(waves crashing)
(placid music)
- [Katherine] The state
of Maine has 2,400 islands
that are at least
an acre in size,
scattered across nearly
3,500 miles of coastline.
That's more islands than the
entire rest of the East coast
of the United States.
These rugged coastal
islands are the crown jewels
of Maine's jagged
granite shoreline,
isolated places where
generations of families
have carved out a living
from the ocean and the land.
Maine also has
significant numbers
of historic islands on
our lakes and rivers,
most notably Fry
Island on Sebago Lake
and Swan Island on
the Kennebec River.
Swan Island is actually
comprised of two islands,
the larger island,
and a second smaller Island
known as little Swan Island.
Swan Island is often confused
with Swan's Island off the
coast of Acadia National Park,
but they are distinctly
different places.
Swan Island is located at
the head of Merrymeeting Bay,
20 miles up the Kennebec
River from Fort Popham
in the coastal
town of Phippsburg,
and 10 miles North
of Bath Iron Works,
Maine's largest employer.
Swan Island rests between
the central Maine towns
of Dresden and Richmond.
The island measures
four miles long
and is comprised of
900 acres of forest
and 400 acres of fields.
Swan Island is unusual in part
because of the rare
intertidal plants found here.
Shoreline grasses
located primarily
around the Southern
end of Swan Island
were once an important food
staple for Native Americans.
- The Kennebec River
above the chops,
so all of Merrymeeting
Bay up is fresh water,
yet it's tidal.
So, when you have a four and
a half to seven foot tide,
you have a lot of water plants
that are not found elsewhere.
For instance, throughout
Merrymeeting Bay,
probably the predominant
grass is wild rice,
and it is edible.
The only other place that
grows in the United States
is in Minnesota.
That was a staple for
the Native Americans
and also for all the
migratory waterfowl.
But there used to
be in the 1950s,
there would be as many as 30,000
ducks on the Bay at a time.
So, you can see why the natives
would call a Merrymeeting
Bay "Duck water place".
- [Katherine] The
Kennebec River once served
as the major connecting point
for all Native Americans living
up and down Maine's coast.
Merrymeeting Bay was
important to Native Americans.
The Bay is located at the
confluence of six Maine rivers,
making it a vital transportation
corridor for centuries.
- [Jay] Starting
about 9,000 years ago,
basically the head of Little
Swan Island connecting
to the Dresden shore
was the head of tide,
that was the falls.
And on the Dresden shore,
there was a fishing station
from the middle archaic period
up through, so from 9,000 years
ago, 'til 4,500 years ago.
That's probably why the Swan
Island area is so important
to the Native Americans
through history.
There were several
different groups
of Native Americans
in this area.
The Eastern Abenaki were the,
probably for the most part,
those groups that were
found on the Kennebec,
and they were known by
their primary settlement.
So, the Kennebeci would
have been the natives
in this part of the flowage.
So, basically from Swan Island,
probably up to Augusta would
have been the Kennebeci's.
Then when you got
up further up river
above Waterville, Winslow,
you'd have the Norridgewocks.
But they were all interrelated.
(placid music)
(eagle squawking)
- [Katherine] The remains
of a stone fortress,
possibly a trading
or command post,
could still be found on Little
Swan Island as late as 1897.
Archeological digs have
uncovered pottery shards
and stone tools on Swan Island,
going back an estimated
500 to 1,500 years.
(machine rattling)
Prior to the industrialization
bloom of the 19th century,
the river was teaming with
shad, sturgeon and salmon.
Historical accounts vary,
but some believe Swan Island
was named for migrating swans
said to have sought refuge here.
Others believe the name
is short for "sowangen",
the Abenaki word for
Island of Eagles.
- Sowangen is an Abenaki
word that they used
to describe those two islands.
Now, the end of that
word, "sowangen",
that "gen" denotes
tribe or band.
So, the full name
means tribe or band
of natives living on
the Island of Eagles.
(placid music)
- [Katherine] Europeans
arrived on Swan Island
in the 17th century and
made several attempts
to form a village.
They were not, as
commonly believed,
fleeing religious persecution.
Settlers came here to acquire
land, enrich themselves
and make money for those
who financed their voyages.
A group of Boston
investors known
as the Pejepscot Proprietors
had their sights set on Swan
Island and the surrounding land
because they wanted the
resources found here,
namely timber, fur, and fish.
- [Terri] The proprietors
were interested in land.
So, they got together
and pooled their money
to buy what they thought
was Northern Massachusetts.
One of the places that
had been known since 1607
was the Kennebec River and that
there was an island up there
and it was a rich, fertile
island for planting.
So, they came up the river
to go to that island.
- Most of the settlers they
brought in were Scots Irish.
They were really Scotsmen
who had been driven
out of Scotland,
were living in Northern
Ireland and then came here.
And they were mostly
Presbytarian, they
were not Catholic.
So, Boston didn't know
what to do with them.
So, they shipped those people
up here to be on the border
between white settlement
and the French and Indians.
There was a lot of
conflicting ownership then,
but before anything
really happened,
we had King Philip's War,
the first of the
Native American Wars
with the Native Americans.
And at that time,
all the Merrymeeting
Bay was cleared out,
everything down to Bath.
In fact, all whites were
basically driven down
to the Saska area,
and in 1722, '23,
between 40 and 60 canoe loads
of Native Americans came in,
burnt the houses,
killed the cattle,
let the women and
children walk to Boston.
took five of the key
men back up to Canada,
let them go and said, "When
you walk by Merrymeeting Bay,
"don't turn and look behind you.
"'Cause you're not gonna
be back here again."
But at that time,
they left people
in a fortified garrison
house on Swan Island
and also Fort Richmond, the
beginnings were just at the,
on the Richmond shore at
the head of the island.
- [Katherine] Tensions
and hostilities
between Maine's
native population
and the colonists exploded
into open warfare before,
during and after King
Philip's War in 1675.
Native rights were not
respected and treaties
between the Abenaki and
English were routinely broken.
Native people were alarmed
by the increasing numbers
of settlers laying claim
to their ancestral land
and pushed back
against this incursion.
Raids became so common in
the late 1600s and 1700s
that Massachusetts agreed to
build a protective garrison
on the Richmond
side of the river.
Fort Richmond was
constructed on the riverbank,
overlooking both channels
of the Kennebec River.
The Fort is long gone, but at
the time of its construction,
the structure boldly
demonstrated that the English
would continue to
promote settlement,
ensure safety for the colonists
and satisfy the wishes of
the Pejepscot Proprietors.
And the fort's
commanding presence
helped reassure nervous
settlers they'd have protection
if they set down roots
on or around Swan Island.
Attacks on settlers continued
well into the 18th century
until the native
people were overwhelmed
by the sheer number
of new arrivals.
Colonists were intent
on acquiring land here,
often at great danger to
themselves and their families.
In 1750, Captain James
Whidden lived on Swan Island
with his family, all of
whom were later captured
and brought unharmed to
Canada by Native Americans
determined to defend
their homeland.
(dramatic music)
Tragically,
most Native Americans
were eventually forced
to move on to Quebec,
or they were assimilated
into the Penobscot tribes,
their lives forever
upended by the avarice
and greed of European
land speculators.
(placid music)
The first European settlers
to firmly establish themselves
on the island came
in the late 17th
and early 18th centuries.
Some came simply to claim
land for themselves.
The level ground
and fertile soil
on the island provided
a solid foundation
for growing a wide
variety of crops,
including corn, oats and wheat.
By 1766, Swan Island had
18 recorded inhabitants
and a colonial village
began to take shape.
For visitors and
historians alike,
Swan Island is
uniquely fascinating
because it represents
something almost unheard
of in New England,
a once thriving town
that gradually vanished,
an East coast version of
an old West ghost town.
(placid music)
(placid music)
Swan Island was once part
of the town of Dresden,
but due to a dispute over taxes,
the island broke free
of the mainland in 1847
and became the independent
town of Perkins.
Perkins was named
after Thomas Perkins,
a wealthy Boston philanthropist
and summer resident
who paid for the
town's incorporation.
- The residents on
Swan Island decided
that they wanted to
be their own entity.
So, they pulled back from
the governance of Dresden
and became their own
incorporated town.
And the town was named after
Thomas Handasyd Perkins,
who put the money up and it
may have only been 50 bucks,
but he was the richest
guy on the island
and had the passion to
want that town to begin.
So, that's what he did.
- [Katherine] Thomas
Perkins was introduced
to Swan Island in the
1820s by his wife, Jane.
Perkins was instrumental
in the establishment
of the township, but
he was best known
for the role he
played in the support
of the first school for the
blind in Boston, Massachusetts,
a school attended
by Helen Keller
and Anne Sullivan among others.
He also played a role
in the construction
of the Bunker Hill
Monument in Boston,
and the four mile long
road linking the North end
of Swan Island to the South
is named Perkins
Highway in his memory.
But Perkins had a darker side.
Great wealth and philanthropy
often concealed
an imperfect past.
His fortune was based in part
on his active involvement
with the opium and slave trades.
(placid music)
By the second half
of the 19th century,
regular ferry service to
Richmond had been established,
making transportation to and
from Dresden and Richmond,
and thus the
island, much easier.
At one time, as many as 20 homes
could be found on Swan Island.
Today, only four of the original
18th and 19th century homes
from the old town of
Perkins's days remain standing
on the island, along
with one house built
in the early 1900s that is used
as a caretaker
headquarters today.
The first stop on your
Swan Island tour leads you
to the historic
Tubbs-Reed House,
located on the North
end of the island.
The Tubbs-Reed House was built
in the federal style
just after 1800
by Major Samuel Tubbs of
Berkley, Massachusetts.
Tubbs was commissioned
as a major
in the Massachusetts
militia in 1776.
- Samual Tubbs brought
some of his cronies up here
to build houses, start sawmills,
start grain grinding mills
just to populate the area.
And there were conditions on
the rental of his properties.
He would call somebody up here,
pay their moving expenses and
give them money and materials
to build a house and
then rent them the house
while they worked for
him at the sawmill.
(blade scuffing)
- So, it was really
the forest products,
the furs and the fisheries
that were attractive
to the whites, and of course,
if they could get
enough people up here,
then you could start
selling the land as well.
And the Kennebec proprietors,
the Pejepscot Proprietors,
the Clark and Lake
Interests on the Kennebec,
they were all out to make money.
They weren't just looking
for religious freedom.
They were here for
business purposes.
- It was a pretty harsh
delineation between
that upper-class
of proprietors and the people
that populated the
island initially.
And then the
proprietors, for example,
Sylvester Gardiner, built
what he'd said was a cottage
for his daughter
when she got married,
and they lived there
for a year or so,
and then they loved it so much,
they came to live
and raise a family.
- [Katherine] This
saltbox style home
was built by Sylvester
Gardiner sometime around 1760,
making it one of the
oldest summer homes
in all of New England.
Gardiner built the home as a
wedding gift for his daughter,
Rebecca and her husband,
Phillip Dumaresq.
The couple used the home
primarily as a summer residence.
Gardiner was one of
central Maine's earliest
and most prominent
colonial investors.
He was an influential
physician and land developer.
Gardner was also known
as a British loyalist
who fled to Canada during
the American revolution.
The central Maine town that
is today known as Gardiner,
was named Gardiner's Town
Plantation after him in 1754.
(dramatic music)
In later years, the Dumaresq
family was consumed by tragedy.
On September 4th, 1855,
Margaret Dumaresq,
her daughter and
a family friend,
Sarah Richards, drowned
in the turbulent channel
separating Swan Island
from Little Swan Island.
Hearing the desperate cries of
her daughter and her friend,
Margaret jumped into the
channel to try to save them.
And all three women perished.
(dramatic music)
The historic record
suggests Swan Island
may have played a role
in one of the most
noteworthy military debacles
in New England's
colonial history.
The Arnold Expedition
is the best known
and most ill advised journey
ever taken up the river.
According to legend, during
the fall and winter of 1775,
Aaron Burr, General Henry
Dearborn and Benedict Arnold
were believed to have
stopped on Swan Island.
- [Jay] If you read any
of the actual journals
that were generated
by the men in the Arnold
Expedition in 1775,
every single vessel ran
aground on the sandbars.
- They were on their way
to pick up the bateaux
that ended up being
miserably inadequate.
But I cannot imagine with
that island right there,
that they wouldn't have stopped.
- [Katherine] Aaron
Burr was rumored
to have spent the
night on the island.
From here, Arnold's
ill-fated army of soldiers,
1,100 of them at the
outset of the journey,
paddled bateaux riverboats
and marched 350 miles North
on their infamously disastrous
attempt to conquer Quebec.
Burr went on to become Thomas
Jefferson's vice-president,
and Benedict Arnold remains one
of North America's most
controversial political figures.
The Arnold Expedition
was given the romanticized
historical fiction treatment
in Kenneth Roberts's "Arundel",
a highly regarded historical
fiction novel focused
on the gallantry and hubris
of the revolutionary
war years in Maine.
(dramatic music)
Roberts memorably
described Swan Island
as, "A gem of the Kennebec"
in a passage of his book.
- [Narrator] "The lower
head of Swan Island,
"which is an island
four miles long,
"points down into
Merrymeeting Bay
"like a broad head
arrow with a broken tip.
"The front edge of the
headland was used as a lookout
"by the Swan Island Indians,
"who are Abenaki's,
very friendly people
"and part of the
Kennebec tribe."
(upbeat music)
- [Katherine] The Swan
Island of the 19th
and early 20th centuries
gradually developed
into a village comprised
of resourceful men,
women and children.
The island was a tranquil place,
but life was challenging here.
And the settlers had to
work hard to survive.
- Perkins's township consisted
of a little one
room school house
that had all the
grades and one teacher,
the boat yard, it had a
church, a little chapel.
- [Jay] They did have a school
building that they also used
for church services
and for town meetings.
They had a community band.
And they were mostly
self-sufficient homesteads
to the point they could be
with a little job on the side,
if they could, a
little bit of logging,
not too much 'cause they had
to move the logs by water.
There was a brick
yard on the island,
and that's where
most of the bricks
for the brick buildings
at the foot of Main Street
in Richmond came from,
some subsistence farming,
a blacksmith, and
two other trades.
(hammer thumping)
(placid music)
- [Katherine] In 1837,
David and Drusilla Reed
purchased the Tubbs house.
The Reeds and their
children were resided there
into the 1920s,
but the house was never
plumbed, serviced by electricity
or centrally heated
during their time there.
David Reed was a farmer who
tended among other things,
18 sheep by the year
1860 and 20 apple trees
by the year 1880.
The soil on and
around Swan Island
is some of Maine's finest.
And throughout the
island's history,
farmers could count
on bountiful harvests.
- [Jay] When you look
around Merrymeeting Bay
on similar land and it's
some of the best farmland,
at least in this part
of central Maine,
because it's the
Louisville soil,
the stuff that's
come down the river,
it's fines, it's good
stuff, it drains well.
- [Katherine] At its peak,
approximately 25 families
lived and worked on Swan Island
and the population
at one time rose
to over 100 people.
Farming, fishing,
lumbering, shipbuilding,
and ice cutting were among
the thriving industries
typical of the
island's early days.
- The industries went
from several ice houses
from various companies
that had ice houses up
and down the river,
but there were four,
at least three, for sure,
but maybe four ice
houses on the island.
So, that was a huge industry.
Kennebec River ice went
all over the world.
(ice grinding)
(placid music)
- [Katherine] The ice
industry on Swan Island began
in the 1830s and strengthened
during the civil war years.
The island's ice
cutting business grew
well into the 1880s,
before dying out all together
sometime around World War One.
At the peak of ice production,
at least three large ice houses
were active on Swan Island,
cutting and exporting ice
shipped all over New England
to places as far away as the
West Indies and New Zealand.
Tourism was another
major industry here.
Swan Island was an unspoiled
place of natural beauty
and a popular summer retreat
for Victorian era
visitors looking
to escape from the
stresses of city life.
- [Jay] They would come up
to get away from the miasmas
of the cities and
they would just sit
in the country and
watch the world go by,
the river, the horse carts,
whatever it was, the boats.
- [Katherine] A health
spa craze was underway
in the mid 19th century,
and Swan Island
was once advertised
in a Boston based magazine
called Ballou's Pictorial
Drawing Room Companion,
as a natural medicinal
cure-all retreat
for whatever ailed you.
- [Jay] The Gardiner
Dumaresq house was bought
by a Dr. William Hebert
who was gonna run a resort,
if you will, Swango,
where you could get
the new eclectic cure.
(dramatic music)
- [Katherine] This
curious promotional effort
was cut short by the
advent of the civil war.
Islanders supported
the civil war
by developing a wool
clothing production industry
to help produce uniforms
for union soldiers.
(chattering)
Wool was in high demand
throughout the war.
In 1864, 500 sheep were
brought to the island
to support the Union Army cause,
and production
continued throughout the
duration of the war.
The civil war also claimed
casualties from Swan Island.
Out of an overall island
population of just 90,
five young men from
the island served
in the 19th Maine division.
And two of these men were
killed during battle.
For a time, shipbuilding was
also a source of employment
for Swan Island's inhabitants.
At least seven ocean going
vessels were built on the island
in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries.
By the early 1900s,
a dramatic economic shift away
from traditional industries
was underway on Swan Island.
Iron ships became popular
and the island lost its
wooden ship building business.
Modern refrigeration
rapidly brought an end
to the ice cutting industry.
Pollution from industries
located up river resulted
in a loss of fishing income.
Extensive timber
harvesting turned much
of the island into
barren fields.
As the traditional industries
began winding down,
many island residents were to
leave in search of other jobs.
(dramatic music)
Agriculture was one of
the few remaining sources
of income on Swan Island,
but as the severe effects of
the Great Depression sunk in,
farmers here and elsewhere
began experiencing
extraordinarily difficult times.
Many younger residents
left the island
seeking a better future.
And those who remained
could no longer
make a living from farming
(placid music)
The construction of the
Richmond Dresden Bridge in 1931
was the death knell for
the Swan Island community.
Islanders could no longer rely
on Richmond's ferry service
to transport them to
and from the mainland,
leaving many residents stranded.
- They were able to survive
as a town until 1917,
so, for 70 years.
And at that time there were
not enough male voters,
21 years and older
to fulfill all
of the required constitutional
positions of the town.
So, they were
disorganized technically
is the term by the state,
and they became a township.
At that time, the state
became the taxing authority,
and before long, they had
acquired two of the parcels
on the island for
non-payment of taxes.
So, that was how they sort of
got invested in the island.
- [Katherine] Various attempts
to establish new industries
on the island failed
during this time.
A fox farm and a wooden
box production company
were unsuccessful.
In 1932, investors tried
to reestablish a wool production
operation on the island.
Governor William Tudor Gardiner
and his business
partners brought 1,500
sheep to Swan Island
and only 75 sheep survive
the harsh Maine winter.
As the final exodus began,
many of the farmsteads were
given up in lieu of taxes.
The state of Maine took
over some properties
by eminent domain.
Other properties were
simply abandoned.
(placid music)
After the last residents
packed up and left,
Swan Island transitioned into
a wildlife management area
and continues to be
overseen and maintained
by the Maine Department of
Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
Maine's Inland
Fisheries and Wildlife
recognized the island's value
as a waterfowl
management watch site.
Federal aid to wildlife
restoration funding
enabled the ISW
to begin buying the farms on
the Island in the early 1940s.
The transition from an
active village farm community
to a wildlife preserve
called for focused,
determined leadership
and planning.
Steve Powell was one of the
earliest biologists living
and working on Swan Island.
Powell was an influential
and enthusiastic steward
of the island.
He graduated from the university
of Maine, Orono, in 1940
with a degree in
wildlife conservation,
and then went on to serve with
honor in the Pacific theater
during world war two.
- [Jay] Interesting
man, Steve Powell
was assigned to Swan Island.
He always had a pipe or
a cigarette in his mouth.
Steve Powell also trapped,
did quite a bit of trapping,
a true outdoorsman,
quite a fishermen.
- He kept meticulous records
of a banding geese and
ducks and the deer.
And also they did chemical
testing of deer repellents
during that time.
- [Jay] And this was a perfect
experimental island for it
because there was a
large deer population.
It was controlled.
They also did some work
raising game birds out there,
but didn't have a
lot of focus on that.
He was also a
wonderful scientist.
He would go out as the
migratory waterfowl
were coming through
and count the number
of each species that he would
see on the day on a given day.
And he would chart them out,
whether the teal
or the wood ducks,
or the Canada geese, whatever.
And based on that, they
actually set the hunting season
so that both of the
hunters and the ducks
were able to benefit.
At one point in time,
he went out on the Bay.
I think it was 1954 in October.
And he did it by boat,
by airplane, by car.
And he estimated 1,000
duck hunters in the Bay,
and that they
harvested 2,500 birds
between them on that one day.
And he was also interested
in where the birds went.
So, he would do a lot of
catch and release banding.
And when the, especially
the Canada geese,
were found with their leg
bands in South Carolina,
wherever over time, you get
a list of 100 of these birds
and where they were found,
you begin to understand
how the inland
waterway flyways work.
And this was some of the very
earliest work in that respect.
They also did a lot of
work with deer populations.
At one time, they had over
300 deer on the island.
They did a lot of catch
and release there too.
And from that, they determined
that about a 10 mile radius,
if you took a deer
more than 10 miles away
from where it started,
it probably would not
find its way back.
But if you took him 'em miles
away, they probably would.
They also transported deer to
many of the islands of Maine.
(placid music)
His wife, Polly, was, I don't
think she was five feet tall.
Steve Powell never had children.
He raised them
Springer Spaniels.
They did raise the first
male moose ever raised
in captivity out
there in '48 and '49.
Jerry, the moose,
was brought there.
His mother was killed
when he was hours old
by a logging truck
up in Northern Maine.
He was raised there
for two years.
He didn't know he was a moose.
Whenever any of the
men would come around
with cigarettes in their pocket,
he would try and flip the
cigarette pack out of the pocket
'cause he liked eating tobacco.
- Powell and and his wife,
Polly, lived on Swan Island
from 1945 until 1951.
After six years
of island living,
Steve and Polly moved
ashore to Greenpoint Farm
in nearby Dresden and began
growing strawberries and apples.
- [Jay] At that time, Steve
purchased the land in Dresden
that's now Greenpoint,
and he expanded the land.
He did some orcharding,
he did some berry growing.
Greenpoint now is also a
wildlife management area,
a little separate
from Swan Island,
but really part of
the whole thing.
Steve Powell later
ended up managing all
of the state wildlife
management areas in Maine.
(placid music)
- [Katherine]
Powell died in 1971.
And the Steve Powell
Wildlife Management Preserve
was named in his honor.
(birds chirping)
(water splashing)
Federal aid to wildlife
restoration funding
enabled the ISW
to begin buying the farms on
the island in the early 1940s.
By the early 1950s,
the only remaining
piece of private land
was the Curtis Cemetery.
(placid music)
Wildlife, water fowl, and
fish continue to thrive here
long after the island was
acquired by the state of Maine.
Today's Kennebec
River is a far cry
from the polluted,
industrialized
waterway of yesterday.
Native species, like sturgeon,
have seen their populations
come back strong
in recent years.
And the eagle
population has rebounded
from a time when they
faced near extinction.
- Every single one of
the anadromous fish,
which are fish that returned
to the river to spawn,
I think there are 13 of them,
every one of those is found
in the Kennebec flowage
and the numbers have greatly
increased for a lot of them,
especially with the removal of
the Edwards dam and Augusta,
and then the first dam
on the Sebasticook.
So, the numbers
have gone way up.
The sturgeon are
still pretty strong.
When we go out on
the Merrymeeting,
the Maine Maritime's boat,
we often see the
sturgeon jumping.
- The English that
came up the river,
that's why they came up the
river for furs and for the fish.
And there were sturgeon
and there were cod and the,
it was prolific with huge fish.
They weren't just
what we know today.
There were 14 to 16
foot sturgeon out
there in that water.
And I have gone kayaking
over to that island.
And I know my kayak
is nine feet long.
There was a sturgeon, I was
paddling back to the landing,
and that jumped and
they belly flopped down,
and it rocked my kayak.
It was so close and
I paddled so fast,
you could see a rooster
tail behind my kayak.
I swear (laughs).
(placid music)
- [Katherine] In 1995,
Swan Island was added
to the National Register
of Historic Places.
Today, the island attracts three
to 4,000 visitors each year
and continues to function
as a wildlife sanctuary
for migrating water fowl,
turkeys, bald eagles, and deer.
For today's casual visitor,
Swan Island offers
miles of pleasant hiking
and exploring opportunities.
Kayaking and canoeing
are also popular here.
But be forewarned,
paddling this stretch of
the Kennebec takes stamina.
The river here is tidal.
And if you don't time
your trip carefully,
you'll find yourself
struggling upstream
against strong winds
and surging currents
at various points
throughout your journey.
For safety reasons,
visitors are advised to
be on guard for ticks.
Swan Island is primarily
a wildlife preserve
and precautions are necessary.
(placid music)
The Old Perkins
Highway, as it is known,
remains the main transportation
corridor of the island.
The beaver pond, a
traditional corn crib,
and the wildlife viewing tower
are just a few of the island's
more popular tourist attractions
found along the highway.
And fishing is allowed on
the island's largest pond.
Today, nature has reclaimed much
of what was once a
thriving village,
but mysterious reminders
of a bygone era
can still be seen
all over the island.
The quiet stillness of
the island's landscape
carries faint whispers of
another time and place,
an island village
lost to the ages.
Swan Island is open from
May 15th until mid-October.
Visitors can access Swan
Island by ferry from Richmond.
The ride from the town of
Richmond landing takes less
than 10 minutes.
Swan Island is the only
wildlife management area
in the state of Maine
that allows for camping.
10 Adirondack type shelters are
available for overnight use,
and clean, safe drinking water
and modern bathroom
facilities are also available.
Hundreds of school groups
have visited the
island over the years,
and the boat house
serves as a classroom
for visitors, young and old.
(placid music)
In the 1950s and '60s.
Terri Blen Parker's
grandparents, Parker
and Marian Blen,
served as caretakers
on the island.
In her younger years,
Terri struggled serious
health problems,
and the island was a healing
place where she was loved,
cared for and nurtured.
- I had a rare bone
disease that was similar
to Polio as a child.
And I was diagnosed at four
as being terminal by age 10.
Sometimes, I would lay on a
blanket out there and read,
and deer would come
up to me, up to me.
And so, I thought that
was pretty special.
And I felt like I was
in a magical place.
How many kids do you know
that have a deer for a pet?
There would be days I
would go out and read,
sometimes under the pine
tree out back of the house,
or I'd go read in the
field or something.
Always animals would come
up to me within a half hour.
And I think it's just
because the scent
was familiar to them.
I lived there, I rarely left
and I played outside a lot.
So, I must have had
the scent of the fields
and the trees and
the pine needles,
because they didn't
seem to shy at all.
Oh my goodness, raccoons,
I had a pet raccoon.
I was immersed in that
natural environment,
and so ill that I just sucked
in all the goodness I could get.
And I think that's
what helped me,
that and my grandparents'
love and patience.
I'm beyond age 10 and here
I am, that's pretty magical.
So, that is my magical island.
- I refer to myself as
a place-based historian.
I actually was an English and
environmental studies major
at Bowden, Bowden's first
environmental studies major.
But when I got out,
I got really involved
with doing family history,
and I've been doing that my own
and for clients for
many years since then.
But I came to realize that
if you take a physical place,
an island, a building, a town,
and look at it
chronologically through time,
then you see real people
doing real things.
And you can really picture
how life was for those people.
Swan Island is one of those
places that I go out on
and I have a particularly
strong sense of place.
What is that based in?
Historical association, energy
coming from the earth itself?
I can't tell you, but
it's always been a place,
when I'm out there,
there's just there's
no place I'd rather be.
And again, I can't explain that.
(placid music)
- [Katherine] No one
really knows what tomorrow
has in mind for this historic
and much love island.
- [Jay] There are some
really severe restrictions
on what can go on on the island.
So the challenge is is
to come up with the money
to put the buildings in use.
The big plan was to take the
Gardiner Dumaresq salt box,
which is at the campground
where a lot of the
programming is,
and make that into
a visitor center
to be able to tell some of
the stories of the island
and of the environment.
In terms of the state
ever doing away with it,
I don't see it happening.
Now, it is possible the state
could shut down tending it.
They could shut down
the camp ground.
They could stop doing wildlife
management on the island.
But would they sell it?
No, I don't see
that ever changing.
It will always be
wildlife management area.
- [Katherine] When
you visit Swan Island,
you're on sacred ground.
Take to the woods, waters
and trails found here
and explore the wonders
of this culturally
and historically
significant place.
And never forget the island's
centuries old history.
Your visit honors
generations of gritty,
hardworking islanders that
once gave it their all
to survive here, hearty,
resilient souls dedicated
to creating a life for
themselves and their families
on this most uniquely
beautiful and peaceful island
on the Kennebec River.
You can let your
imagination roam free here.
Who were these islanders?
What kind of challenges did
they face in their daily lives?
All of the joys,
struggles and hardships
of their island years
are forever lost in
the mists of time.
As you explore the sacred place,
observe your
surroundings closely,
pause and take a moment
to look at the sky,
soaring high above
the ancient pines
and the wide open fields,
you may very well see reminders
of a cherished place Native
Americans once knew Sowangen,
the legendary Island of Eagles.
(placid music)