Gunkholing By Foot

Benet Pols February 13, 2024

With the lack of snow limiting the opportunities for cross country skiing and snow shoeing, plodding along the shore line and exploring stream beds is a diversion.

It has been cold enough so trails have retained the veneer ice and packed glistening snow that results from the freeze and melt cycle. The hardtack produced by passing hikers makes the trails treacherous for some.

A great example of this is the path at the Maquoit Conservation Land . With just a straight out and back and little fresh snow to rejuvenate the path the footing leads to a mincing pantomime of a penguin. One solution, if you’re up for it, is to do a little bushwhacking, and get down to the adjacent stream beds.

Just to the west of the trail (on your right as you head toward the bay), which runs pretty close to the western boundary of the property is a stream that marks the boundary between the the western side of the property and an adjacent private landowner. However, to the east (on your left as you head toward the bay) are two streams that are contained within the boundaries of the property. With frozen embankments and reeds laid flat by the scant snow cover, it is a fairly easy walk back up the stream to points where it narrows enough to be stepped over and allow you back down the other side. You’ll get to see an area that is difficult or even unpleasant to get to other times of the year when leafy underbrush obscures lines of sight, the sucking mud has thawed, footing is brutal, and sensitivity to the plant life might make walking over it seem like walking through your neighbor’s flower bed. Also insects.

But in winter, an overcast day is as fine as a sunny day.

You’ll find that the major streams are joined here and again by smaller streams—so far as I can tell none of them have names that have made it onto any maps—these smaller streams offer some choice and diversions along with the brief sense that you are alone in the woods.

Moving horizontally up the banks and over the ridges that separate the streams you will see the woods doing their regenerative thing recovering from blow down of years past.

Commonly called rare clubmoss, ground pine, or princess pine, which is what I have heard it called. It is a North American species of clubmoss in the family Lycopodiaceae. Native to the eastern US and southeastern Canada from Georgia to Minnesota to Nova Scotia, it grows in the understory of temperate coniferous and deciduous forests where it is involved in seral secondary succession some years after disturbance has occurred.
It is known for the superficial resemblance to various conifers, hence the names ground pine or princess pine. However, its above-ground parts are rarely more than six inches tall. Its main stem is actually an underground creeping rhizome which grows about two and half inches below ground
Historically, princess pine has been harvested from the wild for use as Christmas greens for wreaths, as well as the use of its spores for flash powder, a product that is now practically obsolete, The harvesting had caused it to become threatened in several areas, leading Indiana[ and New York to declare it protected by state law.

Photographing Phototropism: embracing the optimism of a single yellow birch.

Benet Pols February 3, 2024

Tithing for conservation, a tangible response to climate change.

They lie down next to each other in a companionable sort of way, like two lichened old gravestones in an ancient peninsular cemetery, “Tamarack, April 20, 2018, her relict, Hemlock, December 18, 2023.”

One has lain there for five years or more, her branches more or less gone, her trunk moss-covered and softened in places. She shapes herself to the undulations of the earth beneath her. The remnants of her root ball long indistinguishable bits of duff. Her friend, more recently fallen, bears the scar where her tap root was cleaved, her root ball still smells of freshly splintered wood and raw earth. The fungi have not yet begun their work in earnest.

Nearby, their manmade companions, an old boathouse and a small tilted fish house have survived another tide. The wrack line pushed up into the shrubbery is littered with artifacts of older times scrapped by the storm from the very bottom of Middle Bay. Lots of old glass and rusted cans of a great age accompanied a Clynk bag’s load of more recently abandoned containers: twisted tea, white claw, and the ubiquitous woke Bud Lights.

The eradication of iconic structures like the Five Islands Cook House or the Fish Houses at Willard Beach stir contradictions. Destruction porn caught on phones accompanied with impromptu narration is compelling. The ruinous power of water captivates. On the other hand we brood on the acceleration of a once slow moving cataclysm. Even hide-bound ideologues wonder what is next? Their subdivision? Their livelihood? Their insurance policies?

The postcard tidy man made structures at the shore line contrast with the messiness of the woods. Blow down stays down. Dead trees stripped of bark stand as long as they can endure against woodpeckers and other boring critters. There is no cleaning and raking of the forest floors. The only cutting is minor to clear trails and eliminate widow makers.

This is how I first joined the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust. In 2020, I spent inordinate time in land trusts traveling to Blue Hill or Castine solely to check out some new trail in the woods. I picked up the habit of sending along ten dollars as a sort of gate fee. After a storm several years ago brought down some trees, I walked Skolfield Shores Preserve and wondered at the costs of trail maintenance. I sent my $10 with a note suggesting they use it on a can of gas for their crew’s chainsaws. They called my bluff and made me a member.

Why do conservationists, and other land managers, leave the standing deadwood and the blowdown?

It provides habitat for all manner of living creatures. As the insects, moss, lichen and fungi move in it provides food for others. The standing wood serves as look out spots for crows and birds of prey to scout from; others hide out, store food, and find shelter. Along with the moss, lichen, and fungi, microorganisms return vital nutrients to the soil. Blow down becomes nurse logs for their progeny and other plant species looking to exploit the new gap in the canopy.

Succession doesn’t just take place on HBO

Phototropism is thought to provide plants with an effective means for increasing foraging potential, maximizing photosynthetic opportunities. Positive phototropism is the bending of stems and leaves toward the light, particularly toward specific wavelengths. Negative phototropism is the movement of other plant organs, like roots, away from light and presumably toward water and soil nutrients. In short, phototropism s a survival mechanism.

Foraging in this case is an excellent word and not my own. I like it because it gives sentience to the yellow birch, like a dryad.

Three winter storms in six weeks trashed the coastline and left river front communities and businesses reeling. Just this past summer we watched the same dreadful weather borne watery power leave communities in Vermont, and to a lesser extent, Western Maine, bereft and devastated, dependent on bottled water as they pled for federal money to put roads back in place, buildings back on foundations, and to restore public water.

At the moment it seemed that there was a common explanation as to why what happened in Vermont wouldn’t happened here in our part of Maine. You see it was the hilly and mountainous communities drained by narrow gorges and narrow valleys. Picturesque and quaint, these gorges caused all the damage by magnifying the force of the heavy rains. Vermont which used to be immune to major flooding, tornadoes and other perils that afflict the middle parts of the country was different than most of Maine. Vermont had been a lot like Maine—able to endure cold weather and snow because even at their worst winter storms they generally leave structures intact, roofs on and basements dry.

If Vermont was special Maine was even more special.

Until, that is, our winter wonderlands changed. Atmospheric rivers dumped biblical rains. And we recalled that while Maine has fewer gorges and canyons than Vermont, we have tides, and tidal surges.

Where we should have had a blizzard, a snow day, and fresh powder on the piste and in the woods, we had a deluge. What should have been snowpack to replenish aquifers in spring instead scoured the shores of vegetation and livelihoods. We watched the water rising, sand bags being deployed, and our post card scenes disappearing before our eyes.

Like wandering around outdoors, making photographs is a reflective pastime. I find a consonance with natural objects and creatures when I see them through the lens, even rocks in the mud or fallen tree trunks. It brings me closer—it may be just a construct, my imagination—but I feel it. I can be a part of it. The same is true when I look through the lens at a goal being scored, a competitor being chased down the back-stretch, a victory celebration, or the intensity of eyes in completion.

For an instant I understand it.

Perhaps the land trust needed a few cans of gas because the trails were impassable for some folks. There were dangerous branches or whole trunks hanging like a guillotine over trails. Some maintenance would be done so more could enjoy the restorative power of the outdoors. Concrete thinking like this leads me to spells of abstract thinking.

Reflecting on climate change, my role in it and my reaction to it, the only tangible way for me to engage in climate advocacy—without suffering the frustrations of engaging with government—is through contributing directly to land conservation. I feel it is the only real thing I can do. The rest is just noise.

There is plenty of science on carbon sequestration in forests, the importance of salt marshes as ocean levels rise, and the role connectivity between parcels plays in the preservation of species diversity.

But more important for me is the resilience of that yellow birch.

Ripped from the ground when its much larger coniferous neighbor fell some years ago, left clinging to the apex of a disk of earth circumscribing the fallen trunk and torn roots, the nymph found its trunk, just a sapling at the time, perpendicular to the sun. Its own root system, extirpated from all it had known, flailing in the air. But its roots pivoted ninety degrees toward the earth, while its stem lengthened cells on the side away from the sun and bent its spindly stem ninety degrees to reach the light.

Now its trunk is five inches in diameter and the tree rises twenty feet above the edge of the old root ball. It may not reach old age; its weight may surpass the capacity of what earth remains in the root ball of its host.

But for the time being it is a tree, foraging.

Last fall during senior portrait season one of the land trusts put out a call on their social media channels. They had noticed the abundance of photos shot on their properties and asked for a #hashtag, just a little hat-tip to the organization that keeps all these beautiful spots. Spots so memorable that a 17 year old can imagine themselves 40 years hence saying that’s who I was and that’s where I wanted to be.

10% of any fee for portraits—senior photos or any location portraits—will be contributed to the land trust or any public entity that manages the property where the photos are made.

This is the road to Fort Popham pictured in John McKee’s *As Maine Goes*, Photographs by John McKee Introduction by William O. Douglas, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Copyright 1966 by the President and Trustees of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine 04011. The Photo would have been made sometime in 1966 or a little earlier. To the left is the cove, a part of Atkins Bay, that you will see as you exit Spinney’s. Across the way, where the Federal style house sits, is Gilbert Head in Georgetown. The Fort itself is out of the frame to the right.

On the Trail of John McKee, Part II: A Missed Opportunity Revisited.

Benet Pols November 21, 2023

I am gratified by the response to my post last week about John McKee and Bunganuc and am compelled to share what I have learned in its aftermath. A Bungonucker’s listicle.

As I am not an influencer I may have a genuine understanding of when my posts on this blog or on the socials actually please people. Clicks on the website and analytics that track them to their source are great….sometimes. The biggest bang for my buck usually comes from a school connected activity: sports photography, whether posted to my own accounts or via the Facebook Page of RadioMidcoastWCME usually travel well. Cultural events, such as last week’s presentation of The Great Gatsby by the BHSPlayers generate huge spikes and wander far and wide as grandparents and other relations at great distances check in. The man behind the curtain at WCME told me that my photos of the bridge construction adjacent to the Frank Wood Bridge were viewed more than 11,000 times in two days.

But on top of clicks, John McKee has generated a visceral interest.

So in the spirit of click-baiters, SEO mavens, and influencers everywhere, here are the five things I learned (so far) since posting about John McKee last week:

1) John McKee’s property is in a conservation easement owned by the Brunswick Topsham Land Trust so his property and what it means to me and others will continue to hold this meaning. Perhaps one day I will walk this stream.

2) A quick look at look at the Cumberland County registry of deeds leads to the inference that John McKee has been instrumental in conserving other properties in his neighborhood on the Highland Road.

3) Fellow faculty brats and current faculty members (not just those related to me) have fond memories and strong feelings. One told me of John’s early work with the Board of Maine Coast Heritage Trust, one told me of his dog Pi, and another told me of her regular visits with John McKee.

4) His neighbors have the same strong feelings about the area: one, whose family was instrumental in conserving the Town of Brunswick’s Maquoit Bay Conservation Land, is a proud Bungonucker, one told me of walking the stream in snow shoes from Pleasant Hill Road to the stream’s opening as a creek at Maquoit Bay, a third told me story about John’s decision to purchase his land being driven by the quality of its well water for the photographic process.

5) I now own four copies of As Maine Goes. I bought the three listed on ABEbooks to be sure I got a decent copy this time.

I made this photo the same day I made the photo of the can of PBR that reminded me of John McKee. It shows construction on the new bridge crossing the Androscoggin River between Topsham and Brunswick. It will replace the Frank J. Wood Bridge, a 1930s PWA project known as The Green Bridge.

Above the Swinging Bridge, Androscoggin River

Getting In Touch With My Inner John McKee

Benet Pols November 17, 2023

Whenever, I make a photograph like my Pabst Blue Ribbon can here, I always refer to it, silently to myself, as getting my John McKee On.

John McKee is a name from my past, a Professor at Bowdoin, a colleague of my father’s, and for a period of time, a noted photographer whose work made a difference. In the early part of this century as I began exploring photography myself, I reconnected with my childhood memories of John McKee’s photography, particularly a photo of a rusted hulk on Popham Beach.

On childhood trips to Popham our family would pass this wreck, or some other just like it. There were more than a handful down by the shore. Our family would generally approach the beach through the dunes off the Popham Road rather than through the State Park lot. I can’t say whether this was the result of parsimony, a general habit of tardiness, or if it was just the way things were done back in the day. I can say that the memory of the sand swept wreck, glorious in its rust, comes back to me every time I head down the Popham Road.

A personal Madeleine, no doubt triggered more frequently these last twenty years by the constancy of a camera in my hand. I went searching for the photo I remembered of the wrecked car and eventually found it in As Maine Goes, a catalogue of John McKee’s photographs in what proved to be an influential collection. I found the catalogue on line and bought it. Regrettably, it arrived pretty well banged up by its transit but I am glad to have it.

A scan of John McKee’s photo, “Dawn, Popham Beach” from As Maine Goes, Photographs by John McKee, Introduction by William O. Douglas, Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Copyright 1966 by the President & Trustees of Bowdoin College Brunswick, Maine 04011. Interestingly my copy, purchased on ABEbooks bears the stamp, “Withdrawn from MOMA Library.”

For several years now I have been intending to write him. I pass his home frequently on the Highland Road on my commute to and from work. I often walk the road from Pleasant Hill Road to Bunganuc Road. I eyeball the Bunganuc Stream’s outlet into Maquoit Bay winding by a legendary house on posts hard on the stream side. On the walk back, if the sun is in the right place its light is refracted through the slats on the cupola of Professor McKee’s barn. Along the road are signs noting that his property, which extends down across the road and down to Bunganuc Stream, is private but may be crossed with permission of the owner. The signs provide the name, John McKee. For several years now, since discovering that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in one of his earliest published works, written under the pseudnym George F. Brown, referred to us natives of Brunswick as Bungonuckers, I have wanted to walk along Bunganuc Stream to see what triggered Longfellow to decide that this little stream encapsulated the essence of our community.

“Having very little business of their own, they have ample leisure to devote to the affairs of their neighbors; and it is said, that even to this day, if a Bungonucker wishes to find out what is going on in his own family, the surest and most expeditious way, is to ask the person who lives next door.” The Wonderous Tale of the Little man in Gosling Green. The New Yorker, 1834.

Today as I wondered what to do with my can of PBR, I wondered again about John McKee and what approach I might take to ask his permission to cross his land to wander down by Bunganuc Stream.

It seems now I never will:

John McKee, Associate Professor of Art Emeritus, died on March 8, 2023, in Brunswick, Maine.

(The following notice was shared by President Rose on March 13, 2023)

I’m sorry to inform the Bowdoin community that Associate Professor of Art Emeritus John McKee died on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, in Brunswick, after a period of declining health.

John was born on October 20, 1936, in Evanston, Illinois, and grew up in Palatine, Illinois. He graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth as a music major in 1958 and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He earned a master’s degree at Princeton in 1962, where he did additional graduate work and was an assistant instructor in French. His black-and-white documentary film about undergraduate life at Princeton, “Princeton Contexts,” won the Silver Award (highest in the category) at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1962—an early indication of his talents as both a photographer and filmmaker.

John came to Bowdoin in the fall of 1962 as an instructor in Romance languages, a position he held until 1966. His photographs and accompanying catalogue for a 1966 exhibit at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art—“As Maine Goes…”—revealed some ugly truths about the environmental consequences of pollution, seaside dumps, and unchecked development along the coast. It was widely recognized as a catalyst for the environmental movement and for legislation banning billboards on public roadways in Maine. Following the exhibit, John was named the director of the Bowdoin Center for Resource Studies in 1966 to explore land-use issues along the Maine coast. The extraordinary photographs from “As Maine Goes…” also won him the National Conservation Communicator of the Year Award from the National Wildlife Federation.

His second exhibit of photographs at our museum—”Hands to Work and Hearts to God,” about Maine’s Sabbathday Lake Shaker community—was recognized by the Maine Commission on the Arts and Humanities with the 1973 Maine State Award for images that “…summon poetry out of simple things and do not yield to the obvious or the picturesque.” A major retrospective in 1984, “Photographs 73–83 John McKee,” also received critical acclaim for John’s artistry. His influence as a teacher was on display in a 1994 exhibit and catalogue of the work of his former students, “Bowdoin Photographers: A Liberal Arts Lens.”

John was a lecturer in the art department from 1969 to 1987 and an associate professor of art from 1987 until 2001, when he retired and was voted emeritus status. His former students established the John McKee Fund for Photography in 2002 to honor his legacy.

John’s faculty file contained a sealed envelope to be opened upon his death. Inside is a note, written in December 1990, informing the dean of the faculty that he did not want a memorial service: “Anybody who wants to, might some good day go for a quiet walk and enjoy looking about.” This was followed by “If a memorial minute must be read at some faculty meeting, it better not last more than sixty seconds.”

John’s life and career have had a lasting impact on the College, on Maine, and in his field. We join with his former students, friends, and colleagues in expressing our gratitude for the many ways he encouraged us to see the world around us with new eyes.

Sincerely,

Clayton

This is a drawing of John McKee in 1971 by another name from my childhood, Thomas Cornell. Cornell was a faculty member and artist at Bowdoin College. This drawing is seen in a catalogue of an exhibition of Cornell’s Drawings and Paintings at Bowdoin in 1971. *Bowdoin College museum of Art, 1971 By the President and Trustees of Bowdoin College.*

Down by the River, I Shot My Camera

Benet Pols October 30, 2021

Lately, I have been spending a lot of time down by the river getting high school students set up with photos for their yearbooks. I can tell you that the old people in Brunswick (those that went to school here in the 1970s and 1960s) aren’t joking when they talk about the pestilential condition of the Androscoggin back in the day. It stunk.

Now though, it’s kind of nice down there. The color this time of year is great and the bike path, the river walk, the town landing, and Pinette’s Landing all offer picturesque backdrops with the monumental old buildings, funky industrial remnants, and a several interesting bridge scapes.

One of the kids asked me about the building on the right here—-what it used to be? You can’t see it easily from the road as come into Topsham off the Green Bridge. It’s set back a little behind some smaller buildings on Main St., just past the Great Bowdoin Mill (a/k/a Seadogs). While it does a pretty good impersonation of an old mill building recently renovated into something trendy, it’s actually new, built within the last ten or fifteen years. So it didn’t used to be anything. There was something called the “Granny Hole” and a much shorter old truss bridge that used to connect the Great Bowdoin Mill to the chunk of land behind where the old Topsham Fire House used to be at the foot of Green Street..

But it did make me wonder a bit what was downstream on the Topsham side. I have a sister used to own a house on Green St—-first right turn coming into Topsham, goes up and connects to Elm Street—her land went down through some swampy boggy land and to the river’s edge. So I wondered if there’s a place on the Topsham side where you can get down to the river. Turns out there is.

It’s one of those deals between the town, the Brunswick Topsham Land Trust, and a private landowner. It’s a short little trail, less than a third of a mile long that makes a crescent just below, on the river side, of the aptly named Riverview Cemetery. It’s called the Smart Property, though, based on signage, the landowners seem to have a different name now. You can get there from Town Landing Road, which is more or less someone’s driveway, off of Green Street. You’ll want to leave your car elsewhere, maybe on Elm Street. Or, you can come in from the other end of the trail which is at the back end of a parking lot at the River Landing Residences on Elm Street.

Roof line up on Green Street as seen from the short trail along the river front. The trail itself is easy walking, wide. Dry recently, but no doubt can be wet. It has just one short wooden bridge to cross. However the descent down from both sides is fairly steep and would be challenge for someone with mobility issues,

Looking back at Brunswick, the Green Bridge, and the Yellow Mill from a different angle can be interesting. I was surprised when even Da Eye Rize cast a nice rosy reflection of the setting sun.

There was plenty of bird action too though I didn’t catch any significant photos: an eagle took off right above me when I first entered the trail—-camera was still in the bag—but the eagle had the remnants of a fish which it discarded in the river before flying away. Evidently being considerate of the neighbors. Herons, terns, lots of ducks and small birds in the woods that I don't know about.

This patch of water used to be filled with a gruesome foam that in the colder months solidified to a chemical meringue. When the current or tide changed it’d calve, like an iceberg, and show an inside striped with different layers in the most putrid shades imaginable. Not so bad now though.

You can find information about the Smart Property here from the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust, or from Maine By Foot. And here is some information about the Granny Hole Bridge.

Joy in Simple Rediscoveries

Benet Pols May 12, 2021

Relentlessly, we walked. “Just going,” my neighbor answered when I asked if he was going someplace special.

March 2020. My family, home from school, taught and studied. I alone left home to work in a place radically changed by a mood of dutiful determination. Beyond that, and forays to scout for precious yeast or some treat, there was only walking.

Soon neighborhood streets no longer met the need. There were too many awkward curbside pas-de-deux over which masked neighbor would cross and which would stay. This drove us to the woods; there the walk was accompanied by joy in simple rediscoveries, the early greening of moss, the faint trickle of melt water in a quiet grove, paths not taken since childhood. It was spring so the signs of renewal were there. And we were outside to greet them.

After crossing two land trust properties and a friendly farm we tromped through a town-owned patch of woods that leads to the edge of Maquoit Bay. Too far from home to get back in time to make dinner we ruefully called for a ride. Bushwhacking near the shoreline on the old navy base we got turned around. Location services showed us where on God’s green earth we were. We stumbled on rusted artworks left to astound passersby. One muddy afternoon found us staring in disbelief at a numbered mail box deep in Freeport’s woods on a rutted, rocky, track barely wide enough for a Honda Fit.

The trails were a quagmire, the woods still snowy. Yet we always met people: hardcores in crisp synthetic fibers, conquering some twinkling copse with hiking poles, but also people in tank tops and camo carrying Mountain Dew.

Everyone walked.

Accessible, nearby, natural, outdoor space is an imperative. There is an expectation of conservation land: we are owed a pay-off. Instagram celebrates the cliffs and peaks, or kayak camping on moonlit islands. Make no mistake, a crescendo at trail’s end is a fine thing but these walks were quiet, subtle meanderings. Tethered all day to the internet, with its grim statistical aggregation of dread, we were more grateful than ever to reclaim tranquility.

So much of what is preserved is humble: no grand vistas, no adrenaline rush but it is almost next door. And there is gentle glory in the shadows, the glittering of new leaves in slanting afternoon light, and sounds so fleeting to be mistaken for silence.

Spring, again. Marvel at the lasting light, the throbbing of peepers deep in the woods and that years ago—centuries even—someone decided to leave it alone for us in this moment.

I wrote this for the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust for inclusion in their newsletter when asked how the Covid-19 pandemic affected my use of and appreciation of conserved, accessible land. A slightly different version appears on the BTLT blog, and another version appeared in their printed Spring 2021 newsletter mailed in May 2021. The general idea came from my post “We Walked Because We Had To” on this blog in August 2020.