A TRULY MIRACULOUS CREATURE

(continued from p. 94)

Dale Leavitt, his boss, Patterson started an outreach program to find oyster gardeners who owned a coastal tidal property and dock to which a floating tray holding 6,000 to 10,000 spat could be attached. Today, more than 100 gardeners are spread over coves and ponds and inlets from Bristol to Block Island, taking babies the size of a little fingernail in early summer and returning almostone-inch adolescents in late fall for planting in restoration beds. “The survival at one inch,” Patterson explains, “is 70 percent, versus almost nothing if they’re smaller. In two years, I think we had maybe 100,000 oysters to plant. To date, our gardeners have raised six, seven million oysters for restoration.”

Patterson wades into a tidal pond. Low tide has exposed the shore, and I can make out thousands of oysters in shallow, mounded ribbons, imagining how many thousands more still lie underwater. (I also understand the utility of the stick, which I use as a lever when I sink up to my ankles in mud.) Patterson reaches down and pulls up what looks like one of those court jester’s hats, with triangles of material rising in a ring. Except that it’s entirely the green-beige of algae, and each triangle is a six- to eight-inch oyster jutting straight up from a surf-clam shell about the size of his hand. I’ll travel the length and breadth of New England’s coast for this story, but never again will I see oysters this large—longer than my hand and with deep wells on the cup side.

“It’s called an oyster crown,” Patterson says, handing it to me. “They grow straight up like that until the base shell dissolves, and then they become singles. There are a lot of things you see here that you don’t see anywhere else.” He points to another super-sized oyster, this one with a much smaller juvenile attached: “Here we have a natural set. And since these oysters survive past adolescence, and most of these are 6-year-olds, you can actually see what an oyster reef looks like at low tide. Let’s find you a banana oyster.” And he does, eventually, its shell curving gently, a full foot long and two or three inches wide. oysters,” she adds, “and we’re one part of it.” Her husband shrugs. “It’s not hard,” he says, “and maybe if we get the oyster back, we get shrimp. Maybe someday I’ll see flounder under the dock.”

As Patterson searches, he talks about the reef’s biodiversity, how this former dump site now shelters more than half a million oysters—and all the species drawn by them, from the raccoon whose tracks we followed in, to the blue heron who flew off as we drove up, to the much smaller creatures living on and around the reef.

“I have underwater photos,” he says, “showing thousands of glass shrimp grazing on the algae growing on an oyster shell’s surface. I call them my rabbits.

Patterson’s secret? “We’re not allowed to say our oysters are immune to Dermo,” he told me, and I can hear the wink in his voice, “but let’s just say they show a marked ability to live in the presence of the disease, and that they pass this on to other generations.” These Roger Williams University oysters are the descendants, now several generations strong, of the survivors of that 1995 outbreak—and this reef, teeming with life, is proof that they might once again thrive on their own along New England’s coast.

Five Million Oysters: If You Cultch It, They Will Come

Because then, of course, we get our carnivores that come in to eat the rabbits: all sorts of crabs, lobsters, flounder, tautog, oyster toad fish, silversides.

“And ocean fish come in to lay their eggs. I very often find eggs in our restoration sites. Historically you had estuary fish like striped bass that don’t spawn in saltwater, they don’t spawn in freshwater; they look for those saline zones where their babies have a place to hide so they don’t get consumed so quickly.” Those saline zones, of course, are the oysters’ preferred waters.

Two hours later I find myself in the comfortable living room of a retired couple from Pittsburgh, Gene and Joyce Corl, near Wakefield, looking out on Segar Cove. They’ve proudly shown off their dock and its rack of oysters. “We love what we have here,” Gene says. “This is a way to help out. You’re contributing.” Joyce nods, looking at her husband. “It’s such an amazing story, the

A few years back, the EPA gave Wellfleet, Massachusetts, a failing grade for water quality where two creeks flowed into the harbor. “Moderately to severely degraded” from too much nitrogen, parts of the harbor were turbid and anoxic, plagued by periods of naturally occurring nutrient overload. “Several consultants proposed spending up to $60 million over many years to pay for the installation of a new wastewater management system,” recalls Curt Felix, at that time vice-chair of the town’s wastewater-management committee. This for a town of about 3,000 year-round residents. “And then a former Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute scientist suggested oysters.”

“Oysters aren’t just filter feeders that purify water,” Felix explains enthusiastically. “As they naturally eat algae— where nitrogen is bound in the plant matter—they remove it from the water, which, together with dissolved minerals, makes their shell. So they not only help restore nutrient balance and make the water clearer, but they also reduce the ocean’s acidity with the calcium carbonate in their shells, like Tums— ocean acidification being another problem associated with global warming.”

A diminutive, fiftyish fellow with the stringy build of a runner, Felix speaks in full paragraphs, pausing in between to gather his thoughts before the next burst. With his background in marine biology, I’d imagined that he’d been a valuable asset in convincing the townspeople to fund a project that, as he said, “had never really been tried on a large scale, and which we all were going to pay for.”

It turned out that the Massachusetts Audubon Society had done a pilot oyster-reef restoration project in the harbor with promising results, while Dr. Frankić had supervised a graduatestudent thesis project there as well. The scientists and Wellfleet’s shellfish constable surveyed 14 acres of inner harbor and in 2011 laid down clamshell near the town pier, taking advantage of Wellfleet’s well-established natural set and cultching to jump-start a large oyster population that would filter water coming from the degraded creeks. They get the shell—surf clam—free from a processing plant in New Bedford that’s happy not to have to pay to dump it.

“At first, they used to pile the shells on a barge,” Felix explains when I ask how cultching works, “and shovel them over the side by hand as the barge puttered along. Then they got the bright idea of repurposing a road-sanding apparatus” that usually sits on the back of the truck and throws sand out in an arc behind it.

On this early-summer day, we’re standing by a primitive wheelhouse stuck onto the back of the barge, which is moored to the town pier at slack tide. A truck eases up to the edge above us, then dumps a full load of shell down into the spreader’s maw. At the helm is Andy Koch, Wellfleet’s shellfish constable. Koch is stout about the middle, but tall, with hands like spades and feet just as large. Felix casts off, and we motor out to the first cultching grounds. Koch idles the boat, and Felix hustles to start the spreader motor. Then we move slowly forward as shells begin spewing out the back of the barge to settle in a thick ribbon on the bottom, providing not just a happy place for spat to settle but the foundation and structure for, over time, the growth of an oyster reef. Then back to the pier, where another truckload waits. Koch will make this trip when the tides are right for several hours each day over 10 days to two weeks.

“The oysters spawn,” Felix says, “when the water gets above 68 degrees here, about the first week of July. So in June we have to get ’em all in, the shells. The oysters spawn, and spat results, little tiny things floating around looking for a rough surface. They’ll attach to other oysters, so you have a multiplier effect. If you maintain a critical minimum population, it can be self-sustaining.”

“It’s like you put your money in the bank,” Koch puts in, “and our harvest is the interest. I was a fin fisherman, and fishermen know that structure is life. If you have structure on the bottom, you can have gold. Small fish hang out, crabs and little shrimp live and reproduce, and then it takes off from there— small minnows, striped bass, move in at high tide. You get menhaden hanging around the reef. We even had turtles— hundreds of rare diamondback turtles.”

So what actually happened? “In the last three years,” Felix says proudly, “we managed to produce a 70 percent reduction in nitrogen, with an oyster population that went from a couple thousand to more than five million. We’ve had tremendous success.” Instead of tens of millions of dollars, the total cost of the project has been less than $250,000, with water quality now rated excellent, and species whose presence had diminished in recent years—terrapin turtles, bluefish, menhaden—frequenting the project area. One notable visitor who spent two days directly over the site was Katharine, the tagged great white shark whose coastal peregrinations have fascinated so many.

Back at the dock, Frankić, who comes down to Wellfleet for periodic monitoring with her graduate students, shows me the cultch sites. “If you look at Wellfleet Harbor on Google Earth,” she says, “it looks like a giant womb. It’s made for spawning oysters.” We’re walking a narrow strip of beach opposite the long finger of pier that juts out into the harbor, and Frankić is pointing to the muck that during the 2013–14 winter storms covered millions of oysters, killing them and putting a dark cloud over the project. “I cried when I saw this the first time,” she tells me, “but that’s nature. You never know what’s going to happen. So this summer, we try again: cultch and see what happens.”

Demonstrating the extraordinary resilience of this enduring species, though those storms killed about onequarter of the stock, by fall 2015 following a successful summer spawn, that number was back up to just under four million, the harbor water sweet and clear.

A Billion Oysters

Oysters clean our water. Oysters create structure for biodiversity. Oysters sequester pollutants. Oysters put fishermen to work. If a two-acre plot in Wellfleet Harbor can grow five million oysters in just two years, imagine what such plots could do in 10 years, 15 years, a generation: a billion oysters strategically deployed up and down the coast.

In 2010, New York landscape architect Kate Orff entered a national contest looking for ways to protect Lower Manhattan from rising ocean levels and storm surges—the kind that Hurricane Sandy would bring two years later. She proposed planting oyster reefs offshore in huge swaths to absorb and deflect such follow-ons to climate change. Her idea, called “oystertecture,” won first place, and a federally sponsored program is now getting off the ground on Staten Island.

A final note: Many of the researchers I interviewed rarely eat oysters. “If I were raising white rhinos or ivorybilled woodpeckers because I found a few,” Patterson says, “and all of a sudden we had 500 of them, I wouldn’t advocate eating 250 because we have so many. We don’t exactly advertise what we have, because people would come and help themselves. It’s not illegal.” through a series of editorial features, social media and events. See what we’ve been up to.

So the next time you’re at your favorite raw bar with a dozen Pemaquids or Wellfleets or Matunucks glistening on their beds of ice, say a small prayer of thanks to this magnificent mollusk. So delicious, yes, but so good to us and so good for our environment, a truly miraculous creature.

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Yankee Magazine joined The Vermont Cheese Council for a day of celebrating locally made food products and the artisans behind them at The Vermont Cheesemakers Festival in Shelburne, Vermont. Yankee’s Senior Lifestyle Editor Amy Traverso and Associate Editor Aimee Seavey were on-site to lead cooking demonstrations and tastings featuring favorite recipes from the magazine. Per capita, Vermont has more cheesemakers than any other state; and more than 40 of them were on hand at the event to offer hundreds of local cheese, wine, beer and food products. We can’t wait for next year’s event.

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Connecticut

THROUGH DEC. 31: MYSTIC, 36th Annual International Marine Art Exhibition. Recent works by more than 100 artists from around the world, and in a variety of media, are showcased at Mystic Seaport’s Maritime Art Gallery. 860-572-5388; mysticseaport.org/ maritime-art-gallery/

NOV. 7–8: WESTPORT, CraftWestport. Now in its 40th year, this gathering brings together the fine contemporary craft offerings of more than 175 artists and craftsmen. Enjoy specialty foods, take a chance on a raffle, and more, all at Staples High School. 845-3317900; craftwestport.com

NOV. 20–DEC. 6: SALISBURY, 3rd Annual Sea Festival of Trees. A maze of sparkling holiday trees, stage and ice-skating performances, visits with Santa, a giant gingerbread house, gifts, treats, and more highlight this 17-day holiday wonderland at Blue Ocean Event Center on Salisbury Beach. 978-462-2512; seafestivaloftrees.com

NOV. 22: STAMFORD, UBS Parade Spectacular Stepping off at noon from Summer Street downtown, the UBS Parade is one of the largest helium-balloon processions in the country, featuring favorite characters, award-winning marching bands, and fabulous floats. stamforddowntown.com

NOV. 27–28: MYSTIC, Field Days . Visit Mystic Seaport for fun 19th-century games on the Village Green, including hoops, stilts, and graces. Explore exhibits, ride a horseand-carriage through the village, and climb aboard the world’s last wooden whaleship, the Charles W. Morgan . Try your hand at candlemaking, discover the autumn night sky under the Planetarium dome, and more. mystic seaport.org

NOV. 27–DEC. 12: SOUTH WINDSOR, 5th Annual Gingerbread House Festival Extravaganza . Follow the spicy aroma of gingerbread to Wood Memorial Library & Museum and discover magnificent candy-covered creations, brought to life by local artisans and bakers. Many are for sale, along with other holidaythemed gifts and treats. 860-289-1783; wood gingerbread.org; woodmemoriallibrary.org

DEC. 1: WOODBURY, Glebe House Christmas Festival . This shopping bazaar will inspire you with original gift ideas as you tour the charming 1750 Glebe House, decked with wreaths, lights, and garlands, many of which are also for sale. 203-263-2855; theglebehouse.org

DEC. 4–5: BETHLEHEM, Christmas Town Festival . O, little town of Bethlehem … where thousands make the post-office pilgrimage so that their cards will arrive as if by way of another historic village. At festival time, the town green is transformed into a unique shopping experience, with 70-plus vendors offering fine crafts and good food. Enjoy musical entertainment, kids’ activities, hayrides, photos with Santa, and more. 203-266-7510; christmastownfestival.com

DEC. 6: HARTFORD, 35th Holiday Home Tour

Visit several gorgeous homes in greater Hartford, including the historic Isham–Terry House and the 19-room Mark Twain House, all gussied up for the holidays, complete with floral accents and seasonal décor created by the area’s talented florists. Plus live music performed by local instrumentalists. 860280-3130; marktwainhouse.org

DEC. 12: WOODBURY, 21st Annual Holiday House Tour. Tour five buildings of various designs and ages, including the town’s historic one-room schoolhouse. Register in advance for discount tickets. Proceeds benefit local charities. 203-263-3623; womens clubofwoodbury.org

DEC. 17: NEW HAVEN, Holiday Extravaganza: A Classical Christmas . Join the New Haven Symphony at Woolsey Hall on the Yale University campus for a seasonal celebration sure to lift the spirits. 203-865-0831; newhaven symphony.org

DEC. 31: HARTFORD, First Night . A multicultural, artistically unique, and alcohol-free New Year’s Eve experience, with professional musicians, artists, performance groups, and exhibits at varying venues across the city— plus fireworks at Bushnell Park. firstnight hartford.org

Maine

THROUGH DEC. 6: PORTLAND, “Rose Marasco: Index.” For more than 35 years, Rose Marasco has been photographing Portland and its surrounding communities, building a catalogue that is diverse in both subject and technique. Featured here at the Portland Museum of Art are photos of Maine’s grange halls, as well as images made in her own home as part of a decade-long series, Domestic Objects 207-7756148; portlandmuseum.org

NOV. 7: YORK, International Women’s Club of New England Holiday Fair. Finish your holiday shopping early! More than 70 vendors offer crafts, jewelry, antiques, and more at Village Elementary School. Proceeds benefit local charities. iwcne.net

NOV. 14–15: BANGOR, Maine Harvest Festival. At Cross Insurance Center, celebrate all that is local and farm-fresh with a series of demonstrations and tastings by Maine chefs and cookbook authors, along with live music, wine and beer samples, and a screening of the film Growing Local 207-561-8300; maine harvestfestival.com

NOV. 21–DEC. 31: BOOTHBAY, Gardens Aglow! Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens launches a spectacular winter lights display, a holiday village, refreshments, and gift shopping. 207633-8000; mainegardens.org

NOV. 27–29: ROCKLAND, Festival of Lights Santa arrives by boat to kick off the festivities, which include the lighting of the world’s largest “Lobster Trap Christmas Tree,” special sales and refreshments offered by downtown merchants, a parade, horse-drawn wagon rides, a bonfire, caroling, and much more. 207-593-6093; rocklandmainstreet.com

NOV. 28–DEC. 6: PORTLAND, “The Nutcracker.” Maine State Ballet brings the beauty and joy of the season to the Merrill Auditorium stage in a classic presentation. 207-842-0800; mainestateballet.org

DEC. 3–27: BANGOR, “It’s a Wonderful Life .” The Penobscot Theatre presents a musical stage adaptation of Frank Capra’s iconic holiday movie tells the familiar story of George Bailey, a good man who glimpses how different the world without him might have been. 207-942-3333; penobscottheatre.org

DEC. 4–6: BOOTHBAY HARBOR, 30th Harbor Light Festival . From the Festival of Trees at the Opera House to the Christmas Fair, from the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Claus by boat to a live nativity and plenty of sweets, raffles, and more, Boothbay Harbor does Christmas right. boothbayregiongardenclub.org

DEC. 5: FARMINGTON, Chester Greenwood Day Don a pair of earmuffs and pay homage to the town’s beloved inventor with a parade, contests, horse-drawn wagon rides, a polar-bear plunge, live performances, and a visit to the Historical Society for a peek at memorabilia from the town’s earmuff-manufacturing heyday. 207-778-4215; franklincountymaine.org

DEC. 11–13: OGUNQUIT, Christmas by the Sea Celebration. This charming village is a perfect locale for seasonal festivities, as evidenced by its roster of events, including a parade, storytelling, musical entertainment, tree lighting, craft fair, wine tastings, visits to Santa’s village, and more. 207-646-2939; visitogunquit.org

DEC. 11–13, 18–20: PORTLAND, Magic of Christmas Concert. Merrill Auditorium presents the Portland Symphony Orchestra as it celebrates its 90th anniversary with cherished traditions of the season. 207-842-0800; portland symphony.org

DEC. 31: BATH, Paul Revere Bell Ringing. Sing out the old and ring in the new—it’s a New Year’s Eve noontime tradition as folks gather at Hallett’s Clock across from City Hall to sing “Auld Land Syne of Bath” (words on the website if you want to practice!), followed by bell ringing and refreshments. Bring your party hats and noisemakers! 207-442-7291; visitbath.com