Sunrise at Mount Desert Rock. Photo by Alexander Borowicz ’14

BANGOR DAILY NEWS
Isolated, remote Mount Desert Rock home to seals, COA researchers this winter

By Bill Trotter, BDN Staff
January 13, 2013

MOUNT DESERT ROCK, Maine — After a trial period a year ago, College of the Atlantic has decided to restore something to this remote rocky outcropping that it hasn’t had at this time of year for nearly two decades: people.

A rare offshore snowstorm envelopes Mount Desert Rock lightkeeper’s house in snow. Photo by Alexander Borowicz ’14.

Since roughly the mid-1990s, the small liberal arts college in Bar Harbor has conducted summer field studies on the 3.5-acre island, which lies more than 20 miles off Mount Desert Island and has little vegetation. Aside from a lighthouse built in 1847, lightkeeper’s house, slipway and accessory building heavily damaged in 2009 by Hurricane Bill, there is little on the barren island aside from boulders, seabirds and seals. Read more.

Great Duck Island: “Best Journey in the World”
January 7, 2013

BAR HARBOR- While many college students anticipate winter break to go home or maybe even fly to warmer climates a group of College of the Atlantic Students spent most of their break on Great Duck Island. The student created and run trip was appropriately named “The Best Journey in the World.”

Seas at sunrise off Great Duck Island. Photo by Lindsey Nielson ’12.

Student and one of the organizers, Kate Shlepr, with College of the Atlantic said, “I don’t think anyone has been out to live in Great Duck in the winter for about 50 years now.”

Great Duck Lighthouse in snow. Photo by Lindsey Nielson

 

Before the snows came, Lucy Atkins ’12, Anne Hurley ’14, and Kate Shlepr ’13 sent holiday greetings to their families in front of their buoy tree on Great Duck Island.