Today

Swan’s Islander Nancy Carter, 58, opened the General Store 17 years ago. She closed for the last time Aug. 9.

“People have the wrong perception that you make so much money in the summer that it is enough to get you by,” Carter said. “But, you couldn’t possibly. You don’t pick up until mid-June, and by mid-September, it is over.

“You get a few people from September through October, but you could not make enough in those eight to nine weeks [summer] to get you through the next eight months.”

On an island, access to reasonably priced goods becomes a make-or-break operating factor, according to Carter.

“The worst part is the freight that we have to pay on the ferry. When the ferry first came in, it looked like the Queen Mary to us; it gave people independence.”

But, even though the merchandise was pre-priced, “I still had to pay $12,000 to $15,000 a year in just ferry freight. That would make the difference between the store in Southwest Harbor, and a store [on Swan’s]. With your potato chips and your bread, there is no difference between here and Ellsworth. It’s got a price on the label when it comes to us.”

Carter added she was paying more than $2,500 a month to keep her building in operation.

“How do you recoup that? How do you recoup your electric bill being twice what it would be off-island?”

Carter speculates that more island work would help young islanders.

“They are frustrated with not enough to do,” she said. With little work besides fishing and building, there is not much opportunity for recreation.

Drug and alcohol use on the island have increased over the years, despite the island-initiated moratorium on alcohol sales.

“It would make a big difference if you could sell beer and wine,” Carter acknowledged. However, a previous storeowner on the island wanted to try it and “woke up one morning with people picketing outside his store.”

“The longer the store is gone, the harder it is for people,” said Carter. “We thought someone would be there in 30 days [since the store closed].”

Carter can never remember a time without a store on Swan’s Island. “There were five here when I was a teenager, but the ferry hadn’t come.”

Off-islanders bought the business earlier this fall, but no one knows when it will become operational.

“They have a tough go,” Carter said. “I don’t think island people really realize that if they take a 100 percent of their money off island, it [the store] is never going to survive. It cannot survive on each family going up and buying a loaf of bread each week.”