Pilgrimage to Rachel Carson’s Edge of the Sea (with some magic about)

Now for something a bit different, and really special. Today we’re off to seaside Maine, in the far north east of the US, to visit Rachel Carson’s summer cottage. Here was where Rachel wrote much of her last few books. It was a place she loved, and where she also soaked up her last days in Maine with best friend Dorothy. 

It did feel like something of a pilgrimage, visiting the spirit of the woman who is regarded as pivotal in launching the modern environmental movement, with her landmark 1962 book Silent Spring. A response to her dismay and outrage at the impact of pesticides on human and environmental health, it was written, and then defended, under all sorts of ill-considered industry and bureaucratic attacks, while she herself had become ill with cancer. 

She actually wrote plenty of other world-shaping stuff before that too. Rachel was a marine biologist whose best-selling sea trilogy preceded Silent Spring. But it was the latter that met the moment like few books have, and shaped generations. Still. 

So it was that after visiting Chloe Maxmin and Bill Pluecker ahead of their wonderful successes in the 2024 elections, we headed off along the Sheepscot River a little south, to the place Rachel built ahead of writing her third sea trilogy book, ‘The Edge of the Sea’. This is where we start. And where we finish? Well, let’s just say there was some magic about that day, back in the Fall of ‘24. 

Chapter markers (with accompanying images) & transcript.

Rachel Carson Council.

Robert Musil’s piece on Rachel’s cottage.

Recorded 9 September 2024.

Title image: the magazine cover at the Inn.

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Music:

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Transcript

Why Rachel Carson Still Matters

First Look At The Cottage

Along The Tidal Flats

Arriving At Newagen Seaside Inn

Finding The Plaque On The Rocks

Reading Rachel’s Words

Childlike Wonder At The Shore

AJ 0:05

So we're just walking up Carson Lane now, Southport Island in Maine. Pilgrimage of sorts towards Rachel Carson's summer cottage. G'day there, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration with the stories that are changing the story towards the regeneration of life on this rare gem of a planet. Brought to you by listeners like you. Do subscribe if you can and help keep the show on the road. Today, something a bit different and really special, I think. We're off to Seaside Maine, in the far northeast of the US, to visit Rachel Carson's summer cottage. Here was where Rachel wrote most of her last few books. It was a place she loved and where she also soaked up her last days with best friend Dorothy. It did feel like something of a pilgrimage, inevitably feeling into what it might have been like to actually meet for an interview in this place if she was still with us. Instead, we paid a visit to the spirit of the woman, who is regarded as pivotal in launching the modern environmental movement, with her landmark 1962 book, Silent Spring. A response to her dismay and outrage at the impact of pesticides on human and environmental health, it was written and then defended under all sorts of ill-considered industry and bureaucratic attacks, while she herself had become ill with cancer. She actually wrote plenty of other world-shaping stuff before that too. Rachel was a marine biologist whose best-selling sea trilogy preceded Silent Spring. But it was the latter that met the moment like few books have and shaped generations still. So it was that after visiting Chloe Maximin and Bill Pluecker ahead of their wonderful successes in the 2024 elections, we headed off along the Sheepskot River a little south, to the place Rachel built ahead of writing her third sea trilogy book, The Edge of the Sea. This is where we start, and where we finish? Well, let's just say there was some magic about that day. Back in the fall of 24. Coming through pine forest that's on a cliff edge overlooking the sea. Just come up the lane. Roads had already got pretty windy and thin. Come up this lane on foot to approach 16 Carson Lane. And then have bent back around towards the water. And there is the cottage. Someone's staying there because this is what you can do, but it's way beyond our budget. So we're just coming here to appreciate it. And I might just take a photo or two and be respectful of this Massachusetts vehicle. It's turned up. So yeah, the cliff edge is sort of sort of it just slopes down gently. I guess 20 metres or something. To tidal flats. Quite mud-floody. And yeah, some of her best work at the desk and in the water around here, apparently. Incredibly beautiful. And amazing to think 60, 70 years separates us from one hell of a legacy where it was left. I believe half of her ashes were scattered in this bay by her great friend Dorothy. So I've walked back down Carson Lane and out towards the sea, and uh which is more or less what would sit in front of her cottage as well, Rachel's cottage. Now part of the Rachel Carson Council, which is who rents it out to people, and I found out there's a lot going on with the legacy too. They're building a centre a little further south, which we'll visit a bit later as well. Not quite ready, I don't think, for us, but interesting to see what's coming down the line. But yeah, right here by the sea on the tidal flats. Tide is literally coming in in front of my eyes. Reminds me of the Kimberley a little bit in this way, though far from tropical, I can tell you. But yeah, these are very marshy, swampy sort of foreshore, but then blue waters all the same. And lobster cages around. What we've learned about Maine is that lobster and crab is Maine fair in all sorts of interesting ways, too. But it's a beautiful sight. There is a house right on the point here that I'm next to. Looking straight over this inlet, which is, I mean, it's amazing how Maine happens in this area. You got a whole bunch of fingers sort of come off the sort of main continent to peninsulas, just a whole number of them stretch out. This is but one with bays in between. But plenty of space and plenty of forest and rocky ledges and sailboats out there and yeah, wow. It feels pretty quiet and beautiful now, let alone 60, 70 years ago, to get world-changing work done. Alright, on to next stop. Okay, we've just arrived at the Newgen, I think that's how you'd say it. New Agen. Newigen, Seaside Inn, where Rachel also spent a bunch of time with her mate Dorothy. And I believe there's a plaque sort of memorial thing down the down by the sea. Have a walk around, see what we find. I'm just walking down the sunset path here. The wind is coming up, but I'm trusting you'll be able to hear me clearly enough. Walking down to the rocky edge now. It's beautiful. Wow. Seaside waves slamming into the rocks here, just down from the inn. And I'm coming down here because this is where I believe the memorial site is. Oh the salt air. To a west Aussie, that is bliss after months since we've left the Californian coastline. All these great lakes, no salt. Felt very strange. Can't see the other side, they're so big. Looks like an ocean, but isn't. To be here, and now to be here where it's rocky and wavy. Oh there it is, there it is. Wow. So there's a couple of armchairs here, but there's sort of armchairs dotted along the coast. So you don't know what is a belonging to a cottage or just something the inns put out, but I've just looked down to my right as I've stepped onto the boulders lining the bay. Sheep Scott Bay, I think it's called. And there's the plaque on one of the rocks. Rachel Carson, writer, ecologist, champion of the natural world, 1907 to 1964. And a quotation, which is her last correspondence to Dorothy. But most of all, I shall remember the monarchs. There's a story behind that I'll talk to shortly. And at the end, here at last, return to the sea. To Oceanus, the ocean river, like the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end. Humbly placed to sit amongst it. You have to stand for a bit still for it to come into view. Like you found so much of the living world. It's beautiful. Oh and I look out over the wow it's starting to look more like open ocean here towards the point. And um islands abound boys with lobster catching going on and wide open sea. Gleaming sunshine in the middle of the day. But yeah, breezy, breezy and cool. So I'm gonna clamber down. As much as I'm loving the sun on the rocks, that's nice and warm. I'm gonna come down to the plaque. I'm gonna sit sit next to it and read your story. So there's a piece I found online by Robert Musil, the president of the Rachel Carson Council. Some lovely photos too, so I'll link to it. There's a passage here, which I thought I'd share almost uh a little private vigil, too, in this spot. Rachel and Dorothy often went to the Newogen Inn near Ocean Point, where Rachel would write and where they sat and soaked up the serenity of the shore. In their final fall together in 1963, Rachel and Dorothy marvelled at the migration of monarch butterflies at the inn. Their beauty, fragility, endurance, and their passing. Knowing she was dying, Rachel Carson wrote to Dorothy of their precious time together. But most of all, I shall remember the monarchs. When Rachel Carson finally succumbed to breast cancer, Dorothy spread her ashes to the sea at the rocky edge of the Newogen Inn. A bronze plaque found at the end of the sunset path now marks the spot. And Robert wrote at the time, a young innkeeper proudly takes me to it. Rachel's books and signed copies of those about her are displayed inside the inn, along with a framed copy of the letter to Dorothy on a small table that is an altar. Might try and find that later. Robert goes on. He carries on two generations after Rachel Carson, now planting and tending milkweed, so the monarchs will still return. The procession of the seasons and of the ages. Imagination, awe, wonder, nature, love. All these still abide at Rachel's cottage by the sea. And with the places she held dear. Does it what? Bloody Australian sits here sixty-one years later in awe. Oh yeah, look at a big enough ledge, isn't it? But it's not gonna hold this. Boom. Oh that is amazing, isn't it? Yeah. Crystal clear, eh? Just down from the black. Might leave that child's sense of wonder in for the occasion too. Crystal clear pond. Wow pond. Where the tomato water's surging. And yeah, I could sit a season out here writing as well. Has it covered the seasonals already?

YJ 13:38

Yeah, it's covered all the seasonals.

AJ 13:40

Wow, just in ten minutes.

YJ 13:42

Look I put that one there in when the water wasn't even touching.

AJ 13:48

Wow, it's it's almost covering us now. We better go. Walking back up the path now, and the sun actually feels warm when you nestle amongst the flowers and the trees here. And we've just spotted monarchs. One has just come right up to me as I pulled the camera out. I hope that turns out. I'll put these photos up on the website. Wow. There's a few of them. Funny, while fall is falling, flowers are everywhere still. And monarchs are actually now that my eyes tune in everywhere. Now there's two in a jewel of sorts by the looks of it. Oh wow, there's one hanging on a oh right in front of me. Fire out. Okay. Coming into the Newigen Seaside Inn now.

YJ 15:05

Yeah, that's just a description about this place. It's yourself on the sunset path.

AJ 15:11

Oh yes. Could I have a look at it? Oh that's that one. Yeah, that's the other one. Beautiful. Thank you. Could I have a look at that other one as well? The the one about the sunset path.

YJ 15:25

Ah, so yeah, here.

AJ 15:28

Got it. Oh, that's lovely. Look at that. Thanks so much.

YJ 15:33

You're welcome.

A Conversation At The Counter

The Last Letter And Its Wisdom

Seasons, Mortality, And Grace

AJ 15:37

Okay, so I've just passed the monument antique desk with Rachel's books and so forth on it. But it's right at the uh the counter as you enter the inn, so I've not lingered there. I've taken some photos though which I'll share. Instead, I've walked past into a sort of a lounge area which might lead to a few other rooms. It's got some um got its own writing desk here with lamp and a little bookshelf. Now if I turn the corner, it's a little yeah, a little lounge area with the table with a sailing boat on it. It's all very nice. Perhaps I'll talk to the monument a bit here, the altar, silent spring, front and centre, straight in front, but also a children's book sort of off to the flank about Rachel's as a child, too. It looked like it just looked wonderful. Amongst a magazine with her on the cover. Didn't catch, I wasn't paying attention to the title of it, but photos of it, come back to it later. But yeah, on this beautiful antique writing desk, and in a frame to the left side, then is her last letter, which I just recited from to Dorothy. And on the other side was another letter which was a bit harder to make out at a glance. I'll have to look that one up in some detail later, but suffice to say, a beautiful monument. And I asked Olana from Ukraine at the counter. Funnily enough, she's here on exchange and due to go home, would you believe, in three weeks. So before we're even due to leave this country and that feels soon, and she's got to go back to well, we know what she's going back to. She tells me she's on the west side, so it's not as threatened, at least at the moment. But wow. She really to see her soften and sober when I expressed empathy and wished her well was enough to bring home the gravitas of what she's facing. But anyway, a beautiful, helpful, smiling face on the counter in the midst of it all. But yeah, she was telling me that plenty of people come here to see that, to see this monument, to go down to the plaque. But just as many come who have no idea and are introduced to her. So that's interesting and wonderful to think your legacy can live on in all sorts of unexpected ways. Alright, I'm heading outside to get some lunch. I've come back out of the inn after lunch to be back amongst the monarchs looking over the sea to sign off on our little visit here. Because they actually gave us a copy of that last letter Rachel wrote to Dorothy September 10, 1963, and today is the 9th of September 2024. Almost precisely the same time of year, right at this spot. She wrote this. This is a postscript to our morning at Newigen, something I think I can write better than say. For me it was one of the loveliest of the summer's hours, and all the details will remain in my memory. That blue September sky, the sounds of wind in the spruces and surf on the rocks, the gulls busy with their foraging, alighting, and deliberate grace, the distant views of Griffith's Head and Todd Point, today so clearly etched, though one half seen in swirling fog. But most of all, I shall remember the monarchs. That unhurried westward drift of one small winged form after another, each drawn by some invisible force. We talked a little about their migration, their life history. Did they return? We thought not, for most at least. This was the closing journey of their lives. Oh, I just had a little mouse run into my foot. Gotta love it. But it occurred to me this afternoon, remembering, that it had been a happy spectacle, that we had felt no sadness when we spoke of the fact that there would be no return. And rightly, for when any living thing has come to the end of its life cycle, we accept that end as natural. For the monarch, that cycle is measured in a known span of months. For ourselves, the measure is something else. The span of which we cannot know. But the thought is the same. When that intangible cycle has run its course, it is a natural and not unhappy thing that a life comes to its end. That is what those brightly fluttering bits of life taught me this morning. I found a deep happiness in it. So I hope may you. Thank you for this morning, Rachel. The postscript written by those who produced the letter in this form. This is a letter written by Rachel Carson on her last full day in Maine to her dear friend Dorothy Freeman. That morning the two of them sat on the West Lawn at Newgen Seaside Inn as Rachel's declining health forced her to consider her own mortality. That is where I stand right now. Feeling every inch of the blessing of life. So just as a postscript to all that, we're told this inn is only open for five months of the year. Such is the ferocity of the winters here. Five months, seven it's shut. There's a pizza joint in town and a couple other places that stay open a bit longer. Wow, that is hard for an Aussie to contemplate. But again, some of the majesty of the place. Well, time to move on. I hope you've enjoyed joining me on this little pilgrimage as we say goodbye to the sunset path. That was Rachel Carson. Well, as remembered by the Rachel Carson Council, the Sea in Maine, and me. Rachel died seven months after her last letter to Dorothy was written, back home in Maryland in 1964, at the age of 56. Again, just a nick older than me today. Rachel had written another book before she died, by the way, a kid's book, The Sense of Wonder, published posthumously. I could almost hear her delight at Y's unbridled gasps as the wave surged over those rocks. It's great, thanks, as always, to you generous supporting listeners for making this episode possible, including for three years now, Claire Broun, Dean Bruins, Tom Macindoe and Kacey Simuong, and Maria and David Larrett. So good of you all. I know for many it's tough right now, but if you can, please consider joining these fine folk and help keep the show on the road. There's a discount to the upcoming Grounded Festival available right now, too, with a thank you to one and all. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.