Dead Baby Seal and Other Strange Visitors

blogbrainsmall Seacoast History Blog # 93
August 26, 2010

I had forgotten about the dead baby seal that I found at the Isles of Shoals earlier this summer until I saw the headline in yesterday’s Portsmouth Herald. Apparently I am not alone and the recently weaned seals are showing up on local beaches. Even when the experts tell you that there is nothing amiss, it’s hard not to blame someone, even Mother Nature, when the body of a little pup washes up on shore. The strange thing about a week on Smuttynose Island is that almost every day is strange. This summer was no exception. So I dug back into my photo files to remember what happened in June, and those photos are posted below. (Continued below)

When we arrived on the island, Prof. Nathan Hamilton and his archaeology crew were just cleaning up from a week of digging in the shallow soil on Smuttynose. This second year of digging following strict scientific methods yielded another cache of historic treasures, including a couple of 17^th century coins and some Late Archaic Indian projectile points dating back perhpas 4,000 years. The archaeologists were filling in the dig site when half a dozen wooden boats filled with Cub Scouts and their families pulled into the tiny cove. A couple dozen highly energetic scouts piled ashore.

As Island steward on duty it was my job to orient the little ankle-biters to life on the primitive island – no bathroom and no candy store, but lots of sharp rocks, deadly cliffs, poison ivy, broken glass, snakes and attacking seagulls. Have fun, see you kids in an hour – if you survive. Laura Knoy, the host of the "Exchange" talk show on NH Public Radio was among the Cub Scout moms. I was on her show last year. Small world.

People who believe that ax murderer Louis Wagner could not possibly have rowed his wooden boat 12 miles from Portsmouth Harbour out to the Isles of Shoals and back in 1873, don’t know much about rowboats. Wagner’s boss, fisherman John Hontvet, said he had rowed the distance 50 times. I was discussing this very topic with a criminologist who was visiting the island from his boat in Gosport Harbor when two kayakers pulled into the cove at low tide. They had set out three hours earlier from Odiorne Sate Park in Rye, NH. They wisely wore wet suits, but others have died trying. After wandering around the trail, they headed back to the mainland, another three hours away. It happens all the time out there. You never know who’s going to show up, with or without an ax.

The next day Prof. Hamilton invited us to dine at Appledore Island, and sent the rubber zephyr boat over to pick us up. We got a chance to see many of this year’s artifacts, all neatly labeled in plastic envelopes and displayed in one of the marine biology labs. It was amazing once again to learn, not only what had come up from the earth this summer, but what it all means to the history of this still mysterious series of islands that played a much larger role in the founding of this nation than most people know. It was also a treat to dine on a gourmet meal paired by the Appledore chef culminating in a flaming dessert. On Smuttynose we eat well, but everything comes from a pan placed on a gas burner. What we eat all week is what we could fit into one large cooler and two cardboard boxes shipped out by boat.

For the next three days I was out on the trail as usual clearing away the bracken and tall grass that annually reclaims the meandering path from the cove end of the island to the nesting and killing fields dominated by seagulls at the western and. Having been sprayed toe-to-head for a decade with a cocktail of plant juices and splattered head-to-toe by seagull guano and upchucked fish slime, I thought it was time to get serious. This year I brought along a one-size-fits-all, Tyvek ™ hazmat-style, full-body outfit. Throwing fashion to the wind, I decided that few people would see me 10 miles out to sea. Some years, cleaning the trail with a gas-powered weed-whacker can take all week, but this time I finished in a record three days, just in time for a sudden storm front that kept us largely indoors for the next two days.

Towards the end of the week my wife Maryellen had to attend a conference "back in America." She rowed across the harbor to Star Island and hopped aboard the Thomas Laighton ferry leaving me, and the dog, and about 1,000 seagulls and muskrats to fend for ourselves. That was the morning I found a dead baby seal floating in Haley’s Cove during a very low tide. I thought at first it was a fish. It looked more like a large gray slug than a small harbor seal, made even more unrecognizable by the sharp gashes on what appeared to be the head end.

The tide was coming in, and within a matter of moments the little fishy corpse would be sucked out of the cove and back into the sea. I ran up to the house for a heavy black garbage bag, and tried to float the carcass into the bag, but it refused to go. So I simply grabbed the thing with both hands and stuffed it into the bag. My wife had left her cell phone, so I called the Shoals Marine Lab to report my findings. A couple of marine biologists arrived from Appledore within half an hour to "collect the specimen." During that time, the black bag containing the seal pup, sat baking in the sun lightly covered with kelp. The exchange went down like a South American drug deal.

I assumed, at first, that the pup had been beaten to death by an angry fisherman. It has happened before. Later, it seemed more likely that the seal had simply gotten in the way of a fast moving propeller blade. I neverlearned the results of the autopsy, but I did learn one lesson. Never touch a dead seal with your bare hands. The oikly skin smells rank and the stench is almost impossible to remove.

Meanwhile, back on the island, an ornithological drama was playing out just a few feet from the 18^th century Haley Cottage (the one seen on labels of Smuttynose Beer). When we arrived on-island a seagull nest closest to the house contained three eggs. When we left a week later it contained none. There was, for a time, a chick or two. But this is a sad story for another time.

Maryellen returned on Friday with her friends Mary Jo and Haley, and Mary Jo’s mother – three generations of women. The storm clouds cleared and the tide rose and fell, and pretty soon we were packing to return. The last day of the week is always absorbed by cleaning, last-minute lawn mowing, and a strange continuous meal of everything that didn’t get eaten during the week and is not worth carrying home. It’s time to pack and clean tools. It’s time to load the clothes back into their waterproof bags. There’s just time for one last turn of the crank on the back of the solar composting toilet. We leave sunburned, tired, unshowered, but unsure whether we want to return to America, or stay on the island forever. – Letters JDR

Archeology at Smuttynose Island 2010