My hubby has been coming to this paradise since he was four; I started when I was 23, which means we’ve been walking from the east side of the island, just above The Carry, to the Mail Dock (where the M/V Sophie C, the US mail boat delivers the daily post), on the west side, for 37 years. The first time each of our kids made the trek across the island is recorded in pencil on the window jam.
There is no bridge to the island, no roads, only footpaths. Back in the day, Bear Island was a destination for wealthy summer vacationers. A train from Boston brought people to a ferry, which was met by a horse carriage that transported guests up the pine path to the wide wrapping porch of the Bear Island Hotel.
Its foundation and a scattering of wrought iron frames and stoves remain strewn in the forest, a fire of dubious origin having burned down the hotel in the Great US Depression in the 1930s as its owner was seen leaving the island.
When we put in a phone in the early '70s, we were one of only two camps in our "village" with such links to the outside world (the other at the lovely camp of "the doctor" on the point)--and our neighbors made fun of us. I thought we'd justified the installation by choosing a red phone - for emergencies only. That I regarded a phone as more important than indoor plumbing, which we didn't acquire until 1989, reveals a bit more about myself than perhaps I should :).
So yesterday, imagine this: high-speed internet was installed in our chicken coop, literally, yes, a chicken coop, hauled over sixty years ago on a barge by my father-in-law and his friend Seth, whose children "live" next door and remain our very closest of friends.
Yes, folks, wireless in paradise. Or is that an oxymoron?
(And if I've sufficiently intrigued you, you can learn more about Bear Island by purchasing Bear Island Reflections, now in its second edition and published by the Bear Island Conservation Association, that a group of us, including moi, worked hard to produce. Proceeds from sales benefit the Bear Island Conservation Association. To purchase, a check for $27.50 USD
payable to Bear Island Conservation Association, and send c/o
Capron, 278 West Street, Needham, MA 02494 USA. Or contact Richard Laronde at <[email protected]>)