Thursday, June 18, 2009

Frye Island community

Down East Magazine has a great article on Frye Island this month. Check it out!
Temporary Town
By Virginia Wright

There is no school in the town of Frye Island. There is no church, either. No commerce, no industry. No historical society. Not even a cemetery memorializing founding fathers and prominent families. In many ways, Frye Island is a town that defies the meaning of the word, but legally, even a bit notoriously, it passes the test.

The thousand-acre island in Sebago Lake made national news eleven years ago when it seceded from the town of Standish, earning it bragging rights as Maine’s most unusual town. Frye is the state’s only freshwater island community and the only town that completely shuts down for half the year. Come the first Monday in November, the ferries stop running, the water system is drained, the public buildings are shuttered, and Frye becomes a ghost town. It remains that way until late April, when the first of the 1,400 residents (2,600 on high season weekends) begin trickling across the Gut, the deep, five hundred yard-wide channel that separates Frye from Raymond Neck.

Read the full article here: [Source]
I recommend reading the full article, especially for the comments that residents of the island have added to the story. Great stuff!

1 comment:

Corey Templeton said...

Nice article. I grew up in Buxton and remember wondering why Frye Island was part of our school district. Definitely a win-win for Standish, not having to provide for this small and seasonal island community.