Preserving the Royal #263

Bill Gregory:

Because up to now in the town of Yarmouth, its history since settled by Europeans, has taken the river as a commercial resource to be used for commercial purposes. Pulp mill, chicken plucking business, sawmill. I mean, the river's just been dozens and dozens of factories over the years, but that's over now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How many different sites have you now been part of restoring or acquiring or helping steward?

Alan Stearns:

We have deeds on 3,700 acres. Some of those are conservation easements where we don't own the land, but we have a place in the deed where we can guarantee that it will always be forests, there will always be farms, even though we don't need to own it. Then we actually own 11 preserves where we own the land and we invite the public to come use it for hiking or for boat access or for hunting or for just being quiet.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 263, Preserving the Royal, airing for the first time on Sunday, October 2, 2016. Maine's waterways are an important part of the ecosystem, an ecosystem that provides nourishment for the body and the soul. Today we speak with author and retired Minister Bill Gregory and with Alan Stearns and Kyle Warren of the Royal River Conservation Trust about their efforts to preserve one of our southern Maine rivers for generations of living creatures to come. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As is often true in life, we eventually get to meet the people that we hear much about. And today I have that opportunity. This is Bill Gregory, who is an author and retired United Church of Christ minister who formerly worked at Woodford's Congregational and currently is part of an important environmental stewardship movement within the First Parish Church in Yarmouth. He lives pretty nearby me on Cousins Island. I live on Little John. And he's got some fascinating things to say about why we should pay attention to our waterways and really the environment in general. Thanks so much for coming in today.

Bill Gregory:

My pleasure, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you and I both share a commonality of Yarmouth and this wonderful entity that we have called the Royal river, which really has been part of Yarmouth and the surrounding town's landscape. Well, always, but has really been important in many ways to us. We. Why did you get to be interested in the Royal River?

Bill Gregory:

Well, that's an interesting story. A good friend of mine, Carol Bass, who lived on Little John came to me one time and said I'm middle aged, I've got Ms. And I would like to develop my spiritual life. Would you lead a group if I brought people together? And long story short, we did. The group's still going. It's a wonderful important part of my life. But Carol's moved to South Carolina because of her Ms. And she contacted me and asked if I would write a piece on spirituality and a river for the Edisto river in South Carolina that she lives next to. It turns out that the industrial outfits have been invited to use the Edisto and she was trying to organize or be part of an organization to oppose it. I said I'd do that, but I didn't know the Edisto and I realized that I didn't know the Royal either. So friend of mine Art Bell and I got Art's canoe and started down the Royal river in May a year ago and discovered that it wasn't a river really, it was a pond. The river behind the Elm Street Dam is very quiet, lovely to canoe on, lovely to ice skate on in the winter. But its character as a river has been taken over. And when we came down it, it was remarkably quiet. We couldn't hear birds. We didn't see evidence of life forms in the river. Turns out there are. But there are eels in the river and there's some fish and so forth. But it just didn't seem alive. And so we decided that we wanted to learn more about the river. Got in touch with the main rivers, which is right in town and with the help of the director of Maine Rivers, whose name I'm having a senior moment here escapes me but it'll come back. Began talking with environmental groups about what their interest. We were really newbies and sort of wanting to they welcomed us but it happened at that same time that the town was reconsidering, the town council was reconsidering a motion of a previous town council to take out one of the dams. And there are two dams in the river. And the town council decided not to take it out under the influence of the commercial interest, the marinas in particular, who have a legitimate stakeholder's position on taking the dam out because it would impact them. And the question of who's going to represent the river came up in terms of. Because up to now, in the town of Yarmouth, its history, since settled by Europeans, has taken the river as commercial resource to be used for commercial purposes. Pulp mill, chicken plucking business, sawmill. I mean, the river has just been dozens and dozens of factories over the years, but that's over now. And so we realized that the dams were creating a wonderful sort of attraction. You get the mirror effect that the dam water provides. It provides recreational effect, which all serves some purpose. But nobody in town spoke up at town council for the life of the river itself, for the river's place in an environmental system that ultimately involves all of us and not only all the waterways. The Royal is one of two main natural waterways that flows into Casco Bay. And the health of Casco Bay is dependent on the health of those two rivers. So we got connected with the environmentalist group Art Bell and I. And then we went to our church and said, which was saying, anybody who wants to do something justice oriented or service oriented, we encourage you to do that and we'll support you and we'll call you an official aspect of the church's life. So we said, we want to be in an environmental stewardship group. Environmental stewardship. Royal river is the name of our organization. And this is all fed for me in that I'm essentially a nature mystic. I'm a Christian. Jesus is central to my faith and understanding of ethics. But my experience of God comes through nature more clearly than anyplace else. Having to do with my years and years and years of hiking in the high country of the Sierra Nevada in California. And my major mystical experience happened in the Sierra Nevada. So it's always fed me. I found God, found mystery, found meaning in the natural world. And so Carol directed me to her river. I went to the Royal River. The Royal river has said to me, this is sort of not fair to the river because it speaks a far greater voice than I. But it says one thing. One of the things it says, I'm not what I could be. There are a few places on the river where you can See it actually below the Bridge Street Dam. It flows as a river there. It's really quite natural. There are people there, fly fishing. It's got life to it. But you have to go quite a ways upstream before you get to the headwaters. The world where it's a river again. At any rate, that's a long answer to your question. That's how I got there. And now I'm part of Art. And I have taken on the task of helping the citizens of Yarmouth see the river first and then see it as having life and worth, even sacredness of its own. And ask the question, not how can the river serve us, but how can we serve the river?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As you're talking, I'm thinking about my own children who I was raised in Yarmouth, and I had not really ever done anything with the Royal river as a child. But each of my children has now paddled on the river. It's become part of the high school curriculum. And I think for them, that was so eye opening to actually think of it as a recreational place. Because the way. Because you're entirely correct with the way that it has been dammed. There's not a lot that people actually do on the river itself after a certain point. And that's an interesting idea, that we can live in a place our entire lives, really, and never really know something that's right next to us and with us.

Bill Gregory:

That's right. It's really amazing because in the early days, even though it was commercial, the river was the center of the town. It was all based on the river. And then Main street became sort of the main focus of town and the old village model. And Art Bell was saying the same thing. He had lived here for years. And Art, too, lives on Cousins Island. And he says, you know, I've never paid attention to the river. You just sort of drive over it. You see it as a picturesque sort of. You look from the interstate, or you look from the interstate, you see the falls. You look from Route 1, you see the reflection of the Bridge Street Mill. But you don't look at it as a river. You know, it doesn't seem to have a life of its own in our mindset.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

On May 21, you actually did an event which was in honor of World Fish Migration Day.

Bill Gregory:

Yes, yes. Everybody celebrates, right?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Exactly. It's a big holiday. But you brought together a number of different interests, including the Native American interests. And you really specifically went in a direction of Native American spirituality.

Bill Gregory:

That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it's interesting because the way that you were telling me this, you thought that that would be more easily accepted than if you brought it through as a Christian spirituality.

Bill Gregory:

Yes. It's sort of a reflection of our secular age where. And the bad name that conservative Christianity has given to Christian faith in particular, that's not entirely a balanced statement. I'm a liberal and people on the right of me might argue, but I'm of the opinion that the full understanding of the Christian faith has been warped, even in some ways severely wounded by the prominence of evangelicals. So that if I were to stand up before a group and say, as a Christian, I want to talk to you about the health and well being of the Royal river immediately, people would begin to feel intimidated because they think either I'm an evangelical and want to convert them to my way of thinking or that they have made the decision to be interfaith or agnostic or atheistic and that the sectarian option would be for some interesting, but for others interruptive. So in this day of beginning to honor the Native American population that live among us and have life and gift culture that needs to be honored and we need to understand the history that devalued them in the terrible way that our country has let slavery and second class citizenship occur. We're just, you know, we'll be trying to find our way out of that for decades, century. We're still struggling, but because of that sympathy for Native American life, the Native American spirituality, which is nature based and sees the human being as part of nature but not above it. And so it's grateful for, at least as I understand it, there'll be other Native Americans that I can't speak for because I don't know them well enough. I don't have the right to speak for them. But what I've read, what I understand and what has spoken to me about what the Native American approach to nature is, this sense of being part of it. And nature is sacred and we are sacred, but we are not more sacred. And so if we're going to use nature, we have to be concerned for its well being and grateful for what it provides us. So by bringing that into the conversation, I think we can look at a river, at the Royal river, with possibly an expanded spiritual perspective, at least that's my hope.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's interesting that as a Christian, as a former Christian minister, there almost has to. You almost end up being an apologist at times for this faith that you've dedicated your life to, because mysticism has been an important part of Christianity from the very beginning.

Bill Gregory:

That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And in some ways, my understanding is that it actually has become somewhat marginalized. And the idea of gnosis or knowing and that connection that one has with the greater spirituality, that's not what one usually thinks of when one thinks of Christianity.

Bill Gregory:

It's hard for me to know what one thinks of. But I think as I sort of watched it, I think you're right. I think. And it's a question of authority. And in every system, the question, whether it's a religious system or economic system or governmental system, the question is, what's the authority? What do you regulate yourself around? What has authority over you? What do you give authority to? And in. In organized religion, the authority is in my tradition, which is congregational, the experience of the individual. In what's called an episcopal system or hierarchical system. The authority is the hierarchy which has dedicated its members, dedicated their life, and they've been called out and recognized as leaders and in some ways reflections of Jesus, at least in the mind of the followers. But pride corrupts. Power corrupts. Power corrupts absolutely. Any human oriented system always suffers from a hierarchy that doesn't develop a humility which has to be corrected in, but the experience of God, the experience of the more, the experience of the ultimate, the essence, the essential is really at the heart of all of the religious traditions. And the question of the mystical, which has got to be that experience, is always more than you can name, always more than you can. The essence of the mystical experience is that there's some fancy words for it, but it's ineffable. You can't tell someone about it. It's momentary, you have it in the moment and then you come down from the mountain or wherever it is, but it changes you. And you have a sort of knowing, which is not a defining and it's not a control. It's a quality of blessed relationship that you're profoundly grateful to have experienced. I think that's at the heart of all traditions and all faiths, whether they're Christian or otherwise. And so the question of authority, particularly in congregational traditions, has been that experience. But then the structure gets established and. And the question becomes, are we preserving the structure as our act of faith, or are we preserving the right of individuals and encouragement of them to have their own experience as the act of faith? I find myself in the latter position. So my encouragement, my preaching, my work has always been in the congregational tradition, very respectful of individual experience, but at the same time sharing a tradition, the heart of which was Jesus. Mystical experience, where he was baptized, he comes out of the water A changed person. And you know, there will be Christians who argue with that interpretation, but that's. That was his epiphany, that was his mystical experience. So it's affirmed in the tradition. But it's certainly my empowering experience. It happened in small pieces all through the course of my life. And it was Jesus and the experience of the church that kept me connected. I knew there was more there that I wanted to follow. I think it was during the 60s, which was when I came into the church. The spiritual life and social justice were the two primary concerns and they continued so through my life. That's enough, I think. What more can I. Would you like me to talk about?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think then it makes sense, perfect sense, that if somebody asks you to think about a river and to really get a sense of the river, that you would want to go experience that river yourself. If somebody wants you to think and feel about the Royal river, that you would need to actually get on that river. And it also makes perfect sense that this sense of wanting to be involved in stewardship and social justice because you want to be among. You want to be among the people you're connected to. Yes, yes, because that's part of this bigger experience I believe, that you're describing.

Bill Gregory:

It's all about relationship. And the quality of relationship is the heart of it. And the mystical experience is the essence of the quality of relationship. Love is a reflection and experience of the relationship of spirit, of grace that is available to us all. And the violation of the trust that love encourages becomes the unethical or the unjust individual or social act. And that has to do with how we treat nature as well as how we treat one another. It's just that in our hierarchy that we spoke of earlier, the authority in our worldview coming out of the Enlightenment is that individuals, human beings, are what it's all about, that exists for us. And everything else is subservient to our ends. And that's a self defeating vision.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You and I share a common friend who is no longer with us, and that is Hanley Denning.

Bill Gregory:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And she and I went to college together.

Bill Gregory:

Oh, did you really?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes. And I know that you knew her quite well before she passed away, and I believe it was maybe seven years ago, somewhere in the not too distant past.

Bill Gregory:

Yeah, yeah, tragically.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But when I think about Hanley and the work she did with safe passage and educating the children who lived outside the Guatemala City dump, it really reminds me, I mean, echoes of what you're saying came through in the work that she was Doing where there was this need for justice and connection and the sense that she was connected to these children and they shouldn't suffer any more than anyone else that she knew.

Bill Gregory:

You know, when you asked me about the mysticism and I mentioned knowing another way to talk about seeing and Hanley saw, she saw the sacredness, the beauty of those children. And when she, you know the story, when she went down there with just in happenstance, discovered a nun who befriended her, showed her the dump and showed her the homeless people that were scratching the life and showed her the children who were caught in that system of oppression and materialism, that she saw the beauty of them and said I've got to do something, as you know the story. But she went home, sold everything, moved down there. I mean that's incredible. I've taken groups there, I've gone there. Nancy and I have gone there when Hanley was there. And I remember one time Nancy and I were talking with Hanley and Hanley was very encouraging of people to come down because she knew it was a way to finance it. Bichel, she wanted the extended world in her life to know about this, to see with her eyes what. And after we had talked with her and we were walking away, Nancy turned to me, she said, you know, I have the distinct feeling that we've just been talking with a saint. She had that aura about her that she had given herself so completely to love and service that it had become her. And yet she loved sitting with her co workers and looking at People magazine and exploring what the latest fashions were. I mean she was fully human being but she had this deep, deep compassion. And you're right, you're right by pointing, touching on the Hanley, you're touching what touches us, whether it's the river, you know, or the birds or your own children or the immigrants who, you know, find trying to find life someplace.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it has truly been a pleasure to finally meet you and I did actually first learn of you through Hanley many, many years ago.

Bill Gregory:

Oh really?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So the fact that you showed up today to speak with me as really quite something. We've been speaking with Bill Gregory who is an author and retired United Church of Christ minister who formerly worked with Woodford's and now is a member of the first parish in Yarmouth and really helping out with the environmental stewardship, specifically with relationship to the Royal River.

Bill Gregory:

That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I appreciate your coming in today and having this conversation with me and I appreciate what you're doing with the Royal River.

Bill Gregory:

Well, thank you for your empathy and your collegiality for the invitation experience Chef

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

island for two years now and having grown up in Yarmouth, I am really a huge supporter and friend of the Royal river and the work that has been being done by the Royal River Conservation Trust. So I'm really pleased today to be able to have with me Alan Stearns and Kyle Warren, both of the Royal River Conservation Trust. Alan grew up in eastern Maine. He served as the Deputy Director of the Maine Bureau of Parks and lands from 2007 to 2011. He currently serves as a Trustee of the Maine Historical Society and as President of the Northern Franchise Forest Canoe Trail. He previously served on the boards of the Main Island Trail association, the Friends of the Kennebec River Rail Trail, the Main Olmsted alliance for Parks and Landscape and other organizations and campaigns. Allen holds degrees from the University of Maine School of Law, the University of Maine, and Brown University. Also with me today is Kyle Warren, who acts both as the stewardship and Outreach Director for the Royal River Conservation Trust and also as Land Steward for the Town of Yarmouth's Conservation Lands. A registered Maine Master Guide with a geology degree from St. Lawrence University, Kyle grew up on Moose Look Maguntic Lake in the western mountains of Maine. He brings a passion for wise and sustainable land use choices to the Royal river watershed. Preserving and improving local opportunities to fly, fish, hunt with his upland bird dogs and ski tour motivates this passion. Since early 2010, he has worked with many groups to educate and improve the functions of our local wild spaces. He has been active in land use and environmental regulation since 2004. Thank you for coming in and joining us.

Kyle Warren:

Thanks for having Us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As I mentioned, I am really a huge supporter of the Royal river because since I moved to Maine in 1977, it's been a big part of my own personal life. And each of you has your own relationship to bodies of water. I know. Having grown up in Old Town Allen and Kyle on Mooselook McGuntick Lake, I wonder how much of that has worked its way into your own current interest in the Royal River Land Trust. I'm sorry, in the Royal River Conservation Trust.

Alan Stearns:

It's big for me. I grew up outside in Maine, hiking, paddling, spending the whole summer on lakes. So for me, from a career perspective, I've chosen to try to give those same opportunities to everybody that grows up in Maine in the future. And with my family, always went paddling or camping or hiking. And there's so much of that in Maine. But it's also important to hang on to it. Working now on the outskirts of Portland, it's a good thing that greater Portland is growing and thriving. But it's all the more important, all the more important to hang on to the quality of life while we still can. And our work. Giving the public access to the river, giving the public access to the coast, giving the public trails to hike on, is all partly driven by my memories of childhood growing up in Maine,

Kyle Warren:

just growing up in the Rangeley region. I was excited about some bigger mountains even, and spent some time in the Central Rockies after, during college and returned to Maine mostly because of the lack of access to water in the. In the West. It's a. It's an important part of how we enjoy the outside, how I enjoy the outside. And it's so available here that it was a pretty easy decision.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is interesting that many people that I've spoken with say that when they move inland, there's something that doesn't feel quite right because the mountains might be beautiful or maybe. I went to Burlington for a few years to get my medical degree and certainly the lake was beautiful, but there's this feeling of being land bound and coming back out to the coast again. There's almost this relief, there's this resonance. Do you think that that has something to do with why people so love the Royal River? The fact that it's sort of something that opens out into a bigger space.

Alan Stearns:

The coast definitely gives you that serenity and infinity of looking out over the water. I think almost all water gives people some sense of calmness or some sense of being able to relax or have adventures. The Royal itself is both. The estuary headed out into Casco Bay, which has some amazing views and the full coastal fog and all of that that comes with it. But then so much of the Royal is inland and small waterfalls, places to go paddling, places to go fishing. And in the greater Portland area, there actually isn't that much fresh water. So if you live in Portland and you're looking to go trout fishing, the Royal is a pretty good one of the closest opportunities. Or if you live in Greater Portland and you're looking to go freshwater paddling, chances are it's going to be the Royal. And if you live in a neighborhood in North Yarmouth or Pownall or Yarmouth, and it's 95 degrees and you just want to go swimming, you want public access to the Royal, too, because that's where you go with your dog or your kids to get wet on a hot day.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Kyle, I'm fascinated by the fact that you are a registered Maine Master Guide and you have a geology degree. So there's something about knowing the outdoors in a really intimate way that has appealed to you for quite some time. But you also really like fly fishing and hunting, and you like going out with your dog. So there's something that also appeals to your spirit, your soul. Is this something that you think is important to people from Maine in general?

Kyle Warren:

I think that the existing access, whether it's to paper company land or to the beaches or any of the Great Lakes, great ponds in the state that have state access, have made it really available for Maine residents to be part of. And it's a tough thing to shake once you understand the value of being out and watching the sunrise.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So tell me about the Royal River Conservation Trust. How long is it been in existence?

Alan Stearns:

In some ways, we've been in existence for 25 years now. We're the result of the merger of the Yarmouth Land Trust and the Friends of the Royal river and the North Yarmouth Land Trust and the Pown Land Trust, all of which have been around for roughly 25 years. It was about 15 years ago that all those groups merged to have a bigger, stronger focus on the whole watershed, conserving land and also outdoor programs to get people engaged with the land that we conserve.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how many different sites have you now been part of restoring or acquiring or helping steward?

Alan Stearns:

We have deeds on 3,700 acres. Some of those are conservation easements where we don't own the land, but we have a place in the deed where we can guarantee that it will always be forests or always be farms, even though we don't need to own it. Then we actually own 11 preserves where we own the land, and we invite the public to come use it for hiking or for boat access or for hunting or for just being quiet.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I met you at the Estuary just off Bayview street in Yarmouth last week. Week. And this is one of your sites and one of the sites that you lead the Rain or Shine Club.

Kyle Warren:

Kyle yeah, we led a weekly outing for about a year and a half now, and that's one of the places that we. We return to. It's a special spot.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why is it important to have tours like the Rain or Shine Club? Why is it important to help people understand how to experience these places?

Kyle Warren:

It's important to show people how we have intended to manage these properties. There's a whole variety of different ways that these properties could be used, whether it's for mountain biking or trailless hiking or a variety of other ways that people could get out on the land. And for us to bring groups of people, including in many cases, toddlers, on these weekly outings, it helps to reinforce that sense of importance to be in the wild, even if it's not in the far reaches. It's important to have this chance for access right next to our houses so that we can use it during the week and bring the dogs out in the morning to get some exercise and have a good, predictable place to access from, whether it's a parking lot or a dock or.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What are some of the other sites that you bring people to?

Kyle Warren:

We visit Bradbury Mountain State park in a few different ways and the Bradbury to Pineland corridor. We try to move our outings according to the season. If we have a chance to pick blueberries like we did last week, then we'll go to an open meadow where there's great blueberries growing. And in the winter, we like to maybe cross some ice when that opportunity presents itself. Just being able to be nimble enough and responsive to just environmental conditions and transitions and being able to see these places in different seasons is a good way to explore the whole. Our whole service area.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

ALAN Part of what you do with the Royal River Conservation Trust is to. Generate resources so that if parcels of land become available, you could potentially purchase them and also have the resources to maintain the lands and even lands that you don't own to help be a part of that. That's an interesting conundrum to have to fundraise for something that may not yet be there.

Alan Stearns:

It's easier than you might think, partly because so many people are pulling with us. So many people with so much generosity want us to succeed. And when a parcel of land comes available, sometimes it's donated the land itself, sometimes we have to raise money for it. But if we're going after the right project, there are any number of people in our communities who want to help us and some remarkably generous people who want to do the right thing for their kids, for their grandchildren, for the next generation. We so often, some of them, again, in growing, developing areas like Greater Portland, so often we talk about access, and a lot of my job is looking for that new piece of land, securing access, buying access, encouraging landowners to donate access. And that's so much of what land trusts do and have done. But Kyle's work and programs like our Rain or Shine Club realize that even if there is public access, even if there is conserved land, that doesn't mean that somebody who just moved here from Washington or Texas knows how to find it or feels comfortable once they find it. So in addition to raising money to conserve land, we're also raising money sometimes to hold people's hands and take them into the scary woods and show them the magic that we know is there, even if they didn't grow up going into the woods, even if they didn't grow up in this area. And the Rain or Shine Club and other programs are as much about providing access as buying the access is. And both two parts of or several parts of the effort to get more Maine people engaged with more of Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You told me that part of the mission and vision of the Royal Railroad Conservation Trust is, is with children to create a sense of wonder. And I really love that phrase and that idea that it is somehow important to, I don't know, open the eyes of others to something that maybe they wouldn't otherwise have thought to look for. Why wonder? It could be anything. You could have come up with any set of words, but why that?

Alan Stearns:

I think a lot of the strength of the conservation movement in Maine comes from ecology and biology and wildlife, and that's so important to save the natural resources. From a scientific perspective, but especially in large, growing towns like Yarmouth, North Yarmouth, it's so important to also recognize the human side of conservation. And I think all kids and all adults interact with the outside differently. Some people get a sense of wonder by going over a big jump on a mountain bike. And some people get a sense of wonder by sitting and looking at a very small flower. And some people get a sense of wonder by paddling hundreds of miles off the coast. But for everybody, that sense of wonder, I think for me, is part of being human and being able to Relax that it's who we are as a species. That sometimes you need to imagine the great outdoors and live in it and let yourself go with it. And for everybody it's different. But if we can provide access to the ocean and mountain bike trails and playgrounds and nature preserves and boat access points, if we can provide it all, then we know that everybody in this area will have a place to escape and let go when they need to.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Kyle, your volunteers are very important to you and to your organization. And they run the gamut. There's some people who come in for a day of work. There's some people that have committed to maintaining an entire stretch of the Royal River Conservation Trust lands. How do you best work with people to understand what it is that they hope to accomplish by volunteering?

Kyle Warren:

The most engaged volunteers are the ones that are passionate about the project that they're working on. Recently we've had a very generous family in Yarmouth donate their time and resources to build us a new and improved boardwalk section that's going to make, make the trail more accessible to the whole scope of people, whether it's strollers or wheelchairs or anybody in between. And they've been incredibly passionate about it. And it's, it's notable, it's noticeable in the, in the product of the work. I've also had the chance to work with some court ordered community service folks and I don't see that level of passion in those volunteers. And that's sort of a black white comparison. But it really does run the whole, whole length of the trail, so to say. But passion is definitely the linchpin.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Not everyone wants to be recognized for volunteering either. You were mentioned to me that there is a stretch that has been maintained by a relatively young man. And he doesn't really come out of the woods to go to parties, but he's very good about taking care of. I believe it's the New Gloucester stretch of woods.

Kyle Warren:

It is. It's the New Gloucester Intervale Preserve. And he shows up in the spring and keeps the parking lot mowed and opened and gives me a call if there's a tree down that. That's too big for him to manage on his own. And he's a neighbor and a friend to that property, but also to the general effort that we put forth. And he allows me to spend my time in other places.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the things I enjoyed most about visiting the estuary with you was that I used to live. I rented a place that was contiguous to the estuary. And so I had had my own experience with the estuary. Now I live in a place that is near the Little John Preserve, which is another part of the Royal River Conservation Trust. And at various times I've had medical practices along the Royal river, one in the Sparhawk Mill, one further up the river. I also went swimming in the Royal river when I was younger, and in high school, my children have learned how to canoe in the river. I've been ice skating, and there are so many different iterations of the river and how even I've experienced it in my own lifetime. There's some sort of interesting simultaneous familiarity that I have with this, but also that it's. That it's always new, that there's always something that's different, and that is the nature of rivers in Maine, that sometimes they're used with industry and sometimes they're used for conservation. You're experiencing this even now. You're talking about dam removal on the Royal River. That must be an interesting conversation that you're having.

Alan Stearns:

It's a conversation that's been going on in Yarmouth for years and will continue for a few more years at least. The river, as you said, is different things for different people, different times, different generations. There are today two dams left on the Royal in Yarmouth that don't serve much, if any, of a purpose anymore. They were mighty dams of the mighty industrial era of Yarmouth 100 years ago, but today they serve a function for some recreation, to create a pond for paddling. And they have some historic significance, but they're no longer part of industry or they're no longer part of Yarmouth's economy. The big opportunity, if one or more were removed or if we could invest in fish passage, is to get fish up and over the dams. Today, almost no fish of any species can go up over the dams. And whether sea run fisheries or others, fish passage matters. Whether it be alewives or shad or any number of other species, it will affect 100 square miles upriver, dozens of miles of river and tributary upriver, that could be better for trout, better for wildlife, Birds feed on fish, better for so many aspects of water quality and habitat. If we could crack the nut of the dams in Yarmouth, there are a lot of good people working on it. We don't have the answer yet. We're not proposing dam removal today. Instead, our bottom line is fish passage. The fish must be able to get up and over, and if we can find a way to do it without dam removal, that's fine. But at least on the Bridge Street Dam, I think we've. Many of us have come to the conclusion that dam removal might be the most cost effective best way to get the best for the fish.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In my conversations with both of you, I was struck by the complexities of working with different interests when it comes to possible dam removal. You mentioned that you have to take into consideration other people downstream who would be impacted. The people who are, who own marinas, for example, other people who have docks. And so it's always a complicated question as to how this is approached. But my understanding from talking with each of you is that you're really not attempting to impose your view. You're trying to be as collaborative as possible and coming up with a solution that works for the greatest number of people and creatures fish.

Alan Stearns:

For example, I mentioned that the dams in Yarmouth don't have much, if any of a role in Yarmouth economy today. But just downriver are the marinas, which are the heart and soul of Yarmouth's economy and quality of life that so many of our members have boats at the marina and so many people who love to fish in this area head out to Casco Bay or other places to fish from those marinas. So there's really no reason to polarize the discussions when exactly the people who want better fishing are just downriver with a real attention on keeping their businesses open and thriving. So we don't want to harm them and we're talking to them and getting more information to come back to the table with ways to again, crack the nut in a way that feels good for everybody.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Kyle, if you could see send someone to one favorite special place that is part of the Royal River Conservation Trust, where would that be?

Kyle Warren:

I think that totally depends on the season and the day. Right now, Chandler Brook on the Tryon side of Bradbury Mountain State park is pretty special.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's a wise answer. As we'll be doing. We are doing an article on the Royal river and the Conservation Trust. Thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I think it's part of a much bigger discussion. We could keep talking for a long, long time about all of this. But I appreciate that you're both in there and you're both so passionate about the work that you do because it does directly impact me and my children, my family, my community members, my neighbors. So we've been talking with Kyle Warren and Alan Sterns of the Royal River Conservation Trust. I appreciate your coming in today and I appreciate the work that you do.

Kyle Warren:

It was fun. Thanks for having us.

Alan Stearns:

Thank you, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine radio show number 263, Preserving the Royal. Our guests have included Bill Gregory, Alan Sterns, and Kyle Warren. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on itunes. Follow me on Twitter as DrLisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Preserving the Role Royal show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What else do you have going on?

[Unidentified voice]:

So so on Friday, we're doing typically at Harvest on the harbor, there has been a main lobster chef competition and we've decided in our first year to take the competition out of play. What we learned from the community is that local chefs don't really like to be pitted up against each other. Right. Like, we're a community and why should we be competing with each other? I mean, obviously the nature of the business is to be competitive, but we don't need to do that in an event format. We decided instead to do a Lobster Chef celebration, and this, working in partnership with the main Lobster Marketing Collaborative, will bring together about a dozen chefs to feature 12 very different lobster recipes. It'll be a pretty traditional tasting event where we do pairings with beverages of all sorts. The timing's happy hour on Friday and that's going to be a fantastic event. Also participating in that, we've got Nick Krunkala from Liquid Riot and Isaac Aldridge from the Pilot House at the Sebasco Harbor Inn. Matt Ginn from Evo, who actually is the reigning champ of the Maine Lobster Chef competition. So we're pretty psyched with the lineup for that too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you're not just bringing people from the Portland area, you're actually, your reach goes far beyond that.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately we want to be representative of the, the Maine food economy. You know, it's very easy here in Portland to be Portland centric and you know, because this is where we live and work, you know, it's easy to connect with these folks. But yeah, by all means, we are more than interested in representing Maine as a state.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you have a few more days of events that are going on.

[Unidentified voice]:

I know I feel like I could go on and on and on. On Saturday, our, our signature event is called Market on the Harbor. This will be, we're doing this in two sessions and for all intent purposes, it's the biggest food sampling opportunity there is. We'll bring together about 100 food purveyors to sample their products, but also to vend their products. We're really excited to be partnering with Whole Foods, who will be bringing a bunch of their local suppliers in and doing a pop up experience where you can taste and purchase the their products. You know, there are so many people doing such amazing work in the food space and not in restaurants. Right. Like people who are making fantastic energy bars and amazing granola and potato chips and, you know, foods of all sorts. And we really want this to be the opportunity for them to showcase what they're doing, give people a taste and, and sell.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So for people who are say, vegetarian or gluten free or have some sort of other dietary needs or maybe just are a little bit more picky, will there be lots of options to choose from?

[Unidentified voice]:

The goal is lots of options at all of our events. Frankly, we do recognize that crafting your culinary choices is definitely part of the food experience. So we'll, we'll work really hard to represent everybody. It's hard to promise that. Right. Because we're really relying on a lot of people to help us execute well, but that's our goal.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And what else, Anything else going on in your lineup?

[Unidentified voice]:

The only other event that I wanted to mention today is our chef showcase, which will be our finale event on Sunday. And we're thrilled to have Harding Lee Smith helping us out and kind of leading the charge on bringing together the top chefs around Maine. You know, the people who really started all of this, right, who, like, put a stake in the ground and said, there's something here and we're going to create it. So this also will be a pretty traditional tasting event. We're also really excited to have the opportunity to feature a handful of mixologists at this event because, you know, the beverage scene is equal to the food scene, or at least growing to be equal, you know, and we're excited to have the opportunity to showcase some of the people who are doing amazing work in mixology. We've got Veena's Fizz House signed on to do one of the bars. They're doing pretty incredible work and selling a lot of local product also. So that'll be our grand finale event.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Stephanie. I know that one of the things that chefs in our area really like to focus on is helping bring food to people who maybe don't have the same access that maybe the festival goers harvest on the harbor goers have. You have a charity that you're working to support. Tell me about that.

[Unidentified voice]:

So we have. We are working hand in hand with Full Plates, Full potential. We believe strongly as to working mothers that eradicating childhood hunger, specifically in Maine, but also across the United States, is probably one of the most important things that we need to do. So we are thrilled to be working with Full Plates. They do really incredible work. I think more than any other organization, they're really spreading the love. They work hand in hand with the folks who are on the front lines to make sure that the monies are distributed in a way that really makes a difference. So we couldn't be prouder to align ourselves with the work that they're doing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you also have some great sponsor partners that have come in to help you out.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah, we're so fortunate to be getting the kind of reception that we are from folks of all kinds. I mean, really, there's not a person that I talk to that's not encouraged or excited about what we're trying to accomplish here. We're thrilled to have Bangor Savings bank on board as a partner for our sustainable seafood event. We've got Whole Foods, as I mentioned. As a partner, we're working with Native Maine, who is a supplier to a lot of the chefs who are participating. Native Maine is a great partner and will be helping us to execute at the highest level.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if you're someone from the Portland area or someone from away that is looking to do just an entire weekend fun. What would you personally envision that weekend to look? Would it be not just the thank