Coastal Conversations Radio Program: Stories from Gouldsboro: Salmon and Sardines

UMaine Alert

Posted: April 19, 2024 - 1:32 PM

At approximately 9:24 a.m. on Friday, April 19, a University of Maine graduate student was struck by a university vehicle on Long Road at the University of Maine campus in Orono. The student reports that they are at a local hospital with minor injuries.

Emergency services, including the Orono Fire Department, University Volunteer Ambulance Corps, University of Maine Police Department, Orono Police Department and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

The university vehicle involved in the incident was a Chevrolet Express van. It was being operated by a university employee.

Counseling services and support are available for students, faculty or staff who may have been affected. The Counseling Center can be reached at 207-581-1392 and the Dean of Students Office can be reached at 207-581-1406.

The scene has been cleared and Long Road is now accessible. An investigation is being conducted by the University of Maine Police Department with assistance from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office Crash Reconstruction Unit. Any witnesses to the incident are encouraged to contact Lt. Noel Santiago at noel.santiago@maine.edu.

Boats and buildings from the water on an overcast day — Photo: Nicole Wolf

January 26, 2023 Coastal Conversations

Coastal Conversations show: January 27, 2023, 4-5 PM
WERU 89.9 in Blue Hill and 99.9 in Bangor
Host: Natalie Springuel, Maine Sea Grant

Listen to the show on WERU archives

Note: This January 27, 2023 episode of Coastal Conversations features two distinct stories about Gouldsboro, Maine.

Story 1: Gouldsboro, a working waterfront community at a crossroads

Today’s show features the second episode of this year’s From the Sea Up podcast series focused on Maine’s working waterfront towns. We’ll be headed to Gouldsboro, A historic fishing town with over 50 miles of coastline. In 2020, the Norwegian-backed company American Aquafarms proposed putting two closed-pen salmon farms, totaling 120-acres, in Frenchman Bay between Gouldsboro and Bar Harbor. Although American Aquafarm’s initial application for an aquaculture lease was terminated by the Maine Department of Marine Resources in the spring of 2022, a question about the future of Maine’s waters took hold in many rural coastal communities.

In this episode, From the Sea Up producers visit South Gouldsboro, a small and active working waterfront with stunning views of Cadillac Mountain and the proposed lease site. With perspectives from a seaweed farmer and cultivator, Sarah Redmond, as well as Jerry Potter, a longtime lobsterman, and Sebastian Belle from the Maine Aquaculture Association, this episode explores the identity and needs of one working waterfront community, and asks the question: What kind of working waterfront do people want to see here in the future? And what role does aquaculture play in that future?

This story is brought to you by our radio storytelling friend Galen Koch, whose podcast series, From the Sea Up, has been featured on Coastal Conversations before. Galen brings the past and present together to help us make sense of Maine’s complicated future. This is the second in a working waterfront series we will keep sharing over the next few months.

Tune in Friday January 27, 2023, 4-5 PM for this month’s Coastal Conversations on WERU Community Radio at 89.9 FM in Blue Hill and streaming online at WERU.org.

Guests

Sarah Redmond, Springtide Seaweed
Jerry Potter, lobsterman
Sebastian Belle, Maine Aquaculture Association

For More Information

From the Sea Up is made possible by the Fund for Maine Islands through a partnership between Island Institute, College of the Atlantic, Maine Sea Grant, and the First Coast. To hear past episodes and for more information visit www.islandinstitute.org/podcast

Story 2: Gouldsboro: a legacy of sardines

You heard the narrator in our first story talk about American Aquafarms’ purchase of the Maine Fair Trade lobster processing facility in the Gouldsboro village of Prospect Harbor. While American Aquafarms’ intention is to someday convert the lobster processing operation into a salmon processing facility and hatchery, this plant was in the business of packing sardines for nearly 100 years. As the era of Maine’s sardine industry was coming to an end in the later part of the 20th century, and sardine packing plants were closing one by one up and down the Maine coast, the Stinson’s Sardine Cannery was the very last hold out. Its final owner, Bumble Bee Foods, shuttered the sardine operation for good in 2010, making it not only the last sardine cannery in Maine, but the very last sardine cannery in the whole of the United States.

In 2011, the year after the sardine plant closed, oral historians from Oral History and Folklife Research, Inc. sought to honor and document the Stinson Sardine Factory legacy by interviewing a number of former employees. In our second story today, we share some clips from two of these interviews with women who worked as sardine packers.

Guests

We’ll hear a short clip from the interview with Arlene Hartford, followed by a slightly longer clip from the interview with Lela Anderson. Both women were interviewed by Keith Ludden in 2011, and the full collection is available at www.oralhistoryandfolklife.org.

More information

Thanks to the folks at Oral History and Folklife Research, Inc. for permission to air these clips. You can access their full collections at www.oralhistoryandfolklife.org. And thanks also to production assistant Camden Hunt, for helping edit the audio clips for this segment of today’s show. If you want to hear more about sardines, check out the Coastal Conversations for our August 28, 2020 episode called “Stories of the Sardine Industry” which features these clips and many more.

Listen to the show on WERU archives
More information about Coastal Conversations Radio Program