Why we went
We came for the isolation. We left talking about connection.
We'd been warned more than once that Matinicus is a small, tight-knit place, and we were honestly nervous going out. The ferry wasn't running the day we arrived, so we flew from the mainland and landed on a grass strip, carrying our own groceries because there is nowhere on the island to buy them.
Our first morning the harbor felt like a ghost town. Then we met Robin Ames, whose husband Josh was coming in from hauling traps, and within minutes we were on his boat. Over two days the island opened up: a mission boat that brings nurses and community dinners, a one-room school with a new teacher who had just moved out from Missouri, volunteer firefighters, and an artist who has spent most of her life here and wouldn't trade it.
