Dean Bennett

This ragged coast of Maine with its cold waters, interrupted by thousands of islands, and bounded by a mainland of steep, rugged headlands, softened occasionally by beaches of sand, pebbles, and larger cobbles, was a place teeming with wildlife. James Rosier, who accompanied the Captain George Waymouth in 1605, left a list of the animals that he saw: “Fowles. Eagles [bald eagle], Swannes [whistling swan], Penguins [like the great auk], Mews [mew gull], and Turtle doves [passenger pigeons]; Beasts. Rain Deere [caribou], Fallow Deere [white-tailed deer], Wolues [wolf], Polecats [skunk] and Beauer [beaver]; Fishes. Whale, Seales, Tortoises, and oisters.”

Of all the things one learns from the early records of our wild creatures, two observations appear over and over; the great diversity of species and the large numbers of them. The clear coastal waters, for example, held great numbers of groundfish. These included the Atlantic cod, haddock, pollock, and the flat yellowtail flounder, a strange looking fish with both of its eyes on one side of its head. Swimming in the water column above the groundfish, Atlantic herring, Atlantic mackerel, and skates plied the waters. Lobsters and crabs traveled the bottoms. Near the shores, clams and mussels buried themselves in the flats. Great quantities of oysters also inhabited the estuaries. Seasonally, the alewife, American shad, striped bass, Atlantic salmon, and sturgeon entered the rivers to spawn.

The abundance of animal life seemed inexhaustible, so much so that it was inconceivable that it could be removed completely. Yet, that is exactly what has happened. Today, many species are at historic lows, and a few have disappeared forever. The sea mink is one. Eight years after the bones of a giant sea mink were first discovered in an Indian shell heap on the coast of Maine by Blue Hill Bay, a biological expedition in 1911 discovered more bones of the unusual mammal on an island in Casco Bay. A total of forty-five individual mink were identified. The condition of the bones indicated that the animal served as food for the indigenous people. Based on the recovery of its remains in native middens along the New England coast, the sea mink may have ranged from southwestern Nova Scotia to Connecticut. In 1903, the well-known Maine hunter, naturalist, and furrier Manly Hardy told how hunters killed the mink. Using dogs, guns, shovels, pickaxes, crowbars, pepper, and brimstone, the mink were dug and smoked out of cracks in ledges where they took refuge. They were shot, caught by dogs, or left to suffocate in their holes. Sometime in the last half of the nineteenth century the sea mink became extinct.

Three birds seen along the Maine coast also suffered a similar fate – the passenger pigeon, the Labrador duck, and the great auk. The demise of the auk serves as an example. This two-foot-tall, black-and-white bird was called the “wobble,” presumably because of its side-to-side rocking gait when walking. Its presence along the Maine coast has been verified by the finding of its bones in Indian shell heaps at Mount Desert Island, Winter Harbor, and islands in Casco Bay. Centuries later, after those ancient refuse piles had long been abandoned, the great auk was reported by explorers. Through the years of early exploration and settlement into the early 1800s, the bird was killed in great numbers for its meat, oil-producing fat, and feathers. Its eggs, which were five inches long, were also highly desired for food. After its largest colony was discovered on Funk Island, a small rocky island off the east coast of Newfoundland, the auk, which was docile and defenseless on land, was slaughtered mercilessly by fishermen and others for food and feathers used in pillows and mattresses. As with the passenger pigeon, the great auk appeared to be so plentiful that its complete annihilation seemed unimaginable. This view was often taken by those who profited in the short term by the harvesting of wildlife. Unfortunately, the great auk’s extermination reflected a pattern that happened time and time again in human history and still occurs.

Today, too many of us have forgotten the history of environmental change along the coast of Maine and the lessons that it can teach us. But if we immerse ourselves unhurriedly and enjoyably in remote places and experience nature’s raw, awe-inspiring beauty and its wondrous, undisturbed complexity, we not only will be put in touch with the past – in a kind of timelessness – but with ourselves. This is what one can find along the Maine Island Trail and in places where we have had the will to preserve wilderness. By losing ourselves in them we can discover who we are. We can take stock of our lives. We can plan future steps, clarify what’s important, and sort out our responsibilities. We can become aware of our society’s effects on the natural world, for we have a comparison with the cities and villages and the countryside we left behind. We can begin to forge a sense of our ethical responsibility to the land, because we are reminded that we are nature and what we do to it we do to ourselves. And so we return from our journeys refreshed, renewed, knowing better the nature of the Maine coast that we may have forgotten, and, hopefully, caring better for this planet and the future of all species.

Adapted by the author from his book, The Forgotten Nature of New England: A Search for Traces of the Original Wilderness.

Dean Bennett, professor emeritus at the University of Maine at Farmington, is the author of numerous books about Maine including Maine’s Natural Heritage, Allagash: Maine’s Wild and Scenic River, and The Wilderness from Chamberlain Farm.