GRAND MANAN is the largest island along the coast of Maine, eight miles off West Quoddy Head, the easternmost point of the continental US and the point of first light.
According to First Nations oral history, Man.an.ook was a seasonal Passamaquoddy encampment for thousands of years before it was mapped by the Portuguese in the 1500s, claimed by the French in the 1600s, and traded to the British in the 1700s.
With the 1783 Treaty of Paris, it became part of the United States. Nevertheless, evacuating Massachusetts loyalists settled there in 1784, creating ambiguity until the US eventually ceded the island to the UK in 1817. Now, of course, it’s part of Canada, which declared its independence from the British Parliament in 1982. There probably isn’t another territory in North America that has been ruled by more governments.
Driven by the famously giant tides in the Bay of Fundy, the water is violent and there have been hundreds of shipwrecks around the island. But the churning waters are also nutrient rich and the island, which is home to both the Sardine Museum and the Herring Hall of Fame, was the largest supplier of smoked herring in the world in the 19th Century.
By the time Charles Littlefield began construction on the building that would become LimeRock Inn, Grand Manan had become a destination for famous tourists and rusticators like Pulitzer Prize-winning Willa Cather and John James Audubon.
Since that time the population has more than doubled to 2,600 residents, but almost 90% of Grand Manans are third generation on the island or longer. Very few residents on the island come “from away”.
MATINICUS or “far-out island” in Abenaki, is the most remote year-round isle in Maine, 20 miles off Owls Head. It has a year-round population of ~50 people, a number unchanged since 1790. The island exemplifies the rugged grit of the people of Maine.
In 1750, Ebenezer Hall and his family became the island's first permanent settlers. They built a house, started fishing and farming, and claimed territorial rights. Hall burned the grass on nearby Green Island to produce hay, infuriating the Penobscots, who had seasonally used the islands for generations, fishing and seal hunting. The tribe wrote letters to Royal authorities in Boston warning, “if you don't remove him in two months, we shall be obliged to do it ourselves.” And so, they eventually did… four years later in 1757, after many warnings and a multi-day siege.
As a maritime community, the residents have long worked as sailors and fishermen. The early days of fishing for cod, mackerel, and herring have given way to lobstering, which continues as the dominant industry on the island today and has led to continued territorial disputes. In 2009, one island fisherman shot and wounded a fellow fisherman in a dispute over the locations of individual lobster-fishing rights.
Matinicus Library, founded in 2016, was featured by Smithsonian Magazine for buying books banned by other organizations in the United States. One library book that had not been banned, however, is Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie, which you can read in our own library. It’s a well-known children’s book and true story about a young girl who helps to keep the Matinicus lighthouse lamps lit during a tremendous storm in 1856 when her father had to travel 26 miles to Rockland for food and medicine.