Category: Seguin Island News

From our vantage point, we see where the Kennebec River meets the ocean, and the wind and currents swirl the shades of blue and white in every direction. This view has changed little since the Western Etchemins plied these waters long before George Popham, Christopher Levett, or the French explorers arrived in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Historian Bill Haviland writes that Etchemin means “’real people’ as opposed to animals, monsters and other people.” They were coastal hunters and gatherers who fished the quinibequi for salmon, sturgeon and other anadromous fish and traded furs first with neighboring indigenous groups and later the Europeans. Writing in the early 17^th century about the Etchemins, French Jesuit Priest Pierre Baird recounts, “from the month of May until mid-September, they are free from all anxiety about their food; for the cod are upon the coast and all kinds of shellfish.” He describes how they sometimes ventured beyond the shore to open water to harpoon whales.

Though people have asked and we have looked, to date we haven’t seen any whales or sharks. Father’s Day did bring an affable group of picnicking marine scientists specializing in sharks. They, like the post-blueberry-pancake family from Fiddler’s Reach and the folks cruising up from Yarmouth, took advantage of the sunny weather and fair seas to enjoy the newly cleared trails and sandy beach.

Today, a few days later, the whale adjacent theme continued when a new NOAA vessel speed monitoring system arrived for installation. Seguin will house the device which analyzes ship speed compliance in a conservation effort to reduce Right Whale collisions.

The marine bounty the Etchemins and early Europeans found off Seguin and environs has changed, but we still hear the fishermen who head out in their boats early most mornings in all weather and challenging visibility to catch what lies beneath.

Read more about the Western Etchemin and early Maine history in Emerson W. Baker’s “Trouble to the eastward: the failure of Anglo-Indian relations in early Maine”

Nearly 100 years ago, Connie Scoville Small and her husband Elson arrived at Seguin for the post of first officer Lightkeeper and wife. They came from Avery Rock light down east near Machias. They arrived by steamer with their furniture and cat ready for a new opportunity. Connie writes of her household items being pulled up the tramway and the beautiful clover and grass as she was greeted by two families with a clutch of children. Peter and I arrived June 4^th on a perfect Maine day to our stay as caretakers of this wonderful spot. With no tram in order, we were fortunate to have John and young and fit Dan, FOSIL volunteers, along with Chris and Tom to help us lug our provisions, gear, and water for the beginning of our stay. The steep hill was mounted by the collective dozens of times, and Po, the leggy black dog, made the trip up and down each time.

Coming up over the rise we were greeted with the idyllic sight of the house, light, and fields of lush grass. Andrew Wyeth could not have hoped for a purer scene to paint. After an orientation of all systems mechanical and historic, the others returned to Popham on the boat with Dave at 4:00.

Connie Small writes of housekeeping in The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife.  As a couple, they were responsible for the care and maintenance of the home and tower where they resided. Inspections could come at any time and early in the morning hours. A poster reads: “Good housekeeping is the key to safety. Cleanliness, order, and a place for everything are essentials of safety.” When we arrived, the Seguin house and museum needed some tending after a damp, shuttered winter. Murphy’s oil soap, the broom, and a scrub brush were all employed forthwith to spruce up the building. Outside the mowing began earnestly first down below for campers and later on top of the hill. The purple martin roosting in the bird house and garter and smooth green snakes supervised as we attacked the Sisyphusian task of cutting and raking the grass near the buildings.

Fog and windy wet on a few days made clear that not all days would be picture perfect, but the charms of ‘soft weather’ are many. Heavy winds meant our Wednesday constitutional off island had to be postponed, but in the end, there wasn’t a particularly urgent need to leave for the mainland anyway.

When discussing visitors, Connie Small mentions a throng of gill netters who arrived eager to listen to opera on her radio and an uncontrolled monkey that ransacked her bushel basket of hard-earned blueberries. We, fortunately, have been monkey free; however, a few visitors have already made their way “before season”. On our first night, a sailor who is narrating an audio book on Maine lighthouses stopped by the backdoor to welcome us to our experience. Others spanned in age from a two-month-old with pre-school siblings and Harpswell parents to college women and their dad making an annual pilgrimage via Hermit Island to delightful Popham residents out for a Sunday boat ride. Each brought good cheer and well wishes as we embark on our summer on Seguin.

Today was our last morning on the island. We spent the last week enjoying the relative solitude brought about by the post labor day storm, completing last minute projects and cleaning the buildings for the interim keepers.

We are spending the next few days at home in southern Maine before traveling out west for Maureen’s race. She will fly to Utah and begin running, I will drive with the dogs and hopefully meet her at the finish line in Grand Escalante National Monument. Post race we will caravan to our off grid cabin in Wonder Valley, CA.

Our experience on the island has been nothing short of magical. If there is anything I can say in leaving it is this… It is my sincere hope that someday you visit Seguin. I hope you feel the exhilaration of leaving the shore behind, and the sense of wonder upon arriving at the buildings nestled into the cove. I hope you hike each and every trail, and spend a while watching the waves break on the cliffs. I hope you climb the staircase to the top of the lighthouse and let the rainbows from the lens fall across your face. And mostly, I hope you grab fistfuls of sweet fern and inhale deeply, so that the scent of Maine travels with you for the rest of your days.

Thank you

Maureen and Matt
2024 Seguin Keepers

We were up relatively early this morning, so we took an hour to go check on the North Trail and take some time to ourselves before our midday visitors started to arrive. We had been very cautious about exploring some areas of the North Trail all summer because so many birds use the cliffs as their nesting places. Now that the birds have moved on, we decided to venture out and find the spur trails to the cliffs. It wasn’t long before we stumbled up on the geodesic marker that was placed near the northern cliffs in 1957. We also took some time to go off the beaten path and do some scrambling between rocks to get some really spectacular views of the cliffs and surf.

We arrived back to the lighthouse around 11am and were met by a steady stream of visitors that lasted late into the afternoon. The summer is now at its “official” end for New England, so we are expecting our daily visitor count to dwindle a bit as we move steadily toward fall and the end of our time on the island.

We’re glad we were able to be a special part of over 1,200 visitors’ summer out here on Seguin!

Daily Weather Report
Temperature: 74.1F / 60.6F
Sunny and breezy
Wind: 9.6mph NNE / Gusts 18.6mph NNE
High Tide: 11:24am / 11:33pm
Low Tide: 5:17am / 5:24pm

Today, as I was giving a tour of the lighthouse, I asked the last of the group to close the door on their way in. It’s something I ask of every group (otherwise the swallows will join us) when it occurred to me… the swallows are gone.

There is a fair amount of avian wildlife on Seguin. Gulls, cormorants, osprey, catbirds, finches all call the island home. We even watched a bald eagle from our front porch today. But of all of these, the swallows are my favorite. I learned this summer that the swallows nesting under the boat house are barn swallows, while the ones nesting in the keepers quarters are cliff swallows. They’ve been dive bombing the lawn all summer and their constant presence and thrilling acrobatics will be a treasured memory of mine. It’s another sign that the seasons are beginning to shift. Fair winds, friends.

DAILY WEATHER REPORT
Temp: 71.1°F / 55.2°F
Sunny and breezy
Wind: SSW 4.2 mph / Gust: 10.3 mph
High Tide: 9:57am / 10:07pm
Low Tide: 3:49am / 3:55pm

We have our official move out day set. We’ll be leaving Seguin on Wednesday, September 11th and heading back to the mainland. The visitors have slowed and we’re feeling the end of the season fast approaching. With only about two weeks left on the island, we’re making our list of last projects and things we’d like to do before we leave this magical place.

The views of the lighthouse from the trails and yard that are so familiar that we almost take them for granted will become memories and only something we can revisit through pictures. So for tonight’s post, I’m going to post a gallery of some of my favorite shots of the lighthouse taken from my numerous hikes around the island at all times of the day and night.

Daily Weather Report
Temperature: 81.1F / 64.6F 
Windy, cold, and rainy in the morning, becoming sunny and warm by afternoon
Wind: 5.4mph N / 20.6mph N
High Tide: 6:56am / 7:13pm
Low Tide: 12:42am / 12:53pm

Today we experienced a rare set of circumstances on Seguin; the weather was beautiful and we had no visitors. Perhaps its a lull before the big Labor Day weekend, or maybe school is back in session, but we cannot remember a nicer day when we were not graced with the company of at least a few new guests. Of course, we could not let the opportunity to catch up on long delayed projects go to waste.

Repairing the missing step on the cove stairs was a project we triaged early in the season. Since it was lost in a winter storm, any repair is likely to meet the same fate. Strike one. Since there is a nice flat rock to the side of the staircase, the step is not really needed. Strike two. We were never able to finally cross it off our to do list, however, and the thought that it was the first thing our guests see when coming to the island always bothered us, so today we cut new steps, braced the risers, and repaired a few loose steps further up the staircase.

Next, mowed all the lawns before we began painting the Keeper’s Quarters. We were able to get a coat of white on the Keeper’s side porch and begin painting the dormers. It has been the most weather dependent project on our list, and it felt good to put a dent in it. Eventually the wind picked up and we put the brushes down for fear of dripping paint everywhere as our drop cloths turned into spinnakers.

Our final project took us to the loop of the north side of the island. We are vigilant about warning visitors to stay on the trail as they pass through the marsh because of poison ivy, so it was important that we maintain the boardwalk. The ground is soft in the marsh and the boards tend to sink and become unstable. We replaced the worst offender and shored up the rest so that walking the boards is a lot easier.

DAILY WEATHER REPORT
Temp: 71.2ºF /60.3ºF
Clear, sunny, warm
Wind: N 2.6mph / Gust:10.3mph
High Tides: 5:48am / 6:06pm
Low Tide: 11:46am

This was one of our busiest weekends of the year! Pretty much from noon on Friday through about 5pm this evening moorings were always full and sometimes boats rafted up to fit into the cove. Saturday and Sunday both saw over 50 visitors and we’re now over 1100 for the season.

We’ve heard a lot of our visitors say that this was their last weekend to get out on the water for a while because school is starting, they’re heading south for the winter, or they’re going to be pulling their boat out of the water for the season.

We can see the signs of summer ending. Friday evening had a true chill to the air, some leaves have started to yellow on the South Trail, and the southerly migrating Monarch butterflies have joined the Swallowtails on the island. It’s a bittersweet time here as we’re also starting to think about how we’ll be moving on soon as well.

Over the last week or so, Matt and I have been really thinking about how our time on Seguin is coming to an end. The weather has started to turn a bit cooler, and we can feel fall in the air. We have less than one month left here on the island, so we’ve started to plan how we’ll start to move our gear back to shore on our last few resupply days. There will be so many things we’ll miss about island life once our time as keepers has passed.

With the end of summer in mind, it was fitting that today our first visitors today were former keepers Cyndy Carney (2007), Mary Killery (2013), and Greg Guckenburg (2013). They had a chance to hike the trail, gather some blackberries, and then we sat around the porch talking a bit about how things on the island have changed, and a lot about how they haven’t. I think Greg had it right when he said that just when you get in your rhythm and understand the island, it’s time to go.

I hope that some day in the future Matt and I will be back on Seguin and chatting with the keepers about our days pumping water from the well to keep the cisterns full, the never-ending battle with trail maintenance, our rituals around the hot water heater, and all the places our dog Tulah got stuck in brambles.

Daily Weather Report
Temperature: 67.5F/59.0F
Sunny with increasing winds
Wind: 4.5mph SW Gust 13.5mph
High Tide: 12:58am / 1:28pm
Low Tide: 7:16am / 7:38pm

We finally have clear enough skies to see the super moon that brought unusually high tides this week. Because they coincided with the rough seas and storms created by Hurricane Ernesto, we had a little bit of a surprise when we brought the dogs down to the cove for our morning walk. The dinghy had been moved sideways and lifted off its wooden track that it is tied to overnight. There was no real damage, but between the waves and the tide, the water had come up the beach at least another 5 or 6 feet.

We went down to Cobblestone Beach next and saw that logs that had been in place all summer had been rearranged along the rocks and there were a lot of branches and buoys washed up high along the shore. At this point in the summer we know the island so well that small changes like a log shifting or rocks being out of place are very noticeable.

We had no visitors to the island today, but we saw that the lobster boats were back out this morning, so we assume visitors will be soon to follow.

Daily Weather Report
Temperature: 68.7F/60.6F
Light fog in the morning, occasional showers, clearing by afternoon
Wind: 3.4mph NW
High Tide:  11:54am
Low Tide:  5:43am/5:54pm