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My parents worked hard to give us an enchanted childhood. We spent long summer afternoons among the tidepools of Scarborough Beach, and cool foggy mornings picking strawberries at Maxwell's, fingers stained red and knees criss-crossed with the indent of the fresh hay laid between the rows.
But one of my fondest memories is of a night we once spent canoeing under a full bright moon among the grassy tunnels of Scarborough Marsh. Apart from the rhythmic dip of the paddle it was mostly quiet, the epitome of "nighttime's strange combination of adventure and calm."
You can still canoe under the full moon at Scarborough Marsh — there are frequent tours that leave from the Scarborough Marsh Audubon Center, on Pine Point Road (as a child, since we were up past bedtime, I imagined the tours must have happened in that deepest, darkest part of the night; turns out they are back by 8:30 p.m.).
But that may not be the case forever. The Audubon Center has already flooded several times this year, and Route 1 is frequently awash during King tides and storms. Estimates suggest that the between 28 and 57 percent of the state’s coastal marshes could disappear by the end of the century, victims of a rising sea, coastal development and polluted runoff.
Over the next few weeks, in partnership with The Portland Press Herald and with support from The Pulitzer Center, we will be exploring marshes up and down the coast, including in Scarborough, looking at the way in which they've shaped the communities around them, the threats they face as sea levels rise, and the efforts to save them.
You can find the stories at themainemonitor.org, of course, but also in the print edition of the Maine Sunday Telegram, accompanied by Press Herald photographer Greg Rec's magnificent images. Look for them over the next few weeks, starting today, and send us your thoughts.
— Kate |
