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On remote islands off the coast of Maine, small bands of residents stay through the long winter. They embrace the emptiness and a frontier sensibility.
MATINICUS, Me. — The snow had begun falling overnight, and fell throughout the day, draping the towering pines and the lobster traps, stacked up on land for the winter, in blankets of white.
Still, Sharon Daley, a nurse from the visiting vessel Sunbeam, which provides medical care to remote islands off the coast of Maine, made her appointed rounds. She forged a path in knee-high rubber boots to the home of Bill Hoadley, who is, at 80, this island’s oldest resident.
She checked his blood pressure, which she pronounced “so good, it’s boring.” She listened to his heart, which was ticking just fine, almost in rhythm with his many clocks. Mr. Hoadley is something of a clock aficionado, and he keeps his timepieces on daylight saving time, which in winter is an hour ahead of everyone else.
Why?
“Because I can,” the impish Mr. Hoadley declared from his nautically themed front parlor.
Being able to do exactly as he pleases — and have health care come to him — are big reasons Mr. Hoadley stays here, 22 miles out in the North Atlantic.
Mr. Hoadley, who has lived the past 30 years on the island, is part of a band of devoted denizens who would not live anywhere else.
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