Author Archives: C. Schmitt
Ice Age survivors: a tale of two land-locked fish
Maine lakes are home to two evolutionary wonders of the animal kingdom, Arctic char and landlocked salmon, related species of fish that exist in very few places. They descend from a common ancestor that lived millions of years ago. Evolution took them on diverging pathways during repeated ice ages. The char stayed farther north, swimming […]
Foxes in the henhouse: we’ve been here before (sort of)
The President’s Salmon is an environmental history of the Atlantic salmon and the Penobscot River in Maine. But it also tells a broader story of how American presidents, and their national policies on energy, trade, and the environment, have real impacts at the local level. Sometimes these effects outlast their presidents; other times, citizen action […]
Poem for a blizzard
Portland Press Herald photo MAMMOTHS by Catherine Schmitt Snow plows thunder down the street like mammoths parading before the new ice sheet. Clashing tusks, crash of plow on pavement, stiff-legged stomp in the early dusk. What is bone, iron, brick wears the season in a shaggy coat of icicles. Cold, and snow keeps falling […]
Fish return to a restored Penobscot
Between the head of tide above Bangor to where it widens into the bay at Searsport, the Penobscot River shifts from a flowing freshwater waterway banked by cedar and pine to a brackish, wave-lapped marsh with a rocky shoreline. In this estuary, salt concentrations fluctuate as wind and tide push water and sediments back and […]
A New National Monument on the East Branch Penobscot River
On August 24, 2016, President Obama designated 87,500 acres of northern Maine as Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument. The new public land encompasses much of the East Branch Penobscot River. I visited the area in 2014 while researching Chapter 5 of The President’s Salmon. Here’s an excerpt. The East Branch Penobscot River begins at […]
Science and the origins of conservation in Acadia
At the Mount Desert Island Historical Society’s Annual Meeting on August 18, 2016 from 5 pm to 7 pm at The Neighborhood House in Northeast Harbor, I presented “The Champlain Society: Science and the Origins of Conservation in Acadia,” part of the Acadia Centennial Lecture Series. Watch a video of the lecture on the Friends of Acadia Facebook […]
Affirmation Acadia
Here is a story from the archives, first published story about the first trail hiked in Acadia after first moving to Maine fifteen years ago this August. These moments climbing the Precipice Trail are as vivid as they first were, and the affirmation has only strengthened. Publishing in Friends of Acadia Journal was special then, […]
Sharing Stories of the Champlain Society
Given the Champlain Society’s contributions to Acadia National Park and the broader worlds of science and conservation, its no wonder these Harvard men are in the spotlight in this centennial year. Mount Desert Island Historical Society‘s Somesville Museum features an exhibit on the young naturalists, including maps of their explorations, a replica of their parlor […]
Art Meets Science on Mount Desert Island
As part of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory’s Art Meets Science Cafe series, I presented a history of artists and scientists working together on Mount Desert Island. Focused primarily on the art and artists accompanying scientists in the nineteenth and very early twentieth century, the talk provided a chronology of scientific work in Acadia […]
Books for Acadia’s Centennial Year
Acadia National Park and the National Park Service celebrate their 100th anniversary in 2016. In observance and celebration, many books have been published and reissued this year. Historic Acadia National Park is part of a series by Lyons Press in honor of the centennial. Here’s an ongoing list of other Acadia books released in 2016. […]
