A Different view of Monhegan Island - the Interior

[00:00:11]Look at that moss.

[00:00:13]Beautiful.

[00:00:16]Hello and welcome. I'm Tim and this is SV Pikita. And we are obviously off the boat. We are on the Red Ribbon Trail on Manhagen Island and it is beautiful here. I got everything except my uh my microphones. Now, this is not the ones in question, but see all this moss.

[00:00:34]Um, this is not the one in question, but there are some She likes it cuz it's so soft, >> but there is some moss and lychans that only grow on this island and a few islands in the co off the coast of uh Ireland.

[00:00:49]And uh I couldn't tell you which ones they were. But Monaga not only is beautiful on the coast, but the interior is beautiful as well. This area and I think almost 80% of the island is owned, privately owned by a group called the Manheaggan Associates.

[00:01:08]And uh for the most part, they don't allow any management or anything. They just let nature take its course. And [sighs] uh there are some people that kind of try to, you know, on a volunteer basis or whatever, they maintain the trails. I remember growing up there was a guy that used to spray for poison ivy cuz we used to have a lot of poison ivy out here. I don't know if we still do or not. I I don't know. But as you can see, it's a softwood forest and that's usually a I think that's an indication of the lack of top soil. The island doesn't I think on average the island has just about 6 in of top soil. So, um I mean obviously this is hard a hardwood, but uh most of the trees here, you're not going to find a big oak or anything like that. It's all going to be spruce.

[00:01:57]Um even though Maine is the pine tree state, we don't have many pine trees here. Most of it is spruce, I believe.

[00:02:05]But, uh anyway, ferns, mosses, lychans, but it is beautiful here. I love it. It smells good. And unless you've been in a place like this, this might sound really funny, but I have this theory, and I think logically it stands up. I don't know if it's ever I don't know if it it's a real thing or not, but I'm willing to bet that the oxygen to nitrogen uh ratio is better here. Every time you're in here, not only does everything smell really good, but it also uh it always feels good when you're breathing.

[00:02:46]And I think it's because all the, you know, the trees are all sucking in carbon dioxide and pushing oxygen out as they go through photosynthesis.

[00:02:56]That's my theory. I don't know that there's any truth to any of that. That's just what I'm throwing out there. If you know different or if you agree with me, write in the comments. So, let me tell you, if you have been in places that when you get in where you're surrounded by a forest like this that the air smells different and it feels when you take a breath, it really feels like you really have something. You know, you know, sometimes when you're starved of oxygen, you have to take in a ton and ton and ton of air. You know, like if you're breathing like, god forbid, if you had your head in a bag, after a while you'd be breathing more and more of the bag in to try to get some oxygen.

[00:03:36]That is not the case here. It's beautiful. You can see it's gorgeous sun coming through. So, we are [sighs] just a little bit on the a little bit north of the center of the island going from west to east.

[00:03:54]And uh this area is uh neighboring Cathedral Woods. It actually may be even part of it. Maybe. I don't know. Anyway, my plan is to take this out to the backside and come back in Cathedral Woods and maybe show you some of the fairy houses as well.

[00:04:15]But have to show you something a little different. And you know, it's really cool. We are in the height of the season.

[00:04:23]You see how many people we've seen?

[00:04:27]I've been saying this everywhere we go, but the harder the place is to get to.

[00:04:33]>> Oh, a mushroom. [sighs and gasps] >> She found a mushroom. Um, the harder the place is to get to, the more difficult it is to make arrangements. Usually, the better it is. And I don't mean better just cuz there aren't any people. I mean, it's rewarding. It's really nice.

[00:04:50]Look at this. We're going to go in the tunnel.

[00:04:54]an an arborous tunnel. How cool is this?

[00:04:57]I don't know how it's looking on camera.

[00:04:59]Trying to hold it as still as I can for you.

[00:05:04]But if you got to get your steps in, this isn't the worst place to do it.

[00:05:08]Although, if you are coming out here and you are planning on going on these, I would highly recommend that uh you do what you need to do to ensure that you don't get hurt because you don't want to get hurt out here. That's a real problem. They do have a clinic.

[00:05:25]Um, and I think they have visiting medical staff that man it every once in a while.

[00:05:32]And when I was growing up here, I don't know if this is still the case, but this is a where a tree has been blown down. Um, but they had in really bad situations, the Coast Guard would send a uh a helicopter out here, but it would have to come from uh Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. So, it was still going to take him about 40 minutes to get here, but you don't want to get hurt out here. So, we if you remember back there, we just saw that tree that had blown down. Are you guys familiar with the root of the saying a windfall or the word windfall?

[00:06:09]apparently. I don't know. Every time I see something like that, I always think of it or like you see this tree that's down over here.

[00:06:16]Back in the day in Britain, the forest was owned by the king.

[00:06:26]And the king didn't want people chopping stuff down cuz they wanted the best wood for ships to build their navy. you know, you need a really tall mast and that sort of stuff and planks and all that.

[00:06:39]So, you couldn't take any of the big long straight trees.

[00:06:43]But if one had fallen down like this, gone blown over like that, it was called a windfall. Like it the wind made it fall down and you could have that regardless of how big it was or what species it was or how straight it was.

[00:06:59]So that's where windfall came from. Very cool, I thought.

[00:07:04]Anyway, that's it for now. Okay, so as much as we want to stop and take the trail back to Cathedral Woods, we figure we're so close we should go to the other end and go check out how the water looked out this way. I'll share it with you guys now. How beautiful this is.

[00:07:26]>> That's blackhead.

[00:07:29]This is white head.

[00:07:31]Burnt head.

[00:07:33]And then Gull Rock over there.

[00:07:36]There's a fishing boat out there. Wonder who that is right over there.

[00:07:43]But it is beautiful here. Treing through the woods. It's so nice, but it's nice to have a little breeze.

[00:07:53]All the herring gulls that are still here should uh prove to you since we don't have a landfill or anything like that that fishing is still good. deep water off the coast here.

[00:08:06]Unfortunately, this coast, this section of coast right here has a uh history of uh unfortunately uh taking lives. Many people have thought >> Oh, yeah.

[00:08:25]>> No, no, no. It's No, it's a fa.

[00:08:27]>> It's a fauca. There's a See, you see the little seal right there? asking. Oh, I don't want to be here.

[00:08:33]>> No, no, it's a small foc.

[00:08:37]>> Oh, look how cute he is. They're like little dogs.

[00:08:40]>> See?

[00:08:44]Anyway, I was saying that it's very common that people don't don't know will try to go swimming here. And because it's so deep and because the rocks are so slippery, it's very common. There's an effect called undertoe where they get close to the rocks and the water washes up and goes all the way down before it comes back up again. And uh so getting in the water is usually not so hard, but getting out of it can be can has proven to take a few lives, which is very sad.

[00:09:13]Look at a little seal having a ball down there.

[00:09:18]So, this is where we insert the inappropriate joke. I don't know if it's inappropriate, just uh very nice.

[00:09:25]Do you know I have to apologize to my Canadian friends first. Do you know uh have you heard about the suicide seal?

[00:09:38]That's right, the suicide seal. He went into a bar and ordered a Canadian club on the rocks.

[00:09:45]Stupid. I don't know if you guys all of you people that are maybe over in Europe don't realize this, but back in the 70s and 80s and maybe even early 90s, there was a a big big to-do about Canadians clubbing baby seals because they were interfering with the uh fisheries. So, that was a lot more fun back then than it is today. I don't mean clubbing of them. That joke made a lot more sense.

[00:10:13]All right, maybe I should stick to being a retired tugboat guy and not try to be a comedian.

[00:10:20]But beautiful, isn't it? And like I say, where are the people? We found two people over here. That's it so far. It's gorgeous. I love it. It's wonderful. Oh, >> she says there's a little little seal down below.

[00:10:39]>> All right, that's it for now.

[00:10:41]So, we now find ourselves in Cathedral Woods and uh keeping in the great island tradition of controversy, these pristine and tranquil woods do not come without their fear of controversy as well.

[00:11:01]So, for years, you know, before I even say that, I should say that I inadvertently neglected to tell you something. I didn't mean to.

[00:11:10]It just happened. But when I was saying how the the uh when I was saying how some of the moths and lychans can only be found here in a couple islands off of Ireland, I forgot to tell you that some of them are take over a hundred years to grow. Once again, I don't know which ones those are. But anyway, the controversy stems from this area.

[00:11:33]This area when I was growing up was called Fairyland.

[00:11:37]And it was because it was the tradition for all of us kids to come over and inspired by our imaginations use only things found on the floor of the canopy to build what they were called fairy houses. Some were very rudimentary, you know, the little teeny things like this. Sometimes they put a penny in them, a shell maybe. And uh you you can see where these stones I think are a result of the controversy. So where the controversy lies and rightly so. Um like I say, I don't really know where I am on this because I always thought of myself as a traditionalist and I loved growing up and I love making fairy houses and all that sort of stuff.

[00:12:23]But there's a group of people who recognizes, like I say, rightly so, that making fairy houses relies on the destruction of vegetation sometimes that might take over a hundred years to make.

[00:12:38]Now, the good news is is that I don't see any signs of any vegetation being hurt right here. So, whatever happened in my childhood certainly doesn't seem to have any effects today. But not being a resident of the island anymore, I don't have a vote in these matters. And I don't think any of this stuff was ever up for vote, just debate. So, there was one side of the one camp that would go around and crush the fairy houses made by kids. Some of them weren't made by kids. Some of them made by made by people and were very extravagant. See, this this looks like something something a kid would make right here with a little couple pine cones in there and that sort of stuff. Like I say, it was really fun. a very innocent time. But like I say, I can totally see where the people on the other side of the argument come from. And I guess their way of dealing that with not making fairy houses, the best way of dealing with that would be to stomp on the houses and put rocks where they were. [sighs] So that's how that goes.

[00:13:42]So, I'm sure you've probably seen enough of this woodland stuff, but anytime there's one of these tunnel of trees, I just absolutely love it.

[00:13:53]I also remember, you know, I love telling these stories, but I always feel like nobody wants to hear my stories, and then you guys write in the comments that you love hearing them, so it makes me feel really good. But when we were growing up, like I said, we didn't have any electricity. We didn't have any TV or anything like that. And so after school, a lot of us would come out to these woods. And uh I remember our thing, Lance and Courtney and I, the three of us, our big missions for probably 10 years of our life were going into the woods to make a fort. And it's funny cuz a fort in my mind back then was a spot of the woods that you would say was my my area and that was that.

[00:14:36][laughter] we'd make a place to sit and yell over at somebody else and then the big thing would be to bring a uh can of like Vienna sausage with you and eat there at the fort or whatever. Anyway, it wasn't until years later watching TV and watching the old westerns where they actually had forkts made with a wood, [laughter] you know, all the way around them and a fence. I'm like, "Oh, is that what a fort's supposed to look like?"

[00:15:01]But we we used to come out here all the time. uh my sister, my brother, all all of us all of us kids used to spend and it was really cool. There's a section.

[00:15:12]We're coming out to the road here. Go head back this way. And uh there's a they had dug I think back in the 1930s.

[00:15:21]They had dug a canal from what they call great swamp over here that was supposed to bring water to the ice pond. And the ice pond was supposed to bring water to the uh meadow. the meadow was our sole source acryer. So that was the plan and they kind of got it rigged up but it never really went to work and they always had water out of the uh out of the meadow almost.

[00:15:45]And so um yeah, so we used to I I'm going to show you. We're going to head down to the ice pond and I'll show you.

[00:15:53]I haven't been there in ages, but I'll show you. They they call the ice bomb because when we first moved here in 1966, the store kept everything cold with blocks of ice in from the ice house. And it was a whole community thing. The whole community would show up on the day to cut the ice. And there's pictures in the museum of my dad, my brother out there. Kind of cool. Anyway, where this canal was that they dug back in the 30s, of course, most of it was overgrown with trees and all that. And it was I mean I would imagine the deepest spots might have been a foot or two. You know that it was but when it used to freeze I remember Courtney and Lance and I and I think my friends Donna I think maybe even Zoe we'd all hike up here with our with our uh skates and we'd all put our skates on and start skating down this canal all the way down to I think you can see you can barely see where it was. See? See the mud in there? Right. Right right in here. But that this this is where the thing that was built back then. And so a lot of it was skating. And then you'd have to jump over. You see the mud right there? Like I say, 40 years ago, well, actually be more like almost 50 years ago now. That would have been more water and less mud. Not that much less, but some. But anyway, I remember we used to skate and skate and skate and then you'd get to a place and then you'd have to jump over the a tree trunk and you crawl over this and all that. So now we've walked off the uh off of the road and this was left over from that uh original idea back in the day to pump water from Great Swamp to the ice pond and from the ice pond to the meadow. But like I say, as far as I know, in my lifetime, I'd only seen the ice pond used uh for the ice for the Manheaggan General Store going back I would say probably till I think they had ice until I'd say the early '7s.

[00:17:58]No, how do you even maybe mid70s or even later because I I can literally remember I remember they had a blue jeep and they would use this elevator to get the ice out. I I'll show you that when we get down there, but I remember them using that jeep and they they'd put a line on it and they'd back the jeep up and that would lift the blocks of ice up and then they go down the ramp and then the guys in the ice house would cover them all with sawdust. Very cool operation. But uh yeah, the the water on the island when I say this this is an island with no electricity or running water. They had water from like I want to say like the 1st of June or something like that until like October 25th or something like that. It was a certain day that they shut off the water. It's always a fun story cuz we were kids. We always heard about tourists that were taking a shower and would have to run out of the uh out of their rented cottage after applying narrow to their sensitive areas and the water was shut off on that day and they had to run down to the water to jump, you know, into the ocean to jump in. I don't think that ever happened, but that was that was something all of us young kids had told that story a thousand times and had always hoped it would we'd be there to witness it.

[00:19:12][laughter] But uh the water here because of the lack of uh top soil, I was saying that there's only about 6 ines of top soil on average around here. You can't bury the lines cuz it's all really hard rock. Oh, look. Here's part of the ice pond here.

[00:19:29]You know what? This this wasn't here before. This was a little side row that we used to go down to. And uh but they this is actually kind of cool. I haven't seen this before. Let's check this out.

[00:19:45]Haven't been here in 100 years. It's the very tip of the ice pond. But but what we used to do Oh my god. It doesn't look very nice at all. This was all water back in the day. I mean like and there was this mud. So you'd sink if you jump in here. If you put your feet in, you'd find that right about your waist level and then you'd sink forever. But uh we used to keep the uh goals here. We had hockey goals here. And uh the older people on the island would pay play hockey all the time. And then every once in a while we'd have a big bonfire in the center of the ice and all the little baby ducks with a duck with mama duck there.

[00:20:28]Get the Pico.

[00:20:29]>> No, no, no. It's Pico. Mina.

[00:20:31]>> Oh, deaf. [laughter] >> Little caterpillar on me. But, uh, yeah.

[00:20:37]Anyway, um, so this is just one side of the ice pond. Obviously, you can see it's been very filled up, but we'll go to the other side in a second. But anyway, to continue with my story, the the water system was a it and remains today to be a sole source aquifer, meaning there's only one place to get water, and that comes off of the meadow. the center of the island.

[00:21:00]And there's a lot of people apparently that look at the island and they see this indentation right in the middle and they think this this is a volcano and that would be like some sort of caldera.

[00:21:08]And uh geologists just have proven that a thousand times over that there's nothing to that that's just a coincidence. It has nothing to do with volcan the volcano or anything like that. But the water that comes out of the meadow is very brown and uh I don't think that it's polluted or anything. I think it's just uh was it tannins? I think they call it tannins. A lot of uh organic material. And my parents used to have a newsletter. This is before the internet called the Manheaggan Free Press. And uh I remember my mom writing an article about how when she uh was young or not when she was young, when she first moved out here, she brought all her linens with her. And it didn't take her long to realize that she really needed to buy brown sheets. And it was because when you get a nice white sheet and you wash it in water from Manheagen that's brown, everything starts to turn a different color. [laughter] So that's that. But anyway, because there isn't any top soil, you can't bury the water lines and they can't escape the frost. I think the frost line around here is like at 36 or 38 in or something like that. So that that's that can't happen. So what happens is when frost becomes an issue, they blow out all the lines, the town goes without water, and uh and uh uhoh, we lost Galita.

[00:22:39]And uh everyone goes on their own. Well, now look at this. I hope you guys don't get grossed out, but this is what they call scat. That looks that's the remains of a rat that that that that a uh >> an owl probably ate and spit the fur out and the tail. But our friend Lisa that lives over here, well, when she her mom lives over there and she's coming out.

[00:23:04]She was supposed to come out yesterday, but she is sick. And so, she's coming out on uh Thursday, I think. So, we're looking forward to seeing her. And I'll tell you in a fun little fact, too. This walkway right here, this used to be all water underneath here. And this was the greatest place. See this right here? See that? That's the spillway. And that's how high the water used to be. And this was the greatest place for us to go frogging. We get We'd all come down.

[00:23:27]Like I say, we didn't have a lot to do back in the day. [snorts] So we would all get tadpole legs and hatch out polywogs and frogs. And then once they did their thing, we'd come over here and let them all go in the ice pond. So this is the ice pond. And where that duck is is exactly where the uh elevators were.

[00:23:47]And then this area right here was all >> Okay. [laughter] Get hit by a bee. Um, this was this was the uh the ice house. And so over here they would they would >> Okay, she wants a a a photo, she says.

[00:24:07]But what they do is they cut lines of ice. How you doing? it. They'd cut lines in the ice and then once they got one ice thing out, they could move the elevator and they would make a a trough, you know, an open water area that would go back to the uh that would go back into the elevator.

[00:24:31]And the elevator was, you know, four big posts that went way up and then, you know, a metal rack that would be lifted up. and they'd lift it up and it get to a point and the ice would go down a chute and it would go across the road and into the ice house and uh very cool.

[00:24:46]So, back when I was a kid, the water was all the way up to here. Well, you could have seen you saw where I don't know what the deal is why they have it so so uh low. I don't know if it's cuz there isn't any rain or if it's that kind of looks like that's the way they're keeping it now. I don't really know.

[00:25:01]But, uh you know what? They may have done this because I remember I think back in the 80s there's a big cat ninetails problem and uh I think one of the ways they get rid of the cat ninetails is they drain everything let it die and then they fill it up later. I think that's the case but these seagulls here are enjoying a freshwater bath. It seems odd that seagulls, you know, are usually in the ocean all the time. It's I don't think it's a w I don't think it's a temperature thing. I think it's because of the lack of salt. They come in here all the time to to get fresh water. So, uh, anyway, the ice pond wasn't always this muddy. It was much deeper and, uh, there were all kinds of things happening. The ice pond used to be a great place. Like I say, all of us kids used to used to play hockey and we used to we used to just play on our skates all the time. It was really really fun