‘Islanders’ explores real island living

ISLANDERS: REAL LIFE ON THE MAINE ISLANDS, by Virginia L. Thorndike, Down East Books, Rockport, Me., 2005, $16.95, 336 pages.

An Islesboro woman, identified only as Lydia, kept house years ago for a summer resident “from away,” who was preparing for the trip back to her winter home. The employer wanted Lydia to come early on her last day of the season. But Lydia knew that everything was packed and there would be plenty of time to catch the 8:30 a.m. boat. So Lydia arrived at her usual 7 o’clock. Her employer was displeased: “When I want you here at a certain time, I expect you to be here. Things will be different next year.”

Lydia replied: “You don’t have money enough to hire me another year.” Recalling the incident, she told Virginia Thorndike: “They thought they owned you. Well, no one owns me!”

Thorndike, who is “from away” herself and summered on Islesboro as a child and now lives in Morrill, is a first-class listener with a nice ear for conversation. For this book, she has talked with hundreds of islanders – natives, summer residents, transplants, trippers from away, and “implants” (people from away who have married natives) and “replants” (natives who have left and come back).

She covers all 14 of the hundreds of offshore Maine islands that still have year-round residents, including Eagle Island, with its winter population of a single family. She spoke at length with Helene and Bob Quinn on Eagle Island, as well as various Fernalds on Islesford, the Graces on Swan’s Island, residents of Monhegan and Matinicus, homesteaders and former homesteaders on Frenchboro and dozens of lobstermen, boat builders, housewives and other folks throughout the island communities.

Mount Desert Island and other islands connected by bridges or causeways to the mainland are off her list. She concentrated on the still somewhat isolated life on separate islands.

In perceptive analyses, she reports the integration of islanders, the lingering remnants of the Lydia’s old feudalistic society, rises and falls of the various island populations, the deadly impact of the closing of an island school and several current successful ventures in providing affordable housing to promote viability of the island communities.

“Islanders” is a treasury of detail, anecdote, and frank discussion of island affairs that will inform visitors, former residents, potential settlers and the islanders themselves about life on Maine’s islands. And each one is different.

Richard Dudman is a newspaper man who lives in Ellsworth and on Islesford.