We have a tradition in our family of gifting everyone in the family the same book. Some years it is a cookbook, some it is a book of poetry, some a homemade art book — and, of course, there has been an assortment of novels and essays as well. This year, we selected a local book that I was lucky enough to recently discover.
Sharing this book in this column seemed like a fitting end to 2025 and start to 2026 in the theme of reviewing the past and looking toward the future. Around the time I discovered this book, I also realized that I have now been writing Intertidal for over 10 years. I have drawn inspiration from my own observations, as well as questions and thoughts from many people in my life, both strangers and close friends and family. What I didn’t realize is that someone had come before me to pave the way.
The author I’m referring to is John Cole. He was a longtime editor of The Times Record and later went on to found the Maine Times. It was in this publication that he wrote regularly about his own natural observations living on the coast in Brunswick. Many of these essays were compiled into the book “In Maine: Essays on Life’s Seasons,” which Islandport Press published in 1974 and is still in print today.
Reading this book struck me in a number of ways. Most obvious is that I didn’t know someone had a similar column in a local paper. These essays are longer in format than my column, generally, but many of the themes are the same. Cole’s attention to changes in the seasons and his focus on what is local is also quite familiar. The natural world that he wrote about in the 1970s, however, is not the same one we live in heading into 2026. There is sometimes a tendency in the environmental world to think that the past was always better and that things are on a downward trend with human impacts continuously increasing. However, there were several of Cole’s dreary observations and predictions that I am delighted to say have gone in the right direction.
In writing about the Androscoggin River, he notes, “If it weren’t for what man has done to Maine rivers, on these May days I could watch fish from my office window that looks out on the Androscoggin River. Before it was suffocated, this river and these falls that lie at our office doorstep were among the finest fish-gathering grounds in Maine. Salmon, shad, herring, sturgeon, and more could be seen from this very spot every May.”
As I have written about more than once in this column, in recent years, one of the most amazing natural phenomena to witness each spring is the giant sturgeon leaping out of the Androscoggin right by the bridge over to Topsham. The river isn’t pristine, to be sure, but it is a hopeful turn of conditions to see this vibrant sign of life.
In another essay, he writes, “Thousands of ospreys have vanished since then, but they have been
obliterated by the whim of man, not the laws of nature. Pesticides like DDT, as man has learned too late, build up in food chains in a way that puts the greatest concentration of residual poisons into the gullets of fish-eating birds. Sterilized and sickened by man’s chemicals, the ospreys population has faltered and slumped to a point where some scientists say the birds are now doomed to extinction. I hope not, because even though they are scarce, I still watch for them at this time of year, and listen for their screaming call.” Now, ospreys dive bomb fish in great numbers all along our coast. In fact, they are frequent harassers of young eider ducklings each spring as well.
These examples paint a sunny picture of change which is, of course, not the whole story. But they illustrate two points. First, that there are positive environmental stories out there and they should be celebrated. And second, and to me most impactful, is the importance of learning our environmental history. Without essays like Cole’s, we wouldn’t have these observations recorded to reflect upon later — and to inspire another generation of writers like myself to continue to try to capture some similar observations myself.
Susan Olcott is the director of strategic partnerships at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.