The small population of Cranberry Isles is ALONE split between two of its five islands, which complicates efforts to sustain a year- round community. TOGETHER ISLESFORD AND GREAT CRANBERRY ISLAND FACE THE ATLANTIC - AND THE FUTURE - SIDE BY SIDE. BY-VIRGINIA M. WRIGHT PHOTOGRAPHED BY DOUGLAS MERRIAM DECEMBER 2014 73 Wilfred Bunker and Elmer Spurling were two of the best boat captains the Cranberry Isles have ever the few people he could trust to help with a produced. They were also rivals, whose grim and dangerous task: retrieving the body competition for the lucrative mailboat of lobsterman Roland Sprague from a wave- contract divided them much the way the battered beach in Blue Hill Bay. mile-wide channel known as The Gut sepa- Hours earlier, the Coast Guard had found rates the islands each man called home. Sprague and his sternman, Fred Fernald, During one late-winter northeaster, Spurling, frozen to death in their lobsterboat, which an Islesford man, steered his lobsterboat had run aground on Pond Island, some 10 across that passage to Great Cranberry Island miles from where they had last been seen and picked up his sometime adversary, one of moving traps in preparation for the storm. CONTINUED ON PAGE 79 Tom Powell, pictured above with his wife, Becca, is the Cranberry Isles' first resident minister in 63 years. Phil and Karin Whitney (top right), who are working in a variety of ways to attract young families to the islands, served on the search committee that hired Powell a year ago. Because the Great Cranberry church is unheated, Powell delivers his winter sermons in the Ladies Aid building next door (below right). 74 DOWNEAST.COM DECEMBER 2014 75 "I HOPE MY FRIENDS, Voices of Great Cranberry Island NEIGHBORS, AND RELATIVES DO NOT LOOK AT ME AS THE ENEMY. I AM YOU, ONLY I LIVE ON A DIFFERENT ISLAND. " EILEEN RICHARDS BLAIR COLBY TIFFANY TATE Mechanic, Jack of All Trades Marine Harvester "I was born and brought up on Great Cranberry. For 20 years, worked "I grew up in Washington County, but my family is wound through the as a welder in New Hampshire, then got hurt on the job. One thing history of these islands right back to the first settlers Spurlings, led to another, and wanted to come home. graduated from high Bunkers, Beals, Rices, and Rosebrooks. feel like I'm finally home. school unable to read or write. can get by just fine out here, but not Finding work can be challenging. I'm always right on the edge, on the mainland. plow the roads, sell firewood, make sure the figuring out what I'm going to do and how I'm going to pay rent. But if widows' steps are clear and the generators are working, and do pretty I went back to the mainland, it would be harder to share my son with much anything else can. I'm blessed to be under the umbrella of the his father, who lives on Islesford Last Christmas, made 250 feet of summer people can't say that enough although it's sad to see garland and draped it down the town dock. was sitting at the store at the state of the island in winter. When was young, there were 1 A.M., trying to get Internet and do college course work, and the wind lobsterboats in the coves, always something going on. Now there are kept whipping off the garland, and kept going down to fix it. I'm just a handful of people who are hanging on.' stubborn. You've got to be stubborn to be out here." With just 40 residents, Great BEVERLY SANBORN EILEEN RICHARDS Cranberry's Widow of Lobsterman Norman Sanborn Great Cranberry Postmaster year-round "I met my husband, Norman, in Fort Lauderdale when he was in the "My mother, Gaile Colby, is a strong woman. She has been the community is at Navy. He wanted to come home to Great Cranberry to be a lobsterman backbone of the community for years. She was president of the Ladies greater risk of Aid, which must be one of our oldest organizations - it's 114 years old disappearing that was around 1967. There were close to 200 people year-round than than that of then. All three of our children went to school here, and was a teach- this year. I'm president now. swore I'd never do that, but here am. its sister island, er's aide for six years. The number of kids in the school varied from as We work to provide a community center and ball field. The Ladies Islesford (Little few as seven or eight to as many as 22. When the state started talking Aid building is where we have weddings, receptions, wakes, funerals, Cranberry) about having just one school for the two islands, we invited our legis- potluck dinners. It's also our emergency shelter in case of disaster. across The Gut. lators to come out. Wilfred Bunker went to pick them up it was a We're thinking about starting an inter-island cribbage tournament. blowy, snowy day, and he insisted that they get on the boat. He said, We're always trying to think of something new, because it can get 'If you want our kids to be boated to one school, you're going to expe- very bland out here, very routine, nothing sparking you. You have to rience what they have to experience." mix it up a little, while keeping the tried and true." 76 DOWNEAST.COM ASIER TO BE OUT GHT. I EXPECTED AND LONELY AND ; BUT IT HASN'T AY AT ALL. " ALD The guardsmen managed to bring Fernald's body onto their vessel, but with the gale bearing down, they were ordered to leave Sprague behind. By the time Spurling, Bunker, and their crew arrived at Pond Island, it was dark, and Sprague's body was nowhere to be seen. Sweeping a searchlight over the black swells, the seamen saw a man's knee break the surface. Working quickly, they pulled the body from the deep. Then they brought Roland Sprague home. It's my third day on the Cranberry Isles, and I've heard this story in varying detail four times. This time the story- teller is Wilfred Bunker's niece, Eileen Richards, who presides over the diminu- tive Great Cranberry post office on Spurling Cove, where a picture window is the only thing that stands between her and storm-tossed waves. ("I tell people this is the only post office in America equipped with a life jacket," she jokes.) Fifty-five years have passed since Elmer Spurling and Wilfred Bunker put aside their differences to bring some sense of resolution to a widow and her two young children, but here on the Cranberry Isles, where the Bunkers still run the mailboat, and where Spurlings and Spragues and Fernalds abound, it can seem like only yesterday. The Cranberries may well have the best view The story especially resonates on this of the mountains of bitterly cold Monday after the town Acadia National Park on meeting weekend. For months, the Mount Desert Island, a tension had been building between Great few miles away. Cranberry and Islesford. The issue: whether to make $610,000 in repairs and CONTINUED ON PAGE 116 DECEMBER 2014 79 ALONE TOGETHER Helping People Build Beautiful CONTINUED FROM PAGE 79 Country Places Since improvements to Great Cranberry's Longfellow School - a school no child had attended since 2000 and a school no child will ever attend again unless the building, which also houses the public library, is 404 brought up to code. With just 10 schoolchildren between the two Country islands, all enrolled in the Ashley Carpenters Bryan School on Islesford, some MOJEL desir budget-minded folks from that smaller but more populous isle had deemed the proposal wasteful. To the Great Cranberry islanders, 1 + giving up on the school was tanta- mount to a death sentence. Failure to restore it, they believed, would doom the year-round community, whose population hovers around 40. On the morning of the town meeting, nearly every resident of Find POST & BEAM Carriage Houses, Great Cranberry - along with some Garden Sheds & Country Barns, Shipped Nationwide seasonal residents who'd traveled hundreds of miles for this vote - JBS Gilenal Si Helson. CT 06748 860.228.2276 boarded the ferry for Islesford, primed for battle. Gathering in the Neighborhood House, a rustic meet- inghouse with a hand-painted Stonehome Estate Jewelers mural depicting the islands' spec- tacular view of the mountains of Buyers & Sellers Acadia National Park, nearly two dozen people from both sides of The Gut gave testimony. Eileen Richards Seasons Greetings! was one of them. She said that Wilfred Bunker, "a man who served this community in many ways, a friend and relative to most of us," had been on her mind, and she wondered what he would have to say about all of this. "This item is not about money. It is not about winning, as winning implies an opponent, and I hope my friends, neighbors, and relatives do not look at me as the enemy. I am you, only I live on a different island." She and her fellow Great Cranberry islanders needn't have doubted their Islesford neighbors. The measure to restore the school 50 Exchange St. 17 Ocean Ave. passed easily, 64 to 20. Portland Kennebunkport 207-253-8075 207-967-1285 t the turn of the 20th www.stonehomeantiques.com A century, 300 of Maine's 3,000-plus coastal islands hosted thriving 116 DOWNEAST.COM year-round communities; today, Great Cranberry and Islesford are two of just 15 true island communi- MA ties left. Along with Baker, Bear, and Sutton islands - each - host to a smattering of summer homes - they compose the town of M A I ART Cranberry Isles, served year-round COMMISSION by the Beal & Bunker mailboat, a passenger-only ferry based in Mount Desert Island's Southwest We Want to Hear From You! Harbor, about three miles away. In summer, the islands have a peaceful, languid air that contrasts sharply with the bustle of MDI and Please lend your voice to a project important to the Acadia National Park, which see 2 future of our state by taking a five-minute online million visitors a year. Islesford (the island's name is actually Little survey by December 15. Cranberry, but everyone who lives there calls it by the name of its The information we gain from your responses will village, Islesford) is the busier of help us make Maine a better place to live, work, play and visit. Thanks so much for your participation! "I'll run down and unlock the store after https://www.research.net/s/Maine_Arts hours if someone is having a problem - that's normally with cigarettes. There are people on Islesford who COTTAGE CASH... call over here to have Tas Charry and Discover the good life cigarettes put on the Camden mailboat." RICHARD BEAL the two, receiving a handful of small tour boats whose passengers stroll up the road to the village, snapping photos of the stacks of lobster traps, then spend an hour or two learning about island life at the national park museum or cracking lobsters at the Islesford Dock Restaurant before heading back to the mainland. Great Cranberry has its attractions, too, but they require a bit more effort to find - about Cottage Homes Now Available half a mile from the town dock, LIARRY there's Cranberry House, with a to health café, art gallery, and history museum, and about a half-mile THIS ADULTS $3+ beyond that, there's Polly Bunker's Whale's Rib gift shop. Auto traffic on both islands is almost nil. Winter is even quieter - and it can be achingly lonely. Islesford's 118 DOWNEAST.COM population shrinks from 300 to 70, Great Cranberry's from 250 to 40. The restaurants, museums, galleries, and shops close. The mailboat cuts its trips to four a day; the tour boats don't run at all. The miles to the SWANS ISLAND mainland - and between the two communities - seem to grow. "It's surprising the distance The Gut can produce," Tom Powell, pastor of the Great Cranberry Island Congregational Church and the Islesford Congregational Church, tells me. "Being two islands inher- ently means there are two distinct communities. It's like the difference between a village and a long country Here's to being on the "nice list" road. Islesford is the village; the houses are near each other, and Swans Island scarves, COWLS and mirowa make business and pleasure necessarily luxurious holiday gifts, And each 002 arrives in a keepsake box or inen bag for 1 timeless touch. involve exchanges with your neigh- bors. Activities are impromptu. Discover OUT collection of gift-ready wovens, Great Cranberry is the long country handcrafted on Maine's Midcoast. road; there's a trunk with some branches, and the houses are spread out along it. There's a sense of community, but it has a different flavor. You have to make activities, because that's how you get together." Powell and I are seated in the living room of the parsonage on Great Cranberry, where he and his The perfect wife, Becca, have offered me the use of their guest room, since there is no lodging on the islands this time of stocking year. The couple is one of the reasons I've come: just six months into his job when we meet, Powell, stuffer. 33, is the islands' first resident minister since 1951. The decision to hire a pastor - initiated by Great Cranberry parishioners, who then enlisted the support of their counterparts on Islesford - was as much symbolic as D it was spiritual. "An island's identity is wrapped up in its sense of community," Powell explains. "There's a postmaster, there are children in the school, there are DownEast people in the library, there's a minister in the church. These things THE MAGAZINE or MAN: say 'We are.' For a lot of people, whether they go to church or not, knowing that I'm here is representa- tion that the islands are looking downeast.com/store forward with an optimism. They have a future." The sense of vulnerability is 120 DOWNEAST.COM keenest on Great Cranberry. Its population is not only smaller, it's older, with a median age of 58 compared to Islesford's 41. Its once- vibrant fishing community today Fres__ Fregrant numbers just two lobstermen. By contrast, Islesford, home to the Calser Cranberry Isles Fishermen's Co-op, counts 22. Other work on both bridten islands - carpentry, landscaping, and the like - is spotty once the summer people depart. your Christmas Such realities fueled the anxiety surrounding the Longfellow School celebration project, Powell believes. "Have you ever met someone who has a negative self-image? I think there is $28 some of that on this island. The question about the school created an existential crisis, and the island's unspoken negative self- VisitSunriseCountyEvergreens.com to order your glitt of Christmas Wreaths, Centerpleces and other Maine Balsam Products "Some of them say it's a wonderful place, they'd Sunrise County Evergreens like to live here, and you Milbridge, Maine 64653 Tet 1-800-543-9014 can tell right off the bat that they wouldn't make it here in January. But there are others who seem to understand the issues of living on the frontier." PHIL WHITNEY image was expressed in fear and doubt. The thinking was that Islesford would see it only as Area Rugs from Around the World dollars and cents. They didn't - but then again, who knows how it 207.883.4388 1 800.292.43 would have gone if people hadn't mougalian.com been SO motivated?" Powell grew up in Pennsylvania and spent summers on the island of Vinalhaven, in Penobscot Bay, SO he had some idea of what he was getting into when he applied for the post of pastor. Indeed, he says, it is exactly what he and Becca were looking for. "It's traditional for small parishes to be starter churches, but I Mougalian don't view this that way. It's a three- year contract, but I hope it lasts far 300 Roundwood arborough ME RUGS longer. We've put all our chips in. This isn't parsonage furniture in this house; it's our furniture. We could 122 DOWNEAST.COM have left it in storage in Bangor. This is organizing volunteers for community toward younger people if they were our home. This is our place." work and activities. He makes the trip mature enough to deal with older On the Sunday morning after the across The Gut at least once a day, often people, because we thought they would town meeting, 10 people - a good more, and making that connection, he add enthusiasm and vitality to the turnout for winter - gather around a says, is one of the most important things community above and beyond the table in Great Cranberry's unofficial he does. "Part of my job," he believes, "is church," Whitney says. "And that has winter church, the Ladies Aid building, knitting the islands together." happened. Rebecca and Tom are filling a which, unlike the actual church, has the Powell's ability to appeal to a broad void. Becca is on the planning board. luxury of heat. Powell says prayers for ill Both help out at Cranberry House. Both members of the community and reads are in the fire department. With the fire his sermon from an iPad, and the group "There's a postmaster, department especially, having two more shares a potluck lunch. Then the Powells there are children in the bodies getting training is extremely dash to catch the mailboat to Islesford, important. When you get involved in just where Tom delivers another sermon, and school and people in the a few things out here, you can't help but because the ferry will have made its last library, there's a minister make a big difference." run by the time they're finished visiting, in the church. These Few people have done more to try to the couple spends the night in a parish- reverse the exodus of the Cranberries' ioner's home. Powell is a Presbyterian, things say, 'We are." population than Whitney, who grew up but he says, "I'm a broad churchman TOM POWELL in Southwest Harbor and has roots on here. Both of these islands exist as a Great Cranberry stretching to the late parish - as a local church for the people 1700s. After a globetrotting career with who are here. You're really their only spectrum of church-goers, his musical the U.S. Department of State, he retired option. In many ways, it's the way it used talent (he plays the piano and sings), and with his wife Karin to the island in 2001, to be when people had to walk to his and Becca's genuine interest in island moving into his grandparents' house, church, or ride a horse." On paper, his is life made him the unanimous choice of which he'd frequented as a child. "I a part-time mission; in practice, he the churches' hiring committee, member didn't want to see what I loved, what my works nearly every day, visiting shut-ins, Phil Whitney tells me after the Great grandparents and generations of my offering comfort to the sick, and Cranberry service. "We were leaning family and other families built, Come see the spectacular lighting of the tree at this annual tradition! Entertainment begins with Rick Charette and the Bubblegum Band, fGglin performing live in Monument Square at 5:30 pm. FRIDAY, NOV 28 light up SHOP Shop downtown Portland and a portion of sales is for a caláce donated to Day One, providing treatment programs your DAY for youth substance abuse. SATURDAY, NOV 29 holid ys FIRSTFRIDAY Congress Street is closed to vehicular traffic ARTWALK from 5-8 pm for a special holiday edition of PORTLAND, MAINE 2014 HOLIDAY the First Friday Art Walk. Enjoy shopping, art EDITION exhibitions, live performances, and more! FRIDAY, DEC 5 Merry Madness kicks off downtown at 5 pml Shops stay open until 10 pm with Portland. Maine. For information on free refreshments. downtown holiday events, THURSDAY, DEC 11 Yes. Life's Good Here. visit portlandmains.com WBLM PORTLAND'S (housland Dest Herald 1029 WC DOWNTOWN WHOM DISTRICT Illnine Telegram 207.772.6828 124 DOWNEAST.COM disappear," he says. "A malaise was bat that they wouldn't make it here in summer, she declined to speak on the settling in, and there didn't seem to be a January. But there are others who seem record, but suffice it to say she holds the lot of motivation to turn things around. to understand the issues of living on the island and islanders dear.) Located a The attitude, especially in winter, seemed frontier, as I call it, living on the edge of few paces uphill from the town dock, to be that the handwriting was on the the open ocean in winter. The people you the store stocks the basics and a wall and people were waiting for the try to persuade are those you think are surprising amount more - cereals, island to die." going to make it economically and cheeses, pastas and sauces, frozen pizza, He and Karin plunged in. As a socially. It's a narrow section of the and other items that can be cobbled into selectman, he helped establish a town- population that can be out here in a nourishing meal should one's refrig- subsidized commuter boat whose early winter without ready hospital access or a erator go empty before a trip to the morning and evening runs allow people drug store or a movie theater." mainland supermarket. to have full-time jobs on the mainland. "I'll run down and unlock the store He joined the historical society, which very morning, Richard Beal after hours if someone is having a purchased and renovated the Cranberry E opens the Cranberry General problem - that's normally with ciga- House building. Karin runs the seasonal Store - the only commercial rettes. There are people on Islesford who café, Hitty's, named for a doll in a 1929 enterprise on Great Cranberry call over here to have cigarettes put on children's novel by the late Rachel Field, that keeps hours in winter - and takes the mailboat," says Beal, a selectman and a summer resident of Sutton Island. Phil his chair by the front window, where he retired Navy captain who has called is president of Cranberry Isles Reality plays host to regulars who stop in for Great Cranberry home since 1998. "We Trust (CIRT), an affordable workforce coffee, politics, and gossip. It is not have beer and wine, but no hard liquor. organization that has acquired or built Beal's store, but the key is entrusted to Not that we haven't tried. Two years ago I five rental homes, four of them on Great him by Janice Murch, a summer wrote a warrant article and tried to Cranberry. resident who bought the place in 2009 change that, but nope, they don't want "We talk to a lot of people who come and who, I am told by several people, it. I've learned a lot in 16 years, and there through our doors," Whitney says of keeps it open in winter even though it are some things they just won't do. They would-be CIRT tenants. "Some of them loses money because she wants to don't want five selectmen - nope, we'll say it's a wonderful place, they'd like to support the year-round community. stick with three. They don't want nomi- live here, and you can tell right off the (When I caught up with Murch last nations for selectmen five months in Revitalize the Heart of your home. Kitchen Bath & Flooring Center division DISCOVER VISA ALUM HUW 126 DOWNEAST.COM advance - nope, we want them from the Polly Bunker's sister, the late Charlene know their names. Some people may not town-meeting floor. They don't want a Alley: You Can Get a Pound of Butter want that, but for others, it meets a need town manager - nope, they'll get too and Everything Else You Need to Know. for belonging. And because there's that much power." Another way to put it: this is no place for frailty, you're free to not be perfect and The school vote is the topic this a recluse. you won't be ostracized." Monday morning, as roughly one-third "You don't live on an island unless There are some encouraging signs for of the town wanders into the store in the you want to be part of the community," the islands' future. This past summer, space of an hour. There's Malcolm two families with four children between Donald, a lifelong seasonal resident who them moved into CIRT houses on Great came up from Portland for the meeting; Cranberry, thus increasing the school Polly Bunker, who never goes to Islesford One of the most popular population by almost half and bolstering (the steep dock stairs challenge her items at the Cranberry islanders' argument for using the Ashley 87-year-old legs), but was compelled to General Store is a tee- Bryan and Longfellow schools on an go this time and be counted; Eileen alternating schedule. Richards, who is on her way to open the shirt bearing the slogan Meanwhile, Great Cranberry's two post office; Eileen's brother, Blair Colby, You Can Get a Pound of boatyards are being reinvigorated by whose collection of used trucks makes Butter and Everything two young men with Cranberry roots. him Great Cranberry's de facto public Josh Gray, who graduated from Colby Else You Need to Know. works department; the Powells, who College in 2005 and spent some time have just come off the ferry from working in Washington, D.C., now lives Islesford; and Annie Alley, who, though on Islesford and commutes daily across ailing from cancer, adds her freshly Pastor Powell tells me later. "This is a The Gut to Newman and Gray Boatyard, baked toll house cookies and mini wonderful community, but it's not a business co-founded by his father 30 cheesecakes to the bakery shelf. (Both perfect. It isn't Mayberry. There are years ago. The company has six year- Donald, 74, and Alley, 81, have since people who are broken. There are people round employees. Sam Donald passed away.) who go home and drink. Those people - Malcolm Donald's son - pursued One of the store's most popular items are in every town; the only difference careers in finance in New York and is a tee-shirt, bearing a slogan coined by here is, you can't hide from that. You international development in MASTERPIECES aren't only found on walls. AVALON AVALON CABERNET SAUVIGNON AVALONWINERY.COM 128 DOWNEAST COM Washington and Cameroon, but now he northeaster in 1959. As the years passed, She also is a selectman - nominated living on Great Cranberry, managing she would learn how two rival sea from the floor at the town meeting, she ranberry Island Boatyard, which has captains had recovered her father's body, edged out Whitney, 38-36. VO year-round employees. "My rela- an act that not only gave her mother Which leads to one last story, one onship to this place goes way back to some measure of peace, but also finan- that Joy Sprague says not many people igh school, when I worked here cial security: had there been no body, know. Not long before Elmer Spurling immers," Donald says. "In the back of Roland Sprague's widow would have had died in 1984 at the age of 83, Sprague y mind, I always thought that this was to wait seven years to collect her saw him and his wife, Eleanor, sitting e job I most enjoyed. It's been much husband's Social Security benefits. "My on the mailboat, which was picking up sier to be out here than I thought. I mother was from Virginia, and she had passengers at the dock. His old compet- xpected to feel isolated and lonely and only been living here a few months itor for the mailboat contract, Wilfred go stir crazy, but it hasn't been that when he died," Sprague says. "She could Bunker, then in his 60s, was at the ay at all." have gone back home to her family, but wheel. "It's Saturday morning, the 11 she loved this community, and she did o'clock boat," Sprague recalls. "Wilfred hen I was young, I was everything to keep the pieces together SO goes and talks to Elmer. Elmer plants W told my father was lost at we could stay." his cane, stands up, and goes to the sea," Joy Sprague says. Sprague is the Islesford postmaster, a steering wheel." Sprague's voice cracks. "That's why I loved position she has held since she turned "And Elmer pilots that boat. Wilfred sits alking the beach, because if he was 21, when she was briefly the youngest there, biding his time. Wilfred showed st, then that meant I could find him." postmaster in the country. Each year, she that he respected Elmer and trusted him It is a balmy summer day on Islesford and Eileen Richards, her friend and with his boat. It was better than a five months after the town meeting counterpart on the other side of The Gut, handshake." and I am sitting with Sprague and compete to sell the most stamps by mail, In a small island town, sometimes osterman Stefanie Alley at a picnic a contest that gives both post offices an your friends and your rivals are one and ble in a field overlooking The Gut and income boost. She worked with Phil the same. eat Cranberry beyond. Sprague tells Whitney on the committee that hired e she was just 3 when her father died Tom Powell to serve as pastor of the Virginia M. Wright is the senior editor at Down his lobsterboat during that late-winter Great Cranberry and Islesford churches. East magazine. Peter Gough "His work is sheer magic. The magic lies in the essence of light Tom Butterfield Mastermark Foundation, Bermude ELIZABETH MOIS GALLENIE Falmouth Shopping Center 251 U.S. Route One, Falmouth. Maine Tuesday Saturday, 10 - 5pm (207) 781 2620 00 ⑆ by Fitz Gaugh 30" 507 estylic on carver