In 2024 the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust is hosting a series of four programs around the theme of climate resilience, thanks to funding from Casco Bay Estuary Partnership. Climate change is a heavy subject, especially in Harpswell after the January storms that devastated much of our working waterfront infrastructure. Storms like the ones we’ve had this year make it difficult to have hope for a climate-positive future. This series of programs will center on strength that comes from the community and demonstrates that we can and will bounce back together. We hope to leave individuals feeling like they know what they can do to positively impact the future health of Casco Bay and the people that love and depend on it. This series will include an informational speaker event, an outdoor family event, an arts-based event, and a community gathering.

HHLT Outreach & Education Director Lindy Magness is organizing this climate resilience series and feels a strong attachment to this work. We asked her a few questions about the project.

Why Climate Resilience?

I actually had to delay my start date when I accepted my job with HHLT because of the January storms, so all of my initial experiences with quintessential Harpswell were with areas that had been ravaged by the extreme weather. Seeing all the damage at places like Johnson Field and Giant’s Stairs was really intense, and left me committed to protecting these special places. My role in this project is focused on connecting the community and educating the public on why it’s important to conserve these landscapes and feeling positive about our ability to do so.

I think it’s exciting to focus on what we can do and what we can save. This area of Casco Bay is really important to me, and I want people to be able to experience this beautiful area for years to come.

What is Resilience?

My definition of resilience is an organism’s ability to bounce back, whether that’s from a particular challenge or from purposeful exertion, like an athlete. It’s the ability to come back from that to a centered space, even a stronger place than the organism started. Climate resilience is the resilience of an individual or a community that is focused on combating climate change. We can’t necessarily reverse climate change, but we can implement practices that help slow or stop that progression and learn to adjust to new norms.

Why is Climate Resilience for Everyone?

We want everyone to feel like they can enter this conversation. We have intentionally designed this series to help folks see themselves as an agent of climate resilience. We hope that after each program, people leave with a tangible thing they can do to help protect our environment for future generations.

Programs

Generational Thinking: Wabanaki Wisdom for Climate Resilience and Community Land Management

On July 9 we hosted Maulian (Dana) Bryant at our Annual Meeting to speak about climate resilience as a way of life in indigenous culture. Maulian shared some great stories and powerful insight with us during her talk, and we’d like to reflect on her words with some questions. If you were unable to join us at the Annual Meeting, you can watch Maulian’s talk in this recording by Harpswell TV. Her portion begins around 34:36 if you’d like to skip ahead.

We’re excited for our Climate Resilience Nature Journaling event on August 18!

Climate Resilience Through Nature Journaling

Our second program was with Claire Baldwin, a local naturalist-illustrator, who led a nature study event as a way of helping people cultivate their personal resilience. Claire pointed out that “experiencing the effects of climate change can feel overwhelming. But by creating art, we can open our eyes to the infinite beauty the natural world contains and cultivate a deep well of resilience.”

This event centered around the intersection of personal resilience building as a tool for getting involved in climate resilience work—all while getting to create beautiful art together at Skolfield Shores Preserve. We share the following questions and quotes in the hope that you may be able to have a reflective walk wherever you are located.

Question 1: Claire shared some words from Rachel Carson to start. “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” Participants were invited to hold a feeling about a climate challenge they have either experienced or seen recently as we started on our walk. What word might you hold on a reflective walk?

Question 2: Later, we were invited to add some nuance to that feeling. As we talked about color theory and blending complimentary colors to create more realistic tones for the greens we were hoping to capture, I was reminded that more nuanced feelings are also more realistic than a single emotion. Now think of three words to describe your feelings about the climate challenge you pictured before. If a prompt is helpful, think on another Carson quote: “One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?’”

Question 3: While learning about capturing landscape sketches, we were invited first to start with thumbnails, a portion of what we were seeing. When thinking about a larger sketch, we were also invited to focus on capturing the big shapes and important tone differences rather than a particular clump of moss or placement of a tree limb. Climate resilience work can be similar. Looking at all of the challenges that our environment is facing can feel so big and overwhelming. Is there a particular place or issue that you may be able to focus on instead of getting weighed down by the things that seem too big?

In Loving a Vanishing World by Emily N. Johnston, we find our final words to reflect on. “It’s a constant question for me every time I’m entranced by the beauty of this world: what does it mean to love this place? What does it mean to love anyone or anything in a world whose vanishing is accelerating, perhaps beyond our capacity to save the things that we love most? We still have the chance to make the space for hope—to act in such a way that hope might exist for others who come after us. Not everyone can focus on this work—many people are too full up with the difficulties of their daily lives…But if you can, then the world needs you, and it needs you right now, because anything that we do this year or next is worth ten of the same thing ten years from now.” We invite you to think about a place that you love and what it means to care for that place as it changes through the years and seasons. If you’d like to read the rest of Emily’s essay, click here.

Stuart Ryan harvesting kelp (photo by Jaclyn Robidoux of Maine Sea Grant)

Celebration of Kelp

Our third program in the series will include a variety of activities surrounding kelp, and what it can do for our oceans, our bodies, and our community. There will be a panel discussion and Q&A, food and drinks made with kelp, and the opportunity to print your own kelp art! The program is scheduled for November 20 from 5-7 p.m. at the Orr’s Island Schoolhouse. Click here for more information.

Check back to read about the rest of the programs in this series.