I became a resident of Monhegan Island in 1979.
Monhegan Island is located about 12 miles off the midcoast of Maine. It is 1 and 1/2 miles long and 1/2 mile wide and is accessible only by boat. There are no paved roads. Seventy residents live here year round. Native Americans first used the island for its fertile fishing grounds. Its natural harbor and high profile made it a stopping off place for people voyaging to the New World. The Vikings, John Cabot, George Weymouth and John Smith all made landfall here. In later centuries, Monhegan became a destination for artists and remains so today. Many visitors arrive in the spring and through the fall to paint, watch the birds migrate and walk to the cliffs. Today Monhegan struggles to remain one of the few year round off shore island communities. Plummeting lobster prices and sky rocketing living expenses are two of the biggest challenges islanders face today.
In 1979, I was twenty four and my parents had just purchased the Monhegan Store from Doug and Harry Odom and asked me to help manage it with them. I had known for some time that my only goal in life was to live here. It upset my parents when I told them, at age sixteen, that I was not going to college but to Monhegan. There are few things one knows with certainty but for me this was and is the one true thing that has shaped my life. People often ask me how I "like" living here. I feel such a connection to this place that it's not a matter of liking, I could not imagine being anywhere else.
My parents' divorce, along with a rash of breakups at that time, forced the sale of the store to Bob and Mary Burton in 1984. While everyone else was switching partners I was married in 1982 at the Ice Pond House. My husband Dave and I purchased our first property near the school house. Dave started lobstering and I started North End Pizza. We kept it simple and sold only pizza and drinks during the summer season. We bought our current property in 1987 and moved down the road to the center of town and a much larger building for the pizza shop. In 1996 we adopted our son, Wolfgang, from Russia. I was forty years old and had waited a long time for motherhood. We adopted our second son, Nathan, in 2004. By this time the old Monhegan Store had closed and I decided to fill that gap. I put groceries in the pizza shop and became North End Market. With the addition of my second son and carpal tunnel syndrome from 20 years of making pizza, I sold my pizza oven to the Monhegan House and became a grocery store. This year (2008) things came full circle for me when I changed the name of my store to the Monhegan Store.
Monhegan Store, 2008
At some point in the eighties Dr. Alta Ashley retired from writing her popular and sometimes controversial column about the island for three local newspapers. Once again I filled the gap and began writing about Monhegan. Now, with thirty years of history, I feel the need to take my writing one step further in this online journal. I sometimes feel like a Forest Gump of Monhegan. I have seen the island change from an insider's perspective. Over the years I have served the island as first, second and third Assessor (i.e. selectman). I have been involved in some way with the addition of the phone system, a central power system, Lyme disease and the eradication of the deer, and the Lobster wars. I have seen Trap Day change from January 1 to December 1 to October 1. Today the industry faces its biggest challenge yet as the lobstermen struggle to maintain their livelihood while getting less than $3 a pound and being limited to only 300 traps. As a Trustee of the Power District since its creation I am presently heading a team to bring wind power to the island.
Food is another passion I discovered while waiting to find a way to live here year round. I began working in restaurants in and around Boston to pass the time before another summer season started and I could return to the island. I soon realized I loved food as much as Monhegan so it has figured prominently in everything I do. From making the eggnog and roast beef every year at the Christmas party to my homemade soups at the store, I have made a career of knowing what Monhegan eats.
The online journal will be updated monthly with installations three to four pages long. A sample journal and more of my writing can be read on the Samples page. I will be writing about current events on the island as well as its past history as seen from my point of view. (Subscribe now.)
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