Vinalhaven Land Trust

Students try their hand at carving granite

In mid June seventh grade students from Vinalhaven sponsored by the Vinalhaven Land Trust came out to Hurricane for a two-day exploration of the island and its history. Educators Alice Anderson, Josie Gates, and Oakley Jackson led students in a history hike around the island, talking about different important historical spots and helping students create a picture of what quarrying looked like on Hurricane over a century ago. Despite Hurricane’s close proximity to Vinalhaven, only one student had visited the island before, but several had family members who had lived and quarried on Hurricane.

The evening on island was filled with learning about sustainable energy and how Hurricane strives to operate as its own sustainable island community. Being from Vinalhaven the students already had great insight as to the efforts, triumphs, and struggles it takes to live on a small island in Maine. Students also participated in leadership activities and games, and had possibly the best strategy the Hurricane staff has ever seen to complete the Helium Stick challenge. They executed great communication and teamwork!

VH students sit in at the foundation of the old catholic church and make observations and educated guesses about what else might have been in this area during the quarry era

After a cozy night spent in our new bunkhouse, students spent the morning learning about Leave No Trace ethics and principles. They played a game identifying proper durable surfaces to camp and hike on, practiced digging a cat hole, and made up fun skits about different LNT principles to act out for their classmates. After lunch they played a game of Island Jeopardy, which put them to the test to remember facts and information that they had learned during their time on Hurricane. They all did a great job! Thanks for joining us on Hurricane Vinalhaven seventh graders; it’s always a joy to host other islanders. Happy summer vacation!

Masonry Oven Building Workshop

We had a great week at the end of May with some incredibly talented artisans building a new masonry brick oven for Hurricane.  The oven is located in the old quarry-era foundation (which used to be the bank) across from the kitchen and mess hall on Hurricane Island. The instructor for this workshop, Pat Manley, has built all of the major bread ovens in Maine restaurants (you may have enjoyed had some delicious food cooked in one of his ovens at Cafe Miranda in Rockland) and Pat even goes abroad with Mason's on a Mission to build safe masonry cook stoves for families in Guatemala. The group benefited from his expertise, and we are benefiting from their hard work! Our next big project is to face the oven in granite blocks so that it can last for many seasons to come! 

Pat Manley helps masonry workshop participants lay the last of the fire brick over the arched roof of the oven.

What's so great about a masonry oven? A masonry oven uses all of the cooking methods: convection, conduction, and radiant heat to cook your food, so pizzas end up with perfect crusts, bread-baking is a breeze, and we can roast a delicious chicken. Hungry yet? The best news is that we are looking forward to having Ladleah Dunn, of Sailor's Rest Farm in Lincolnville, ME teach a masonry oven baking course in the Fall. This course will be jam-packed with information and tips on the art and science of cooking using brick ovens, but more importantly participants will help make some amazing meals for everyone to enjoy. Stay tuned!

Cambridge School of Weston

The Cambridge School of Weston (CSW) Marine Biology program from Weston, MA came out to Hurricane for a 10-day intensive field program where students learned about the scallop and lobster fisheries of Maine, the rocky intertidal zone, and also designed their own independent research projects using the marine environment around Hurricane Island. We look forward to working with the Marine Biology class on an annual basis: new students will be able to look back and build on previous years projects, and hopefully create some ongoing research initiatives!

You can read more about their program in this article, published by the Boston Globe.

Logan School from Denver CO

It is always a pleasure to host students and teachers on Hurricane Island who have never been to the Maine coast before, and this spring we got the chance to do so with 26 students and four chaperones from the Logan School of Creative Learning in Denver, Colorado. Their four-day stay on Hurricane Island was part of a weeklong trip to the East Coast, visiting both Massachusetts and Maine.   

Much of the programming for the Logan School students revolved around exploring the intertidal zone and understanding and identifying the sea creatures that call Hurricane’s tidal areas home. Being from Colorado, for many students this was their first experience venturing into intertidal areas. Students were enthusiastic about the diversity of life that they found and raised thoughtful questions about what it takes to live in intertidal climates. Of course, a trip to Hurricane would not be complete without a look at lobsters, and Science Educator Alice Anderson led a lesson in lobster biology as well as a discussion about the Maine lobster industry’s past, present, and future.

Students gather around fish totes to examine their invertebrate collections from the days low tide

Coming from a land locked area of the United States, the Logan School students took great interest in the challenges and opportunities that come with living on a small island, and how the use of sustainable energy can meet these challenges.  They identified ways in which Hurricane uses sustainable energy and infrastructure to power the island and gave presentations on how Hurricane’s solar panels and water and compost systems help the island achieve goals in self-sufficiency. During their final reflections many students spoke of the importance that this lesson had on them, and how they will be more conscientious about their own use of energy upon their return home.

A highlight of Logan School’s time on Hurricane was doing a beach clean up along the island’s shores. Students kept track of the debris that they found on the Rozalia Project’s marine debris form that the Center for Science and Leadership will submit to The Rozalia Project to help in their continuous efforts to remove marine debris from the ocean and it’s coastlines. Thank you Logan School students for helping us keep our coastlines beautiful!

Other highlights included hikes to sunset rock, campfires, walks around the island, planting seeds, playing Frisbee, and the season’s first jumps off the pier into the ocean. Summer must be on its way!

Students enjoy a great view from sunset rock.

Eastern Maine Skippers Program NH/VH

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Students from Vinalhaven and North Haven gathered on Hurricane in October 2013 for a two-day intensive trip as part of the Eastern Maine Skippers Program--a new curriculum thread in coastal Maine schools that is designed to make high school education more relevant for students participating in the lobster industry.  This program was focused on introducing students to different ways they can do science to improve their knowledge of lobsters at the larval, juvenile, and adult stages.

Our experiments included a transect and quadrat survey of juvenile lobsters in Hurricane's low intertidal, towing for larval lobsters and other planktonic organisms with plankton nets, deploying tethering platforms with juveniles on them to study lobster predation, and finally designing, implementing, and collecting underwater footage of modifications to three of Hurricane's demonstration traps to see if we could improve the traps ability to retain legal-sized lobsters. 

For this project, we collaborated with Noah Oppenheim, a graduate student who came to Hurricane earlier in 2013 to conduct research on juvenile lobster predation. This allowed students to learn about and replicate Noah's experiment, how scientists collect data, and how science and scientists fit into the grand scheme of managing the lobster fishery.

The skippers program (which also includes George Stevens Academy, Deer Isle Stonington High School, Harraguagus High School, and Mount Desert Island High School), is now in the process of designing and testing the viability of a trap fishery for winter flounder in Maine. You can read more about their project here.

Eastern Maine Skippers Program

Students from Vinalhaven and North Haven gathered on Hurricane in October 2013 for a two-day intensive trip as part of the Eastern Maine Skippers Program--a new curriculum thread in coastal Maine schools that is designed to make high school education more relevant for students participating in the lobster industry.  This program was focused on introducing students to different ways they can do science to improve their knowledge of lobsters at the larval, juvenile, and adult stages.

Our experiments included a transect and quadrat survey of juvenile lobsters in Hurricane's low intertidal, towing for larval lobsters and other planktonic organisms with plankton nets, deploying tethering platforms with juveniles on them to study lobster predation, and finally designing, implementing, and collecting underwater footage of modifications to three of Hurricane's demonstration traps to see if we could improve the traps ability to retain legal-sized lobsters. 

For this project, we collaborated with Noah Oppenheim, a graduate student who came to Hurricane earlier in 2013 to conduct research on juvenile lobster predation. This allowed students to learn about and replicate Noah's experiment, how scientists collect data, and how science and scientists fit into the grand scheme of managing the lobster fishery.

Belfast Homeschoolers visit Hurricane

Eight middle-school aged homeschool students from the Belfast, Maine, spent four days on Hurricane learning about geology, birds, mammals, and the intertidal communities commonly found on our island. 

Apprenticeshop Orientation Expedition

We recently finished a five-day sailing expedition for six new apprentices at the Apprenticeshop along with two current apprentices, Apprenticeshop staff, Hurricane staffer Sam Halowell, and Sarah Nutt. Participants sailed The Twins (two identical 28-foot lapstrake plank on frame boats designed by Nigel Irens of Scotland that are outfitted with multiple dagger boards and modern, interchangeable carbon-fiber sailing rigs) as an orientation expedition that focused on teamwork, community building, sailing, navigation, and seamanship.  This orientation marked the beginning of a nine-month Core Apprenticeshop program focused on concepts of boatbuilding. The expedition started on Hurricane Island and finished at the Apprenticeshop in Rockland, Maine.