By Deane Rykerson
TMI Acting President
Fall is definitely here and I can now reflect on the interesting summer we have had filming The Tide Mills of Kittery Maine.
This idea got its start last year when Fred Perry suggested we compile all of the presentations about Kittery tide mills from our annual 2019 conference. I thought it was a great idea but how much greater could this be if we included drone footage of our tide mill remnants. I thought about my friend and neighbor Jim White who is an excellent documentary filmmaker and FAA-licensed drone pilot. Then I realized that this was going to be a PROJECT (which usually involves MONEY). Luckily the Maine Humanities Council was offering bicentennial grants (Maine 200), so I thought, “let’s try.” After a commitment from the board of TMI and other sponsors, I got letters of support and completed the application by early January.
January was our well-earned break in Puerto Rico where my family and I dodged the multiple earthquakes around the island and finally left early, much to wife Wendy’s relief. In March, I got the grant notification at just about the same time the world was notified about a huge pandemic. I thought that the worst of the disease would be over by early summer and not interfere with the filming of our documentary. Well the pandemic was far from over, but most of the filming was far from the virus. There were several sites that involved multiple distanced communications with adjacent landowners to get filming permissions. We also had the challenge of scheduling filming for sun angles and tides. This could also hold beautiful surprises. One morning at 5:30, we stood near the Kittery shopping outlets watching the sun and tide rise, listening to gulls instead of traffic noise, and then a yearling deer pranced across the mill dam remnant we had just filmed.
The usual challenge of sticky mud and slippery seaweed for tide mill enthusiasts was alleviated by the miracle of the drone. As I had hoped when writing the grant, the drone viewpoint allowed a view that we rarely get by just looking down with much more detail than Google Earth. We found some local allies including readers, musicians, and, most of all, Bob Gray of the Kittery Historical and Naval Museum. Bob’s knowledge of history and the digital world was so rich that we invited him to be a member of Tide Mill Institute board. He accepted and is now hard at work on the database that we have been envisioning for years.
The film is now in its final editing stage incorporating old maps, images, and family histories that deepen our understanding of tide mills’ importance. We have a deadline for the World Premier at our annual conference on November 14 – virtual (online) this year. “See” you there and sign up right away if you haven’t already (link below).