Two books not too long ago discovered me. One took me again in time with black-and-white photographs of Portland throughout a decade I typically take into consideration. The opposite tells a narrative by means of textual content and coloration photographs of how salmon runs had been restored to the Penobscot River after dams had impeded their progress for the reason that 1800s. Each books, individually and collectively, are about Maine.
{A photograph} might be highly effective. With out phrases, a visible picture snapped at a selected second in time captures that point. It additionally captures each the topic and the photographer taking the picture or, higher but, “making” the {photograph}. Within the fantastic guide, “Take It Simple: Portland within the Seventies,” photographer John Duncan’s work reveals an suave give attention to each place and particular person throughout a decade of pure change, not solely of Portland however all the nation.
Duncan’s assortment of black-and-white negatives captures Portland — particularly Congress Road — throughout a decade that noticed change as a relentless. The guide of pictures is organized in 4 sections: household, locations, reminiscences and work. The 130 photographs showcase a expertise Duncan was maybe unaware of, as a result of the images really feel as if a easy, human interplay of kinds has taken place. The digital camera, the photographer and the topic are speaking to at least one one other, as if an off-the-cuff dialog is going on on a avenue nook. Then, with the clicking of a shutter the story is revealed.
Duncan, now retired, is stunned on the notoriety this assortment has introduced him but stays humble on reflection. By no means professionally educated, Duncan was a cab driver merely snapping images of what he noticed. The images amassed, after which a dialog became knowledgeable collaboration with Islandport Press.
These are highly effective images of widespread moments in time that captured the essence of a spot, a metropolis’s cultural presence in time. And as we all know all issues transfer ahead; the longer term interceded; change continues for the town, whereas Duncan’s snapped frames of time will linger within the ethos of its previous.
—
Rivers abound in Maine. A kind of rivers is the mighty Penobscot River. Its historical past is as different as that of Maine itself and past. In Peter Taylor’s guide, “From the Mountains to the Sea,” a journey of restoration is explored in phrases and images, culminating in an unlikely collaboration between folks and organizations.
One June day in 2016, an Atlantic salmon made its approach upriver by means of the city of Howland, certain for spawning grounds that had been blocked for 200 years. This single historic occasion got here on the heels of a variety of work involving the modern elimination of dams with no web lack of hydropower. It additionally concerned many individuals and organizations from numerous backgrounds coming collectively to make a dream right into a actuality.
Taylor is president of Waterview Consulting, a corporation that helps shoppers advance environmental initiatives. Earlier than that he labored as a journey journal editor, college science author, freelance author and photographer. He has levels in biology and ecology, and for greater than 20 years he has specialised in telling tales of ecology and conservation.
The Penobscot River is a legendary waterway. Logging camps as soon as lined its banks; Indigenous folks then and now maintain the river in reverence. It not solely is a spot for them to fish, however it’s a religious place that holds their 10,000 year-old story as a folks collectively. Thoreau paddled its west department, and in doing so, discovered as a lot concerning the river as he did concerning the Native People who lived alongside it.
“A very long time in the past, The Individuals lived alongside this river, as we nonetheless do now. We take our identify ‘Burnurwurbskek’ from a spot on the river, and later all the river took its identify from us.” — Butch Phillips, Penobscot Tribal Elder
Over a long time of improvement, the river’s high quality declined. Fishing grounds went silent as hydroelectric dams had been constructed. After which in 2001 an unlikely alliance of organizations and other people got here collectively. The Penobscot Nation labored with the Atlantic Salmon Federation, Pure Assets Council of Maine and The Nature Conservancy to accumulate and take away human-made dams, permitting the waters to run free. That is their story of how they did it.
Studying this guide was as if I used to be in a birchbark canoe seeing the yesterday of a river from a brand new perspective all due to like-minded folks dedicated to a single objective — rescuing a river. Once I float inside its present, and as I transfer with it, I can see the river transfer backwards in time as fish and different wildlife return, as life returns. Restoring one thing again to its unique essence is a stupendous factor, and this guide captures the spirit of all of it.
So whether or not you need to step again in time with photographs that showcase the essence of life in Portland throughout the ’70s or to expertise a historic mission that can have lasting affect on the way forward for flora, fauna and the folks dwelling alongside the Penobscot River, each of those books must be your fixed companions on that journey.
“Take It Simple: Portland within the Seventies”
By John Duncan.
Islandport Press, 2021, softcover, $19.95
“From the Mountains to the Sea: The Historic Restoration of the Penobscot River”
By Peter Taylor.
Islandport Press, 2020, softcover, $24.95
RJ Heller, BDN Down East contributor
