ORAL HISTORY: PROTECTING THE DAVIS WHARF IN MAINE
Wayne Davis, commercial lobsterman from Tremont Maine, was interviewed to capture his family’s experience using the Maine Working Waterfront Access Protection Plan (WWAPP) to secure the Davis wharf’s future as a commercial fishing pier in perpetuity. Davis describes the important history of the Davis wharf to that region of Mount Desert Island, and how in the late 2000’s, the effects of the lobster price collapse due to the recession triggered extreme pressure on the family to sell. Davis describes how his family undertook the laborious process of first understanding the legal jargon surrounding a covenant, and then applying for WWAPP funding. In a part of the coast where most working waterfronts have been converted to non-compatible uses, Davis shares the deep gratitude his family and the community feel as a result of this public funding helping ensure that the wharf will remain a working waterfront into the future.