Phoebe Wagner: [00:00] Turning on now. Okay. I’m just going to adjust the levels, so if you could just tell me what you had for breakfast this morning.

Kim Colbeth: [00:07] Oh, breakfast. Coffee and crackers and cheese. Weird breakfast.

PW: [00:15] Great.

KC: [00:16] Girl breakfast. [laughter]

PW: [00:22] All right. So, if you could just introduce yourself, what’s your name, where are you from, did you grow up on Swan’s [Island] and all that?

KC: [00:28] My name is Kim Colbeth. I’m sixty-seven. I did grow up on Swan’s Island, and I’ve lived here all my life except when I went away to school.

PW: [00:337] Were you born on the island?

KC: [00:39] Yes. Well, Bar Harbor, but yes. I came back very shortly after that. [laughter]

PW: [00:46] And where did you go to school?

KC: [00:47] I went to school here on the island. Went to high school at MDI [Mount Desert Island], and I went to college at the University of Maine at Orono and then came back shortly after.

PW: [00:59] And were your parents from the island?

KC: [01:01] Yes, both of them.

PW: [01:02] What are their names?

KC: [01:04] William Turner. Marion Stinson. My grandparents before that and great-grands. So my family’s been here for generations.

PW: [01:14] Yes, definitely. And what did they do?

KC: [01:16] My dad fished a little bit, but then he switched and worked for a lobster dealer and ran a boat up the bay with lobsters and worked on the wharf. Then he was the engineer at the Electric Co-op for many years because we generated our own power for a long time. My mom did many things. She and my step dad ran a very successful takeout. She was a nursery school teacher for a while. She cleaned houses. She did a variety of things.

PW: [01:54] Did you have any siblings?

KC: [01:56] I have two brothers. One is four years younger than me; one is twenty. He’s a half-brother, but we don’t count that. He was a surprise baby. [laughter] So yes, he’s twenty years younger than me. I was a schoolteacher, and I taught him. He was thrilled. [laughter] So, yes, just the two.

PW: [02:19] What do they do now?

KC: [02:21] They both are fishermen. My youngest brother right now is studying to be an electrician as well as going lobstering, so he’s deep into that right now. He’s getting his electrician’s license.

PW: [02:37] So they live out here.

KC: [02:39] My middle brother Gary lives out here with his wife. They both fish together. My youngest brother, Isaac, has a house out here, the old family house, but he also has a house in Bass Harbor because his wife came here as an Island Fellow and stayed on. They also have a house in Bass Harbor because she is the librarian at Conners Emerson School in Bar Harbor. So they live off there in the wintertime, and he comes on to commute for fishing, and then in the summer, they live on here so he can fish. So, they’re back and forth. They have two kids.

PW: [03:20] I heard you’re a schoolteacher. Is that what you’ve done for your entire career?

KC: [03:26] Yes, except for the odd jobs that kids do in high school. But I was a schoolteacher for thirty-eight years. I was also the teaching principal for seven. I taught my own kids. Most of the kids around town – most of the adults around town now and their kids and a couple of their grandkids. Yes, that was my career.

PW: [03:50] Are you retired now?

KC: [03:51] I am. I retired five years ago.

PW: [03:53] Congratulations.

KC: [03:54] Thank you. I loved it. I miss the kids very much. I worked the lighthouse summers and just enjoying. But I worked summers when I was teaching. I would clean houses for summer people and stuff like that. For a couple of years, I did baking for the two island restaurants that were open. I did all their pastry-baking, stuff like that. They’d order what they wanted for desserts, and I would bake. So, little odd jobs here and there.

PW: [04:34] So you mentioned that you did a tour of places on the island. Are there any specific places that are important to you?

KC: [04:42] Well, the island’s pretty interesting, really. While I was teaching, the school district – because we’re part of the MDI district – decided that all fourth graders should learn about MDI history. Well, Swan’s Islanders are sometimes renegades, and I thought that was a really stupid thing for us to learn because we don’t live in MDI, and Swan’s Island was pretty interesting. So, I developed Swan’s Island studies instead and had to get approval and all that. Over the years, I taught it every three years because I taught third, fourth, and fifth grade, so we used to rotate social studies and science. Over the years, I developed Swan’s Island Studies, and we learned all about Swan’s Island. We learned about the history, the geology, the businesses, and places of interest. All kinds of stuff about Swan’s Island and places of interest were one of the areas we studied. We went to special places on Swans Island. We have a cave. We have what used to be a gold mine in the 1800s. We have the quarry pond, of course. That’s pretty cool. We have Irish Point and Irish Point Beach, which was named for all the first settlers who came, which were Irishmen, of course, to cut lumber. There are old foundations. We have Goose Pond, which is like a seven-acre pond in the middle of the island. We have what we call Noah’s ballast because it makes a good story that Noah, when the flood came, dropped his ballast stones off there. But it’s really a glacial left behind – it’s really a beachhead from when the glaciers came over. That’s where the water line was. We have another place that’s called Stockbridge Hill because the family used to own it. But I’ve had the kids there, and you can find marine shells there in marine clay. We found fossil rocks there from the ancient beach. We also go to places like the lighthouse and the cemeteries to check out ancestral stones. So we went to lots of places like that. The kids loved it. I know where Colonel Swan’s original cellar was, so I’d take them there, and we would line up in the field to see where the cellar hole used to be. In the course of it all, they learned a lot about Swan’s Island. And they can show their kids, and they thought they were getting out of school because we did. We took a lot of hikes. We were out of school a lot of the time during the fall, but they also had to write journals, draw pictures, do sketches, do measurements, and then come back and write essays. So, they really did a lot of work. I was popular. [laughter]

PW: [07:49] Is all of that –? Was that just common knowledge among people growing up here, or did you do external research to find these places?

KC: [07:56] A lot of it is common knowledge. Some people knew some things. Some people knew some things, and other people knew other things. So, I had to gather some stuff together, like the gold mine. Some people knew the general area where it was, but I had to go searching and find it. Then I read a couple of books about Swan’s Island. One is Dr. [Herman Wesley] Small’s History of Swan’s Island, and one is Perry Westbrook’s Biography of an Island. We kind of use those for textbooks. They’re really too hard reading for kids at my level, so I would pick and choose little passages to read. But I had read them all and used them as references. But by reading those, I bushwhacked across the road and found where the gold mine was worked. Then, when I found it, I could take the kids there and say, “Look, see this? Look at the stones. This is where they worked the gold mine.” So, they learned that, and I knew where the spring was, the natural spring that people would use long ago up at the north, so we saw that. I pieced together a lot of different people’s knowledge and found stuff that I gathered up in my little brain, took notes about, and made lesson plans for.

PW: [09:19] Awesome. Now, I’m going to switch gears to talking about community things. Are you involved in any organizations or clubs or anything like that on the island?

KC: [09:40] Well, I’m in the historical society. I don’t really do a lot, but I’m here. I’m on the lighthouse committee as well. I am pretty active in that. I work at the lighthouse in the summertime as the site coordinator – it’s a big title –which means I am there. I greet people during the day. I order the supplies. I help manage the apartment. We have weekly renters. I help solve problems if they arise, do things after hours, like sweep the floors and maintain the bathrooms and stuff like that. But I’d like to become more active in the history society. I just joined really a few months ago, so I’m working on it. But those are the two big ones that I really enjoy.

PW: [10:35] Could you list places [where] people on the island gather? Is that something that you experience at all?

KC: [10:44] Church is a big one. Lots of people gather for church or church activities as well. I forgot about that one.

PW: [10:53] Anything for socializing? I guess church can be a social event.

KC: [11:00] There’s the bar-not-bar called Daint’s Place. I don’t really drink, but lots of people do, and it’s really popular. I don’t go there, but my kids do. My son does. It’s great. You don’t have to drink to go there. But by middle evening, I’m done. I just stay at home [and] sit in my chair. But it’s really, really nice, and they do a lot of things around the community. They’ve done fundraising and everything. It’s a pretty cool place. It’s become a really good magnet for the town. The school does functions sometimes, although not as much as they used to. I’m trying to think what else there is. There’s also the Marine Museum. They do a few functions every year, but not nearly as much as there used to be, like twenty years ago.

PW: [11:57] Do you know why there might not be as many functions? Or is that just can’t get people?

KC: [12:04] No, I think it’s because everyone finds it so easy to sit home and watch TV and the internet and satellite. It’s just easier to sit home and do that, so people don’t gather together and talk and do things as much. I mean, people used to get together and play games together or just visit or do functions together, and they just don’t. When I first started teaching, the parent group was really active, and they used to do one function a month for the kids. Every month, they would do something, both dads and moms and whoever else wanted to join in, aunt so-and-so. I mean, they’d do fall hayrides. They would do skating parties in the winter, they would do fun game nights for the kids, and tons of people came. Almost all the parents. And now, nobody does anything because nobody will step up and do it. That’s a big change, a big change. In the summer, there are more. There’s a lot of functions at the Odd Fellows Hall. They really are. But in general, no, nothing’s going on. I think people just find it easy to sit home now.

PW: [13:22] That’s too bad. So, in the summer, is that put on by – the functions during the summer – are they put on by year-rounders, or is that more because there’s more people from away?

KC: [13:34]There are more people. Some of it is put on by year-rounders like Garrett and Jen, who own Daint’s Place. They’ve done a couple of really nice fundraisers around the town. Last summer, the library hosted things. They would feature different painters and artists, and you could go see their works. There was a play last summer that people could see. I’m trying to think what else there was because I’m so lazy to get out at night. I’m tired by the end of the day. There’s a big music festival every summer that lasts for three days. There’s a lot more in the summer. There’s more people. There’s more volunteers. But the island people, in general, they’re tired. They work all the time. There are less children, so less kids to do stuff for. There’s a sailing club in the summertime. That’s really cool, and that’s run by generally summer people. One guy did a little monologue at the lighthouse a month or so ago, all by himself. He was pretty harsh, but it’s true; he said, “Everybody gripes about the summer people doing everything and being on all the committees.” But he said, “If people would get up off their rear ends and do it themselves, the island people, then you’d be on the committees, and you could run stuff, and you could have a say. But since you don’t, too bad.” And I thought, “Go, (Shaun?), you’re right.”

PW: [15:09] That’s funny.

KC: [15:10] It is funny. It was harsh, but it was true. Even the churches, I mean, ten or fifteen years ago, the church would have a church fair in the summertime, and we’d have a luncheon and then crafts for sale and stuff like that, and they just don’t do that anymore. The younger people don’t do that stuff.

PW: [15:35] How much do you interact with summer people when they’re here? Is it just kind of separate, or are they really involved in the community?

KC: [15:50] They are. A lot of them are. Most of them, I think. I see them a lot because I’m at the lighthouse, so I see day-trippers. I see come-rent-for-a-week people. I see people [who] own houses, and most of them are really nice. Even the day people are really nice, they come, and they’re so surprised because they really think it’s nice here and the people are nice. It’s like, “Wow, this is such a great place.” They think it’s a wonderful place in general. Most of the people who come and rent or come and buy homes are really nice, too. A few of them are not. They’re kind of standoffish, but most of them are really nice people.

PW: [16:42] Is there any wariness? Like, “I’m coming into a new place with the established community,” or do they get right in and socialize?

KC: [16:52] It depends. It just depends on the people. But there’s still that division, summer people versus island natives. You can never be an island native unless you grew up here. You’re born here and grow up here. You can be a summer person if you come seasonally. You can be a transplant if you came a long time ago and you moved here but weren’t brought up here. You are never an island person unless you were born here. It just depends on your attitude. I mean, I’m probably more lenient than some other people. Some people around the island are like, “Ooh, summer people, stay away.” I don’t feel that way as much because I’ve interacted with them more.

PW: [17:40] I read somewhere that in certain committees or something, summer people aren’t allowed to vote. I don’t know if that’s an exaggeration or if that’s even true.

KC: [17:51] I don’t think that’s true here. I don’t think that’s true here. I think what islanders resent is that sometimes people move here, and then they try to make it like it was at their home. We like it like it is. I mean, we’re not closed to change, but we don’t want it to be like Connecticut or wherever you came from. We want it like this. This is how we like it. We like it peaceful. We like it quiet. And if it is old-fashioned, well, good. We don’t want it to be just like where the people came from. Sometimes, people come, and they immediately try to change it. That’s not how we want it to be.

PW: [18:37] Right. Makes sense. What’s the biggest change you’ve seen on the island over time? It could be anything, people or industries or anything.

KC: [18:52] Well, two, I guess. I think it’s the satellite and internet. That made a huge change. Sometimes for the good because having the internet is wonderful. Amazon. Yes. I mean, that’s a big change, but also the lack of local industries. There isn’t anything here now. There are no restaurants. There’s really hardly any little shops. Not that I want to be like Bar Harbor at all, but there are hardly any little shops. My oldest son is thirty-five, and even he was saying, “Mom, when I was a kid, there were two restaurants you could go to and sit down. There was a takeout. There was this. There was that. You could go here, go there’.”  He says there’s nothing, and it’s true. The only thing we have now is pizza twice a week at the store. That’s it. I really wish there were more little industries that [would] spring up. I think it would be good for the island in general. It’s dying out that way.

PW: [20:03] You mentioned that your family is fishermen. Do you know much about what they’ve experienced on the water or how their lives have changed or anything like that?

KC: [20:29] My dad wasn’t a fisherman, so I didn’t grow up in that industry. He worked at the wharf for a while when I was a little kid. But by the time I was ten, he was the engineer at the power plant. So, I didn’t grow up in a fishing family. But both my brothers are fishermen. My oldest son doesn’t own a boat, but he sterns for another guy. My middle son spent five years in the Marines and then came back to be a fisherman because that’s what he always wanted to do since he was a little kid. Both my kids grew up fishing. My daughter traveled and traveled, met a guy in Texas, and now they live in Bangor. He’s a heavy diesel mechanic, so not a fisherman. I don’t know a lot about it, and fishermen never tell. They always say, “Oh, fishing is so awful.” Even if they get a million pounds, they still say it. But I know they feel very restricted with all the regulations and stuff. They feel very restricted. The right whale thing – that’s driving them crazy. Absolutely crazy. One of the kids that I taught – they grew up here – has made a series of videos, really nice ones, about lobstermen versus right whale entrapment. It’s amazing, and he’s really done some good work. But they feel very restricted. And there’s the floating rope and the cut rope. Now they want to put GPS on everything. The fishermen hate it. They feel like they’re managing their own resources very well, and they just hate it.

PW: [22:13] Do you know how to access the videos or what they’re called?

KC: [22:20] I’d have to think. Yes. I know his name is Andrew Joyce, and I’d have to think. I can’t come up with it right this second, but they’re really, really good.

PW: [22:31] Yeah, I’d like to see those.

KC: [22:32] Yeah, they’re good. My son is featured in one of them. I think there are eight. I’ll try to find out after the interview.

PW: [22:49] Is there anything that you think that I should know about Swan’s Island or anything I haven’t asked you about that you think should be known?

KC: [23:04] We are one of the bigger islands, and the ferry makes a big difference between us and Cranberries or Frenchboro or Matinicus, one of those. We’re really different than the mainland. We’re really different. Life is different out here. Planning your life around the ferry would make some people crazy. We miss a lot of stuff. You have to be home before six. You can’t go to Ellsworth and have supper unless you stay over. Right now, I’m trying to plan appointments in Portland, and it’s just making me nuts. Yet, it’s a great place to raise your children. Everybody watches out for them. Our kids and our school do just as well as the kids from the mainland schools. When we have kids come in from other schools, oftentimes, they’re not doing as well as our kids do. I had a family tell me – during COVID, some people moved here, even for a year, to have their kids just get away from the city and come to Swan’s Island, kids whose parents or grandparents owned land here or a house. One parent told me last summer that they hated to go back, especially one of their kids who was kind of floundering in their city school. They said he gained so much at Swan’s Island, so much ground at school, but also so much confidence. He said he hated to go back. I thought, “Yes, thank you very much. We’re good.” But it’s a good life. It really is a good life. It’s safe, and it’s comfortable. It has its tradeoffs. I went away to school thinking, “Oh, what a stupid place to live; I don’t want to go back there again.” But once I was away for three years, I thought, “Kind of a nice place to live.” So, here I am. I raised my kids here. Very good place.

PW: [25:09] Morgan, is there anything I missed or any follow-up questions you had?

Morgan Urban: [25:14] Maybe we can follow up a bit more about the changes in terms of satellite and internet and maybe how that has impacted communal spaces?

PW: [25:25] Yes, I guess you don’t necessarily have to be in a physical space to gather anymore. Have you done Zoom things at all?

KC: [25:36] Yes. Even me, who just thinks of files as the gray cabinet, the things you pull out, I’ve done doctor appointments by Zoom. I’ve done lighthouse committee meetings by Zoom. Even me and I’m really technology-terrible. It’s made a big difference for people getting together. I know some of the new people we’ve had move to the island work remotely. So, you don’t see them. My middle child, my son, just got married in June, and his wife originally was from Texas. She was living in South Carolina. They met by mistake in Acadia National Park, so they had this ongoing long-distance relationship for three years. But she moved up here last fall. She’s a grant writer for nonprofits, and she works remotely, I think, four days a week. And then she works in Bar Harbor for one day. She’s at a computer all day. People on the island are the same way. I think it was last summer; I was talking to a group of kids – or the summer before, maybe. I was going to talk to a group of kids, eighth graders, and one of my questions was going to be: what kinds of work do Swan’s islanders do? So, I put out on Facebook, “What do you do for work? I know people fish. I know people teach. I know people do carpentry. But what else do you do? What do you do if you work remotely?” I got all these answers, tons of them. I wasn’t expecting it. Some of them, even when they told me, I didn’t understand what that really meant. But it was amazing to me what they really did – people on Swan’s Island. Some people, I knew who they were. Some people that were new; I didn’t know them well. But I was just stunned by – I got seventeen answers or something, just the people who did answer and what kind of jobs they did, I had no clue. I was amazed.

PW: [27:49] Do you remember what some of those jobs were?

KC: [00:27:52] Well, one guy, he’s on the lighthouse committee, he’s a naval engineer. I’m like, “Oh, really? I just thought you kicked around the island.” I’m like, “Okay.” What was some of the other ones? It’s been two years now. Our lighthouse committee chairman. She still consults with Chiquita Banana, which sounds kind of funny, but she still does consulting for them remotely. And I’m like, “Okay.” Some of them, I can’t even – one lady consulted with all kinds of people around the world doing something. I can’t remember what the job was, but I was like, “Oh my goodness, I never knew.” I just thought they knit or something or read books. No idea. I was stunned. I learned way more than the kids group I was talking to did.

PW: [29:01] Did you see a change in population after COVID, people coming up here? Did people stay? You mentioned some people stayed.

KC: [29:08] Some people stayed. People came. I think we had – probably the school increased by, I don’t know, ten kids, and we only have twenty-some in the school now. About half of those people stayed. We just had a family move over the summer with three kids, and they work remotely. I don’t know what they do. I think one’s an engineer of some sort. But a couple of families who came for COVID stayed on. They just liked it. Some families came for the year, but they had to go back because their parents had to go back, but they liked it. One family came that just lived down the road here. They brought their two little boys, and they got a couple mini goats, and you see the boys walking them up and down the road. They were from New York City, and they would be walking the little goats on little leashes. They had the best year. They were so cute. Their grandparents owned the house. And those little kids, it was a whole different life for them to be in a school where you could ride the bus, the one bus. I remember seeing the older boy. He was probably in sixth grade, and he had his bike at the store one day, and he was trying to wrestle with this package to get it home. I knew who he was and where they lived. I knew the grandparents. And I said, “Look, you don’t know me, but I know your grandparents. I work at the lighthouse. I know where you live. Let me ride it to your house for you so you don’t break it on the way home.” And he looked at me like I had two heads. And I said, “Really, my name is Kim. I know who you are. I know your dad is Jean-Jacques. I know who you are. Really, I know your parents. Let me take your package home for you so you don’t fall off and break your neck.” And he’s like, “Okay,” and he passes it over. I said, “I will not take it, I promise.” And so he got home just before I got to his driveway, and I could see him talking to his folks, like, “Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.” I’m like, “Here you go, honey.” And the parents are waving. He was so suspicious. Any island kid would go, “Oh, okay.” But it was just strange for them to have somebody pull up and say, “Let me take your box.”

PW: [31:33] Yeah. You really look out for each other here.

KC: [31:37] Yes, that’s the island –

PW: [31:39] You all know each other.

KC: [31:40] That’s the island way. Yeah. We had an older couple who came on bikes to the lighthouse this summer, and they didn’t realize how hilly it was. Most people don’t realize how hilly it is. They were really elderly, and by the time they got to the lighthouse, they were exhausted. Exhausted. And the woman said, “I don’t think my husband can make it back to the ferry. I just don’t think he can.” So, I put it on Facebook: “We need some help at the lighthouse. Can anybody come give these people rides back to the ferry?” And within seven minutes, somebody answered back – didn’t even know who they were – “I have a bike rack. I’ll be down.” And this lady came with an SUV and a bike rack and loaded them up, and away they went. It’s like, “Yay.” They were so stunned. That’s just the way it works sometimes.

PW: [32:31] Has that friendliness changed over time, or is it just the culture [inaudible]?

KC: [32:34] I think that’s stayed the same. That’s stayed the same. People always wave to each other, and tourists figure that out by the end of the day. You’ll see them in the morning coming off the ferry, and they’re trudging along, and you wave, and they’re like, “Yeah, right.” But, by the end of the day, you pass them again, and they’ll wave. They learned to wave. It’s so funny. That has not changed. That has not changed.

PW: [33:03] Anything else, Morgan?

MU: [33:11] Maybe we can talk a bit more about the lack of local industries and the difference in the kind of jobs that people have based on year-round folk and summer folk.

KC: [33:42] Year-round jobs are basically lobstering, carpentry, caretaking. And then in the summertime: house cleaning, stuff like that, the weekly cleaning and change of renters on Saturday. Get in, clean the house, get out – that kind of stuff. We have one guy who does lobster tours and is very successful at it. He said he often squeezes in time to go fishing because he has so many lobster tours, and they’re expensive; I think they start at $499. I know. I’m like, “I could never afford that.” But I guess if you’re on a vacation and you can afford a vacation to a Maine island, you can afford that. They’re very popular. So, he created that for himself. Yay. One guy is now starting to rent e-bikes, and I guess it’s still working for him. That’s a good thing. That’s new. Our art teacher at the school has designed a whole line of cards that she makes that she prints. She’s rented a little shop, and she’s opened that. She’s also created – she’s a great artist – a little sticker design; she’s calling him Seymour the Grumpy Seagull. She’s designed this sticker, and he’s in different outfits and different places. I said you got to create a color book of Seymour around Swan’s Island. I’ll show you places. I’ll show you places he can go. She’s getting four more things [that] she’s designed. Now she’s designing T-shirts and sweatshirts. She’s got one about the lighthouse. She’s got one about lobster fishing – “Save the Local Lobsters.” I think she’s going to make a go of it. That’s a good thing. Now, somebody to do a restaurant. We’d be so happy. We’ll take hotdogs. We don’t care. But I think more people are starting to do that now. We’re starting to branch out a little bit.

PW: [36:05] You work with young people. How are they looking at their future? Do you think they generally want to stay and fish or try to do other little things?

KC: [36:17] It’s half and half. Some people go away, some people stay, some people go away and then come back. My niece is married to a guy who has his own car repair business. He’s doing great, and he works all the time. He’s got cars lined up, and they’re in line waiting. So, he’s doing well. It’s a local thing. The guy who works on roads and construction, and if you need your lawn dug up for whatever reason, he’s aging out; he’s not well. That’s going to be a job for somebody to take over, I’m sure. So, jobs like that are going to be needed. But it’s just you’ve got to create a job. I know there’s more out there. I just couldn’t think of a job for myself, but I’m sure other people could. The guy who does the lobster tours also has a water taxi if you want it. He has this really speedy little boat. For a considerable fee – I think [inaudible] two hundred bucks – he’ll take you across the bay in about fifteen minutes, and he’ll go at night if you need him to go. He’ll take you at night. It’s too pricey for me, but yes, it’s a good thing. People just got to figure out what’s needed. I think if somebody could have a taxi to and from the ferry to where you want to go, a car taxi. I think that would be a good business.

PW: [38:02] Yes, that’s a good idea. It’s a big island.

KC: [38:09] Yes. People come thinking they’re just going to walk off the dock to a little shop and look around. No.

PW: [38:22] Alright. Anything else, Morgan?

MU: [38:26] I’m really fascinated by this idea of people creating economic opportunities for themselves. I’d like to know more about that and how people get a sense of what’s needed in the community and how they can meet that.

KC: [38:47] I know. I don’t know how you do that. It’d be nice to have a big summit meeting about it to figure out a way to get island people to buy into it. Island people are really sticks in the mud sometimes, and I say that in a nice way because I’m one of them, so I can say that. But to get them to come out and talk about it. This is your town, so what do you want? What do you want to happen? Your kids are going to grow. What do you want to see? What are we going to do? What’s it going to look like twenty years from now? What do you want it to look like? What do you want your kids to have [for] jobs if they stay here? It’s got to be something. What if fishing plays out? What are you going to do? Well, people are raising oysters here now, too. I forgot about that. Several local guys are raising – well, guys and women are raising oysters. They sell them at the local store. They ship them. I know there’s even a wholesale retail business in South Portland that has featured Swan’s Island oysters, so that’s cool. They sell them commercially, or you can just buy some. That’s a job they created for themselves. Just thought it up, and it seems to be working. I know down at Frenchboro, the island next to us, they’ve started doing things with kelp and stuff like that that Swan’s Island could do as well. We sell some of their products in the store – (krickles?), kelp pickles. I mean, who would have thought of that? Hey, it’s working for them. People could bake at home and stuff. I think we have a town ordinance now that you can sell your homemade things directly to consumers without having a permit or anything. One lady has a little farmstand by her house, and she sells farm goods and baked goods just on a little table out by her house – pay the money and take it yourself. That works for her. We have a business over in Minturn that’s been going for years that it’s like – (Iver?) calls it his antique mall. It’s kind of like antiques and whatever else might be in there. He’s there sometimes, sometimes not. You just go in and rummage around. Everything’s priced, and whatever you want, you rip the price off and put it in the box with your money. Just be honest. It’s worked for him forever. People are fascinated by it. If people really brainstormed. If people thought about what do you want to see, and other people thought about what could I do, who knows what they’d come up with? There used to be a bait shop here, and the lady just aged out, and they don’t do it anymore. But it was really popular. You could go and buy donuts and pastries, or you could go and have breakfast. Now we do have Coffee Love, which is a home-roasted coffee business, and they have really nice breakfast sandwiches and really great coffee, and that’s kind of like it, but this was a sit-down. You could order eggs and toast and waffles if you want. It was more of a sit-down thing. But Gary Rainford is doing great with Coffee Love, but it’s only open in the summertime. This was open year-round. We used to have a laundromat, which would be a great asset because lots of summer houses or lots of rentals – like the lighthouse – has no washer/dryer. A laundromat would be a great asset to the town. When we did have one, it was very popular. That would be a great thing for somebody to be able to run. A brainstorming meeting with somebody facilitating would be a great thing. Some startup money for some people who wanted to buy into some of these things would be a good incentive. I don’t know where it would come from, but it’d be nice.

PW: [43:22] You mentioned oyster farming and kelp on Frenchboro. I know in some places, there are some growing pains with aquaculture coming into historically [inaudible] fisheries. Has that been a problem here at all with the oyster farm?

KC: [43:41] Not yet. Not that I know of. Not that I’ve heard. I usually get all my info from my younger brother. He knows stuff. [laughter] You know how at the wharf people go over to the wharf in the morning, they sit there, and they talk? In other words, I call it Ladies’ Aid, only for men. They gossip. I haven’t heard anything bad about it, so that’s good. But they haven’t really taken over any places that would cut out lobster fishing either because they’re really in close to the shore, like the salmon farm. They still have raised salmon a couple of places out around the island. Nobody seems to mind that. So, that’s good. That just provides a couple jobs for island guys. It’s not really a big industry; it used to be here. They used to raise the salmon and process it. So, it provided jobs for processing people and the cleanup people for after hours and lots of jobs. But now that’s shut down. They just provide jobs to the people who feed the salmon daily now, and everything else is taken away. So, not such a big industry anymore. There must be more things.

PW: [45:15] Anything else, Morgan?

MU: [45:18] Yeah. I’m wondering, what are your thoughts on the future of the island?

KC: [45:34] I don’t know. It scares me in a way because I’m thinking that, in a way, as the cities get more crowded and crazy like Lewiston, sadly, I’m wondering if more and more people are going to be moving to places like this for shelter and protection. [Editor’s Note: On October 25, 2023, a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, perpetrated by Robert Card, resulted in 18 fatalities and 13 injuries, marking it as the deadliest in the state’s history; the shooter was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, prompting calls for stricter gun regulations and heightened security measures.] On the other hand, are more people going to move away because there’s nothing here for them to do for a job? So, it could go either way. It could be we get more people, or we get less people. When I started teaching – granted, it was ages ago now – we had fifty-one kids in school. I had nineteen kids in my class. Now I think there’s only twenty-something kids in the whole school. The school is shrinking, which scares me. It all depends on [if] less people have kids. People are having less kids. That’s probably not a reflection on the economics of the island, really, but we’ve got to keep our school. Obviously, that’s what every island says, I know. But that’s scary. The ferry is really a hindrance to a lot of people. If you’re not used to the ferry life, it drives people crazy. I know this last summer and even this fall, we have so many trucks coming on for so many different things that there’s hardly space on the ferry, sometimes for cars. It’s insane, and it’s very frustrating if you want to get off and just go shopping or if you have an appointment. It’s really hard. Having a lack of medical services on the island is really hard. When I was a kid, we had doctors visiting the island once a week. We had two doctors from Bar Harbor Hospital, and one of them was on once a week. Now, we have a doctor once a month. So, if you’re sick on that day, you’re so lucky. Or if you have booked an appointment, one of the eight appointments that day, you’re so lucky. It’s practically nonexistent. In my mother’s day, because there were more people here, there were two doctors on the island living here. When the quarry was running up until the ’30s, there were a thousand people on the island. But the island was a lot more self-sufficient then. Everything, just about, you needed was here. There were four stores. It was more self-sufficient. Now, a lot of the stuff that we need is off-island. I think it’s going to be more and more that way. I don’t know. I’m kind of worried about the island because you want it to stay like it is, a nice, safe, quiet, old-fashioned community where people know everybody and we help each other out. But you don’t want to fall so far behind that nobody wants to live here. We want our kids to be able to come stay if they want to. But if they want to fly and spread their wings, you want them to do that, too. So, it’s going to be a balance somehow. I don’t know what it is. I think more job opportunities is the key so that people can pick and choose.

MU: [49:17] Could you tell me a bit about the housing situation on the island?

KC: Dismal because it’s so expensive. It is so expensive. That’s one of the hindrances is that none of our young families can afford housing or land. I don’t know how much land lots are going for right now, but I know there’s a little house – I live in Minturn, and I don’t own waterfront [property], but I live one up from the water. I have a great view. I can see the lighthouse and everything. My house is probably close to 150 years old. It was my grandparents’ house. Before that, it was somebody else’s. It’s an old, old house. I can see this little house on a little peninsula of land, and it is a little teeny house. But granted, it has shorefront. It will flood if the tide comes up ten more feet. It was just a little camp that they built on. It is tiny, and it is old. Old wiring, old septic, old everything. They want 399,000 for it. It’s like eight-hundred-something square feet total. No one can afford that but a summer person. No one. There’s another lot for sale down in the harbor. What it is is two little camps. I mean, little camps, probably twenty by twenty-five. One’s on one side of the hill, and one’s a little way up. They were built as cabins, and then they kind of got converted into – one was converted into a winterized house, a winterized cabin. And they’re going for, I think, 349 [thousand]. No Island young person could afford those just starting out. I mean, they wouldn’t want them anyway. It’s not like a family house. But it’s crazy. I don’t know how much just land-land is, but there’s no housing for young people. There’s nothing. That’s a sad thing. Even my house, I think, is valued at someplace around 250,000 or so on the tax records. But I think if I sold it, I could probably get around 400,000 for it. And it’s old. I mean, it’s got old wiring. It’s not insulated well. It’s old. Cute on the outside but old. Nobody could afford that either for a young family, and they’d still have to do lots of repairs. That’s a problem. I don’t know about other islands or anything. Twenty years ago, it could have been dirt cheap, but no more. Did you find that? Do you hear that answer –

PW: [52:44] Yeah.

KC: [52:44] – other places as well?

MU: [52:45] Absolutely.

KC: [52:48] That’s a sad thing.

PW: [52:49] It’s the whole coast.

KC: [52:52] The islands have been discovered finally.

PW: [52:54] Yeah. You said the young people wouldn’t want the house because it’s not a family house. Generally, would be passed down, the houses?

KC: [53:08] Sometimes, yes. Mine was. Mine was my grandparents’ house, and I inherited it when I was about twenty-five. If I was to buy it now, I couldn’t afford it. I couldn’t do it. Houses that were probably forty or fifty thousand twenty years ago and now 250,000. Just everything is priced out of local people’s range. It’s crazy.

PW: [53:49] Is there any kind of resentment there among local people?

KC: [53:53] Oh, yes, a lot. I mean, you can’t blame people for wanting to get all they can for their property. But yes, there’s a lot of resentment. Like, “Well, that’s going to go to a summer person,” that kind of thing. They’re being just priced right out of the town. It’s sad. There’s a house just down the road here that just sold for, I think, close to 300,000. It’s an older house; it’s cute, but it’s not had anything done to it. I don’t know about the structure of the house, but the inside, it’s just ancient wiring, not a good furnace system, not good plumbing, not a good well system, and the rooms are going to have to be redone with wall surfacing. If you bought it, you’d probably have to put at least another hundred thousand into it to renovate it, and no island person could afford that. Not a young person. It’s just insane.

PW: [55:08] Do you think summer people know that coming in? Like, “Oh, I might have taken away someone’s family house or something like that?”

KC: [55:15] Yes, I’m sure. We just don’t have the ways and means to do it, and I’m sure they must know that. There’s a lot of people moving here. They have had way better jobs than we have. I mean, fishermen – they think fishermen make tons of money, and a few of them do. But if you’re a fisherman, at least a third of your income goes right back into the business before you take your check home. Then, you have to file income tax. And that’s scary. Really scary. Then, if your boat breaks, you need boat insurance, or you need parts, but daily, a third of your catch is taken away right away with supplies. At least.

PW: [56:11] Yeah, it’s a cycle.

KC: [56:17] Yeah. Because I was married to a fisherman, I know that whole thing.

PW: [56:26] Alright. Anything else? Any last things? We’re about at an hour, I think.

MU: [56:34] Yeah, I’ll crack –

PW: [56:38] How many pages you’ve got?

MU: [56:38] – further into [inaudible]?

KC: [56:39] He writes really fast. I’m impressed.

MU: [56:41] Seven pages or so.

KC: [56:45] I’m impressed. I tend to ramble, too.

PW: [56:50] That’s good. It’s been really great.

MU: [56:52] The aquaculture seems very interesting. We could talk about that. Maybe some of the new industries that are coming to the island.

KC: [57:05] Like the oysters. I don’t know a lot about it. I just know I see them out there. There’s some of the Mill Pond where I live. Those ones are tidal. When the tide goes out of the mill pond, it’s empty, completely empty, so the oysters are out of water. They seem to be doing fine. There’s some in Atlantic that – right by the ferry when you come off the ferry in that little cove. There are some over in Minturn that are in the water all the time. I think there’s another set. I think there’s two sets in Minturn, but I don’t think they earn enough money from that right now to support themselves for a whole income. They are fishermen, so they do other things, too, but right now, it’s a sideline. But still, you never know. One thing the kids and I used to do at school is we would make a list of every business by town, like Atlantic, Harbor, and Minturn, and we’d make a big list of all the businesses. And then we did it again three years later; we’d make a list of all the businesses, and then we’d compare. Well, which businesses are still there from three years ago, or which are gone? Which are new? And so we have this set of businesses so we could compare time after time. It was amazing how much businesses changed and how much, towards the end of us doing that, how much businesses had decreased – the amount of businesses had decreased. We counted little businesses, like Betsy’s Donuts or something, to big businesses like Fred’s Moving and Excavation. We counted everything. We had to judge if it was a business. Did it earn money? Did it pay paychecks? Did it have at least one employee which could have been the owner? We had criteria that we went with. They learned about what makes a business. But it was interesting to see over time what businesses were sustained and what businesses changed. Even the restaurants are food service businesses – that’s one thing we noticed that really changed over time.

PW: [59:32] Did you keep any of those? That’s really interesting.

KC: [59:34] I think I probably have some. I kept all my Swan’s Island stuff. I’ve got files and files of that kind of stuff and projects we did and rocks that may or may not have gold in it and shells from Stockbridge Hill. I kept all that stuff, and I took it with me when I left. Because it’s all my stuff I developed. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it now. I’ve still got it. But yes, I kept all that.

PW: [59:55] I’m sure we would want to look at the businesses. That’s really cool.

KC: [1:00:00] I’ll have to look and see. I’m pretty sure I kept them.

PW: [1:00:02] I don’t want to put you out searching for things, but that would be really interesting.

KC: [01:00:06] Yeah. It was interesting. It was interesting to me as an adult, probably more than the kids to see.

PW: [01:00:15] Did you count individual lobstermen as a business?

KC: [01:00:19] No, we just counted lobstering. But we would count the wharves, like were there wharves in Minturn, were there wharves in the harbor. So we counted wharves as a business, like Kent’s Wharf, Fisherman’s Co-op – that was two in the harbor. Underwater Taxi in Minturn, that was one. But we didn’t count each individual fisherman. We didn’t do that. Yeah. It was pretty cool.

PW: [1:00:42] Yeah, that’s really interesting.

KC: [1:00:44] Yeah. We did all kinds of stuff about Swan’s Island, not just places of interest.

PW: [1:00:54] That’s really great. I’m sure that made people really care. Like kids really feel like a part of a place.

KC: [1:01:01] Yes, I think it made them proud of their town. Whenever we went on hikes or anything, I always took parent chaperons with me. I had a rotating list I would call. So we always had parents with us. And as it went on, some of the parents were former kids who were with us. It was nice. It was really nice. We had a lot of good times. Then, we’d come back and write journals and stuff. We’d do all kinds of crazy things. We have clay banks around the island, so we’d go and gather clay, and we have a kiln at school. So we’d gather clay and bring it back to school and clean it, stuff like that. In the end, we’d make finished products like mugs and whatever the kids wanted to make. So, they got to see that whole process.

PW: [1:01:47] That’s awesome.

KC: [1:01:48] It was. We did a lot of cool stuff. They get to see where ceramics came from. Yeah, good times.

MU: [01:01:58] Do we want to wrap up here?

PW: [01:02:04] Yeah. I think so. If you have anything else [inaudible] –?

KC: [01:02:07] I’ve just got housework to do. Who wants to do that? My kids would just crumb it up anyway, so it won’t matter.

MU: [01:02:13] I have a question about the restaurant culture before there was a decline. What are your thoughts on that? I heard a bit about the Sea Breeze restaurant.

KC: [01:02:29] That was in a renovated trailer, mobile home, down around the point in Minturn, and two ladies who are friends ran it together. That was great. They just had French fries, burgers, fried clams, and then meals, like they might have fried chicken, or it might be a meatloaf special, and they had ice cream and pie and brownies or whatever. So, that’s one of the ones I cooked desserts for. She’d call me and say, “I need a chocolate cake,” or “I need a pie.” And so that was my summer job for a few years. They also had one over in the harbor. I cooked for them, too – The Bridge. They thought they were more upscale, and it looked like they were, but the food at the Sea Breeze was better. [laughter] But one of the lady’s husbands would go out and dig clams and clean them, and they were at the restaurant. It was really good food. So, they did a great business. A great business. At the same time, The Bridge restaurant in the harbor was open. Where the health center is now, that was a restaurant. I can’t remember the name of it now. It’s awful. But that was a sit-down restaurant. They had tables and little napkin things on the tables, just like any restaurant away. You could go in and order. They had a fold-out menu and anything you wanted. It was great. Then, there was another – another time, the trailer got moved from Minturn to Atlantic, and that was a takeout restaurant with burgers and all that stuff like you’d expect. That lady also had the laundromat. At one point, I lived over in the harbor, and my friend Lottie had a takeout there, just a little small trailer. She had fries and burgers and chive fries, and she had a soft serve machine. I mean, people lined up there all the time. It was crazy. In fact, my daughter was probably eight or nine, and if she’d get home from school before I did or something, or if I was gone someplace, she’d call, and she’d say, “Mom, can I go have a chocolate sundae?” And I’d say, “Yes, just get a small one.” “Okay.” And finally, one day, Lottie told us – she goes, “Keyona comes over all the time for sundaes.” She goes, “She gets a large chocolate sundae with five cherries.” And she said, “Then sometimes, she comes over again for a small one.” I said, “Really?” She said, “You didn’t know that, did you?” I said, “Nope.”  What she was doing – she was raiding my change jar and going and getting the big one and then calling me pitifully if she needed a second. “Can I please go get one?” I didn’t know she was going to double-dip into my change just because it was just across the drive. Yep.

PW: [1:05:57] That’s funny.

KC: [1:05:57] Or my son would go over with his cheese and his bread and say, “Lottie, can you make me a toasted cheese with three slices of cheese? Here’s the stuff.” But it was great. My parents had a takeout, and they had the same old stuff, and they had crazy business. So it’s not like people didn’t want it. It was just – and then my stepfather got sick, and they couldn’t run it anymore, but they had their business for probably fifteen years or so. It was crazy. It was very popular. So it’s not like somebody couldn’t do it. The need is there, and it wouldn’t even have to be fancy sit down. It could just be regular old stuff. We eat anything here. Anything would be good. It doesn’t have to be prime rib. We’ll take anything. That would be a really good business to develop. It’s hard work, though. Especially getting stuff from the mainland. I mean, we love the store. The store is great. It’s kind of pricey, but it’s great. At one point, we had a big AG-affiliated store in Minturn. I used to work there summers when I was in college, and they had a flier and specials and all that stuff. They had a lunch counter, and you could get Italians and pizza and fried chicken. Nancy Carter cut her own meat, and we had deli meat sliced. It was just – you know what Carol’s was like in Trenton, that kind of store. It was great. We miss that kind of stuff as well. It was a lot more developed business-wise than it is now. We even had a hardware store at one point.

PW: [01:07:59] I was just thinking about that; doing any kind of carpentry out here, you’d have to lug everything over.

KC: [01:08:14] Yeah. Or you can order it and have it sent on the next day. I think Hammond Lumber comes twice a week in the summer and once a week in the winter. Then we have L.J. Hopkins, who’s our local mail dealer/mail driver. He brings UPS, and he brings everything else you want. He brings prescriptions. There’s a five-dollar delivery charge, which I can get. He brings other things if you need a part from NAPA or if you need things from the hardware store, and there is a delivery charge. But you can’t just get it right then; you have to wait. Our UPS system – it drives people crazy from the city, but when your UPS says it’s delivered, it means you’re going to get it the next day because it’s been delivered to Bass Harbor. It comes on the next day with L.J. They go to the store in their special UPS room. Have you shown her that yet?

Olivia Jolley: [1:09:16] Not yet.

KC: [1:09:17] Oh, [inaudible] see it. There’s a special room at the store that’s UPS delivery – and FedEx, too – and in the middle of the afternoon, Brian, the storekeeper, publishes a list on Facebook. He has his own UPS page, and your names are all listed. If it’s medicine, it’ll say, Kim Colbeth, one in the back room in parentheses, so you know that’s medicine. So, you go over, and you rummage through there until you find your packaging, you cross your name off the list, and you take it and go home, and nobody ever takes your stuff. Well, it draws people from the mainland like crazy. They say, “You just leave it there, and you just get your own stuff?” “Yup.” “Nobody takes your stuff?” “Nope.” Or you go in the store to the counter and say, “I need my drugs, please,” and they go in the back and come back with this bag of stuff. But it drives mainland people crazy because they think, “Nobody steals your stuff?” And we go, “No, we just take what’s ours.”

PW: [1:10:17] Right. Yeah. There’s so much trust here.

KC: [1:10:19] There is. There is. Or if you see somebody walking, even though you don’t know who they are, you may offer them a ride. Just the way it goes. That’s the good part.

MU: [1:10:39] So, I think I have one more question. I would like to know about what it was like growing up here for you.

KC: It was pretty good. Oh, we did old-fashioned things. We went to school, of course, came home, [and] changed school our clothes because we had to do that. I think everybody in the world did back then. In the wintertime, we went sliding [and] skating. We were always outdoors a lot. We watched cartoons on Saturday in our pajamas. But we played outside with our friends. We rode bikes. We played hopscotch. We went swimming every day at the quarry pond. We went to the beach sometimes, but I lived in Minturn, so the beaches were far away. Our parents never sacked us around everywhere. Nowadays, kids get rides everywhere with their parents. We never did. Our parents were too busy, or they only had one car anyway. But we would go to the quarry pond every single day swimming. There’s a hierarchy because the little kids who couldn’t swim very well or had their parents with them stepped right down on the little rocks right there with their mothers. And then, as you got to be cooler, you got to move off. The really, really cool teenagers were way up on the top. No little kids were allowed up there because we were not cool. They laid out on their towels and checked each other out, and then they come down and swim. We used to take ivory soap because it floated and Prell shampoo because it floated, and we just wasted it. I don’t know how our parents afforded it, but we just would go, and we’d swim all day long. We’d collect bottles and cans on the way to the store, cash them in, get snacks, and swim all afternoon until we got to high school. Then we had to work. That was the rule. But we still squeezed in swimming. We just had a great life. We played in the woods, and there was a brook by my house, so we’d go down the brook and build dams and sailboats and just muddle around in the water and in the cove. It was a great life. We had this old scow that was like a flat-bottomed boat. We could go anywhere in the Mill Pond. We couldn’t go out in the harbor for some reason. I guess our parents trusted us that we weren’t going to drown or anything, but we’d row it out in the middle of the Mill Pond, rock it until it fell over, and then drag it back in. It’s just like, “Why?” We could watch TV a little bit in the evening, but we didn’t sit in front of the TV like these kids did. We were active. We’d get together and play ball in the local field with everyone. We’d play outside in the evening. In the winter, we were still outside, went sliding, skating, and did outside stuff. It was good. It was really good. I was a reader. I read a lot. I did well in school. When it was raining or whatever, I used to read a lot. I was raised a lot by my grandmother. I lived with her a lot, so I learned a lot more old-fashioned things than some kids my age did. But I didn’t miss what I didn’t know, I guess. I obviously didn’t know a lot of stuff that mainland kids did. My transition to high school was really, really hard because we never got introduced to anything on the mainland like the kids now do. So, transition to high school was really difficult. I didn’t know about lockers. I didn’t know about changing rooms. I didn’t know about hot lunch. I didn’t know about any of that stuff. It was dreadful. So, now we make sure our kids do know all that stuff before they go. But it was a good life. I would not trade it. My kids say it was a good life when they grew up. They loved it. I think I wouldn’t trade it. I don’t think my kids would trade. I don’t think they would. They loved our little school. The kids, when I work, they all call me Kim. They never said Mrs. So-and-so. They all call me Kim. They’d all see me in my pajamas when they had sleepovers at my house. I think it’s a good life. Well, I think it was. It still is for the kids.

PW: [1:15:30] Great. Awesome. Thank you so much.

KC: [1:35:32] You’re welcome

MU:  [1:35:33] Thank you.

PW: [1:35:33] Turn this off now.