 2013, in the crowd a few dance steps, and a long line of people, I tended Ithaca's gardens with Alana Beard '03, Lindsey hooked by the arms, were weaving in and out of the dinner Nielsen '13, and lecturer Candice Stover. No matter what tables, dancing, singing, cheering. the weather, Barbara would emerge with her large glasses, wide-brimmed hat, and three dogs to say, "Put me to If I were pressed to describe how Kirsten lived her life I work." The air was filled with joy; laughter would sway with would have to say she lived in a way that nourished her the wind; days would often end with Barbara uncorking soul. Kirsten cherished her family and she loved being a bottle of wine and insisting we take a moment by the a mother to her girls and a wife to Tom. She filled her shore. Barbara expressed to us that she had never been lifetime to the fullest with love and joy, with music and happier with the way Ithaca looked and felt; the land so dance, with spending time with the people she loved, with alive with love. Since her passing, many have said that this enjoying the things she loved to do, and with celebrating was echoed in her spirit last year, it was, they said, the the natural beauty in the world around her. May we all be happiest they have seen her. I cherish this knowledge. so lucky to live a life so full. -Autumn Soares '01 When you next pass through Deering Common, or notice the dew in the morning sunshine, remember Barbara's credo and live well, laugh often, and love much. -Courtney Vashro '99 Donald F. Brown, PhD November 26, 1908-February 21, 2014 Having co-founded Boston University's anthropology department, and retired as a professor there, Donald taught archaeology and anthropology at COA in 1977, his daughter Alexandra Brown Conover Bennett's last year at the college. Says Alexandra, "He loved COA students' inquisitive minds and very much enjoyed his colleagues there." 50 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Toward a Literary Toward a Literary Ecology: Places and Ecology Spaces in American Literature By Karen E. Waldron and Rob Friedman Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland and Plymouth, United Kingdom, 2013 Karen Waldron, COA faculty member in literature and women's studies, and Rob Friedman, who teaches at the University of Washington, Tacoma, and directs its Institute of Technology, have edited a collection of essays exploring the interconnections between literature and the environment. Places and Spaces The following is a brief excerpt from Karen's introductory essay. in American Literature EDITED BY KAREN E. WALDRON AND ROB FRIEDMAN Although, like all historical generalizations, the claim that the mid-nineteenth-century United States included flora, the United States' nineteenth century was conflict-ridden, fauna, climate, and geography; a history of colonization, filled with change, and socioculturally both colonial and revolution, slavery, and indenture; multiplying religious and postcolonial, is of necessity a superficial one, it does ethnic communities; idealism and industrialism; divergent enumerate and describe a set of nation-building and ideas of liberty and freedom, with all their contradictions; environmental circumstances that has real bearing not federalism versus republicanism; the legacy of revolution; only for American Studies, where it has been aptly noted, the search for and use of natural resources ranging from but for the specific subject of this volume: literary ecology. cod to lumber to gold; enormous technological change; and The conflicts and challenges were bound up with and in all the built-in tensions of democratic culture. The places environments, with and in the physical, material ecologies and spaces of the United States had many natures, both of the country, its places and landscapes, their geographical in the biological/scientific and sociopolitical senses-from features, biotic and cultural inhabitants, worldviews, and desert to marshland, mountain to plain, city to country. aesthetics. As Zitkala-Sa points out excruciatingly in "The Soft-Hearted Sioux," a story depicting the inability of a This book argues that the nation's nature and the nature missionized son to feed his ailing father by hunting in the of its places and spaces must be considered through old ways during a prairie winter-or as [Stephen] Crane multiple dimensions that weave its physical and social depicts with the story of Maggie, who "blossomed in a mud ecologies together-economic, political, cultural, religious, puddle"-the human dramas of this period were grounded but also geographic, environmental, biotic, and spatial. in the environment, the complex ecology of the human/ Such complex ecologies are seen, named, rendered, nature connection in places and spaces. and imagined through vehicles including literature but also journalism, law and science, art and cartography, That complex ecology is critical for literary study, especially religious observances and kinship rituals, local folkways of culture or nation: mere discussion of setting barely and nation-building cultural demonstrations. However, scratches the surface of what literary works portray and the methodological solution to grasping American wrestle with when depicting the nature of places. Nature's places is not simply to take a cultural studies approach meaning in the previous sentence is dual, even multiple, to American literature, if that approach leaves ecology for good reasons: the term describes both physical and the landscapes produced by literary ecology behind. surroundings and character, a force that is other and a Ecocriticism has made that clear, especially for the twenty- force within, with one sense impacting the other in ways first century, when understanding of ecology is of ever- we constantly try to understand and categorize but will more pressing importance to whatever "America" now never know or be able to name completely. The nature of means. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 51 Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective By Richard J. Borden, foreword by Darron Collins, COA president North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 2014 "It has been said the range of human A further goal is to convey a Coda (excerpted from the final chapter) concerns is framed by two basic cautionary tale about what may be I expressed an aim in the preface questions: 'What makes life possible?' lost in not trying. At one level, I seek to keep this book's narrative near and 'What makes life worth living?' to offer an overview of the intellectual the surface. It was not without the Between these bounds lie the and institutional history of human hope that some insights and intuitive innumerable ideas and queries that ecology, along with various lines of connections might arise along the have occupied human thought over thought relating to this perspective. way. My outline was unconventional. the ages. Like all generations, we The narrative also contains features The contents were a combination of share in these essential questions. of a personal memoir and in so doing academic fragments, bits of popular Unlike previous generations, we culture, personal recollections, face the additional problems and and self-reflections. On the challenges of our time." whole the pieces have wound ECOLOGY and together as a story of life- So begins this "philosophical and wrapped in a life story. The narrative memoir" by Rich Borden, EXPERIENCE exercise has been satisfying longtime faculty member, former Reflections from Hummn Ecological Perspective and, by and large, I am where dean, and Society of Human I hoped to find myself. We all Ecology founder. What follows have a ball of string. This was are a few more passages from the mine. I enjoyed the opportunity beginning and end of this personal to prepare it and share it. My overview of human ecology, personal advice on this is clear: inspired by Rich's COA course, also gather your memories; find the titled Ecology and Experience. story; weave them together. The Shape of Things to Come A number of topics were left (excerpted from the preface) on the sidelines. I have made There is a tendency, especially little mention of several large in the academic world, to carve ones-most notably, questions life into ever-smaller pieces of a higher power, spirituality, in order to make sense of it. and the human soul. It is not All too often, the people who that I don't have such concerns do this come to believe that is or appreciate their significance how the world really is. Human in the light of human affairs. But experience has many levels. rather, it signifies an unknowing So does the natural world. RICHARD J. BORDEN of where I stand in the welter Gathering from both realms Wide I foreword by Darron Collins, president of College of der Atlantic of sacred interpretations. The gives rise to novel constellations. fringe around the tapestry of Attempts to bridge the mental creation escapes my cognizance and environmental arenas are and capability of expression. risky. But rigid conventions and includes many people who have This world by itself is a wonder. narrow views have their dangers significantly touched my life along The experience of being here, in too-especially when they obscure the way. Bringing the mirror of self- celebration of the whole of life, is to underlying connections or smother reflection into the mix was not without make the most of it. When the time imagination. trepidation. I am hopeful the benefits comes, as Patricia [my wife] paints outweigh the perils. Finally, this is an it, "to go back into the soup," I am This book is a blend of themes and invitation to exercise our capacities prepared to meet it as a homecoming. approaches based on a lifetime of for ecological insight, to deepen the Everything else is mystery. interdisciplinary inquiry. My primary experience of being alive, and most of aim is to explore these intersections. all to enrich the whole of life. 52 COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE Summer at College of the Atlantic 2014 CALENDAR OF EVENTS July August July 1 at 9 a.m. Coffee & Conversation August 5 at 9 a.m. Coffee & Conversation The Original Champlain Society: Catherine Schmitt and Botany of MDI: Linda Gregory '89 and Acadia's Caitlin COA's John Anderson on 1881 Champlain Society McDonough MacKenzie on wildflowers and climate change. club logbooks. August 7 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Family Fun Day July 3 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Blum Gallery Opening Kid-friendly activities, food, animals, and games at COA's Rows and Rows: Community, Pattern, and Landscape Peggy Rockefeller Farms. exhibit by Jennifer Judd-McGee ('92). August 12 at 9 a.m. Coffee & Conversation July 8 at 9 a.m. Coffee & Conversation Animal Planet's North Woods Law: COA's Ken Hill talks to Heritage Apples in Maine: John Bunker, apple expert, and Heeth Grantham '94 and game warden Troy Thibodeau '04. COA's Todd Little-Siebold on Maine apple history. August 13 from 4 to 6 p.m. Art Lab July 14 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Beech Hill Farm Jennifer Judd-McGee ('92) offers an interactive collage and assemblage workshop for all ages. 50 Shades of Green: Sherry Geyelin Luncheon with Serena Wolf, Domestic Goddess blogger. Reservations required. August 14 An Evening to Honor Polly Guth (and Launch the Fund for Maine Islands) July 15 at 9 a.m. Coffee & Conversation With special guest, television journalist Bill Moyers. $250 Writing for Hollywood: Jenny Bicks talks about her work on per ticket, proceeds go to the Fund for Maine Islands. If Sex and the City and Men in Trees with COA's Jodi Baker. you would like to be put on the invitation list, please call Amanda Ruzicka at 207-801-5625. July 21 from 5 to 7 p.m. Book Talk An Evening with Dr. Steven Kassels: author of the mystery August 18* from 5 to 7 p.m. History Talk (*DATE CHANGE) Addiction on Trial: Tragedy in Downeast Maine. Book signing. Lynn H. Nicholas, author of The Rape of Europa, on her research into Nazi art plunder and current ramifications. July 22 at 9 a.m. Coffee & Conversation Poetry in the Streets: COA's Candice Stover and Mary- August 19 at 9 a.m. Coffee & Conversation Sherman Willis, author of Graffiti Calculus, discuss poetry. Teaching English in Cambodia: Kate Baxter talks with COA's Gray Cox. July 24 from 5 to 7 p.m. Art Talk The Private Collector and the Curator: Building Drawing August 26 at 9 a.m. Coffee & Conversation Collections in Chicago with Suzanne Folds McCullagh, Art Malaga Island Controversy: COA's Dru Colbert and Maine Institute of Chicago curator and COA trustee. State Museum curator Katherine McBrien discuss arranging an exhibit about this ill-fated interracial island. July 28 from 5 to 7 p.m. Art Talk Jennifer Judd-McGee ('92) talks with COA trustee Cody van COA also hosts these on-going summer events: Heerden, MPhil '15 on Maine as inspiration. Family Nature Camp July 29 at 9 a.m. Coffee & Conversation Summer Field Studies for Children Genome Research: Former COA president Steven Katona and biomedical scientist Nadia Rosenthal, COA trustee, discuss Summer Field Institute for High School Students regenerative medicine, stem cells, human genome research. M/V Osprey Whale Watches THE CHAMPLAIN SOCIETY. Many of our events are generously sponsored by The Champlain Society. For locations and other information, visit www.coa.edu/calendar, or contact development@coa.edu or 207-801-5625. COLLEGE OF THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE 53 NON-PROFIT U.S. POSTAGE PAID COA MAILED FROM ZIP CODE 04330 PERMIT NO. 121 The College of the Atlantic Magazine 105 Eden Street Bar Harbor, ME 04609