Swans Island faces many of the same problems as Cliff Island. It once had 1,000 year-round residents, a school and post office in each of its three villages, and a busy granite quarry. Today, the population has fallen to 350. The schools have been merged. The island will drop to a single post office when a postmistress retires.
Children swim in the quarry.
Lobster traps stand like walls along the driveways of many homes here. Boats bob in the harbor or lie rotting at crazy angles on the shore. A huge lobster pound in Burnt Coat Harbor and salmon farm in Toothacher Cove are focal points of the island. In the future, other jobs could become equally common, Doliber said. An old pair of fishing boots, laced with cobwebs, dries out on a rock near a scenic overlook on Swans Island.