Dispatches from the Cabin: Part One

The Bowditch cabin at Bayberry Point on Islesford is my study for the next seven days. Sukie and I arrived on the island yesterday (Saturday) afternoon. Built by "Win" Fernald in the autumn of 1973, the cabin became a refuge for Phil and Molly Bowditch. The "Big House" over on Bunker's Neck had been in the family since the turn of the last century and continues to be used by their children. Vincent Bowditch, Phil's great uncle and a physician in the Boston area, first came to Islesford in the late nineteenth century and built "Tree Top" on the property adjoining the cabin. A delightfully odd and quirky house of many levels and landings and outlooks on the ocean, it's now owned by the Lord family.

My first stay at the cabin was in December, 1974. Nat--Phil and Molly's eldest son and my dear friend since childhood--and I came to Islesford in the winter to rough it. The water had long since be turned off and we had to haul it in. The only heat was a drafty Franklin stove. We chopped and split wood from trees cleared when the cabin was built.The "facilities" were out in the forest--our “throne” an old wooden lobster trap with the toilet seat from the bathroom perched  on top, wiping paper hung from a nearby spruce.

Our favorite pass time was to take the golf cart (Phil introduced this form of island transportation not long before) out on frigid nights and cruise around (with refreshments, of course) under a breathtakingly starry sky. We loved the solitude, the sense of being utterly away from the "world" in the silence of these woods. Photo: Bowditch cabin, Bayberry Point, Islesford.