On the Wanderbird - Belfast Maine, National Maritime Day.

Looking for a little glamor from the Gatsby era?   You might find it on the Wanderbird.

     The Wanderbird is an expedition vessel, set with classic amenities.

     How about this delivery truck to set the mood?

     Or this deckhand to welcome you on board?

    Once you're onboard the Wanderbird, whisks you and up to eleven other guests away on adventure; along the Maine coast, off to Labrador, and even further afield.  There are even Mothership Kayaking Adventures, with kayak tours led by Karen Franceour of Castine Kayaks.

    Wanderbird started life as a fishing trawler, but you'd never guess that.  She feels more like a well appointed yacht.  
     There are six passenger cabins, each with a private bath.  Here are a couple cabin shots.  Wouldn't it be great to be choosing between them?

Notice the logbooks on the pillows!

And on voyage, there's seating in the galley, the salon, or outside on the deck.

I wasn't able to get any great pictures of the whole ship, too many other boats were in the way.  But it was wonderful to have the opportunity, even for just a few minutes, to go aboard.  Of course there are more photos of the ship at their website.

National Maritime Day - Belfast Maine

Happy National Maritime Day!  I spent it in Belfast Maine where they hosted the region's first celebration of National Maritime Day.

It was an amazing day, with so much that happened.  Today I'm going to feature pictures of the Fournier Tractor,  familiar to many as the big red tugboat berthed beside the Belfast City dock.

Today it was open for tours.  To get aboard, I needed to clamber over the huge tires on the sides.  More nerve-wracking than it looks, because if your foot slips it's a long way to the dock or the water.
 A few picture from onboard.  Crews Quarters:

A peak at the engine room:

We've seen the Fournier Tractor, or its siblings, many times on the Penobscot; we recorded it carting the last pieces of an oil refinery to Texas.  And this afternoon I got to watch it do many other tricks:

Spinning in a circle (Note the folks on the docks are holding on so the wake won't knock them over):

And even moving sideways:

It was an awesome display!

A little more information about the Fournier Tractor:

A video of a pilot operating the Fournier Tractor  (but unfortunately not spinning it)
The specifications for the Fournier Tractor

Signs of Spring on the Passagassawakeag

When does Spring arrive?
        March 21?
        The first Robin in the yard?
        The first Merganser on the Penobscot River?
        Or when every street and side road is being torn up for repair?

   By any definition, spring had arrived in Belfast.  Main Street had just been paved and the dock area was filled with construction equipment, ready to trench, pave, and redo ramps.   A load of  telephone pole-like pilings lay across our normal beach access, a trench was being dug before a side beach.  But the access to the paved ramp was available.  So, after checking with some workers to make sure our car wasn't in the way, we loaded our kayaks onto our handy carts and headed to the ramp.

   Good news!  It turns out the launch fees posted at the ramp don't apply to kayaks!  (Though I would still normally use the beach so the paved ramp is available for motorized boaters.)

   Belfast Harbor was filled with patchy fog and bright blue skies beyond.  And there was so much to see on the water:  new pilings;  a new Cornish pilot gig, the Malcolm G,set for action;

  the tugboat, Fornier under repair;

  and a busy Front Street Shipyard launching vessels.

  Once under Route One, the scenery was decidedly more rural.  To the south, a mostly abandoned railroad snakes through trees, while to the north, neighborhoods of varying eras line the shores.  This is one of my favorite neighborhoods.

   The wires above the river, and almost visible to the left, are thick enough to accommodate cormorants. 
    Further down is this lovely cupola-ed colonial with its massive rock companion.  That stretch of river also seems to be the new anchorage for the Shanty.

   We followed the river up further, below a railroad bridge, until it ended, as many streams do, in shallow water and fyke nets (for catching baby eels.)

   Our ride upriver and downwind had been nearly effortless, it would be more work going back to the parking lot.  I'm not a huge fan of wind, but I have to admit, I paddle faster and more constantly when going up wind.  We arrived back at noon, thinking the construction crew might be taking a break.  They weren't.

 In front of the shovel on the ground is a trench which crosses the dock, and I'm not sure where the little house is going.  

Summary:  Launch 9:40AM, finish noon.  One short break.  High 9:40AM.  About 6 miles.  Restrooms beside the dock parking lot (behind the tree on the right of the photo)

Penobscot: River of Gold

How much money can you make with a fyke net and a license for elvers?  No one is sure but rumors abound;  $22,000 in one night according to a Bangor Daily News article, but that pales beside $120,000 reported in a PBS Nature Episode, The Mystery of Eels.

Maine is authorized licenses for up to 744 fisherman and 1242 pieces of gear.   Most of the licenses go to prior year license holders, a lottery is held for the few new licenses available from those who choose not to renew their license (or are banned from renewal.)  This year only four new licenses were issued by the state.

Maine planned to issue a total of 696 licenses, either itself or through the four sovereign nations.  However one tribe, the Passamaquoddy, opted to issue more licenses and cap their total harvest instead.   Resolution of that issue is far beyond my pay grade, but one thing is for sure: there are a lot more nets out on the water.  Where last year there was perhaps one fyke net at the Bangor waterfront, this year there are nine, on the Bangor side alone, and more on the Brewer side.

One crew is finishing up, while a nearby net awaits a lower tide

Fyke nets are placed at various levels of the river, and as the water level drops, cars and trucks appear near the net. The drivers don their waders and line up 5 gallon buckets.  As onlookers gather, the license holders gather their catch from the net, then reset the traps for the next tide.

These don't look like prime locations.  Still at $1600 a pound, even 1/4 pound  is a good day's wages. 

Sustainable?  Hard to imagine.

 

Junk in Maine Waters??

 What's this???  Where did it come from, and why was it being launched now???

One minute we were merrily sitting there, scouting Belfast (ME) harbor for ducks and admiring the friendly seagulls, and the next, a crowd had gathered and a colorful vessel was being backed down the ramp.

Maynard (??) had built his version of a junk in his backyard, and was shifting it to the Belfast Boatyard where he planned to finish work on it.  He's thinking of using it as a houseboat.

Unfortunately conditions at the ramp, kept the boat trailer from getting deep enough in the water to launch the boat.

So close to being launched!

Fortunately it was an incoming tide and his crew of admirer's strong and inventive.

It took about 40 minutes, but finally the boat was afloat.

 Soon a skiff arrived to guide it to its winter docking; the Shanty does not have a motor yet.

Where ever it winds up, it will be a colorful addition to Maine's waters!

Best Nature Sites Midcoast Maine

 Here's an interesting tidbit for an icy day...did you know that the hippocampus of a black capped chickadee grows over 30% as winter comes on?

It does, researchers feel it might be so they can better track where they've stored food.  Not sure that applies to humans as well, but there should be some reward for making it through the cold.

Here are a couple more questions:

Which U.S. state is the only state in the lower 48 to have a breeding population of eiders?
(can you guess based on the blog title?)

How did Native Americans use false hellebore to help select the most worthy candidates?

If you enjoy having bits of trivia on hand to add to a conversation, or like exploring a series of ecosystems, Best Nature Sites of MidCoast Maine might be the book for you.  It covers public locations along U.S. Route 1 from Brunswick to Belfast, but it's real strength is in the interesting details it includes about the many flora and fauna found in these locales.

We found this book at MaineSport in Rockport, but it should be at many other locations.  It is also available  online.
Answers to the questions in the comments.

Another Old Kayak Picture

     As I rummaged through the collection of clutter which makes up our estate, (looking for a decent calculator) I happened to glance up at the wall and noticed we had another old kayak picture displayed there:

 This is a drawing by Luther Bradley, one of Mark's distant relatives.  I'm not sure it's an accurate portrayal of kayak construction, but it's an interesting depiction of intrigue at the polar cap.  "Stefansson" is Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a Canadian Arctic Explorer who helped establish the US Army Cold Region Research and Engineering Laboratory at Dartmouth.  Luther Bradley was a cartoonist for the Chicago Daily News from 1899-1917.  This cartoon was initially published Sep. 20, 1915 while Sefansson was in the midst of his Canadian Arctic Expedition.  In fact, Stefansson has just spent 14 months exploring the ice pack. 
     In addition to editorial cartoons, Luther Bradley also wrote two amazing children's books:  Our Indians: A Midnight Visit to the Great Somewhere-or-other and Wonderful Willie!  What He and Tommy Did to Spain.   I especially wish I could share Our Indians with you. Our Indians has illustrations of a flying canoe pulled by birds.  I've haven't been able to find a full copy, but a few illustrations for Our Indians are here.  They are marvelous pictures, well worth scanning down the page.

A few Luther Bradley Resources:
A Tribute to Luther Bradley by His Boss at the Chicago Daily News
A digitized version of his book, Cartoons by Bradley,
A short biography of Luther Bradley  Another post by Allen Holtz on Luther Bradley
Scared Motherhood Poster by Luther Bradley

Old Photos

Winter nights are perfect for reviewing old photos.  These pictures come from my grandfather's collection.  In the early 40's he signed on as a cook on the Alaskan Highway Crew, then found work as a cook at a gold-mine in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Pictures of Kayaks and Canoes:

The caption on this postcard reads: The Seal Hunter Returns.  It was taken by Jacobs/Nome.  I believe it was also taken in Nome. 

These two pictures are from:  The Alaska Sportsman Book:  Pictures of the Last Frontier by the Alaska Frontier Publishing Company.

Some miscellaneous pictures:

Henry Dreier, "Gen Del" in a wonderful sealskin coat and rather hasty put on boots.  This picture was approved by the Army Examiner, so its probably from the Alaskan Highway.

A wonderful Christmas card from Maurice, though I'm pretty sure that's not what you're supposed to do with bears.

I wish I knew the story behind this picture.  I never asked my grandfather about his photos from Alaska.  As a kid, I was mostly interested in seeing if my grandfather had any spare gum.  Beyond the gum, I loved looking at his display of ivory figurines, small polar bears and geese, he'd brought back with him.  And on an especially good day, he might pull out the coporlite, mammoth teeth, tusks and other treasures he'd found with near the gold mine.

And speaking of the mine; here are a few pictures:

The smelting process

My grandfather is the one on the right.  He believed in basic food and plenty of it.  His recipes were for 200 biscuits, gallons of beans etc.  He was a frugal man who believed in saving.  He could not understand why any of the men at the mine might chose to go into town and pay for meals when they were given free meals at the mine.  When he moved back home, he kept a huge garden for vegetables (loved his tomotoes!), fished and clammed for other meals.

   I hope your winter memories are keeping you warm!