Note Roads: Swans Island

I am writing this update from the Bolt Bus between New York and Boston. I played a contradance last night in NYC and will be in Boston this weekend getting ready for the BCMFest Celtic Music Monday show that I'm organizing this coming Monday. But this post is actually about the 10 days I just spent on BEAUTIFUL Swans Island where my lovely girlfriend Kate is currently working.

Swans is a fairly remote island by most people's standards, requiring a 40 min ferry ride that leaves from the more well known Mount Desert Island (the island with Bar Harbor on it). Luckily Mount Desert Island is connected to the mainland by a causeway so there isn't a double ferry ride involved at least... Swans has about 300 year-round residents and another 300 summer residents. The year round population is predominantly fishing and lobstering families and Kate is working for their historical society doing things like conducting oral history interviews and organizing community events. This meant that as part of my trip I played for a community dance Kate had organized.

The dance was a great success and it was wonderful to see a folk dance taking place in a rural community where everyone knew each other beforehand instead of meeting at the event. It felt more true to the old folk dance traditions than most contradances and country dances we have these days. The band was myself on piano and the great Irish fiddler Alden Robinson (from Portland, ME based band The Press Gang) and the dance was called by my mother, Laura Pearlman. In addition, my dad jumped up at the end of the dance to play some fiddle with us and there was also a featured performance by a community band organized and led by Kate.

The rest of my trip was a chance to relax and explore the island before my touring schedule really takes off on Wednesday when I'm headed to New Mexico to start a 3 week tour with my dad with a bunch of really exciting new music we've just come up with for our duo. I got to take a number of beautiful walks around Swans and eating awesome food including Swans Island seafood--the last night on the island we gathered mussels ourselves from a rocky beach nearby! I don't currently have most of the photos from this recent trip but here is a picture Kate took when I was on the island last October: