Peninsula Students Explore the Bagaduce River
The natural world of the Bagaduce River was generous during May and June to the seventh and eighth grade students, their teachers and staff from the Sedgwick, Brooksville, Penobscot and Castine Elementary Schools. Fifty (50) students and seven (7) school staff, for many a first time experience, shared the beauty and the wildlife of this significant and important body of water.
The day began with Julia Gray, Executive Director of Wilson Museum, teaching the history and culture of the Bagaduce River through the eyes of the Wabanaki First Nation. The river was the waterway providing a less difficult path to the summer grounds of MDI. It allowed canoeists, with a few portages and other encampments, to get to MDI without paddling around Stonington. The river has seasonal significance where the month of May is the month of the Alewife, June is Strawberry month. The uses of Wabanaki basketry were explained and handled by the students as was the use and sustainable harvesting methods of sweet grass.
Classes then proceeded to the L’il Toot, a diesel powered tour boat owned and operated by Zander Parker and Kate Kana of Castine. Additionally, First Mate Patrick Griffin, Lead Ecologist Sarah O’Malley, Photographer Jon Albrecht and Tom Adamo V.P. and Acting President of BWA welcomed the students and staff aboard.
After a safety briefing and an explanation of what they were to experience during the boat ride up and down the river the boat left the dock. Tom Adamo told the students that BWA planned these trips to expose them to the beauty of the river with the hope they would help conserve its beauty and it bountiful wildlife.
At the beginning of the trip the students, under the guidance of Sarah O’Malley, learned the importance of navigational charts. Following numbered buoys both on the water and on the chart the students always knew where they were by co-locating corresponding numbers. “Oh! there is number 3, it is red so this must be where we are” was said excitedly by many young voices.
Along the way the students tested the water temperature at different sites and discussed the possible causes of variation. A Refractometer was used to test the salinity of the river in different sites and again discussed the possible causes of any variation.
A student commented that each time a Harbor Seal was swimming adjacent to the boat it would stop and look toward the boat. It was explained that they were very curious creatures. This curiosity was confirmed; while towing a plankton net astern a seal surfaced and followed the net, certainly curious as to what the object was. The Plankton gathered in the net’s collection jar was brought back to the respective school for viewing under a microscope.
The natural highlights of the trips were seeing sixty-seven (67) Harbors Seals feeding or basking on haul out rocks, Bald Eagles roosting, four (4) circling overhead, Cormorants feeding and drying their wings, Gulls, Ducks and Loons. A rarity in the river was pod of Harbor Porpoise which had a “Alewife Bait Ball” encircled as they took turns feeding and jumping out of the water. A sight which will last forever in the minds of those who saw them; an experience most adults have never seen.
The four (4) trips were sponsored by the Bagaduce Watershed Association and funded by the Opportunity Fund of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Castine. Water and snacks were donated by Hannaford Brothers, Blue Hill. The owners of the Pentagoet Inn set up tables and chairs for all to eat their brown bag lunch. The picnic tables at the town dock were not available because the dock was under repair from winter storms. It was explained that the inn was the first building used by Maine Maritime Academy in 1941.
The Bagaduce Watershed Association V.P. and Acting President said ” The students will inherit this river. This experience will contribute to their sense of importantance of their role as the future stewards.”
It is the intention of BWA to continue these experiential educational excursions going forward as long as funds become available. To see more photographs of the trip go to Bagaducewatershed.org
Photos courtesy of Tom Adamo, Jon Albrecht, and Michele Charrett
Peninsula in the Spring 2024
On October 23rd, fourteen 7/8th grade Penobscot Community School students, their teacher Michelle Charette, Ed Tech Debbie Buesse, School Bus driver Gretchen Pemberton and Bagaduce Watershed board members Tom Adamo and Wendy Rapp traveled up the Bagaduce River on Maine Maritime Academy’s navigation Training vessel Susan B. Clark. The vessel was named to honor the first woman Captain of American Flagged oil tankers.
This excursion was the first co-sponsored BWA and MMA river trip designed to introduce students to an on-water experience of the Bagaduce Watershed and a brief campus tour of MMA.
The day began with a presentation to academic and social life at Maine Maritime Academy. We visited the woodshop where MMA students construct half-models of sail boats designed by Joel White of Brooklin Boatyard. The students also visited a diesel lab where they could view half-models of actual ships’ engines.
Next, we all boarded the Susan B. Clark and traveled up the Bagaduce River from Castine to Seal Harbor Marine. BWA Board members spoke briefly about the river – its Wabenaki history and ecology. Captain Finn Welch then turned us back toward Castine to the confluence of the Bagaduce and Penobscot rivers. Finally, we were treated to lunch on the MMA mess deck, followed by a brief tour of a dormitory.
Despite the cool Fall weather, the students and adults all loved the exposure to the watershed and to getting to know MMA a bit better. The BWA hopes to offer similar programs to other school students on the Peninsula in the spring of 2024.
Students See the Bagaduce by Boat
Bagaduce Critter Day
A big thanks to all that participated in Critter Day!
