From the Salt Institute gallery show of Malaga Island: A Story Best Left Untold, produced by Kate Philbrick, photographer, and Rob Rosenthal, radio producer.

Archeology

Even though Malaga was frequently in the press, not much is known about day-to-day life. It’s hard to walk around the island today; the site of the village is now thick with trees, shrubs, weeds… and poison ivy. Today, archeology students and two professors, Rob Sanford and Nate Hamilton, from the University of Southern Maine are slowly piecing it together. They dig, scrape, and sift dirt and some of what they uncover contradicts press reports about island living. While the newspapers declared the islanders lazy and "shiftless," Rob Sanford believes the artifacts paint a different picture. Nate Hamilton says the conditions they were living in were not easy, like any community living on the Maine coast during the turn of the century. There wasn’t easy access to drinking water and insulating the homes for the winter was a challenge.

Archeology
Cemetary
Descendants
Malaga Today
Photo Illustrations