[0:00:00]

 

Tiegan Paulson: Recording is on. Do you want to tell me about what you had for breakfast this morning [laughs] so I can get the levels sorted here and then we’ll get started?

 

Sean Todd: So there’s a story. I now have a low-carb bread-maker, and I’m trying to make low-carb bread. I’m failing miserably. It is coming out what the Newfoundlanders would call as being ‘dungey,’ which means it doesn’t rise. So when you get to eating it you’re basically eating uncooked dough, and it made my stomach very sick this morning. So that’s what I had for breakfast. Bread that was not bread.

 

TP: Bread that was not bread.

 

ST: That was not bread, yes. I’ll try and stay around the same distance away from the microphone.

 

TP: Awesome. Okay, I need one more little test thing.

 

ST: Yes, so then it went on to cereal, which is God’s given best food in the world. I am very experienced, and over my fifty-seven years of living I have sampled all the best cereals.

 

TP: Okay. That’s levels.

 

ST: Okay.

 

TP: I think we’re good to go. Running into the Frenchman Bay topic, can you tell me a little about your background in the area? What brought you here, how long you’ve been here, that sort of thing.

 

ST: Okay. In Newfoundland we refer to the ‘come-from-aways,’ which are the people that settle there but aren’t truly from there. I am a come-from-away here. I came to MDI in October of 1998. I came here for work, pretty much straight from my PhD. It was the first job I was offered, it was the first job I accepted.

 

[0:02:02]

 

The background to that is that the person I was ultimately replacing here at the college was a huge silverback in marine mammal science, so I was filling some very, very big shoes. I was very glad and also, simultaneously, intimidated to do that. That’s why I came here. I came here ultimately because it was a better job. Now that said, because of Steven Katona’s renown, even when I was working at graduate school College of the Atlantic and this place called ‘Bar Harbor’ was – the tourists, it was famous. You build up these mental images of what the place is like, and of course I get here and it’s nothing like what I thought. It already had – the place already had some notoriety to it. When I got here I was delighted to discover that Maine was about as Canadian as you could get and still be in the United States, so the culture clash was fairly minimal.

 

TP: Can you say again when it was that you got here?

 

ST: October, 1998.

 

TP: What kind of things have you been doing on the bay?

 

ST: We’ve got this adage that we are “College ‘of’ the Atlantic, not College ‘by’ the Atlantic,” so Frenchman Bay is our access to the Gulf of Maine. It’s the gateway to ocean studies. Frenchman Bay has always been a spot that – it’s easy to get to, especially for me, from a relatively small boat. Back in the day it was the Indigo, which is a vessel that predates you, and you will be glad of that because it was an awful, awful boat.

 

[0:04:04]

 

[laughs] In fact the word ‘boat’ should not be described, should not be used in its [reference]. But it was easy to get out to, relatively safe. It had some interesting islands within, although I was never really much about the islands. I was much more about what was going on inside the bay itself. It’s kind of a microcosm of the Gulf of Maine, in that the Gulf of Maine is a fascinating and very, very well studied spot. We know a lot about the oceanography of the Gulf of Maine, and a lot of that is responsible for creating the Frenchman Bay that we understand. It’s useful in that regard as well. I wasn’t really – I’ve been far more interested in the physical object that is Frenchman Bay rather than the historical object that is Frenchman Bay. I’m aware that that history exists, but it’s nothing that I’ve really investigated fully myself. It’s really just as a – Frenchman Bay is a playground for oceanography, and it’s a stepping stone to get out into the gulf itself.

 

TP: What do you mean by ‘playground?’

 

ST: I mean a playground – well, okay, what is ‘play?’ Play is an activity you do where you learn to coordinate muscles in a relatively safe and fun environment. That’s exactly what we do in Frenchman Bay with our students. We play, we learn to flex muscles, we learn how to measure the ocean, we learn how to understand the system of the ocean in very safe conditions, very low stakes, and we have fun doing it. It’s aesthetically very beautiful, so it’s not hard to look at, either. It’s a really great place to do that kind of work.

 

TP: Can you give me some examples of things that you’ve done out there?

 

ST: Yes. Something we’ve done for a very long time is go out to the bay to test water quality and see how that changes, the phenology of how water quality changes throughout the season.

 

[0:06:06]

 

We’re looking for phenomena such as temperature stratification – thermoclines, haloclines, pycnoclines. We’ve also done a little bit of water chemistry, but that hasn’t worked as well – mostly because the kits that we’ve used were not particularly high grade. I would say the physical oceanography aspect that we’ve been doing, so temperature and salinity – and density applied therein has been the most successful. Typically we’ve got – we’ve got three or four stations that we like to visit around the bay. There’s some shallow spots. There’s some spots that we know there are currents that wrap around the corner, bringing in fingers of interesting water that’s different to the rest of the water being measured in. I think the deepest we go down to is around about… maybe 300 feet, 350 feet, something like that, off the old soaker. It’s a nice varied environment. We also do plankton tows, and again the kinds of plankton samples that we retrieve from the bay are a good reflection of what’s going on in the Gulf itself. We can look at the phenology of plankton. We’ve done a little bit of tide work, looking at variations in tide. Oh yes, more recently – that’s been some of the more educational work that we’ve been doing – more recently we’ve been interested in the bay as a resource for various species of marine mammals. Harbor porpoise in the Gulf of Maine in general have kind of an interesting history. They are just on the lip of being endangered, but not.

 

[0:08:04]

 

It would just take one thing to probably push them over the edge. There was a big review back in the late 1990s I think that basically said that fishing didn’t have a significant enough impact – bycatch in fishing gear did not have a significant enough impact for it to be classified as an endangered organism. But they’ve been hanging in the balance, and the latest insult to their population – or the latest potential insult, let us say – is the cruise ship industry. Which is something that has changed dramatically over the past couple of decades, the number of cruise ships we see in the bay. And while I recognize that Bar Harbor needs to find ways to grow financially, it’s a very small town and it’s a very small bay, and we’re worried about the impacts that those boats might have both on the water quality and perhaps the animals living in the bay at the same time. The harbor porpoise project started up – probably 2015 or so, and we were interested in developing baselines to understand how harbor porpoises use the bay, and then when the cruise ships came, seeing how the cruise ships might change those distributions. That’s happened to a degree, we have managed to show there has been some alteration in how harbor porpoises use the bay. Cruise ships do have an impact, probably mostly through noise. Cruise ships have engines that are quite noisy, but maybe also through gray-water discharge. Unfortunately that project is not going on anymore right now because of funding, but I think the indications were clear. We had some good opportunities to collect great baseline data during COVID when there were no cruise ships.

 

[0:09:57]

 

The baseline data has been collected, and if we get further funding we can begin to see how harbor porpoises are now using the bay now that there are cruise ships back in the area. So we develop Frenchman Bay more as a research site as opposed to an educational site.

 

TP: What kind of things were you seeing the harbor porpoise doing? What is ‘baseline?’

 

ST: Yes, changing how they use the bay. Changing distribution. There are certain places in the bay which are fairly predictable for harbor porpoises, and those places became less predictable in the presence of cruise ships. We saw really good evidence of mass feeding when cruise ships weren’t around; less evidence of that when they were around, so those kinds of things. Another thing I guess we could talk about – sorry, as I talk the memories come flooding back – when I first got here there was this horrible new high-speed ferry called the Cat. There was actually a student who was very worried – not so much about the effect of the Cat in Frenchman Bay, but once she left Frenchman Bay she was going to go straight across whale grounds, essentially, to Nova Scotia. She did a great senior project demonstrating that, basically all the Cat had to demonstrate to do that was that it had enough life jackets onboard. There was no environmental process to make sure that they weren’t going through sensitive whale grounds. There is a rumor that they may have hit one, although that was never a confirm. That is completely hearsay. I don’t want to reinforce that here. So we wanted – that started us thinking about ship strikes, and why do whales hit ships? I had just come here hot off the science of entanglement.

 

[0:11:57]

 

We’d done a lot of work on acoustics, and we’d pretty much demonstrated that fishing nets were detectable, but they weren’t detectable enough that whales would detect them in time – in enough time – to perform a successful avoidance maneuver. Many, many whales get caught in the tail, which implies that they’re trying to leave the area, but they just don’t see it in time to make a quick enough turn. That was interesting. I came here, and I said, “Well, what if whales hit ships because they don’t detect them in time to avoid them? Well that would imply that the ships were not detectable. But wait, they’ve got an engine. Doesn’t that mean they’re making a big noise? Shouldn’t we be able to hear that underwater?” So Frenchman Bay became the testing ground for the Cat. We actually did phone up the company, and we said, “We’d love to work with you on this,” and they basically said, “We are absolutely not interested in any way with you working with us.” So we said, “Fair enough. Well, it’s a free ocean, we’re going to go out there and measure you anyway.” So we sat in the mouth of Frenchman Bay. I have this vivid recollection of it. Myself and a student, we’re in this – possibly twelve-foot – zodiac, in the mouth of Frenchman Bay, mind. It’s pitch fog and we can hear the Cat coming toward us. we’re very low in the water, so I’m aware that we’re not much of a target, so I am [securitey-ing?] like mad on the radio to let these guys know we’re here. They’re like, “Yes, yes. We see you.” I was like, “Okay.” But still the sound gets louder and louder and louder, and eventually the Cat passed probably within half a kilometer of us. It was definitely – I mean obviously they didn’t hit us, but – it felt really close at the time. But we had our hydrophones in the water as it came past so we could measure how loud the Cat was. When we first did this we were really surprised that we couldn’t hear anything on the tape. We could hear the Cat in air really well. It has this sort of whistling sound to it, it’s unmistakable, and a low-frequency rumble to it.

 

[0:14:00]

 

You could not hear that underwater. Then we realized that that was actually quite deliberate. They’ve now proved this for many boats. The front of the bow, the bow of the vessel, doesn’t have any noise. It’s called the Bow Null Effect. The hull of the boat blocks the sound. The Cat became noticeable once she had passed us and the jets were pointing toward us. Then we could hear the Cat underwater, which of course would be completely useless for a whale trying to detect a ship in time to avoid it. That resulted in a fairly important paper that we presented at a conference about that, that these ships do not project sound forward. They project sound backward, which is useless for a whale to detect them. So yes, Frenchman Bay has become – sorry, this is a very long answer to your question – but Frenchman Bay has become also a target of research for us as well.

 

TP: Cool, that sounds really cool.

 

ST: Yes, it sounds cool now, but when I remember being on a twelve-foot zodiac on the middle of Frenchman Bay – I was south of Egg Rock, mind, in a tiller-mounted twelve-foot zodiac no bigger than Delphis, or something like that, so I was like, “Euhh.” I would never do that again. I was younger at the time and had less concerns.

 

TP: What kind of vessels do you use?

 

ST: Obviously there’s Osprey. We used to have Indigo, which is a thirty-five foot “boat,” quotation marks. We have Osprey, who is designed to work as a platform for us on the water. She is really, really well designed, I love the boat very much. It never ceases to amaze how adapted she is to the Gulf of Maine. She fits there perfectly. We use the Borealis, which is a twenty-six foot cuddy cabin from General Marine. Again, very well made boat. The only shortcoming is she’s only twenty-six feet, so if you get anything more than a three-foot or four-foot swell it’s going to become – not unsafe, but it will get really uncomfortable, so we try not to take her out in big weather.

 

[0:16:11]

 

Then we’ve got a variety of zodiacs that we use. Oh, I’ve just remembered another way in which I use Bar – the Bar Island Swim. My goodness, I forgot all about that. That’s a different way I use Frenchman Bay. We use the zodiacs in the Bar Island Swim of course. That’s very close to the water. When I learned to drive a zodiac it was very much ‘sit on the hull and push the tiller back and forth.’ Since then I’ve learned a lot about zodiac driving, and so now I typically try to drive standing up because it’s a much more comfortable way for me to drive and I can see more. Several of our zodiacs now are designed that way, they’ve got a long tiller so you can drive standing up and brace yourself against the engine. It’s a better way to drive.

 

TP: Where do you go to access the bay? There’s the pier, is there anywhere else?

 

ST: It’s mostly the pier. We do use the ramp in town because it’s convenient and it’s close. It’s also very narrow and there’s lots of traffic, so I don’t like using that much, but it’s just so convenient that the convenience often outweighs the problem of traffic. The mother of all boat ramps is up in Trenton. Have you ever been there? Oh, man. It’s a beautiful ramp. It has a couple of shortcomings. The biggest one is that it is very shallow, so you have to really push your back far, far back into the water to get any depth. But still, it’s a good place. It’s a good place. Those are my in and out points.

 

TP: Hold on a second. I’m going to make my phone stop buzzing.

 

ST: Yes.

 

[0:18:02]

 

TP: You mentioned the Cat. Are there other folks that you share the bay with that you maybe interact with or come into contact with?

 

ST: The fishermen of course. Although they either keep themselves to themselves or they are typically fairly rude towards our boats. I mean I’ve been on the boat plenty of times and had a fisherman go straight past us with no consideration that we’re – let’s just say our day shapes up that we’re limited in our ability to maneuver and we’ve got gear over the side. The tradition is to give that boat a slow bell as you go past. Not the fishermen, they just go straight past, they don’t give a crap. I would say – another time we had another boat that tried to race us out of the bay. I’ve got no time for that kind of ego. I would say that most of my interactions with fishermen have been fairly negative in Frenchman Bay. I’ve lost very expensive gear, because I think it’s been cut by fishermen. There’s thousands of dollars of equipment that’s on the seafloor right now that’s just gone, and I can’t retrieve it because it’s down too deep. So fishermen, yes, I interact with them a little bit. Katie Mullen, [Kaitlyn] who is actually someone you should probably interview. She’s someone who is a great person, a previous PhD student of mine who now runs Frenchman Bay Partners – the big yellow boat, the Grace, the Katie Grace. She’s a fellow researcher that does work in Frenchman Bay, so I work with her quite a bit. Of course I work with Toby [Stephenson], and that’s a very strong relationship.

 

[0:19:59]

 

The Whale Watch is probably the biggest partner that we work with. Not necessarily in Frenchman Bay per se, but we certainly both originate from there so we both share that resource. The relationship with the Bar Harbor Whale Watch is pretty darn strong, because we’re both after the same thing and we can help each other get there, and we can back each other up when there’s trouble. Safety kinds of things. I would say that Bar Harbor Whale Watch is the strongest relationship outside of the college that I would have with another boating group.

 

TP: Cool. Sorry.

 

ST: It’s alright.

 

TP: What is your perception of the bay? That’s a vague way to put it, but in terms of how it changes, or doesn’t change. In terms of your relationship with it.

 

ST: It’s a great question because it’s something I don’t consciously think about, but maybe unconsciously I do. Has it changed over the time I’ve been here? The occupants have changed. Cruise ships, for example, have increased. Fishing activity seems to be around about the same. My knowledge of the bay has definitely increased. I’m more comfortable, it’s more likely that you could put me down somewhere in Frenchman Bay and within about one hundred feet I could work out where I am in the bay. When I first came here I was a complete greenhorn, I had no clue what any island was. I mean, all the islands looked the same. So I know the bay better. Aesthetically I would say not much has changed. I’m not one for surveying the whole bay every year.

 

[0:21:59]

 

I’m aware of, say for example, aquaculture projects going on up in the bay a little further north. I’m not necessarily against those. I may be against the more industrial processes that they’re talking about, but the mom-and-pop operations up there are great. Aesthetically it doesn’t seem to have changed that much. Physically, again, it’s a microcosm of the Gulf of Maine. It has the potential to have changed an awful lot, because of course the Gulf of Maine is in the top fifth percentile of warming patches of water in the world. You’re bound to see that impact in Frenchman Bay as well. But because Frenchman Bay is a much smaller body of water and it has more water runoff, it has those kinds of things, it often doesn’t act like the Gulf of Maine. For example, every time I test the salinity of the [bay], if it were the Gulf of Maine it would be thirty-five parts per thousand, but the salinity of Frenchman Bay is only about thirty parts per thousand. It’s five parts per thousand fresher, it’s always fresher – maybe thirty-one or thirty-two – but it’s always fresher. Why is that? I think it’s probably because of the river runoff going into Frenchman Bay is keeping things perhaps a little bit fresher. Do I see the same temperature increases that they’re seeing out in the gulf? No, but I’m not measuring in the same way they are, so that’s all fair enough. Is the phonology changing in terms of [handling noise] when – sorry – when different events happen? Not noticeably to me. There are odd years, for sure. Like last year was super odd. We had all kinds of pogie in the bay. We had humpbacks in Frenchman Bay, which in my twenty-three years of being here I had never seen a humpback in Frenchman Bay. We had a fin whale in Frenchman Bay. It’s like, “Woah, why are they here?” They’re here because of food. That was different.

 

[0:23:58]

 

Gannets are coming a little bit further in, so that’s changed as well. Aesthetically, not much different, but in terms of biological capacity, yes. I think it is changing a little bit.

 

TP: What was the most noticeable part of the bay when you first got here?

 

ST: Probably Bar Island, just because the concept of an intertidal bar is not that common. It was kind of cool to see an island that was accessible by low tide and inaccessible by high tide. Actually one of my first visions of Bar Island was seeing someone’s SUV trying to beat the tide up to the wheel hubs in water trying to get back. So yes, probably Bar Island I would think. But after that probably the Sand Beach area. I’m thinking about Great Head, Schoodic – not Schoodic Point. Schoodic Overlook, where the Sea Anemone cave is. That kind of area. Those are the areas I would visit as a hiker.

 

TP: What kinds of things do you value about it?

 

ST: About the bay?

 

TP: Yes. Or places on it.

 

ST: I think my response is going to be a bit personal, I hope you don’t mind. I have always been drawn to the sea. Always. When I was growing up I grew up in a city. I grew up in London, I mean the city of cities. Smog, pollution, noise, smell. Quite ugly. I had a grandma who lived on the coast.

 

[0:25:56]

 

Going to my grandma for the weekend was always a breath – literally a breath of fresh air. But also figuratively a breath of fresh air because you’re just in the much more calm environment. The sea was a place of calm for me, even when it was rough. I really enjoyed programs about the ocean. I was part of the age that grew up with Jacques Cousteau, so I wanted to find all the things that Jacques Cousteau was finding on the television. Of course I wouldn’t find them in the English Channel because it was really polluted, but those were things I would find out later. But the ocean was always something. A place of calm, a place of reason. A place of mystery. [I get a] profound sense of peace about being by the ocean. Ever since I’ve had the autonomy to choose where I live, I’ve always lived by an ocean. I went to university by the ocean. I went to graduate school by the ocean and on the ocean. I came to college here, to teach here at the college, by an ocean. When I take sabbatical I live on the ocean, literally. That’s how I find my peace. I actually even, now that I think about it, I avoid any vacation that’s inland. I don’t like being inland. It’s almost like an ‘agrophobia,’ which is weird because I can’t imagine anything that would be more agrophobic than ocean, open ocean, where you can’t see land boundary anywhere. I’ve been in that situation so many times now where you can’t see land. Isn’t that the ultimate agrophobic experience? But for me it’s like, “Eugh, everything is right in the world.” You put me in the middle of a Saskatchewan plain with nothing but grass fields, I would panic. It’s just like, “Oh my God, there’s no water here anywhere.” If you forced me to settle inland I’m sure it would be on a lake, and then I’d have to put up with mosquitos. No mosquitos on the ocean. Yes, there’s just something about it. I’m by Frenchman Bay.

 

[0:28:00]

 

I’m not on the ocean, I’m five minutes from it, and it’s calming. I love being able to wake up and smell the water. I love the sound of gulls, which I still get when I’m a couple miles inland. I love the climate it creates. I love the aesthetics of it. It’s very much part of my psychology, to the point that I think I would be psychologically not well if I was not with it. You’re learning far more than you want to right now.

 

TP: No! [laughs] What is it about the ocean?

 

ST: Oh God, I knew you were going to go there. [laughs]

 

TP: It was the only place to go.

 

ST: Read chapter one of Moby Dick. [Herman] Melville does a really good job of trying to connect reasons why the human race is so connected with water. And you know, that’s everything from the very new age-y, “Well we’re born in water and we develop in water,” kind of thing to other possibilities. For me, what is it? It’s eternal. It never stops. It’s constant energy. The raw energy that it represents is incredible. I had a moment in my sabbatical this year where we tried to get below the Antarctic circle, and the ocean would not let us. We did, we managed it, but boy there was a real sort of – there was a cost to trying to do it. Toby was with me, and at one point we were in this blizzard with probably fifty to sixty knot winds. The boat is heeled over very slightly because it’s acting like a sail, and we could see ice in the distance, and there’s this driving snow. I just had this opportunity to reflect within myself, “My God I’m really happy about this, I’m really enjoying being in this: the full fury of this storm.”

 

[0:30:14]

 

I just loved it. The power of the ocean is also very appealing to me. Now here’s the weird thing, here’s the paradox. I’m also deathly afraid of it, because obviously we can’t breath water, and I’m not the strongest swimmer in the world. I can swim, but most of the places I visit that wouldn’t matter. You’d be dead from the cold within minutes. It’s also potentially your undoing. It’s something that could kill you like that. [snaps fingers] That is something that you have to psychologically come to terms with. Being simultaneously both afraid, but also loving it. It’s a very weird relationship. A healthy one, I think.

 

TP: How does this body of water out here function with that? What do you think is most important about Frenchman Bay in facilitating that or other things – the important aspects of the ocean that you’ve…

 

ST: You know the way that I drive to school every day is – the last thing I view before I turn right onto Route 3 is – the vista of Frenchman Bay opens up in front of me. I turn the corner and I’m in Hull’s Cove, and all of a sudden I can see the ocean. Looking at the ocean at that moment kind of tells me what to expect for the day.

 

[0:32:01]

 

It’s my barometer. I look at the water and I go, “Oh it’s rough. It’s going to be windy and a little bit rainy today. Oh, it’s calm. Beautiful. Oh, the ocean is smoking. It’s going to be very cold today.” In many ways it’s sort of a ritual within me that I get to see the ocean and I acknowledge, “Okay, my day is starting, and this is what it’s going to be like.” And it might be a day when I’m actually going on the water, so I”m going to be thinking about, “Okay, this is what I have to prepare for in terms of motion or weather or am I going to have to be concerned about sea sickness with my students because the ocean is doing a certain – waves are coming in at a certain direction.” Those kinds of things. Something I’ve learned as I’ve become more and more of a mariner – I’m certainly very much at the beginning of that journey – you learn to be observant. You learn to observe every little subtlety about what the ocean is doing, because it will tell you things that then become predictive. I guess you could do the same thing with the sky, but I just did it with the ocean. That little part of Frenchman Bay, that little part in front of Hull’s Cove, is my barometer. Wherever I’ve lived I’ve always found a way to find a barometer. When I was in Newfoundland I used to go past the town’s water supply every morning to get to school. That was a big enough patch of water that it would develop waves under certain conditions, under certain winds, and that was my barometer for the day. “Okay, this is what I can expect from the day because this is the way that the water is acting today.” So now that I think about it, every time I’ve had an opportunity to do it I’ve developed a barometer using the water. [Laughs] You’re having me understand things about myself actually, which is kind of cool. Yes.

 

TP: That’s good to hear.

 

[0:33:57]

 

ST: Yes. Because I don’t really think about these things too deeply. I obviously am on a subconscious level, but it’s really easy to take this place for granted. And you shouldn’t.

 

TP: How?

 

ST: I think it’s because it’s always there, so you assume it’s going to be there when you turn your back. It’s still there, right? But you don’t actually really feel it’s – it’s really important to be one with the moment. I think it’s so easy to get wrapped up in our virtual screens and our life inside of a laptop or a computer or whatever that you sort of forget the environment you’re in. That’s what is so appealing to me about being on the water, being a mariner on the water. To do it well you really have to become one with the ocean. Other sailors might laugh at that, but I bet it happens to them too, they just don’t realize it. You become a different person. You become a different person when you’re on the water. It’s about understanding your environment, interacting with your environment, submitting to it. Submitting to the environment, and behaving in such a way that it’s not going to be dangerous to you. Here’s a bizarre thing. I back my car up now in a totally different way to the way I used it before I became functional on boats. It’s such a silly, stupid thing, but on a boat every action that you do, every slight nuance of the turn of the wheel, the push of the tiller, the gun of the engine, has a very real profound effect on what the boat’s going to do. Because there’s no such thing as a break on a boat, so you have to be really perfect about the way that you want to maneuver the boat. You’re super careful. One of the things that I commonly had to do when I was on my sabbatical was I had to bring my twenty-four foot zodiac up to a six-hundred foot vessel and dock it perfectly against a side gate so the guests can get in and out of the zodiac. That’s intimidating in calm conditions, but when the wind is blowing and you’re crabbing across the water, you’re trying to bring it up in a safe way, it takes a lot of work.

 

[0:36:02]

 

And again, everything you do has a reaction that you have to counter in some way. I notice myself now, when I reverse into a parking spot, oh boy. It’s very considered. It’s very considered, it’s very careful the way – I use all my mirrors, I use my reversing camera, I use my rear-view mirror. It’s very slow, it’s very precise, and I stop perfectly every time. [laughs] It’s an extension of my maritime philosophy. I drive my car like I drive my boat. Sometimes my wife goes, “Why don’t you speed up?” And it’s like, “Well if I speed up then I won’t be able to slow down as easily because I- oh yes, that’s right, this vessel has breaks. I can actually speed up because I can break now.” But sometimes I just like going slow – I sound like a grandpa, but you know this, you’ve been on boats. You want to get to that next spot over there, but it’s going to take time because the boat’s going to take time and you have to be okay with that. You have to be patient to allow that vista to arrive to you. Sometimes I catch myself doing that in a car, I’m like, “I’m just going to be patient, I’m going to drive Crooked Road at twenty-five miles per hour today and somebody behind me is going to be very upset,” but I’m just enjoying the ride. [laughs] A grandpa before my time, there you go. [laughs] We’ve drifted from the question a little bit, I apologize, but I don’t know. The ocean represents a way of life. A way of interaction that I perceive to be incredibly healthy for me. The way that I engage in the world, the way that I engage with the sights and the sounds and understanding those things, interacting with those things, and reacting in an appropriate way – on the water that has such consequences. It’s the difference between being a safe and not-safe person on the water. I practice that philosophy whenever I can.

 

[0:38:02]

 

TP: Do you have anything else you want to add on this before we move to a second portion?

 

ST: Oh God, there’s more? [laughs]

 

TP: Kind of. We’re more or less…

 

ST: Okay. Anything else about Frenchman Bay. No, I think that’s it. Of course, other people have influenced my opinion of Frenchman Bay. I think John [Anderson] would be the primary instigator in that because he and I have often done field classes together that involve going out on the bay. John of course is a storyteller, and he has loads of stories about Frenchman Bay. I’ve heard at least three different origin stories of where the name ‘Frenchman’ came from. Who knows which one is right. I’ve heard all kinds of other stories about different houses along the bay, and they’re interesting too. I think my favorite is the one about – I think John tells it that the mansion High Seas was built by someone for his wife who shipped over on the Titanic unsuccessfully. I don’t know if that’s true or not. It’s a good story. There’s some interesting mythology around it as well, and to some extent I don’t think it matters if it’s right or it’s wrong because it’s interesting myths. That’s all I had to say about that. [laughs]

 

TP: John is a good storyteller.

 

ST: He is a good storyteller. Sorry, I keep banging you microphone.

 

TP: That’s alright, I’ll put it under my feet. I’m the problem then.

 

ST: It probably comes out as a large bang on your recording when that happens.

 

[0:40:00]

 

TP: A dull thud. It’s fine. Okay, I have some charts and Melanie has been taking some notes on what –

 

ST: Yes Melanie, what are you doing?

 

Melanie Powers: I am critiquing. No, I’m taking notes on places that you’ve mentioned so we can look at them on maps.

 

ST: Okay. As a constructive criticism, it would be useful I think for future people you interview for you to introduce both of yourselves so I understand the role of the two of you together.

 

TP: Yes, apologies.

 

ST: No, it’s fine. Melanie has just been this – I’ve been mistrustful and suspicious of what Melanie was doing over there. [laughter]

 

TP: I forgot that I had not mentioned that.

 

ST: That’s alright. Oh I love charts.

 

TP: Right? Okay, let’s get this out of the way.

 

MP: Are you still recording?

 

 

 

 

TP: Yes. I made the mistake last time of turning the recording off, and the Rusty went off about a bunch of new things. [inaudible]

 

ST: Oh look, it’s a little mini chart. Isn’t it cute. [laughing]

 

TP: I just snorted. Okay. Let’s – I’m just going to start moving through these. We can draw on these, which will be fun because we can mark out different places. I’m going to give you this and then we can just kind of run through.

 

[0:41:57]

 

TP: We talked about…

 

MP: Stations around the bay to visit, and you mentioned shallows. Shallow spots and currents and the deepest –

 

ST: Yes. This might not be – I apologize, I need to get my reading glasses. Oops. Sorry. [laughs] Aha! The world comes into focus. Let’s have a look. There’s the ledge. There’s the deep spot right there. That’s one area there. We often go around the Hop, and also this side as well. Those would be our stations that we work with oceanographically, those kind of areas. We often – there’s Flanders.

 

TP: Can we put a number next to that [mark]?

 

ST: Yes. Let’s call that ‘one.’ Often we also go here and in here as part of that trip to go see some seals. Maybe occasionally here. Okay, that’s the stations.

 

TP: Resource for endangered marine mammals.

 

[0:43:59]

 

ST: Yes. Sort of – we need a different color almost. This area here, this area here. Is that Sand Beach? I think so. That’s technically Frenchman Bay.

 

TP: Here’s some more colors if you want.

 

ST: Okay. Some [inaudible] there as well. I think that’s good.

 

TP: Cool.

 

ST: We’d also include – I’m going to put a two here, here, and here because those are technically marine mammals.

 

TP: Only technically?

 

ST: Only technically. Whale one of these.

 

TP: I’m going to – we’ve got whale grounds crossed by the Cat, but that’s on those charts, right? Here, or on those charts?

 

ST: Those charts go out further?

 

TP: These charts are the Gulf of Maine.

 

ST: Perfect, those charts for that.

 

TP: We’ll come back to you. College of the Atlantic pier –

 

ST: Delphis.

 

TP: Yes.

 

ST: It was way out there, man. That’s three. More balls than sense. [laughs]

 

TP: We know where the pier is. The boat ramp in town is –

 

ST: Do you want me to mark that? Boat ramps would be there, that’s a four, and then there’s one here. They’ve got this right where I – that’s really confusing, so hang on. You come up here, that’s right where – there’s the airport. So it’s there. That’s another boat ramp.

 

[0:46:37]

 

Oh, something I didn’t mention. This one here is also a one. That’s the reversing fall, we used to do that in Indigo. Ever since we got Osprey we haven’t dared do it. We used to surf Indigo in the reversing falls. [laughing]

 

TP: Willing to do it in the Indigo. [laughs]

 

ST: Yes.

 

TP: You mentioned Katie Mullen.

 

ST: Yes.

 

TP: Is she around here?

 

ST: She used to have a mooring – a berth on the College of the Atlantic pier, but that relationship is over. I would say I would identify Kaitlyn as being – what are we up to, five?

 

TP: Yes.

 

ST: Kaitlyn would be here and we have – she would have a track, basically a transit, that would do that. She was part of our harbor porpoise project as well.

 

TP: When was this?

 

ST: That would have been the late teens. 2017, 2018, something like that.

 

[0:47:56]

 

TP: The Bar Harbor Whale Watch is based here. Does it work in the bay?

 

ST: No, typically it goes right out. Let’s make that – do you want that to be a five as well or a six?

 

TP: Let’s make it a six.

 

ST: Okay, so six – and that typically goes out this way.

 

TP: Okay, cool. You mentioned aquaculture projects in the bay. Do you know where those are?

 

ST: Precisely, no. But they’re going to be – well that’s one there.

 

TP: It’s on the chart.

 

ST: Yes, it’s on the chart. I’m trying to remember – there might be one further up here as well. This is a question mark.

 

TP: River runoff into Frenchman Bay. Are there key portions of that, or just generally?

 

ST: I haven’t identified them, but this would be one. This is up to eight now? This is river input. Skillings River. Those are the two main sources.

 

TP: Is the Union River…?

 

ST: Oh yes, thank you. This is the Union here, but it’s not going into Frenchman it’s going into Blue Hill. If you expanded the question to include Blue Hill then we do a lot of work in this area as well.

 

TP: Schoodic overlook? Note to self, bring more colors.

 

ST: Yes. Thrumcap. Is that the loop road there? No, that’s the loop road.

 

MP: Yes, it’s right next to Sand Beach. Great Hill is right here.

 

ST: That’s Great Hill.

 

[0:50:10]

 

What are we up to, nine?

 

MP: Yes.

 

ST: Schoodic head, there you go. Good luck deciphering all this.

 

TP: We’ll figure it out. I hope.

 

ST: You almost just want to take this map and blow it up really big.

 

TP: Maybe for the next one. University and graduate school by the ocean. That was in Nova Scotia, right? University and graduate school was in –

 

ST: Newfoundland. Which is – actually, out that way.

 

TP: What does this say?

 

MP: Oh that’s a quote. “Most of the places I’ve visited,” and you were talking about being scared of the ocean. Or the water. I was thinking what are the places, but I don’t know if that applies to this map.

 

ST: Did I mention Hull’s Cove in that, did you get Hull’s Cove? The Hull’s Cove thing is – let’s see this is – I think this is Crooked Road right here. So then this is my barometer right there. Ten?

 

TP: Yes.

 

ST: That’s my viewscape.

 

[0:51:57]

 

TP: Where was the mansion?

 

ST: Oh, High Seas?

 

MP: It looks like here.

 

ST: Yes, it’s by the Thrumbcap. I’m going to guess this is eleven?

 

TP: Yes. Alright, that’s the list. Is there anything we’ve missed on this that we should talk about?

 

ST: Mother’s Kitchen is right there, it’s a really good place to eat.

 

TP: I’m going to write that down for myself. Is it affordable for a college student?

 

ST: Oh yes. It’s actually a College of the Atlantic business. Mother’s Kitchen. [laughs]

 

TP: For our purposes that’s most important.

 

ST: It’s right next door to the lumber mill.

 

TP: That’s all I’ve got.

 

ST: Melanie, anything for the interview? Anything else for the interview?

 

MP: I’m not doing the process of the interviewing.

 

ST: Because Tiegan is the man who knows how to do it all. [laughs]

 

TP: That’s the idea at least. That’s the idea.

 

ST: I hope this was useful. And I apologize if it gets a little bit personal, but you asked some personal questions.

 

TP: Oh yes, absolutely. I’m going to turn this off.

 

[0:53:57]