At 4:50am, I turn off Sebasco Road onto Ridge Road and follow Dan Watson’s white Chevy down to Brewer’s Wharf. I’d slept through my alarm–a first in all my time working on boats. “Oh, sure it is,” Dan laughs, as I collect my bibs and hauling jacket.

A week before, Dan put his new boat, the 38-foot Holland, Heavens to Betsy, into the water. It’s a much larger boat than the last I was in with Dan. The cabin can fit a small party and will make hauling through winter weather more manageable. It’s not quite winter, but it’s certainly not summer anymore, either. Frost is falling and above us, the stars and moon have that cold season crispness to them.

We make our way through the dark to the wharf. I sling my backpack and camera bag over my head and follow Dan and Mark Koehling Jr. down the thin ladder to Dan’s dory. “Careful,” Dan says. “I don’t trust the ladder.” It’s dark and calm. After a brief battle with the outboard, we make our way out to Heavens to Betsy. We’re going out hauling.

Maritime historian Helen Rozwadowski writes that the human relationship to the ocean is typically of three dimensions: food, transportation and myth – or culture. People have lived, learned, thought, imagined, traveled and eaten in or around this so-called Phippsburg since the beginning of the Holocene. Increasingly, however, here in Phippsburg, the third dimension, that of myth and culture, takes precedent over that of food and transportation. As the shoreline is bought and parceled for aesthetic or mythic purposes, the prioritization of local food and independent travel falls to the wayside. Maybe it’s funny to think about “myth” in conjunction with contemporary use of Phippsburg’s shoreline. But what is culture but an interwoven series of collectively-believed myths?

The notion of Maine as Vacationland, for example, is a well-constructed and well-funded sort of myth. The term “Vacationland” was first introduced in a 1916 advertisement created by the publicists for Maine Central Railroad. As Maine’s once booming industrial sectors busted, the state turned to tourism for revenue. The ad invited urbanites up the coast to Maine’s treed, northern lakes and wild, salty surf. Here we are, 110 years later. In another century years, what will we look back on? How will our ideas of normative land-use have further shifted? We will be coming full circle and rearranging our priorities toward a once-familiar strata?

I’ve written about Dan before. And you might recognize him from the cover of Phippsburg’s Scuttlebutt. Here are a few photos from our day of hauling to take you off land for a moment.